An Open Letter to Self-Published Creatives

Dear Artists, Authors and Inventors,

I am writing from my perspective as a member of the tarot community. However, I believe most communities function in pretty much the same way. If you are a self-published creative in any community, or want to be, please pay attention.

Twenty years ago, we called self-publishing “vanity press.” To pay to publish your own work was usually a waste of time and money. Technology changes everything. Today, self-publishing is a viable option for a wide range of creative people.

The success of your self-published project depends a great deal on your ability to market your project. To do that, you will need to reach out to members of a community. You will need to connect with other entrepreneurs who produce podcasts, webcasts, vlogs and blogs. You need interviews, and you need reviews.

We vloggers, bloggers and reviewers need you, too.

At a certain point, I realized I had gained some notoriety for my webcasts and reviews, because my inbox began filling up with introductions from creative people, essentially asking me to promote their work.

That’s not as bad as it sounds. I need interesting people to interview, and new products to review. Every professional community is symbiotic in that way. We have to work together. We can support each other, and lift each other up, or we can tear each other down.

When you approach members of a professional or hobbyist community to ask for support for your project, everyone’s experience will be better if you keep a few things in mind.

First, we are a community. Many of us have known each other for years, even though many of us have never met in person. If you send an impersonal cut-and-paste form letter to each of us, we will know. If you want to send an email blast to people you don’t know to announce your new project, just don’t.

If you want my time, take some time to build a relationship with me. You don’t have to buy me dinner or send me flowers. You do have to send me a personal email, not a copy-and-paste request. Understand the value of community, and of relationships. If I like your work, I will introduce you to my friends. That is how it has always worked IRL (in real life). That is how it works in cyberspace, too. We all want and deserve this basic human courtesy.

Here’s a true story. Recently, many of us received the same email request regarding a new project. My friends and peers smelled a spammy rat right away. My reaction was different. I was excited about the project and forgave the heavy-handed approach. Well, without any further contact, and without my request or permission, they added me to their official spam mailing list! I had no choice. I withdrew my support from a project that had really excited me. My friends had been right all along. Yum, yum, crow.

Ultimately, whether your bad internet manners are a result of naiveté or intentional spamming doesn’t matter. Your poor results will be the same. You see, we all have mailing lists, too. We are very careful to make sure we don’t spam people with our mailing lists. That you don’t show this same courtesy and restraint shows us we don’t want to work with you. Behavior matters.

Here’s another true story. I was doing weekly webcasts on a Livestream channel. Over the course of a week, I received two emails, each from people hoping to promote their self-published creation. One was very demanding about his requirements for the interview; even though he was the one requesting it! I expressed my enthusiasm for his project, and explained the constraints of my production schedule. The reply I received was abusive, beginning with the phrase, “You are an idiot.” To this day, I have heard nothing more about this project.

The other person who approached me was very polite in his initial email. When I responded by inviting him to be a guest on my show, he was appreciative. We had a wonderful interview. His project has become a successful reality, and he is now working on a follow-up project. This time I’ll reach out to him with a request for an interview.

Please don’t misread me. I am not saying that my webcast is a star-maker. I am saying that the attitude of the artist matters. To promote your work, you have to make the rounds. There are more shows looking for guests than you can imagine. Bring a good attitude, and you will be on every show and in every blog. Bring a bad attitude and very few of us will want to talk with you.

In any community, there can be a few talented people with difficult personalities. Most people are forgiving enough to appreciate talent and excuse a few social faux pas, thank goodness. However, for most of us, there is a saturation point. If you irritate enough people, you will have a hard time finding any peers who are interested in your work, no matter how good you work might be. This isn’t usually an organized community-wide blacklist, it’s just something that happens. What you learned on the elementary school playground remains true to this day. If you don’t play nicely, no one will want to play with you.

The ability to interact with creative people is one of the great perquisites of my job. Like many of my friends and peers, I will gladly review your project and promote your Kickstarter. We are all in this together.  I can support a friend. I can support a community member. I can support great art. I can’t support an egomaniac, or a spammer. I can’t support an entrepreneur who doesn’t take the time to learn basic internet courtesy. I think you will find many of us feel the same way.

