An Audience Of One

An Audience Of One is a practical and inspiring manual for creators who want to live from their art, showing a simple, purpose-driven path to achieve that goal.

Many beginner creators get hung up on the idea of delivering specific products to precisely defined audiences. While this is not wrong, it rarely works at the beginning of your creative career.

When you are just starting with your craft, you are much better off focusing on creating for an audience of one-yourself. The reasons to do this are numerous, but let’s look at the two big ones that Rao highlights.

First, creating for yourself helps you cultivate your internal motivation – rather than relying on the external accolades. This is essential if you are serious about pursuing a creative career in the long run. Because externally-driven factors, like the number of fans or financial rewards, are beyond your control, you can’t rely on them as a means to sustain your creativity. Instead, you should focus on your inner drive and enjoying the process.

Another reason why you should create for yourself first is that developing a strong voice takes time. If you are not a good writer now, it doesn’t mean that you can’t get great with time and practice. But if you start publishing your work immediately, you may quickly become discouraged by critical opinions and drop the idea of writing altogether.

This is when the cliché motivational slogans are wise to follow. Be your own biggest fan. Create the art that you would like to see yourself. But most importantly: Know thyself.

The popular “no pain no gain” philosophy has spread widely in the internet productivity community and has also affected artists. While it is generally true that you need to work hard to succeed, that’s not the whole story. You also need time away from your craft so that you can build a relationship with yourself. According to Srinivas Rao, there are three crucial elements to this: trusting yourself, being present, and spending time alone. Trusting yourself is a prerequisite to finding your unique voice. You need to become clear on your deepest values. You can’t afford to be wishy-washy about them. Only stating boldly what you stand for will empower you to convey your message in a clear, original way. The art of being present in the moment is challenging to anyone in the culture based on distractions like social media and advertising. But mindfulness is an important skill to master for a creative. By paying attention to what’s happening in your mind and environment, you notice new ideas and sparks of inspiration flowing through your experience. Capturing them provides you with the raw material for your…