Most of the creatives I know instinctively want an audience. When they think about why, the immediate answers of “someone who likes my work” or “someone who buys my stuff” are natural. I mean, what’s not to like about emotional and financial validation? Bring forth the audience!
But building an audience is hard. In fact, it’s something of a slog — a seemingly Sisyphean slog (which I’m experiencing first-hand as I try and build an audience for my audio theater group). And the more one researches about how to best build an audience (and goes about the efforts to do so day in and day out), going to the gym every day seems easy by comparison (gym rats: ask your non-gym rat friends about what this means).
So, I took some solace in an article in Fast Company by Jeff Goins (whom some of you might know of from “Real Artists Don’t Starve”). The nominal title of the article is about why a creative needs an audience, but what I really got out of it was the importance of building connections, not only with an audience (e.g. readers, viewers, listeners, etc.), but with fellow creatives who might become potential collaborators (or just community support).
For me, this is crucial. Because as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not necessarily one who rushes to don the “marketing hat” — even though this website serves some of that purpose… and I’ll happily share articles about marketing. However, making connections with possible readers or viewers or listeners — that seems doable. Finding one more listener, getting a new enthusiastic reader, talking to another creative… all that sounds doable and manageable. It’s not as overwhelming as building “an audience” or “a peer community.” And yet, that’s what you’re doing, person by person. And, ideally, you can do it by trying to do what you should be doing anyway, making work that connects with people. That makes going to the metaphorical gym easier.