Stop following the audience. Get them to follow you.

My origin story

I sat down in August 2015, after six years of making theater with friends in basements and off-off-Broadway venues… to try to figure out how many people had seen my plays. It felt like a simple question, actually. And because theater is based on having butts in seats, ie, ticket sales, it was pretty easy to answer. I tallied everything up. A little bit under three thousand.

It was around this same time that I’d started to become not at all famous, but moderately decent at writing silly tweets. Here’s one that got 38,000 impressions in the first few hours.

It’s not even a particularly viral tweet. It just happened to be something I dashed off a few days after I sat down to do this exercise. Something that took essentially zero effort reached a much wider audience than something I’d been doing “professionally” for six years.

I say “professionally” because, can one be a professional off-off-Broadway theater maker? After my time doing it, and the many other jobs I had simultaneously, and the number of friends who eventually burned themselves out only to leave the theater entirely, I can see many similarities between that and the world of independent film. It can all feel a bit more like a lottery than a career.

Now, obviously a tweet is not a play, but still… There was something about the return on investment here that wasn’t adding up.

I’m Colby Day, I write the newsletter Hollyweird, and it really is an honor to get to write to you all here thanks to Ted. I’m a professional (actually, this time) screenwriter, and have been working out here in Hollywood since just a few months after this audience exercise of mine. I moved to LA to follow the audience.

I made the leap, and… lucked out. My first month in LA I signed with a manager, an agent, and set up a script of mine with a studio. My third month in LA I was featured on the Black List, with my original screenplay In the Blink of an Eye.

I say this all because Ted has asked that I write an introduction, but also to say… I moved to meet the audience where they were and… it worked. They weren’t seeing plays, they were watching film and TV.

My first year in LA was a dream come true.

Big risk came with big reward.

Since I moved out here, I have worked in both film and TV, and all of it for streaming. When we talk about meeting the audience where they are, they are at home, watching things on a smudgy laptop. I wrote the screenplay for Spaceman which became a 2024 Netflix film, worked on Apple TV’s For All Mankind, and that original screenplay for In the Blink of an Eye was ultimately directed by Andrew Stanton and released on Disney+ and Hulu earlier this year.

Millions of people have now seen my work. I think?

Because what was once a simple question to answer is actually now extremely complicated. Netflix says Spaceman was number one but it is unclear what that means. Hulu says In the Blink of an Eye was number two, which is even less clear? For All Mankind frequently hits number one on Apple TV’s Top 10, but almost all Apple shows chart while they’re being released?

None of these companies release very good data, and this is why I am such an avid reader of Entertainment Strategy Guy, which is a very good read if you’re looking for breakdowns of the business of streaming, AND, more importantly, a very good breakdown of the actual viewership of streaming services!

If you have launched a film straight to streaming, and I’m sure many of you readers have, then you already know, it feels a bit like hurling your movie into the digital ether. Did people watch it? Did they like it? Did they not like it? Were they engaged? Or were they second-screen viewing? Unless your show really pierces through in a kind of Stranger Things or Tiger King kind of way (note those are both from a pretty long time ago, actually), you can’t really know what (if any) impact it has had.

None of this is to complain. I’ve gotten movies made! Huge childhood dream accomplished! [I’ve also had many more not made, welcome to Hollywood!]

But the many many people who supposedly saw these things I worked on? These massive audiences? Very little of that audience has come to find me.

Which makes sense. Why would you, a normal person, watch something you kind of like on Netflix, click as fast as you can on the “no I want to see the credits please don’t start showing me some random other movie,” see that it was written by some guy named Colby, then go find him, learn more about him, AND try to figure out how to see what he does next? It’s actually lunacy to expect it.

And yet… I do think I expected it. At least a little bit.

Okay, Colby, is this all just a long, confessional, personal piece about your own existential crises as a filmmaker? No! I promise! But if you are into that sort of thing, that’s kind of what my newsletter is (please consider subscribing). Actually this has all been leading to how this SECOND audience-based existential crisis ultimately pointed me towards not just chasing the audience, but actually doing something about it.

