Tech companies lied to us, and it's causing a creative crisis
While talent can flourish anywhere, sustainable success in digital creation usually follows a sequence: resonate, find your platform, build your brand, monetize thoughtfully, and expand strategically.
Yes, you can be a writer you admire and still pay the bills
Being a writer should not mean living in constant struggle. It shouldn’t mean choosing between doing work you love and being able to afford your life.
You can do both.
You can build a creative business that feeds you emotionally and financially. You can learn how the system works without becoming a slave to it. You can keep your voice intact while also keeping the lights on.
How to Thrive as a Writer in a Capitalist Dystopia is about rewriting the rules in your favor. It gives you the practical, honest tools to create a writing life that works. It’s not about selling out. It’s about staying in the game and doing it your way.
The system might not have been made for us, but we can still build something beautiful inside it.
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Hi,
One of the great failings of tech over the decades has been the idea that the democratization of the internet meant that anyone can be successful in anything for any reason. All you have to do is make a thing and everyone will love you.
The truth is a bit more like the end of Anton Ego’s famous line from Ratatouille “Not everyone can become a great artist; but a great artist can come from anywhere.”
Tech companies have for the last 30+ years focused on the first half of that quote, and why wouldn’t they? It’s easy to give people hope that they can basically do any old thing and be successful. That’s how you get people to adopt technology.
Unfortunately, when people who believe that smack full force into reality, you get a bunch of frustrated creators who think they aren’t good enough because the “magic” didn’t touch them.
But it’s not magic, it’s strategy. There is an order of operations creators should probably take in order to be successful, and you probably won’t get where you want to be if you skip a bunch of steps or do them in the wrong order. For most creators, their biggest problem is sequencing. They do step 10, then step 8, then step 15, and wonder why their business looks like a Picasso painting that nobody wants.
Yes, some writers blow up overnight without following any sequence or order, their words catching fire in ways that defy explanation, and these are the people that get all the attention to “prove” the system works. Unfortunately, whatever loophole they exploited only worked for them. Once they figured it out, the universe spackled over that loophole so it will likely never work again.
That doesn’t mean you have to do it this way. Sometimes chaos agents make the best entrepreneurs b/c they short circuit systems in weird and beautiful ways. Unfortunately, those ways tend to only work for them. That doesn’t mean there aren’t still loopholes. There are billions of them, enough for every human to find their own. It’s just that exact loophole probably won’t work a second time.
There’s a saying in Hollywood that whenever sombody finds a hole to wriggle through, they spackle it up so nobody can use it again.
If you have a knack for blowing things up to figure out what works, you can surely find one, too. Most of us, though, don’t have the energy to blow things up for fun. So, unless you are interested in blowing things up for laughs to find the flaws, this is probably the order you should think about things.
Start with the words. This seems obvious, but in an age of platform-building and personal branding, it's easy to forget that content is still king. Write something that makes people feel seen, understood, or less alone. Write the piece that you desperately needed to read three years ago. Write what keeps you up at night, what makes you laugh, what makes you angry. The technical term for this is "resonant content," but really, it's just truth-telling that connects. The deeper your words resonate, the easier the rest of this will be, and honestly you probably shouldn’t even move onto the next bit until at least a few people are ravenous for your word.
Finding your platform comes next. This is where many writers stumble. They try to be everywhere at once, spreading themselves thin across every social media channel and blog platform available. Don't. Pick one place where the writing feels natural and the readers feel right. Maybe it's Substack for your long-form analysis, or Twitter for your sharp observations, or Medium for your personal essays. The important part here is that you find somewhere that not only makes sense but also values your work enough to share it orgnically without you doing much promotion.
Build a brand identity. "But I'm a writer," you protest, "not a brand." Wrong. Every writer is a brand, whether they like it or not. Stephen King is a brand. Joan Didion is a brand. In fact, every human on this planet (and most animals) have a brand, too. The question isn't whether to have a brand, but whether to shape it intentionally or let it shape itself. Your brand is simply the promise you make to readers about what they'll find in your work. Make it honest. Make it clear. Make it something that the right readers recognize immediately as home. Why did we wait so long to build it? Because you don’t know your brand promise until people start showing up and revealing themselves. Once you have an audience, your brand should become obvious. Then, make it scream so loudly that it cuts through the noise on the internet and makes the right people stand up and take notice.
Only after you've built this foundation should you think about monetization. Yes, this means you might write for free for a while. Welcome to the club. We have jackets (but you'll have to buy your own). If you wait until your have an audience, they will literally tell you what they want from you in annoying and painstaking detail. Then, all you have to do is give it to them. If it’s harder than that, you probably shouldn’t be doing monetization yet. When you do start charging, you should prbably begin with services. Editing, coaching, consulting, and things that leverage your expertise directly. They're easier to sell than products because they require less infrastructure and fewer up-front costs. Listen to what your readers ask for help with. Build that. Either that or develop a product, like a book, which are easy for readers to conceptualize since they already read your work. If you’re going the product route, focus on one-off products first. Memberships are the hardest game in town. They probably shouldn’t be your first sale.
When growth slows (it will) or enthusiasm wanes (it does), look for new channels that align with your voice. Maybe your personal essays could become a podcast. Maybe your Twitter threads could become a book. The medium may change, but the message remains consistent. Try to only do things you can use in multiple ways, so your time is leveraged. That social media post can become a blog post, which can become a book, which can become a podcast episode, which can become…well, you get the idea.
Every year, you should aim to find one strategy that works consistently for you and add it to your repertoire. Most successful business are little more than a collection of platforms and skills that work consistently to grow their audience and build their business. A successful business only needs one, but great ones have 5-10.
There's no magic bullet, despite what the latest platform, tool, or guru might promise. Success in writing isn't about finding the perfect channel or mastering the latest algorithm. It's about consistent, intentional growth built on a foundation of good work.
Your path won't look exactly like anyone else's. You might spend years finding your voice while someone else discovers theirs in a month. You might build a massive following on a platform that others barely understand. That's fine. The steps matter less than the progression.
Additionally, many writers had a meteoric rise and then stalled in ways that don’t seem to make sense. If this sounds like you, then ask if you “skipped” one of these steps. Usually, by going back and getting really clear on the ones you moved through quickly will help you get on track. You probably had success despite having a wonky structure. By going back and building those bits, you can often unlock exponential growth again.
The internet didn't lie about opportunity. It just oversimplified the process. Yes, anyone can publish. Yes, greatness can come from anywhere. But sustainable success usually follows a pattern. Understand it, adapt it, make it your own. Then get back to writing. That's still the heart of it all.
The magic isn't in the bullet. It's in the persistence, the craft, and the connection. Everything else is just details.
What do you think?
What step in this sequence has been the most challenging for you - finding resonance, choosing a platform, building your brand, or monetization? What made that phase particularly difficult?
How do you balance staying authentic to your creative vision while also building something that can sustain you financially? Has this ever created tension in your work?
Have you ever tried to "skip" steps in your creative journey? What happened, and what did you learn from the experience?
Let us know in the comments.
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This resonated with me. Something I'll come back to for guidance on the path. Thank you!
This is so clear and smart. Instant save. Thank you!