By Yaldaz Sadakova
I started publishing Foreignish, a blog for memoir stories about immigration, at the end of 2017.
It was a quiet, subdued start. There were no fireworks, no balloons. Just a couple of announcements on my Facebook wall.
If I could go back to that quiet winter evening, this is what I would tell myself.
Self-publishing is not for losers
You’re a reluctant self-publisher.
You have resorted to self-publishing your Foreignish memoir stories because the gatekeepers have rejected you repeatedly over the years.
Although some of these rejections had to do with your immigration status, you still see them as an indictment of your value and skills.
So, deep in your subconscious you believe that only losers self-publish their work.
That if you’re self-publishing, it means nobody picked you, no gatekeeper said you’re good enough.
Because if you were good enough, some important person would have noticed you and reached out to you.
That’s bullshit.
You don’t see it now because you’re at the beginning of your journey, but self-publishing is a brave self-affirming act.
Self-publishing is an act which says, “I have something to share, and I believe in its importance.”
Self-publishing means seeing what the gatekeepers have failed to see in you—your passion, your potential, your skills, your insights, your stellar work ethic.
Self-publishing is a fuck you to the gatekeepers who never noticed you even when you were knocking on their doors. Who dismissed you because your trajectory was not straight enough, because you were too different, because you were born in the wrong country.
Self-publishing is a fuck you to the editorial process where you, the lowly writer, are constantly pitching story ideas on the off chance that some very important and very busy editor will say yes to you.
Self-publishing means putting your energy towards sharing your work instead of feeling angry because the gatekeepers wouldn’t see you.
Self-publishing means having full creative control over the work you’ve always wanted to do. That’s a rare form of freedom.
Self-publishing means investing in yourself and in your own platform, rather than in the platform of another publisher, a publisher that employs editors who are way too busy and biased to acknowledge you.
Self-publishing means owning your words, literally and legally.
Self-promotion is not gauche
Self-promotion goes against everything you’ve been taught.
You were raised in a culture which values modesty and views self-promotion as boasting.
It’s a culture which teaches you to do the work and keep your head down, to expect that your great work alone should be enough for people to notice you. Скромността краси човека.
It’s a culture which teaches you that it’s not up to you to say your work is good. It’s up to others to say it.
If you stand up and announce, “I think my work is good,” that’s considered boasting.
This bullshit was drilled into your head at home and at school.
On top of that, you have these feelings of unworthiness, dating all the way back to your early childhood, which you still haven’t fully resolved.
And on top of that, you’ve been poor most of your life. Poverty doesn’t make you confident.
It makes you shrink, hide and doubt yourself. It makes you wallow in self-pity.
So, although you understand that you have to promote your work on social media, self-promotion feels wrong to you.
Not because of the work you have to promote.
You know that work is great. You know it’s well-written.
You know it deals with important issues that are often neglected in media and popular culture.
You know how much energy, time and passion have gone into it.
It’s your own byline that makes you sheepish about sharing your work. It’s the idea of saying, “Look at me, I did this, and I think it’s good.”
If these were the same stories but with someone else’s byline, you wouldn’t hesitate to talk about how great they are.
You often rave about other people’s writing, and you don’t feel self-conscious about that.
Which is why you think you need to be apologetic about promoting your own work.
You’re afraid of taking up space in people’s news feeds.
You’re afraid that you might be annoying them.
You’re afraid that they will laugh at you. Ще ти се смеят.
This is misguided. You have every right to share your work, to take up space in people’s feeds.
If someone doesn’t like it, that’s their problem, not yours. They can unfollow or unfriend you.
Understand that there are people out there, whether you know them or not, who are seeking your work.
Those people would love to read your work because they will see a version of their own experiences reflected in your writing.
You know how you’re always hungry to read about immigration, but you rarely find things on that topic which are deep enough?
Well, you’re not the only one. There are others like you, seeking those kinds of stories.
These people are much less likely to find your work if you don’t promote it. You’re helping them find you.
Share your stories, and share them with pride. And then re-share them.
But don’t get emotionally invested in how much engagement they get.
Having few social media followers doesn’t mean your work sucks
Right now, you expect to have a thousand followers, or at least a few hundred, within a few months.
