Book Recommendation #6: Be The Gateway by Dan Blank
A Practical Guide To Sharing Your Creative Work And Engaging An Audience
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The universe conspired to lead me to this book.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I made the difficult decision to take a break from LinkedIn and ghostwriting (where most of my time was going) to rethink what I truly wanted to do.
There were so many things I wanted to pursue—publishing my nearly ready books, delving into fiction writing, urban sketching, creating cartoons, and building an audience for my books rather than my services—yet I kept putting them on the back burner to focus on something I didn't even care about.
Why was I doing that?
Because I was sucked into it. Everyone else was doing it, so I concluded I had to do it too. Before you judge my naivety, this is what most people are doing online. They follow each other like sheep in a herd. There's a good chance you might be one of them. If you're agreeing, even slightly, keep reading.
On the fourth day of my LinkedIn cleanse, I stumbled upon a post by
Who wrote about creating his manifesto after being inspired by another post. I asked Chris to send me the link, which he promptly did. For the next 24 hours, between cooking, cleaning, washing, and ironing, I read most of posts (of course, only the free ones), explored his website, binge-watched his videos, and bought and read his book, Be The Gateway.Dan Blank helps writers and creators develop a human-centered approach to marketing and reaching their audience. He believes that writers and creators have a magical ability to help and inspire others. He emphasizes that connecting our work to people in an authentic manner is imperative and enriches everyone's lives. His approach to audience development is fresh, unique, and essential, especially as many of us are lost in the maze of the 'creative age' and unsure of how to achieve our goals.
Most of us creatives share the same concerns: we are overwhelmed, directionless, and feel stuck. We dream of fulfilling our potential and finding ways for our creative work to help and entertain others.
According to Dan, the problem lies in how we measure success. We seek validation from big institutions, bestseller lists, sales numbers, and high-profile media. We measure how the world accepts us through followers, re-shares, reviews, likes, and favourites.
We measure by numbers.
Dan wants us to reframe how we think about creating and sharing our work. He encourages us to disregard numbers. He says, “When you’re on your deathbed and someone asks about the work you’re most proud of, I don’t want you to think about bestseller lists.”
He wants us to think about the specific experiences that show how our work connected with and influenced the lives of others.
He want us to remember names and faces and moments with these people, not now many followers you had on a social network.
He want us to remember that we were the gateway for others which led them to places that shaped who they became and what made their lives better.
That's a big ask.
But Dan provides many tools in his book:
Change your metric to measure success. Instead of measuring your work in terms of likes, shares, and retweets, consider the impact it will have on others. Think about how your article, book, or blog will change the lives of thousands of people. Imagine the conversations you would love to have with those who read your words.
Connect with with your audience with stories. Stories create the identity you audience seek. Tell stories of your journey, struggles, failures, achievements and insights.
Experiences create stories. Nobody achieves success without going through hardships. Everyone must embark on a journey to test themselves, learn, and develop clarity of focus. Within that journey lie your stories. Share the process of your journey as it happens. That’s what people want to hear. This is how they connect with you. This is how you engage with them.
Clarity Cards, a simple 5-step process to find more time and energy to make writing a priority in your life.
The Creative Success Pyramid, a model that he use to help writers get clarity in their work, develop an audience, and launch their work in a meaningful way.
Craft a statement of intention, a mission statement. The goal is to identify, in a simple sentence, the experience you want your writing to create for others. Think about the person who bought your book or read your article. How did it shift the way they think? Are they contemplating the world you have opened up for them? How does it relate to their life, their identity, their interactions?
With Be The Gateway and his essays on his website and newsletter, Dan managed to change my thinking. He has opened up a whole new way of looking at my writing and my audience-building strategy.
And with that has come calm and restraint. The constant struggle caused by hustle culture is gone, replaced by the joy of meaningful connection and purposeful creation.
I will no longer be chasing numbers; instead, I will be focusing on the genuine impact my work can have on others. This shift has brought a sense of fulfillment and clarity, allowing me to pursue my creative journey with intention and heart.
I recommend Be The Gateway to writers and creators who want to who want to transform their approach to audience building and marketing.
By focusing on the genuine impact your work can have on others, you can engage with your audience in a deeper, more authentic way.
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Each week, I share a book I’m reading. I know you’re an avid reader too. Have you been reading something that you want to recommend. Please share it in the comments section so that I can put it on my reading list.
As always, thanks for reading.
See you next week.
Hi Neera, your post today pretty much duplicates what I said to my husband today. I don’t paint for profit, and I don’t write for numbers of followers, I do both because they make me happy. Like you I stopped writing on Wordpress, no fault of theirs, it was I felt I didn’t want the pressure as I had another project on the go, that was writing my husbands life story which is now at the printers. Thank goodness! Now that was stress, making sure there were no errors grammatically or spelling wise, plus that the structure of the pages looked correct also. Another great book recommendation.
Totally agree! I have read Dan's book (and written about it in one of my posts). This is a great recap!