The Cyberbullying we Love to Do

We hear plenty of protest about cyberbullying when it involves teenagers. We are consumed with outrage when attractive women are slut-shamed online.  The fact is, we need to be concerned about cyberbullying. Unlike the bullying of my generation’s childhood, which was brutal enough, it’s hard to escape from cyberbullying because your online persona follows you everywhere.

There’s another kind of cyberbullying. There are particular people who are perfectly acceptable targets to insult, dehumanize and abuse online. If you are having a bad day, you can find a photo of some unfortunate person and unleash whatever mean-spirited attack you want upon them.

Perhaps insulting someone else makes us feel better about ourselves. I may be having a bad hair day, but I look great compared to the fat f*ck in this picture.

Yesterday a radio station posted an extremely unfortunate candid shot of an overweight woman in very ill-fitting clothing. The station wanted to know our thoughts about this person. I was shocked by people’s comments. No one seemed to remember that she was a human being.

Finally, I suggested that this was cyberbullying, and maybe not the kindest thing to do.

I was told, in no uncertain terms, that it wasn’t cyberbullying because the woman was so overweight, and her clothing so inappropriate, that she deserved what she got.

Bullying isn’t bullying when we think it’s deserved? Spoken like a true bully.

It seems the general consensus is, if a person is particularly unattractive, it is not cyberbullying to post unkind things about them online.  Overweight people, poorly dressed people and unfashionable people deserve to be mocked because the sight of them offends our eyes. And so we post their pictures online and share them, so we can be offended, judgmental and mean.

I remember reading a blogpost from an overweight woman whose unflattering Halloween photo went viral. Her experience made one fact very real for me. Our society has made not living up to certain physical standards an acceptable reason to discount, trivialize and dehumanize our fellow human beings.

I blame Glamour magazine for this horrific societal trend. Without the “Glamour Dos and Don’ts” we would never be so desensitized to this kind of cruelty.

I admit that I’ve watched the “People of Walmart” video and laughed out loud. I tried to tell myself it was because of the clever original song.  There was certainly a part of me that felt badly for laughing at picture after picture of bizarrely dressed people, knowing that in many cases I was laughing at the mentally ill, the physically sick, the addicted, and the impoverished.

Public shaming has been a part of our American culture since our beginnings. In the olden days, we shamed people by putting them in stockades in the town square. Now we put them on the internet. Instead of hurling rotten food, we hurl insults.

Maybe it’s time for us to evolve now.

On Line Food Sharing

This week NPR ran a story about a food sharing website in Germany. People with extra food (grown, prepared or purchased) are matched with people who need food in their neighborhood.

Here in the US there are other kinds of sharing sites, like ride sharing and house sharing.

Based on some of the problems I’m hearing about with Lyft.com and AirBnB, I can only imagine what might happen with a food sharing site here in America.

Here are four things that would probably happen in the first month of operation.

1. The IRS would hate it.

2. Ms. Jones would be happy to file a lawsuit if Mrs. Smith’s tuna casserole were a bit off.

3. People would worry that some sicko would use it as a way to randomly poison someone.

4. Health officials would shut the site down immediately, having no way to certify the safety of the shared food.

I love that the internet makes so much possible.

I love that people find creative ways to help each other in difficult times.

Food sharing is an amazing way to combat waste and hunger. I hope it works well in Germany.

I also hope I’m completely wrong, and that a food sharing site could and will work here in the United States. It’s a brilliant idea. Why waste food when you can share?

A New Trend in Television

When I first started this Dark Forest blog for my non-tarot musings I was going through my “Glee” phase.

I haven’t had cable TV or even broadcast TV in almost twenty years. I really do think TV is basically a terrible drug. But there have been some shows over the years I have liked. I watch them on Hulu, Amazon and Netflix, at my convenience.

Recently, I’ve noticed something new afoot on my dependable entertainment websites.

Now, they have original programming!

That’s right. There are now original series that you can only watch on Hulu, on Netflix and on Amazon.

Even more amazing, some of these shows are really good and really popular. Some of them feature talent you already know, like John Goodman on Alpha House.

