May & June 2025
- Tina Gallico
- May 30
- 5 min read
Latest progress
⌲ Off to the markets
It’s been a couple months of putting Edaith out into the world, or I should say myself, as for all intent and purposes at the moment I am Edaith. I’ve switched into full marketing mode and to make it work I’ve needed to push aside my introvert comfort zone.
The first market pop-up was at Paddington. Ironic but it’s also the suburb I was born and always loved but haven’t been able to live as it’s too expensive. It was the first time I was selling the books in-person and as luck would have it, it was a beautiful day. I didn’t take the table I’d purchased because it was cheaper to hire a smaller table at the market –if only I’d known it would be a great day with many customers!
It was incredible to meet the range of people that stopped by who appreciated the work I’m doing and chose to purchase a copy of Problem Solver. After over a year working on Edaith there have been moments I wondered if the friends, family and colleagues that had encouraged me and said the work was great, whether they were just being kind. After reading a book called “The Mom Test” I knew that if strangers, people who didn’t care about my feelings, if they were willing to purchase the product that’s the best indication of its potential.
The first pop-up gave validation in-person. This really can be what I’m imagining.
Onwards with the bigger challenge: how to reach more people that can be helped by Edaith, at scale. But first I need to do things that don't scale to build the best foundation for Edaith into the future.
The next market at Glebe wasn’t so great. At Paddington I’d been placed at the main thoroughfare where everyone entering the market walked by. The spot I was allocated at Glebe was far less helpful. It was an edge position behind other market stalls. There were no other stalls in the area, so people not only couldn’t see the stand, but would have to walk off the main pathways up some steps to visit the pop up. That’s if they even saw it.
When setting up I realised the situation and asked an organiser if I could move. He said, ‘it’s not the worst spot’, and that the only other place would be amongst second hand clothes piles. So, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and persevered through a much quieter day than the Paddington pop up.
Amongst people that did get their copy of the Problem Solver was a newsletter reader that came to the market specifically to find Edaith. Makes the toil worthwhile.
⌲ Making social media videos (as a social recluse)
In April, I banned myself from researching and writing anything unless it was for building the new Edaith social media channels. Being the person I am, I thoroughly researched how to best do that. These days it has to be video.
But I wasn’t ready. I could barely stomach posting a photo of myself when the Problem Solver was released. So instead, I started with image posts on Instagram and LinkedIn and put out what I could. I made 3-5 posts per week, whilst also getting the market pop ups up and running. In the background I’ve been building my ability to be on camera. It’s been a time consuming and difficult process.
Filming involves choosing the topic (in my case, from research I’ve already done for the Edaith blogs or books), writing a script, making the video and editing the video. To even get in front of the camera in the first place was two days of false starts. But I got through by reminding myself this is a test and the only way it could be easier is by doing it.
Successful social accounts all started with terrible videos that no body watched (Mr. Beast has some good advice about making a minimum of 100 videos, improving each one). It helped a lot to look at accounts with millions of followers, but back to their first posts. They’re never great. They’re sometimes unaccomplished in anything else when they started. But what they did was start and then work on it for years. More than I can say for myself.
After a few weeks of posting shorts, I realised some things I wasn’t expecting. Mostly, making a video of myself speaking about a topic is something I can do. And for my first videos, which will be the worst ones I ever make, they weren’t utterly awful. I even got some followers and likes, so maybe this is even something I could figure out how to do well.
You wouldn’t have seen or known about any of this because I posted the videos as shorts on TikTok and Google on my personal accounts. They are public, I’m not hiding anything and want to get used to these things existing out in the world, but I didn’t share any videos to the Edaith channels until the 6th or 7th I’d made and I could handle the thought of people I know seeing them.
The best outcome is that it moved me along the path of understanding how to craft outreach for Edaith. I’m going to try and do the long haul of social media profile building, but the content I’ve made so far based on the news insights and book snippets isn’t contributing to the body of work that I imagine can propel Edaith above the noise and contribute more directly to building further resources.
Venturing into video has also been a bigger time and attention sink once the content is posted than I thought I would be susceptible to. I do not have the willpower yet to not check the number of watches constantly. After my 8th video I found myself too often lingering on TikTok and YouTube each day to ‘better understand’ what other people were making and never felt good afterwards. I don’t know if it’s possible to play this game without comparing yourself to others and getting addicted to the feeling of being ‘liked’.
So, I deleted all of the social apps my phone (again). I lasted about a month after countless years without them. I only have so much cognitive capacity and precious work time each day and I want to spend it on the right things. So instead of spare moments being filled with content from the algorithms, I’m focused on piecing together the long-term format for Edaith’s social presence. I’m posting to LinkedIn and Instagram on desktop and conceptualising the next iteration of Edaith’s outreach content. I want it to be truly helpful and reflective of what Edaith is about, but it needs to be engaging amidst the sea of attention seeking entertainment, which is what actually gets people to the platforms.
T
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