If Your Work Matters, So Does Your Audience

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I saw Dan Levy talking about the creative process the other day. What he said wasn’t new, but it hit me differently right now—how, on social media, all we ever see are the polished end results, shiny, perfect, and effortless. We don’t see the years of work leading up to that moment, the missteps, the pull-my-hair-out frustrations. And when you're scrolling through a feed full of successes, it’s easy to feel inadequate. There’s probably not a creative out there who doesn’t feel that way. Even Dan Levy feels it.

The journey to “making it” is long, messy, and not at all linear. And “making it” doesn’t necessarily mean millions of followers, either. The American Influencer Council considers anyone with 1k–10k followers part of the “creator middle class,” which stretches all the way up to 500k. That’s a wide range! And a reminder that “fame” is relative.

Of course, all of this—the shiny perfection, the follower counting, the term creator middle class (yuck)—can feel cringe. But these are the metrics we have. And if you’ve ever put yourself or your work out there, only to be met with deafening silence, you know just how much effort it takes to build an audience—and how important that audience is. The packaging and distribution of an idea matter just as much as the idea itself. So why is marketing dismissed by so many people and industries as if it’s beneath them?

Robin Scheines captured this perfectly in her PRINT Mag piece We Need More Intellectuals in Advertising. She describes how the intellectuals in her life brush off ideas from their marketing colleagues or say things like, “I think advertising is the worst thing to happen to modern civilization.” These knee-jerk opinions are toxic, and she called it out:

“The general public, it turns out, has arrived at conversations about immigration, gender, and racial equity with more fear and hate than expected. Meanwhile, my beloved intellectual friends lament that people don’t understand their work.”

Imagine if white papers and peer-reviewed journal articles actually resonated with people and drove real action. What if they were just… easier to read? What an idea. Scheines takes it further:

“Every research lab should have a storytelling and communications requirement. Climate nonprofits should prioritize marketing from day one. Politicians should master the algorithm—with poets helping them craft the message. We need to learn how to sell peace and progress the way Apple sells the new iPhone.”

I’m fully aware that marketing won’t save the world, but good marketing can do a lot of good. We should be living in a world where an ad for universal healthcare is just as catchy and omnipresent as those chuckle-worthy insurance ads. Bernie Sanders shouldn’t be the only one who knows how to make complex policy make sense.

Without good marketing, we’re all just shouting into the void, hoping someone stumbles across our work. So whether you’re a stuffy academic or a shy creative, take marketing seriously, for crying out loud. 

Feature: Authors Who Get It

Each issue, I’ll feature a quick-hit Q&A, a brand spotlight, or an FAQ breakdown. 

Some people just get their audience—and that’s why their work lands. This week, I’m spotlighting three writers who know exactly who they’re talking to and deliver every time. 

• Margaret Eby wrote You Gotta Eat for the person too exhausted to cook—which, let’s be honest, is all of us. This is her first cookbook (she’s also the Inquirer’s Deputy Food Editor) yet Eby savvily carved out a corner of the jam-packed cookbook market by speaking directly to the overwhelmed. She’s not just writing for her audience; she is the audience, and that’s what makes her book so good.
• Kelsey McKinney understands what her Normal Gossip listeners love—and You Didn’t Hear This From Me delivers. The book expands beyond the podcast universe to explore why gossip is irresistible. It's part journalism, part memoir, all deeply fun. Her fans don’t just listen; they show up (see: her book tour). On social media, she’s laser-focused on what she wants to say, while keeping a pulse on what resonates with her audience. (Case in point: the Post of the Week above!)
• Emma Copley Eisenberg writes for the readers she wants to have, and we can’t help but follow. From a crime novel set in Appalachia to a queer road trip story, Housemates, her work is unpredictable in the best way. Her upcoming short story collection looks like a continuation of her recent writing on fatphobia in American fiction—another topic she makes unmissable. Reading her work is like being in on something exciting before everyone else catches on.

Got a marketing question for the FAQ? Know a business owner or creator with a smart approach to branding that I should feature? Hit reply and let me know!

Last Scraps

• Substack’s latest pivot? Video. (Making this, what, the 100th pivot to video?) I enjoyed reading Choire Sicha’s breakdown of the chaos in his NY Mag newsletter (scroll past the Luigi stuff). His last line sums it up: “Have we learned anything? Not at all. Trust no product. Still, maybe it’s not too late to try making a few videos.” That rings true no matter the platform. Read it here.
• Hollywood only wants actors with big followings. Leigh Stein explains how the film industry is just following the rest of the internet—where having an audience is the price of entry. We can’t all be the phoneless, I-work-in-a-shed Quentin Tarantino, but building a platform doesn’t have to be miserable. Read her take on Substack.

Thanks for reading! Tincan is written by me, Anne Marie (she/her)—a designer, DIYer, and marketing strategist based in Philadelphia. Find me on my website, Instagram, LinkedIn.

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