The Grasshopper #43: Reputation vs. Personal Branding
One precedes you, the other is a fabrication
I’ll give it to you upfront: personal branding is an utter waste of time, if it is a conscious attempt to mold your image to some ideal. For writers, any recognizable brand creation is a distraction from the business of writing and the lifestyle of being a writer.
It is, in my opinion, a meme created to sell courses and coaching about something that should be defined by reputation. Reputation does not come from within, it is determined by other humans’ experience when interacting with you.
Did you get that? Personal branding is the way you want to be seen, reputation is what people actually think about you. Which should you focus on?
Knowing why readers read
Readers read writers based on two things. First, some kind of review or recommendation from someone they respect, or, second, because of the writer’s reputation. And developing a good reputation is an important long term aspect of being a professional writer.
You could consciously work to build a brand identity for yourself, an online persona. But if your work is not interesting, provocative, or challenging, all the brand construction in the world will not bring readers back.
Originality is a tricky thing, especially when you are getting started. It’s so easy to unconsciously or consciously imitate other writers. Maybe you do so because you want to emulate their success (copying) or because you love their work (fandom). Building an original voice is ultimately about passion, a subject I probably write about too much.
You might say I’m passionate about the subject.
The concept of personal branding has a truth at its core. There is something unique about everyone. But a lot of personal brand ‘experts’ advocate for creating a brand persona that may or may not reflect who you are.
A note about pseudonyms or the real you
It is common and entirely acceptable in online writing to use a pseudonym, perhaps a clever name that hides your identity behind a made-up personality, a persona. Many writers have their reasons for using them. Maybe it is a conflict of interest issue or a need to protect your personal life from your public one.
I get it, but I think it is a mistake in the long run. When I started The Grasshopper I briefly considered using The Grasshopper as my pseudonym, a kind of wise character I could create.
It would have been a mistake. In my case that is because I have, under my real name, a growing group of followers on Medium, around 5500 at this point, which puts me in the mid level of regular Medium writers. I am adding between 150-300 followers monthly, which means I have a steady source of new readers both here and on Medium.
That’s 5500 readers who chose to follow Martin Edic, not something called The Grasshopper. Many of my subscribers here on Substack come from their ranks, most I suspect. Using a pseudonym would have severely limited my access to those readers.
I see developing a writing career as a long term project, one I have pursued for over thirty years. Any traction I have gained is under my own name and, as such, I own it. You cannot copyright your work under a pseudonym unless you register it as a corporation, another consideration.
Planting seeds and slow but steady growthÂ
Those who read me here know I’m a numbers freak. It’s not just geekery, it’s a part of being businesslike about my work. Medium gives you a wealth of details about how each story is performing on a day to day level: views, reads, read time, dollars earned, where people are seeing the story, and the tags those readers use the most.
Though I write about politics there, the consistent top two tags that my readers follow are science and technology, which is great, though I rarely write about those topics. But they give me a clue about who my readers are. It was already obvious my readers were generally older (based on their bios and photos), obviously politically active, and those tags tell me they are likely well-educated, either academically or self-taught like me.
I have a BA in English but that has had nothing to do with my writing career. I was a stoner when I went to college and my only direction was voracious reading and partying. Very little of what I learned traveled well with me into becoming a writer.
It was the things I pursued because they interested me that helped me as a writer. I had a serious time as an original rock musician in the eighties that got me and my band mates to a minor record deal. Music was a big part of becoming a writer because I learned how to work as a creative, to seriously work.
We practiced 30-35 hours weekly (while working full time!), getting better as players, writing and arranging songs, and performing several times a month. The crowds got bigger and bigger, the clubs better and we made money and poured all of it into recording, which was very expensive.
That was what being a creative professional was. Developing a work ethic where practice supersedes inspiration. And investing money back into your future. Without knowing it, I was developing the skills I needed to write and build a reputation.
When I say reputation, don’t get the idea that I have any fame or a huge YouTube influencer type of followering. I knew that a small core of readers was fertile soil for growth. You plant seeds, in the form of articles, and they sprout.
Some die, some take time to germinate, and some are weeds that go viral for a week or two and then they die. But all of those seeds generate some of my income. The way I see it is that ten might make $50 and 2 might make much more. But they all contribute to my reputation.
I don’t have any way to know how many readers became supporters because of a particular article, which would be a great statistic to have, though I have no idea how you’d track that. But I’m glad I don’t know.
Because I would start to imitate myself, death to an artist. By knowing every article has some value, and not being able to predict that, I gave myself permission to write about what interests me, and my readers. If a post doesn’t resonate with more than a few hundred readers, it is still earning its keep.
So, what does this have to do with my personal brand or reputation? First, if you prefer to think of it as a brand, know it is not something you sit down and define and then mold yourself into. If I wanted to be molded, I’d still be a software executive in a growing company, a role I stumbled into and did for many years, many that were wonderful learning experiences.
No, not being a molded creature, I’m quite happy to not build a personal brand.Â
One last note about that: there are very successful writers that always rewrite the same story because it resonates. I’d guess that they tried a few other approaches but realized they had found a formula. I get that. But I’m wary of catching myself imitating myself to repeat a minor success.
A reminder of our mortality and fortune in this life
Today terrible earthquakes have devastated Turkey and Syria, a place already destroyed after over ten years of war. As I write this at least 4000 have died, a number that will certainly go up.
I’m reminded of the gift of birth in a place like the US, despite the many things we have to deal with here. That gift gives me the opportunity to sit in a comfortable apartment and write, something I do not take for granted.Â
I watch a lot of news as part of my writing research and it can get to you. But events like these earthquakes shift that perspective to compassion. As a Buddhist, compassion for all beings is the goal, including beings very different from us; especially beings who make our lives difficult or challenging.Â
These are situations where we learn and gain life experience. That experience is the well we go to when we write, and the goal is to create a deep well with inexhaustible waters.
My well these days is the readers who find some value in my words. That is thirst quenching stuff.Â
Martin Edic
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