And it’s something I think we all can and should be doing as people who love and want to keep making independent film, or its newer, cooler, relative, nonDē film.

Bringing the audience to you.

If there’s one thing that theater made me at least decent at, it’s bringing an audience somewhere. I have written and produced plays that were performed in basements. Big empty warehouses. Temporarily vacant storefronts. You name it.

So once I began to internalize this lesson that many wiser, more savvy indie film professionals learned before me, that “the cavalry is not coming!” as we all keep repeating to each other, it became increasingly clear to me that I needed to figure out how to not only find the audience, but bring them to me.

How? Well, I like this piece from Ellis J Sutton about it. An audience isn’t created, it’s discovered. They’re out there. You just need to find them. Then, like the black hole of my tweet, it is up to you to create a gravitational force so strong that they cannot help but be sucked into your orbit. And then I guess crushed? The metaphor doesn’t fully track, but hang with me!

How to do it.

First let me preface by saying, as much as I am trying to bring the audience to me, I’m also doing this while being a working screenwriter with a more-than-full-time workload of film & television writing to do. And, until recently, I was also the kind of person who would bristle at the idea of Kubrick (or someone like him) being asked to make reels for instagram. But Kubrick is dead. And I am alive. And I do believe if you are a living artist today, you should learn how to use Internet Phone (all things are Internet Phone now, after all) to your advantage.

That being said, my philosophy remains career first, “content” about career second. So with that in mind, here’s what 5-10 hours a week for the past year has taught me.

Rent to buy.

Digital creators already know this, but building an audience on any social media platform is a risky proposition. The platforms don’t show your content to your entire audience. A small fraction of my followers see any given thing I post. And because content is shared by algorithm, there’s no way of predicting who will see what. Which means that in practice I don’t own those followers. As a result, I have focused on using social media as a means to an end. Everything I do is geared towards gaining not just a follower on social media, but ultimately, a subscriber to my newsletter.

Mechanically, I do this by sending automated messages to new followers. Any time someone new follows me, they get a DM telling them I also have a newsletter and asking them to subscribe. About 12% of people who get the message then subscribe. Sounds small, but that ratio is not bad, considering the newsletter audience is one that I can contact every week, and one that opens their emails at a rate of around 50%, which is much better than almost anything performs on social media.

I also, of course, post about the newsletter often. Constantly, basically. Because that is where I want people, most of all.

Give, but then also ask.

Any time I make a video about the craft of filmmaking (whether specifically writing oriented, or more broadly for filmmakers), it’s saved by viewers at about twice the rate of anything else I talk about. Practical, tactical, “how tos” tend to perform much better than when I talk about nebulous, harder to quantify stuff — artistic philosophy, my thoughts on the industry, or opinions on specific films or TV. I’m sure these trends won’t hold true for everyone, but the stuff that works the best (for me) is the stuff in which I am giving the viewer something. And ideally something fairly concrete that they can implement.

Makes sense. It feels truer to who I am. I’m really not a pontificator so much as a problem solver. So I try to think of my job in making all of these videos (and the newsletter) as an attempt at doing a public service. “Here are the things I have learned from my time in this career so that you can hopefully avoid making the same dumb mistakes I made along the way.”

But! Giving alone is not enough. I have also been reminded that the most critical part of getting the audience to come along with you is simply… to ask.

There’s a reason every successful podcast ends with the hosts reminding people to “rate, review, and subscribe.” You need to ask.

Likes and views are a vanity metric. Watch saves and follows.

The first numbers that these platforms want to show you are the biggest ones. How many people watched. How many people liked. There’s a dopamine hit to seeing those little hearts, but ultimately, this is not about being liked. It is about capturing (and retaining) an audience. And the primary indicators for whether that’s working, in my experience, have been saves (this content is worth me returning to at some point), shares (this content is worth me sending to someone else), and of course, follows (this content makes me want more like it).

These are the data points I try to pay the most attention to as I think about what I make, what works, and what doesn’t work.

Social media is a test screening that never ends.

Try to have fun doing it.

