I do great writing, fans love me, and I need to build my brand

FORMATTING — Treating your creative work as a property that can be exploited into numerous mediums

The shortest distance to someone’s brain is through your body. Your body of work, that is. That means putting yourself into as many mediums and channels and expressions as possible, so that over time, the total output of your work becomes a collection that people can access in many different ways. That means generating as many potential brand touches as possible, so the universe of people you’ve interacted with grows naturally and incrementally until eventually, the right group of people finds you. That means standing for something faithfully, so that you become a living embodiment of that thing, almost like a placeholder, bookmark, beacon or a reminder, which allows people to start equating you with the thing itself. That means staying with yourself as the world orbits around you, knowing that no matter how long it takes before people drift back into your atmosphere, they’ll still find you doing what you do, even if you’re doing it in new ways. That means getting up in the morning, listening to what you’re supposed to make next and shoveling coal into your creative locomotive, laying down track as fast as you can, without the fear that your best ideas are behind you. That means establishing themes in your work so your art is less random and more of a representation of your feelings and ideas and sense of life, like a physical index of your human value system. Volume, volume, volume. Watch your body earn its way into people’s memories. Shovel coal into this locomotive and lay down track as fast as you can. One exercise that’s helpful is reflect back on everything you have already made so far in your career. Even the projects that failed. Think of it as an abbreviated portfolio. An inventory to remind you how far you’ve come in your creative life, but also to help you imagine what other formats might be available for your ideas in the future.