The Consistency Impasse
"Consistency" in this case betokens a signal from writer to reader. When readers are similarly "consistent" in subscribing and page-viewing, they signal back their approval to the writer. This circuit is among the most familiar pieces of economic reductionism. It is the "grain of truth" underlying more than a few popular aphorisms and platitudes. Ethan Stauss often deploys the metaphor of a "sardine in the vending machine," whereas for Marshall McLuhan, audiences "baffled" by modern art ended up "kick[ing] the cigarette machine...when it won't deliver the peanuts." Perhaps the goods displayed on a long-dormant blog are more like perishable goods that are obviously past their expiration date, or even the starkness of a totally empty machine that is inexplicably still flashing: INSERT BILL HERE.
I know of no reason to dispute theorists of the market (professional or armchair) on this matter of signalling. What is disputable, rather, is for writers and artists to put the same faith in markets as a retail or service operation might. One reason is right here in the admonition to be consistent, which itself contains an admission that there are signals which abstract quality or merit per se cannot overcome.
To be sure, writing on a schedule, for an audience, with something on the line is the only way to get at a certain kind of growth. There will always be at least this intrisic, nonmarket reason to give it a shot. But there is another kind of growth that is only available another way: to present only work which is your best, or which is important, or which is unique, or to not put it forth at all if none of this can be said of it.
I have heard this concept referred to as the "kill-ratio": if a piece of work is unsalvagable, if the time is not ripe for it, if you have been away from it for too long, or if you realize in a lucid moment that it just plain sucks, then you "kill" it, privately, silently, and summarily, and you move on to the next piece of work. If that means your audience doesn't hear from you for a while, then so be it.
Do these two ways of working evince two different types of commitment? Is the first audience-centered and the second self-centered? Is the first more honest and vulnerable while the second is insecure and self-styling? Is the first the way of oily professionals and the second the way of the true artist? I'm not so sure that these old populist tropes apply here.
Really, the second way is no less "audience-centered" than the first, but it does conceive of the audience differently: the first way asks what the audience wants, the second what it needs, as in Christopher Lasch's observation:
"The liberal principle that everyone is the best judge of his own interests makes it impossible to ask what people need, as opposed to what they say they want."
This question of "need" rarely arises in the arts and humanities, perhaps because we are over- rather than underserved nowadays (or perhaps we are simply crushed) by an ever-expanding corpus of art, entertainment, and leisure. But whether alienated or authentic, cultivated or naive, we are still dealing with wants and needs; thus we are still dealing (or more likely not dealing) with the difference between them.
"Liberal principles" aside, no one wants to be told what they need by someone they don't even know, let alone respect.
guiding metaphor we adopt and deploy,
For Jane Jacobs,
Here's Jane Jacobs on "The Logic of Adding New Work to Old" as part of "import replacement" in city economies:
What kind of logic is this? It is analogous, I think, to a form of logic, or intuition if you prefer, that artists use. Artists often comment that although they are masters of the work they are creating, they also are alert to messages that come from the work, and act upon them. Perhaps a similar rapport is necessary in the mundane process of adding new work to old. At any rate, messages—that is, suggestions—afforded by the parent work seem to be vital to the process.
(The Economy of Cities, Ch. 2—How New Work Begins)
G.D. Wiebe (1951):
"Why can't you sell brotherhood and rational thinking like you can sell soap?"
https://learnings.substack.com/p/the-audience-is-the-message