The most successful things I’ve made on social media have almost always been the stupid little throwaways. Despite all of my advice on tracking metrics, it is more important that you do not take any of this too seriously, and let your own dumb interests guide you. This stupid video with very bad audio quality was much more popular than a lot of very useful, very practical, well produced content I have made.

Treat it like a part time job.

It is. And that kind of sucks. I get where the “real artists shouldn’t be wasting their time doing this” people are coming from.

That 5-10 hours a week has a real cost. It costs me focused time to make more movies. The thing I am ostensibly here to do. But… making a movie is only half the battle. People need to know about the movie in order to see the movie. And in our fractured media landscape, more and more, that is up to you, the artist.

Like it or not, it is true.

So why do all this?

If you aren’t convinced that all this is worthwhile, fair. Kevin Kelly’s article about the value of “1000 true fans” is what ultimately convinced me I was wrong about online audience building, and needed to get with the times. Of course, he wrote it some 17 years before I read it, so… my realization wasn’t exactly cutting edge, but still! As someone who’d like a sustainable(ish) career, his argument that having the ability to directly communicate with a large group of people who LIKE WHAT YOU DO and being able to tell them HERE’S A NEW THING I JUST DID really made a lot of sense to me.

But don’t just take my word for it.

Lots of people, including Ted(!), are beating the drum of needing to do all of the audience building yourself. And many of them are already A LOT better at doing it than I am. So I wanted to put together a list of just some of the people I turn to for inspiration.

People who are bringing the audience to them that you should follow.

PENNY LANE

Penny is exactly the kind of filmmaker making complex, thoughtful, and fun work that I really admire! So I felt particularly excited to see her putting (seemingly) a lot of time and energy into capturing a larger audience on instagram and via her newsletter, especially leading up to the release of her latest film Wild Inside. Folks in documentary and indie film have already known, for quite some time, just how crucial audience building is to the filmmaking process, particularly when you don’t have the support and infrastructure of a massive entertainment conglomerate. Which, it seems like almost none of us have anymore. So we could all take a lesson or two from what Penny is up to. Highly recommend her stuff, both the films and the “content!”

JON STAHL

Jon is doing a bang up job here on Substack writing about TV, new business models for serialized storytelling, and the intersection of old media and social media. He’s also very funny! And best of all, he is putting his money where his mouth is by creating a lot of new content — including vertical series — to test out and iterate his theories about the current landscape. His latest, Near Death, seems like a hit! Cool to see cool people doing cool stuff! And, very cool to see someone identify the trends, take action, and create something that he owns outright, rather than waiting for anyone’s permission to do anything.

NIC CURCIO

Nic’s the reason I downloaded TikTok in the first place. A very smart film commenter, a horror buff, and a screenwriter turned director who just sold his feature directorial debut to Focus Features (pretty cool!). Nic is a great follow and a great example of someone doing the actual work (making movies) while also having plenty to say online, and somehow balancing both. He and Kristen (below) also have a great podcast, The Hollywood Hang, where they talk a lot about what the current film and media landscape looks like, and how we’re all trying to navigate it. Thank you Nic for convincing me I might have something interesting to say on social media.

KRISTEN TEPPER

Kristen is the other person who convinced me to log onto TikTok. She’s already done a Ted Hope Takeover, talked with Richard Rushfield about new media, and is in general a very savvy writer (and Substacker) who I really believe knows what’s up. I also always refer other writers to her newsletter, because it is very very much of service to them — constantly providing new job listings, launching communal script reads and pitch practices, and even organizing writers’ groups for her subscribers, which in my experience is a little bit like herding cats.

COURTNEY ROMANO

There’s so much to say about nonDē film (“non-dependent,” as differentiated from “independent”) and I love love love how dedicated Courtney has been (via her newsletter Let’s Go Again) in championing the cause. I also just find her writing about writing, and her writing (and speaking) about branding and marketing for artists to be particularly insightful and inspiring as someone who constantly feels a little bit like “is this icky or is this good that I’m doing this?”

TAYLOR LEWIS

If you are looking for great writing about nonDē film, Taylor has you covered. I particularly think this piece serves as a nice manifesto and starting guide. Taylor’s also been a great advocate and organizer within the film community over on Substack, and we all love a good activist/organizer/thinker/hub!

