A Month In Review
What the heck just happened?
First of all, allow me to apologize for my absence on here the past month.
I have a bad habit of losing track of time any ways, I tend to get lost in my work and forget that I haven’t moved for hours when drawing or writing. The past 7 weeks though have been SOMETHING ELSE entirely though.
The last post we were just about to cross the 14k mark. As of this moment, as I sit here writing we are a smidge past 77k. To put that in perspective, 70k is the average maximum capacity of an NFL stadium.
To say I was not prepared for this growth would be an understatement. The pace has finally slowed down (a bit) but if anything I’m just gathering myself up after running a marathon these past weeks. In the snap of a finger 5 weeks came and went.
I think all things considered I’m holding it together pretty well. It’s a lot to take in though.
I was talking to my mom on the phone today. I was telling her that it’s so strange, that I don’t really feel anything other than exhaustion. Of course I’m proud that people are showing up and getting value from what we’re building, but I don’t really feel any ownership over it. For something like COTW to exist, let alone grow, requires a community-and an involved one at that. It feels strange to claim any accomplishment to me because I’ve just been doing my thing this whole time. Sure I got better at it, but without an audience, can a story really live? Is it even really a story?
THE SOCIAL MEDIA QUESTION
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about my “strategy” and “tactics” that went into the sudden growth of the page. Just to get it out of the way I’ll try and put it as succinctly as possible so hopefully we never have to go back to it.
The secret to the growth of COTW is…
I have no idea.
Seriously.
The only thing that makes sense to me is I figured out how to tell my story better, or the story I was trying to tell. 4 months ago I would have understood why people were asking me. I viewed Instagram as some sort of machine to reverse engineer, or a riddle to solve. When I changed my viewpoint on it, and decided to look at it as a new storytelling medium to learn, that was when things seemed to unlock for me.
Asking me how COTW achieved this sudden growth spurt to me now is like asking Jack Carr how he sells so many books; he just writes good books. Now I’m not saying I’m on par with Mr Carr, or that COTW is the greatest bit of social media storytelling there will ever be. What I am saying though is I think that it’s unique-I found my writer’s voice so to speak.
Jack Carr didn’t reverse engineer writing thrillers from some schematics locked up in some dusty library. He just wrote a lot. Also, just because he writes well doesn’t guarantee anything. He writes well, and knows his audience because he is his audience. Jack writes books he would read himself.
COTW is as much for me, as it is for you. We all need reminders to be better, to strive. Instead of just putting more sticky notes with notes to myself around my home (real thing) it’s more fun and rewarding to use art, and writing and music to drive the point home for myself with the added bonus of getting to know you all, and (hopefully) adding some value to your day.
So unfortunately, no silver bullet. Just the old adage I keep batting around, “chop wood, carry water.” If you suck at something long enough with an eye at getting better, it’s kind of unavoidable that you’ll make progress.
Still, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to see where all of this leads. It’s been a wild ride and we just got to the starting line.