4 Tips for Solo Creators
I spent 100 days with the “Harvard of the Proletariat.” Here’s what I learned.
Writing is not only my love language, it’s also how I make sense of the world. And in the summer of 2020, there was a lot to make sense of. On top of a rapidly escalating global pandemic, the murder of George Floyd ignited the boldest civil rights uprising of my generation.
In the thick of those Unprecedented Times™️, I found myself craving community and connection, and grasping for some way to document and process the history that was being made. But I was also searching for a beacon of cautious optimism in the midst of so many devastating headlines. When that search kept coming up short, I created my own: ROCK PAPER RADIO (RPR) was born.
After more than a year of sending out weekly dispatches to RPR’s growing community of misfits and unlikely optimists, I was thrilled to learn I had been accepted into the third cohort of the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program (EJCP) as part of CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. When I realized that Substack had offered to pay my way, I was stunned — I loved my newsletter and my readers with their funny notes and sharp observations about the stories I shared. But now, a graduate school I had long admired, and my newsletter’s host platform seemed to believe in RPR too. I couldn’t wait to get started.
The intensive 100-day program transformed my thinking and shaped an exciting path forward for RPR. Today, in addition to the weekly newsletter, RPR also includes a podcast, Odd One In, which shares stories of outsiders making their own way. Next, I’ll be expanding into K-12 lesson plans offering educators standards-aligned curriculum fueled in real time by current events and the diverse voices featured in the newsletter and podcast.
There’s no way ROCK PAPER RADIO would be where it is today without those 100 days with CUNY’s EJCP and the support and enthusiasm of my brilliant cohort colleagues and our instructors.
Here are four takeaways from the program I’m holding close as I embark on the next stage of my journalism entrepreneurship adventure.
1. Being a solo creator doesn’t have to mean going it alone.
I’ve been a serial independent project-creator for the past two decades, but every single one of my projects was made more complete, more nuanced, and more interesting because of the support of — and collaboration with — others.
After 100 days with EJCP, the value of the proverbial village is more clear to me now than ever. Two pieces of advice especially stood out:
- Form a Board of Advisors to keep you accountable. Put regular meetings on the calendar and include the agenda in the invitation. Make sure your Board is diverse because diverse teams do the best work. Make sure your Board is skilled and curious in different ways than you are — be the smallest fish in the pond you’re building around you.
- Stay in touch with the colleagues and instructors you’ve learned from. Send an email without an ask every now and then. Join the Slack. Post opportunities for others along with updates about your work. Share your colleagues’ projects with your followers because fascinating people make fascinating things. Here are a few incredible projects from some of my Cohort 3 classmates: The Food Section by Hanna Raskin, Scrolls & Leaves by Gayathri Vaidyanatha, Black in Jersey by Tennyson Donyea.
2. Engage! Just don’t show up on the first date with an engagement ring.
For nearly four years as an NPR station’s community engagement producer, I yelled into the wind that if we were going to seek out diverse community voices to include in our reporting and public programs, then we must also provide value for those community members whose voices we were seeking out.
Ariel Zirulnick’s EJCP sessions on building community served as an inspiring call to action and provided a clear outline for what reciprocal community engagement looks like in practice. Zirulnick is the senior editor for community engagement at KPCC/LAist.
Zirulnick offered guidance on how to foster collaboration between newsrooms and community members: be specific, clear, and transparent with your requests and expectations. All excellent reminders, but her notes of caution resonated even more strongly:
- Make sure your organization creates a safe place to engage.
- Ask community participants how they would like to be recognized and credited, and how your organization can support them. Only use names with expressed permission.
- Only invite participation if your organization is prepared to manage and respond to all engagement.
And perhaps most importantly, remember that audience members are not free labor, they are collaborators.
3. Social media isn’t the only way.Feeling burned out by social media? You’re not alone. Lucky for us, Anita Zielina had a few suggestions to develop your work and grow your audience with nary a hashtag or emoji in sight. Zielina is CUNY’s director of strategic initiatives at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.
- Go old school with email. Keep a list of email addresses of people who are stakeholders in your work and send (concise) regular updates on your project. Do not include any requests.
- Go to conferences. Better yet, participate in, engage at, and present at conferences.
- Pitch. Publishing is a great way to get your name and work out into the world, and the pitching process itself is valuable as a potential opportunity to build relationships.
- Organize a webinar. Thanks to Zoom, the public square is more accessible than ever. Bring people together to engage, discuss, and learn from each other around themes that are central to your work.
4. “Invest in your own independence, even if independence isn’t your goal.”
When Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie said this in one of our sessions, my brain breathed a sigh of relief.
We were about halfway through our 100 days of EJCP and my hand was permanently cramped from taking notes (yes, I take notes on paper with a .05 Pilot G-2 black gel pen) and I was overwhelmed and overthinking a lot — Am I supposed to launch a media ecosystem within these three months? Do I have to start talking about “cap tables” and framing my writing in terms of ROI? Do I know what I’m doing whatsoever?
McKenzie’s advice was exactly the reminder I needed to root me back to my first takeaway — I’m not in this alone. While I can’t predict the future for ROCK PAPER RADIO, I do know that I’ll continue to rely on the doers around me who I’m lucky to call colleagues, mentors, and collaborators as I continue to evolve as a storyteller and creator. And in the spirit of my second takeaway — reciprocal engagement! — I want all of those people to be able to rely on me too.
I know that sharpening my skills as a solo creator will not just serve my work, but it will make me a more impactful supporter of other people’s projects that I believe in too. After all, innovation loves (diverse) company — which I see now is true even for the most independent of solo makers among us.
So much gratitude to our fearless EJCP leader, Jeremy Caplan, to CUNY’s Craig Newmark school, and to Substack for their support. These 100 days were an unforgettable and transformative ride. I’m so excited for everything that’s coming next for all of us.
Kristin Leong, M.Ed. is the publisher of ROCK PAPER RADIO, a newsletter for misfits and unlikely optimists. Odd One In is her podcast sharing stories of outsiders making their own way. She was once introduced at an Australian music festival as “America’s hip hop poet.” She does not identify as a hip hop poet. She is on Twitter @kristinleong and on Instagram @leongstagram. Learn more, connect, and subscribe at kristinleong.com and at rockpaperradio.com.
