Why I’m Writing More

The State of Long Form in Web3

It’s way to easier to write something novel and meaningful in crypto than it should be. There are large accounts exploring narrative based trading such as Knower and Ansem but there is so much more to write about than which tickers to buy next quarter. I want to be clear that I love the writing that these authors do. They aren’t doing TA or other chart non-sense. They explore narratives and spin stories. They’re also telling you which tokens to buy and you’re buying them. Makes ya think…

What Writing Leads To

Many of us are seekers. We are looking for more information. We are looking for ways to learn and for actionable insights. When you are a consumer, you must continually seek new information and new information flows.

When you become a creator, you flip this on its head and it leads to a few distinct differences in how you interact with others.

You start to set the agenda — kind of.

I want to be conscious of the hubris associated with this idea but I also want to let you know that you don’t have to buy what everyone else buys. You can be the person telling others what they should be paying attention to. It doesn’t mean it will work — but without trying you are simply self-limiting. Go ship some gibberish. Knower and Ansem are telling you what to buy, are you buying?

You start to have information brought to you.

As I have shared more content, I have reversed my information flow. Instead of seeking information, I ship gibberish and ask questions. Community members bring me and other readers more answers. This information feedback loop creates a flywheel of new concepts to explore and to write about.

Relevant leaders start to pay attention.

Yesterday I went from not knowing what Disco was, to writing 1000 words on it, to Evin (the founder) reaching out to me. I did that in 12 hours. I had loads of help on my short journey which we’ll come back to below.

So what does writing lead to?

It increases your opportunity to access new information and new information flows. Sharing leads to receiving.

What Twitter Misses

Twitter threads are rampant in crypto. They allow individuals to publish longer form content in a short form medium.

Twitter threads, however, drive users to maximize virality potential. Users must choose their words carefully and are incentivized to make each tweet in the thread highly shareable. A Twitter thread is often a connected list of tweets that together share an idea but individually communicate a facet of that idea.

Twitter threads leave little room for artistic impact from the author — they demand simplification and flatten the enjoyment of reading the content.

Record players create a more full listening experience than digital music players.

Twitter threads are ephemeral. They live and die with their virality and their half-life can be extremely short. Longer form written content demonstrates a longer half-life thanks to blog platform SEO and destination URLs that optimize for consumption instead of interaction.

Longer form content allows for fluff — not each piece needs to be it’s own potentially viral stand-alone chunk. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts and strategic (or playful) use of that fluff can delight readers in a way that a format optimized for interaction fails to meet.

Tips and Thanks

How did I grow my audience? How can you grow yours? But most importantly how can I continue to grow mine?

Make a lot of noise. Place content in the right spaces. Backchannel. Be honest.

I’m a very noisy follow on Twitter. I tweet a lot and it’s mostly garbage — but I’m active. I’m looking to do the same in my long form written content. I believe that by increasing my noise production I can identify signal. To frame this within the difference between consuming and creating, consumers must sift through extreme noise to find signal. Attempting to parse that noise is an almost futile effort, but it is possible to read a lot and to identify thinkers that are doing something novel or sharing actionable insights. Okay, now take a step back and ask yourself how strong your conviction is or how novel your ideas are? Writing and creating forces the author to look inward and to identify their own shortfalls or knowledge. By creating noise and trying to say things, I am able to start to understand what I am and am not equipped to speak on.

Content sharing is key to driving more readers to your work. It’s important to share your content with trusted parties who will engage or re-share it. Share your content with those that are aggregating — you think I’m not sending all my stuff to NoSleepJon? Come on anon.

What about back-channeling? If the subject of your post is a protocol, go speak with the developers or marketing team. Let them know you are doing research and writing about their product. They will be excited! You are doing community driven content marketing for them. In cases where I’ve spoken to founders, developers, community members, etc they have been invaluable to helping me craft my understanding and then happy to share the content once published. Talk with your personal and professional networks, do they have ways to access the people that you want to read your content? By speaking with individuals in gmhouse such as LDF I was able to learn more about Disco and able to make my efforts known to the team.

Many of us are spending time in a variety of communities and group chats. Be the megaphone for those spaces. As you and your frens work through concepts, you are being given an incredible amount of material that can be synthesized and prepared for long form. When I’m writing about a protocol or concept, I am talking to interested individuals non-stop. The dialogue feeds the content machine and writing about it forces me to realize where I need more clarity.

Lastly, be honest. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t be afraid to recognize it. If your writing leads to more questions — ask them! Be honest with your readers about your level of understanding and about where you have space to learn.

So Why Am I Writing More?

Practice, practice, practice.

I’m a big believer in getting reps and iterating. I’ll ship with typos. I’ll ship something that barely makes sense. I can fix typos later and some of the stuff that I haven’t liked has been the most well received.

All I can do is try!

Thanks (for reading) and Tips (if you want)

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