• Many of the people who we think of as lone geniuses were actually part of “a whole scene of people who were supporting each other, looking at each other’s work, copying from each other, stealing ideas, and contributing ideas.”
• Ebert was blogging because he had to blog—because it was a matter of being heard, or not being heard. A matter of existing or not existing.
• Become a documentarian of what you do. “No one is going to give a damn about your résumé; they want to see what you have made with your own little fingers.” Share something small every day.
• You should always share the work of others as if it were your own, treating it with respect and care.
• Teaching people doesn’t subtract value from what you do, it actually adds to it. When you teach someone how to do your work, you are, in effect, generating more interest in your work.
• These artists hang out online and answer questions. They ask for reading recommendations. They chat with fans about the stuff they love.
• If you want fans, you have to be a fan first. If you want to be accepted by a community, you have to first be a good citizen of that community.
• Make stuff you love and talk about stuff you love and you’ll attract people who love that kind of stuff. It’s that simple. Meeting people online is awesome, but turning them into IRL(in real life) friends is even better.
• The way to be able to take a punch is to practice getting hit a lot. Put out a lot of work. Let people take their best shot at it. Then make even more work and keep putting it out there. The more criticism you take, the more you realize it can’t hurt you.
• If you spend your life avoiding vulnerability, you and your work will never truly connect with other people.
• The musician Amanda Palmer has had wild success turning her audience into patrons: After showing her work, sharing her music freely, and cultivating relationships with her fans, she asked for $100,000 from them to help record her next album. They gave her more than a million dollars.
• I know people who run multimillion-dollar businesses off of their mailing lists. The model is very simple: They give away great stuff on their sites, they collect emails, and then when they have something remarkable to share or sell, they send an email.
• Yet a life of creativity is all about change—moving forward, taking chances, exploring new frontiers.
• You just have to be as generous as you can, but selfish enough to get your work done.