I am particularly enjoying “Deadbeat” on Hulu. It’s the story of a pot-smoking ne’er-do-well who happens to be a talented psychic medium and a lousy businessman. He has a crush on a famous TV psychic whom, he discovers, is a fraud. I always enjoy an arch-nemesis and romantic interest rolled into one. The TV psychic has an assistant who is played by Lucy Devito, the talented daughter of Danny and Rhea.

This show, like many others of these new, original series, is fresh, funny and unexpected.

There is something about TV series that are produced independently of the traditional networks that makes me really happy. The fact that the shows are truly worth watching isn’t bad, either.

Mean People

I read an article yesterday called “Are we too Quick to Cry Bully?” The article pointed out something I have been thinking for a long time. There are lots of ways to be mean that aren’t bullying. Bullying is specific. Bullying is when a person who has power picks on someone who doesn’t. 

The article was about bullying as it pertains to young people. Middles schoolers and teenagers bullying each other is a special kind of torture – one that sometimes ends in suicide. The concern of the article was that by referring to simple acts of meanness as “bullying” we are diluting the horror of actual bullying, and empowering the true bullies.

Recently I have heard grown-ups talk about adult-on-adult bullying. Adult bullying happens. Bosses bully their employees. Wealthy HOA members bully their less fortunate neighbors. Misguided adults use race, religion, gender and sexuality as reasons to bully, much as children do.

I’d like to believe that adults have more resilience to bullying than young people do, but that’s not always the case, especially when one’s livelihood or home might be threatened.

The internet offers a new platform to bullies of all ages. But not every mean person on the internet is a bully. Somehow the internet can bring out the worst in all of us. We feel empowered to say things we might not in real life. There is even an internet term for mean-spirited people who say rude things online. We call them “trolls”.

There is a huge difference between a troll and a bully. A bully is someone who has actual power over you and uses that power to hurt you. A troll is simply someone who says mean things. Some people feel bullied by trolls. Artists consider not making art, writers considering giving up writing and sensitive people suffer depression because of the power they give to internet trolls.

I’ve dealt with my share of trolls.  Sometimes the most effective tactic is to call them on their meanness; to flatly accuse them of doing exactly what they are doing. I’ve elicited some very heartfelt apologies that way, and even become friendly with a few of them. Sometimes people just don’t think about what they are saying until you reflect it back to them – not in anger but in rational terms.

Some internet trolls hide behind other titles. They are “reviewers” or “speakers of the truth”. As a writer I’ve received my share of bad reviews. Sometimes a bad review is a gift that makes your next work better. There is a transparent difference between using a review to give needed constructive criticism and using a review as a platform to hurl insults. But, even in the latter case, once those insults are hurled, how we react to them is completely in our control.

Mean words can hurt, no matter who says them. It is impossible to have an online presence and not attract some negative attention. Over the past few years I have written a few blog posts that struck nerves I didn’t expect. I was surprised by the number of mean, rude comments I received, and the fact that those commenters followed me around on social media for a while. It was a little chilling that such unkind people could seemingly reach into my living room any time of the day or night.

I was also surprised by the number of people who reached out to me in sympathy. I really appreciated the kind words and support of people; both friends and people I had never met. But I was not as upset by the trolls as those supportive people expected me to be.  The trolls’ comments made me wish I had been clearer in my posts; there were a few things I hadn’t understood until I saw the backlash. And I was proud that something I wrote could elicit such a response. Writers want to touch nerves.

I didn’t feel bullied because these people had no power over me. There was nothing they could really do to hurt me. They could say mean things about me. They could spread lies about me. None of that really hurt me. In the end they were trolls, not bullies. Bullies are dangerous, trolls are irritating.

Speaking out is often the right defense against both bullies and trolls. Recently a writer’s unflattering photo went viral with an even more unflattering caption. She contacted the rude posters and made them deal with her as a human being. She shared her surprising results in an inspiring post.

In the case of bullies it is important to expose them for what they are. Shedding light on their activities may not take away their power in terms of money and position, but it will take away some of their authority. Trolls have no inherent power. The only power they have is the power we give them. If we want to give trolls the power to make us feel depressed or to contemplate giving up our talent, that’s our bad choice.