That’s not realistic. It might happen to some creators, but organic growth of social media followers is very slow. Like, very slow.
You won’t have those numbers.
I won’t tell you that having a large number of followers doesn’t matter. Because that’s not true.
If it were, certain creators and businesses wouldn’t be buying social media followers and engagement.
Companies wouldn’t be paying professionals to run and grow their social media channels.
You will hear certain artists and entrepreneurs dismiss the number of followers as vanity metrics.
That’s hypocritical because many of these same people will continue to be very active with their social media presence, relentless with their posts and calls to action.
Because the reality is that social media is a huge part of a modern creator’s life. It’s critical in helping you reach an audience.
And you do get judged by the size of your following, by the reach you have on social media.
This has become one of the new forms of currency.
Social media views and shares have a real monetary value to a creator.
If you give cash to Twitter and Facebook, suddenly your posts will reach more people. Suddenly, you won’t be talking into the void.
However! Having a small number of social media followers doesn’t mean your work is shit.
If you start seeing your number of followers as a reflection of the quality of your work, you’re finished. You’ve given up all your power.
Ignore those who ignore you
You hope that all your friends in real life will support your Foreignish work.
That they will accept your invite to like your Foreignish page on Facebook.
That when you share Foreignish stories on Facebook, they will comment on them, share them or at least like them.
Certain friends won’t do any of that.
It will hurt because these are people you consider to be good friends, and it’s natural to expect support from good friends.
You won’t know their reasons for not offering support.
You will think, maybe they don’t see all of my Facebook posts because they don’t go through their news feeds.
Maybe they’ve unfollowed me because I used to post these angry thoughts about immigration and gender inequity, and all they wanted to do was post lies about how their lives are nothing but amazing.
Maybe they don’t check their notifications, so they haven’t seen the invite to like my page.
Maybe they’ve seen the invite but ignored it because of social media fatigue.
Maybe they’ve seen my stories, but they’re acting like they haven’t because they don’t like my writing or because they’re jealous.
Maybe they don’t understand the importance of likes and shares because they’ve never had to promote a platform they own. Maybe they don’t think like a creator or entrepreneur.
Maybe it’s my bad karma. Maybe there was a time when they needed my support with a project that was important to them, but I didn’t offer it.
Maybe it’s because I haven’t liked the pictures of their faux-perfect lives as much as I should have.
You will feel like demoting these friends.
You will officially sever ties with one of them—a close friend in Toronto.
A friend, a fellow immigrant, who has heard you talk about how much Foreignish means to you. Who knows how difficult your pre-Foreignish journey was.
A supposedly close friend who won’t even like your Foreignish Facebook page. Even though you’ve helped this friend many times with hours of unpaid writing, and you’ve been there for her when it wasn’t convenient for you.
And yet, she won’t like your page despite the fact that she will spend quite a bit of time on Facebook, and she will see you post about Foreignish.
You will break up with her because how somebody shows up for you in good times is just as important as how they show up for you in bad times.
If a friend can’t be happy for you when you’re doing the creative work you’ve always wanted to do, when they’re stingy with their support for no apparent reason, when they won’t even do something for you that takes one second (one second, for fuck’s sake!), well…
Anyway, you won’t know people’s reasons for not supporting your work.
It will probably be nothing personal. It will probably be more about them than you.
They will probably be too overwhelmed with their own stuff.
Don’t think about the people who will ignore you. That’s a royal waste of energy.
You will also see people—friends, acquaintances, strangers—who will support your work.
People who will write messages to you about how your stories have touched them.
People who will tell you that your writing is beautiful, that it has captured aspects of the immigrant experience which don’t receive much coverage, that you should keep writing.
People who will talk about your stories when they meet you.
People who will ask to collaborate with you because they like your Foreignish work.
People who will share your work on social media, who will like and comment on it. People who will understand the value of social media support.
People who will tell you that they’ve read everything on Foreignish, sometimes even twice, sometimes five times, and they can’t wait for your next piece.
People who will tell you they want to see your Foreignish stories in a book.
People who will subscribe to your newsletters. People who will read your newsletters and even respond to them.
Those are your real supporters.
Be grateful for them. Focus on them. Not on the people who ignore you. ♦
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