I have been operating in the public eye as an author since 2013 when I published my first book, Nubia Rising: The Awakening. I knew then that social media would be the key to expanding my platform and therefore creating opportunities for sales. But little did I know or better yet realize that in chasing "sales", most of my digital footprint would include exposing myself to the general public with the goal of obtaining acceptance and validation.
Neither of which guarantees successful sales goals or any kind of financial freedom.
I have always considered myself to be a private person. I never really felt secure enough to trust anyone with the fullness of all that I am. It is easier for me to throw smoke which gave me the space to either escape or maintain some distance between myself and whoever the individual/individuals are crazy enough to want to know me. However, through the years I have opened up more and demonstrated moments of transparency but in those moments, it opened the doorway to problems I was not prepared to deal with. Problems, which in mind, created opportunities for people to cross boundaries that I never established to begin with. It also promoted the space for "copycats" - those I defined to be as inauthentic individuals who lacked self-awareness or an appreciation for who they are and thus preferred to duplicate the energy of the person they admire or whose life they coveted.
I know that was a lot, right?
I wanted my work to be consumed - not me, not the person behind the work. But I am learning that there is nothing wrong with establishing connections with ones audience. I am learning how to filter what I will allow for consumption and what will only be reserved for those permitted in my personal space that resides outside of the internet. I have learned to keep my personal goals/dreams/visions/plans to myself because the hardest lesson I had to digest was there are those who will take your vision and make it their own.
And it has been painful to witness someone execute the vision that you had for yourself as their own; to manifest what you had hoped to be your reality as their own.
But I have also learned that it is ok to let people in and that there are those who genuinely wish to simply support my endeavors just as much as I wish to support their own. There are those who respect my individuality without wishing to duplicate it. And those are the ones I wish to reach and create/share a community with.
All of this was simply some food for thought :)