The key things I’m going over today are in regard to networking. And the two factors important in networking are the following:
· Knowing Your Worth
· And the Arm’s Length Rule
And these both go hand in hand, and they’re apart of the same greater understanding.
In a general sense, the arm’s length rule means: never reach above or below more than an “arm’s length” or more technically, one standard deviation from your worth. In short…only reach out to people you can realistically benefit. Make sure you have something to offer, and don’t ask for their help. And vice versa, only accept a partnership with someone who can benefit you.
The people within this Ven diagram of who can bring value to your brand and who you can also bring value to their brand…I call within “arm’s reach.”
This means, as an early career creator, unless you have exceptional talent and style…you probably can’t realistically benefit famous creators or mainstream publishers. And on the flip side, unknown creators who’ve never been published and have no portfolio of work…probably are of no benefit to you.
“Knowing your worth” means: Your realistic skill and popularity level in your creative field. What you need to figure out, is how valuable is your writing skills or your artistic skills.
Do you have a unique style?
Have you written or illustrated something highly popular, gone viral in some way?
Do you have a large following?
Have you won awards?
Do you own the rights to popular IP?
Do you generally have the funds to personally fund big projects?
These are the kinds of things that bring value to yourself as a creator. Place yourself realistically in the industry, and grade yourself by level of skill and popularity. It’s very easily observable, with metrics like:
· Years in the industry
· Number of books released with publishers
· Number of books with top-level/mainstream publishers
· Audience base (follower/subscriber count) – either on social media or YouTube
Now what happens is normal in math, but naturally, the largest portion of us are within the same broad category, with less than 10 years in the industry, maybe a handful of books, mostly either self-published or with small-press publishers. Thus, most of the people we talk to are what I call “arm’s reach”. Meaning, they’re on the same stair level, on the same staircase. We might not be on the same stair, but we can touch each other from the steps we’re on.
So, whenever you’re networking, the key factor is that you must find your value, and find a way to offer that value to others. Now naturally your skill level and value isn’t enough to help people that are way above you. And it’s also too much to help people who are way below.
If you want to partner with another creator, reach up as high as you can, but not too far. When you contact others, and only want to use them or if you ask them to help you… you drag them down. If you reach out with something to offer, and your skillsets or connections aren’t valuable to them, but they are genuine, you’ll come across as legitimate, and this can start a relationship even if not a collaboration.
It may not feel natural, or even feel backwards at first, but it’s important to keep your relationships transactional. What I mean is – talk about money and talk about ownership early on, even if you don’t expect to go through with a full-blown collaboration.
If you don’t do this, you will make things harder and aggravating for your partners down the line, even if you don’t mean to. Somebody could do a lot and expect ownership on top of their page rate. Eventually, what starts as a favor or what seems to be a friendship, turns into a nightmare.
What happens, and many of you have probably already experienced is…when there’s no clarity about money or ownership…and fame and fortune start to seem closer to reality…friendships and handshake partnerships get ugly. People start saying you stole their ideas, people try to cut you out of a project, creators get blackballed, cancelled online, and so on. And when a lot of money is involved, or even just the possibility of a major deal…suddenly everyone is an expert in law.
Or another reality is…dreams start big, with expectations of grandeur and income in the future. And when that doesn’t happen, everyone still expects to get paid somehow. Or they accuse the other parties of withholding funds. So, make it clear from the get-go what the realistic expectations are.
So this goes both ways in reference to networking. If an unknown writer or artists reaches out to you, wanting you to partner with them, or collaborate with them, or even simply introduce them to somebody else…set a price. Even it it’s not money, make it transactional. I’ll do these pages now for free, but I’ll need you to help me with something else. Back my campaign, I’ll back yours. Make a trade. But never perform any favors. Don’t do anything for free.
Anyone who plays the game of entertainment professionally knows that this is the natural way to go. It’s only those who expect others to do the work for them that will ask for favors. This tends to be how it goes. The most entitled do the least amount of work, see themselves as the main character, and are the most accusatory and loud with others when things go south.
Thanks everyone.
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