Here’s a summary of my learnings from posting my 18-part writing-life story across several platforms.
REACTION:
This is the first time I’ve shared my life through writing (apart from some pretty awful early blogs).
All comments and reactions came from people I already knew. It felt positive to offer writerly advice, share my wins and losses with others, and reconnect with friends. It seems the key to being happy with the reception of your writing is to completely ignore reach, numbers, and metrics.
DISTRIBUTION:
Let’s talk about the reach, numbers, and metrics — ha ha.
I posted across Substack (notes and posts), LinkedIn (posts and articles), Facebook, Threads, Instagram, X, Nostr (notes and articles), and StackerNews.
Substack was very disappointing. No real engagement or conversation.
I feel it has become a closed-source echo chamber for growth marketers and wannabe writers.
LinkedIn brought a few comments from old friends and contacts. Often, my posts were only served to 100 people, despite me having 25,000 followers on the platform. It seems if you are not hyper-specific on a topic, posting is just not worth it.
Facebook — Quite a few friends and contacts followed the story, but making posts ‘public’ (not just for friends) was an error. One of the posts with a swear word triggered Meta’s useless AI filters and my account was permanently blocked. I managed to restore it, but lost two business pages with 1,000+ followers and my Instagram account (600 followers) forever. Fuck ‘em.
I gave up posting on X because formatting threads took too long, and I got no reaction.
Nostr — I got little reaction, but it’s a nice addition to my profile having more longform articles there. On all platforms, long-form proved the only way to serialize the 18 posts and ensure readers could catch up when they missed a chapter.
StackerNews: I received my largest numbers of comments, intelligent questions, and support here, all from a dozen or so highly engaged writers and artists.
REWARDS:
This project had no commercial goal, not even ‘networking’ or leading people towards becoming clients.
In fact, sharing so many losses and blots on my record probably lost me some credibility as a ‘high-ticket ghostwriter’. Perhaps it gained me some trust though. All writing is curated — we choose what to include and exclude — but I tried to be more candid and avoid ego-inflation.
Surprisingly, I did earn around $100 in Bitcoin on Nostr and StackerNews from supporters. This shows the power of building a small community on shared values and proof-of-work (time investment). For me, value-for-value, internet-native money, and micro payments represents a much better path for creative projects than subscriptions, selling fake scarcity, merchandising, begging for coffees, downloadable products, email lists, advertising clicks, affiliate sales, and any other substitute for exchanging real value through words.
3 LEARNINGS:
You don’t have to pick one platform. Going wide helps as platforms still dominate the time we spend online.
Don’t try to please algorithms. It’s a losing game.
The only algo you can please is one you built yourself.
Spend time on the platforms you care about, the ones with honest incentives.
Don’t chase social media ‘audiences’ (even the ones you built yourself). The value is gone. Their profiles have been stripped for parts by Meta, Microsoft, and Elon. Your words just made their data a tiny bit more valuable for massive corporations.
Growth strategies are a scam. Legacy socials are supernovas, waiting to implode under their own weight. Just write what you want and share it honestly.
Keep it short.
Use visuals.
Create a brand touch point.
And be genuine when you interact online.
That’s my plan, and I’m sticking to it.
Peace out.
I find this insufferable. What was the swear word, was it 'bitcoin?'
Side note, I really like the fact that you shared this over many platforms and reflected on on this. For me, your series and this reflection stacks up as yet more evidence that SN is a great platform for writers who wish to share their work and receive honest engagement.
At first glance, SN looks like yet another bitcoin news forum, but it is very clearly much more than that. At least for me it is. Nostr has other advantages, but it feels more like a bulletin for already-famous bitcoinfluencers.
I think you mentioned in your last post that you were moving on to some fiction -- hoping you keep us up to date on how that goes.
no it was 'fuck', as in 'Those fuckers at Facebook can fuck the fuck off!'
pooooowerful! Thanks for this series and for condensing the take-aways.
ah, yes. VERY MUCH. I never realized that you shared these posts on different platforms, was just waiting for them here... gonna go find them on Nostr now.
That has been my impression, too, from afar.
Key lesson: The real way to maximize zaps is to call ALL normie platforms shit.
It’s refreshing to see such an honest reflection on the realities of sharing creative work online. Too many writers get caught up in the pursuit of reach and engagement without considering whether these metrics actually serve their goals or their well-being. What you’ve demonstrated here is that the most meaningful outcomes come from direct and genuine interactions rather than chasing algorithmic approval.
One of the most important takeaways in your post is the distinction between building for platforms and building for people. When you rely on platform distribution you are always at the mercy of someone else’s business incentives which rarely align with your own. By focusing on places where your work is valued intrinsically rather than as a means to generate ad revenue for a corporation you create more durable connections and preserve your creative independence.
I also think your experience highlights an under-discussed truth. The internet is maturing into smaller more intentional communities rather than massive open networks. The days of going viral and converting that into sustainable success are largely over. Real value now lives in smaller engaged circles where trust is earned over time.
This seems like a prescient insight. May take a while for the masses to realize this. But I think you're right.
I really enjoyed your series. It was interesting to see the windy path your writing journey took. Probably every writer is like this.