NONFICTION HOTLIST

The folks running the Hotlist have done an incredible job of branding themselves and promoting their mission to champion excellent (independent) nonfiction film. I’ve been so impressed by their omnipresence in the field, their connection and community building, and their general capacity to try to help make things happen for the films they’ve championed. If you are looking for how to start a new organization and promote it (by promoting others), they could serve as a great example for you.

JENNIFER ESPOSITO

I have loved how ferociously Jennifer has worked to promote her film Fresh Kills on instagram. I love the candor and tenacity with which she has been promoting this independent film, because I know exactly what an uphill battle that kind of promotion is, and I think Jennifer’s work is a prime example of making great work and then not forgetting that it takes a tremendous amount of work to then get people to actually see that great work.

WILL BRYAN

I met Will over zoom at the very end of last year, and think he is such an incredible (and passionate) dissector of what makes a movie moment compelling. Heck, it’s compelling watching him watch something, and it’s been such a delight to get to see his online presence grow so quickly into something that has him now talking with James McAvoy about his latest movie?! Pretty cool! Will’s very smart about film and filmic moments, and I can’t wait to see his upcoming movie Historical Film (which he co-directed with Katharine Stein).

EVOKE MEDIA

If you’re looking for an example of how to do socials as a producer/funder/company, I think the folks at Evoke are doing a great job. I’ve had the pleasure of working with them the past couple years as supporters of the documentary Father Figures I’m producing, and their instagram is great. Constantly promoting the projects they’re supporting, creating social media assets promoting the teams and filmmakers (unprompted!), and generating a lot of material championing their mission and their movies. A great follow (and great collaborators!)!

Doing the work.

In 2015 I could count my audience at just shy of three thousand. In 2025, after a decade of work that might have reached millions(? so they say anyway), I couldn’t count it at all.

But after just one year of trying to hoover it up like that black hole I tweeted about so many years ago, I can now quantify EXACTLY how many people see each and every thing I make. And thanks to my weekly work in the “content mines,” I can watch that number go up and up. Slowly, but surely. And now almost exactly the same number of people that had seen my entire theater oeuvre get an email from me every week. I know how many of them open it. How many of them click the links. I know which videos I make resonate with people enough that they’d save them or share them with a friend. The numbers are way lower than the numbers of people watching on the streaming charts, but, I truly believe these lower numbers are more valuable to me.

It’s funny that I spent so long chasing the audience only to be reminded that what I really should have been doing this last decade is exactly what I was doing back when I was making theater.

Bringing the audience to me.

So here are my two asks for you.

1. You should do this audience exercise. Do you know how many people are watching your work? Do you know how many people you can reach if you need to, without the help of a distributor or studio or marketing department? Is it close to zero? If so, you’re not alone, and it’s not too late. You can do something about it. And hopefully this is one of those “here’s a mistake I made in my now decade and a half long career in theater and film that I hope I can help you avoid.”

2. If any of this was useful, come find me at Hollyweird. Every Friday I write about the practical, unglamorous mechanics of screenwriting and filmmaking, including the nitty gritty on getting a first feature made. You’ll be the first to know whether any of this extra work was ultimately worth it. I’ll report back either way. Paid subscribers also get access to our subscriber chat, which means direct Q&As with me, so anytime you’re thinking “uh oh, is this a mistake?” you can ask me whether I’ve made that one before. Odds are, I have! I’m offering a 50% discount to new annual subscriptions for the next 48 hours.

Thank you, Ted, for the room, and the many, many inspiring posts.

Colby Day is a writer, director, and (sometimes) producer whose work has screened at Sundance, SXSW, and Berlinale. Named one of MovieMaker Magazine’s “25 Screenwriters to Watch,” his writing credits include Searchlight’s IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE (dir. Andrew Stanton), Netflix’s SPACEMAN (dir. Johan Renck), and Apple TV’s FOR ALL MANKIND. He is currently at work on his feature directorial debut, THE COMEDY HOUR. You can find him on instagram, TikTok, and Substack.