Dear Writers: The Secret to Building a Following Is Hidden in Imperfection

Here’s why it’s OK if your writing isn’t perfect.

Jack Martin
The Startup

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Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

When it comes to writing, the most daunting thing starting out for me was coming to grips with the fact that people might actually read what I publish.

Yes—the fact that whatever text my brain excreted through my fingers and onto the screen in front of me was going to be read by another human was scary to me.

Frankly, it’s scary to a lot of people.

But writing was always a strength of mine.

Actually, writing was probably the only real strength I had in academia and luckily, I realized I could maybe—just maybe—forge a career path around it. I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d do, but recognizing that strength, I figured that if people my age could build a brand with pictures on Instagram, I could build my own brand through words on the internet—kind of like them.

Long story short, I got tired of being afraid to publish and started pushing out pieces on a regular basis.

I published my first ‘article’ when I was 20.

I think it was about bad wifi on a plane ride or something—not even sure if there was a real point…

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Jack Martin
The Startup

Writer, marketer, and semi-famous on TikTok || contact: dolanmjack@gmail.com || Published in @FastCompany, @AppleNews, @BusinessInsider