Eleanor Roosevelt lived and died before social media existed. Her immortal words are maybe more important now than they ever were. Eleanor is credited with saying “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

If we don’t give the trolls consent to make us feel badly they really can’t hurt us. They don’t have the power to hurt us without our help. I’m concerned, too, that if we, as adults, allow our feelings to be hurt by thoughtless and mean-spirited people, how will we be able to inspire our children to stand against their own mean peers?

Mean people suck, and they are everywhere. Mostly they are mean because of their own misfortunes. I have compassion for mean people. I hold them in love and light. But I do not give them consent to make me feel inferior.  You don’t have to, either.

Eighteen Steps to Better Radio: How to Be Amazing on Internet Broadcasts

By Christiana Gaudet

The proliferation and accessibility of broadcast opportunities on the internet has created a new world in which anyone can create their own podcasts, radio show or television show.

The internet is a meritocracy.  It’s huge, so no matter how narrow, obscure or arcane your subject matter may be, you can find your audience.

The good news is that creativity is no longer limited to the lucky and the rich.  You can shoot a feature film with your cellphone.

The bad news is that most internet broadcasters don’t bother to learn even a little bit about what makes a good broadcast.

I’m not a media expert, but I am quick study.  I have worked as a morning co-host on three FM radio stations, and I’ve been a guest on countless more.

I’ve been featured on television news shows several times.  And, when asked to appear on a BTR show, or an internet TV show, I always say yes!

I’m not sure why so many would-be internet broadcasters don’t take the time to learn some broadcast fundamentals.  In actuality, some of them don’t even take the time to learn the subject matter on which they are promoting themselves as expert.

So how do you make sure your production is everything it could be?  Here are eighteen tips.  They are some of the basics that I learned from the highly competitive world of Arbitron-rated radio.  They will help you make all your internet broadcast projects, whether audio or video, the best they can be.

1. Less is more.  Use sound effects, sounders and imaging in appropriate places only.  Keep everything short.  Never say in ten words what you can say in five.

2. Avoid stall-sounds like “um” and “er”.  No, not everyone says these non-words.  Yes, you can train yourself not to say them.  If you are going to ask the public to listen to you speak, you owe your listeners at least this.

3. Speak in normal, conversational tones.  Do not slow your speech for drama or clarity; it just doesn’t work that way.  Neither should you accentuate inflection. 

4. Smile!  Even in radio, your smile comes through loud and clear.

5. If you are trying to generate listener phone calls, give the phone number repeatedly, especially before and after each call you take.  (Ex. “John’s calling in on 1-800-555-1212, let’s go to him now.” Or, “The number’s 1-800-555-1212, do as John just did and give us a call.”)

6. Never suggest that people aren’t calling in, or don’t want to call in.  I actually heard one host say, “Not everyone feels comfortable calling in.”  Don’t give people an excuse not to participate, or suggest that calling in isn’t the most fabulous thing they will do all day!

7. Don’t spend a lot of time explaining the technology your are using, even if it malfunctions.  No one cares.

8. Don’t call attention to a mistake or a malfunction.  Simply move on.

9. Broadcasting, especially radio, is theatre of the mind.  Make sure everything your listeners hear supports your creation.

10. Prepare your material, and plan your show.  This sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s not.  Many people like to wing it.

11. Don’t over-prepare.  Sometimes it’s best to get a natural reaction.  Plan your topics, but play off your guests spontaneously.  Whether or not your conversation is planned, make it sound spontaneous.

12. Conflict and controversy make for great shows.  Be able to present more than one point of view in a polite way that makes listeners think.

13. Practice saying your name, the name of your show, the call-in number, and other pertinent information.  Say it as often as you can.

14. Don’t over-talk a topic.  It’s better to leave listeners wanting more than wanting less.

15. Don’t refer to your listeners/viewers as “audience.”  As in “Good morning, audience, we have a great show for you.”  You can call them folks, friends, or even listeners or viewers. 

16. Keep up the pace.  Don’t let the show drag.  Your job is to move things along.  No one should be bored during your show!

17. Set up your guests for success.  Give them all the information they need, off air, to be the best guests ever!

18. Let your passions show! The more excited you are about a subject, the more your listeners will connect with you, and the more they will be excited about your show.