Your Audience Is More Valuable Than Your Material

Years of stewing in the culture fostered by writers’ workshops, film classes, and art schools have conditioned creatives to prize their artistic output as their most valuable asset.

But whether it’s the novel, the movie, or the album, received artistic wisdom has it that putting in years working on the material will open the gates to a career.

And that assumption made sense when the people guarding those gates also controlled access to the public. But it makes less sense now that creators can reach global audiences directly.

In fact, the creator economy is now exposing a reversal that many artists still haven’t grasped: Your audience may be worth more than the works you created to attract them.

Throughout the twentieth century, artists brought artworks to cultural institutions that cultivated audiences. Your book, film, or song had value because one of those institutions could put it in front of millions of customers.

The old status quo taught creators to think of each project as the prize. But digital distribution broke the old arrangement. Creators know they can reach people without institutional permission. What they’ve largely missed is that the democratization of distribution has changed where the real value is now concetrated.

Your novel can go out of print. The audience that always shows up for the next one can keep producing value for decades.

Hence the increasing emphasis on direct audience relationships.

Epidemic Sound’s 2026 creator survey found that 72 percent of creators are developing audiences they can reach directly. More creatives in the survey prioritized smaller, more loyal audiences over reaching the largest customer base possible.

They’ve learned a lesson that old media hid on purpose: A customer who buys one book adds value; a reader who wants your next ten books lays the foundation of your career.

But due to years of propaganda, artists still organize their careers around the first, more transactive relationship. They devote years to writing a book and spend months launching it, only to watch sales dwindle. And they jump to the conclusion that the product lacks worth.

So, they try to engineer a hit, triangulating for mass appeal; seldom stopping to think about the people who did like the previous project.

That lack of foresight explains how a lot of creators end up in a rut. They don’t set up means of reaching their original customers again, forcing them to start from scratch with every release. Those are the guys you see constantly playing the algorithm or begging gatekeepers for attention.

So, what’s the alternative?

Read the full post on Substack.