First Impressions

3. Introduce yourself and state your promise--and no, this isn't the paid-only post I thought it would be.

Last time, I ended by telling paid subscribers that the next post would be for them only, and I was wrong. That’s coming, but although I’m getting into some important factors, this is still general knowledge information that I don’t need to secure behind a paywall.

EDIT: I’ve now written article 4 in this series, and it is the paid-only revelation of the core principle of the theory that I promised last time.

I’m going to ask for your patience. After going through the experience of explaining this one-on-one to a few writers, I’ve learned this concept is difficult to grasp for various reasons. Some ground needs to be covered.

For today, that focus will be our introductory material on Substack, and there are so many opportunities for that introduction, it can be exhausting and tempting to overlook. Even when we make the effort, it’s easy to end up with something meaningless.

On a basic level, this is something you need to understand to implement my system, but I’m not giving you the one right answer. This is my understanding on this point at this moment, and some of you need to hear it.

First, let me be blunt. You’re not selling your Substack to your grandmother.

For some, the only description of your writing is the word “my”. This is my writing. This is my Substack. I use the word, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with it, but if all you’re giving us is that this is something you made, that’s a great sales pitch for your grandmother and no one else.

You need two things when you introduce yourself: what you promise and how who you are relates to that promise.

My theory will help specify that promise in your mind so you convey it to your potential readers, but the application of the theory is really outside of the scope of the author website. It will help you focus on the perfect reader for the the majority of your writing… or maybe for subsets of your writing, in which case you’ll make multiple accounts—like me.

Your author website, if you still need one, is broader than that. It should be where people can easily find anything you’ve written after they’ve discovered you and want more. This also highlights that while it may be annoying to think that you need more than one account, it’s vital if you’re going to still maintain an author’s website. By trying to do too much with the publication, we often end up failing at the basics.

I say “if you still need one” because that will depend on where you are as a writer. If you don’t have books to direct people to, then maybe the author website isn’t a priority right now. What you need—what every writer needs—is a tool to bring the right readers to your fiction, and we know that’s why you’re reading this right now.

If you’re going to have that author website, tell the version of your story that is relevant to the promise you’re making as an author. Earlier I talked about the contract of awesomeness. Tell me what you write in such a way that hints at that contract. If you use the word “literary” you’re making a promise that pertains to form. If you use the word “fantasy”, you’re making a promise that pertains to storytelling.

(I use to say “content” not “storytelling” but that’s become such an ugly word.)

I also said you’re telling a “version of your story.” Live long enough or hard enough, and you will have lived many lives. When I’m done retooling all four of my Substack publications, they’ll each tell a different story about me. Here, I’ll focus on my being a school teacher, a fiction critique forum founder, and a president of a local Literary Council. These are aspects of my story that reflect on the promise that I’m talking to writers from a place of knowledge. For the new version of Our Deeper Stories, I’ll focus on my story as an exvangelical and a former pastor and elder. That will speak to the promise I’m making there, but we’ll get more into that in another article.

What’s your promise and how does your story relate to that promise?

Whether or not you choose to implement my theory / system, you’ll need a philosophy for how you approach your introductions. This is mine. You’re welcome to use it.

Until next time,

I’m Thaddeus Thomas.