If you listen to the stories artists tell about their careers, you’ll often hear them admit that their hits were something they never saw coming. This cuts across artistic endeavors.
I tweeted yesterday that How To Flourish: 17 Quotes on Living, Being, and Doing was going viral yet again with near 10k daily pageviews. That tweet resulted in a conversation between me, Tyler Tervooren, and Jonathan Fields about whether or not we can predict what’ll be a hit. The consensus that Jonathan and I shared was that you just never know what will be a hit, although you can have a good idea of what has the best chances of going viral.
Yesterday’s conversation was already in my head when I bought and listened to Staind’s iTunes Original Album this morning. I love the iTunes Originals albums because they contain interviews where the artists talk about their art and careers, and Staind mentioned the same thing – their flagship song, It’s Been Awhile, was something that was a surprise hit, especially since Aaron had been performing it acoustically to a crowd that really couldn’t care less.
Let’s pause here. First, he had already been performing the song and nobody cared. How often does this happen to us? How many posts have you written and heard crickets only to have that same post be a big hit a year later?
Second, they performed this song later in their career and all of a sudden it became iconic of their style. Had you asked them before it went big, they would’ve never guessed that the song they’re known by to a mass audience would be that song. But they stuck with it and performed their art.
This pattern plays out for other artists, too, and this story is far more common than the one wherein the artists knew that they or their art would be a hit. Be very careful of how you’re evaluating your own creative journey.
If you’re serious about your art, it’s unlikely that you’ll see your big hit coming; if your craft was that formulaic, it wouldn’t be art. All you can do is show up and get your stuff to good enough. You might not ever have a big hit, but if you don’t keep at it, you never will.
And what if you’ve already produced your big hit and don’t know it yet? If you’re never reviewing what you’ve done and providing a way for people to find it, you might be missing out. Sometimes the best way to go forward is to look backward.
wow – what great timing charlie!
last night i was thinking of revisiting some art i made a year ago. at the time i made it for a show and didn’t want to sell any of it. i shared some of the work on my blog but with no opportunity to buy any of it.
so last night i thought – i’m going to share that art again. i’ve got loads of new readers who haven’t seen it and will probably appreciate it. and this time – i’m going to put some of the pieces up for sale. who knows where it can lead…
that “who knows where it can lead” is something i love so much about having a creative career. it’s so exciting.
“Who knows” and “What if?” are some of the most powerful questions we creative people can live by. Good luck on selling your art!
Hey Charlie,
That’s why choosing to perform your art in the face of not getting the results you want (or insert other roadblock here) is so important – and why the best productivity advice is just to start doing above all else. If you take the first step and start creating, you never know what might happen.
Right on! It’s about the process, not the outcome.
It’s funny, sometimes I know and sometimes I don’t.
And of course, sometimes I can really feel that the writing is solid and I think a post will do well, and then … it doesn’t. 🙂
Hi Pinky! I generally try to have low or no expectations about what will do well and won’t, but I’m always more surprised when something i had low expectations for turns out to be a hit. You want to say “really, that’s what you guys needed to hear?”
Hi Charlie–
Good point on not striving for what may appear formulaic. Also, just because you create something that is near and dear to your heart, does not mean that others will connect with it.
I try to remain cognizant of my readers and clients when I introduce something. Often, it’s the material that I least expected to be especially relevant.
I’m with you. I have noticed, though, that the things I resist writing about or the things I’m uncomfortable sharing are the ones that tend to connect the best.
A great reminder to just keep putting stuff out there. A post that you might feel lukewarm about may really hit home with your readers.
What I’m trying to stick to lately is not writing stuff for search engines and not writing stuff for “increased readership” – just stuff that’s meaningful and important to me.
No more series for the sake of series and mentioning twitter just because people like twitter. I’ve taken a 2 month break from my blog because I hated where it was going, and I’m ready to take a second crack at it, just writing to help people.
Great points, Mike, and I’m glad you took a break. Your blog is for you, too, and if you don’t like it, not only will it be harder to write for it, but your readers won’t like it anyway. Passion is infectious.
So true, sometimes success comes while you are busy doing what you have always been doing.
Yep. Sometimes I tell my clients that it just takes a critical mass of their body of work before they’ll be able to tip. One big hit does not a creative genius make. 🙂
Great reminder! Personally I’ve never been able to predict what’s going to hit big, I just release content and see what happens!
And you’ve done especially well for yourself with that strategy, Laura!
When I was in law school, one of our professors told us to remember that none of the landmark law cases that eventually attained “household name” status and wound up in every law school text book in the nation actually looked like a landmark case at its inception. I later saw a quote from someone else noting the same idea.
The idea those two attorneys referenced parallels yours: the “hits” don’t typically look any different at the outset than the everyday, run-of-the-mill items. It’s only further along in their journey that they take on some heightened status or importance or notice (or traffic!). But the only way they get to that point is if we start them on that journey, just like we do for dozens or hundreds or thousands of other posts / products / law cases.
I sometimes think it’d be easier to have a more accurate way of predicting what will hit big & what won’t… but then again, I think if I always knew what would be “big,” I’d often be more intimidated to publish it. I guess sometimes it’s the blissful ignorance of how big something might get that makes it possible for me to create it.
I like the theme of the piece here, Charlie. You just have to show up and keep doing your thing. Your audience will tell you what your good stuff is and it doesn’t really matter what you thought would/ wouldn’t be big.
Sometimes I get discouraged when something I think should go big doesn’t and something I might consider less impressive goes all over the damn internet, but then I just try to remember that it doesn’t really matter what I think!
People like what they will and I’m grateful every day that I can offer them something they find useful.
This is a good riff Charlie.
It’s true that we can’t predict if something will go viral or not…. if you could break down the formula for “viral” and reproduce it on cue, then the magic would go out of it. Everyone would be doing it.
The only formula I know of is: Do/produce something so awesome that people can’t help but spread the news
Charlie,
This post so hits (yeah, a pun) it on more levels than just online work. In the virtual world, I work with artists and writers all the time who lose sight of themselves because they’re looking for the ‘it’ factor. One painter was afraid to explore something a little different because she thought her favorite buyers wouldn’t recognize it as a “Marianne”. The value of any art can take a lifetime to materialize and then some. I did a post on the indie movie about a woman in a trailer park who bought a $5 painting that might be a Jackson Pollock–and now she’s working with art experts to sell it for $25 million. And Pollock’s been dead for more than 30 years! Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime. You really never do know when your “hit” is going to happen, you have to just be true to the voice in your head–otherwise why bother at all?
Hi Charley, I read your blog every day. I normally do not comment. This time I thought i do an exeption. I have sent your blog to a couple of friends and sent them your planners. There might me a lot of people out there like me you do not here about. But they know you and recommend your stuff. Keep on shipping!