Great Writers Share Others’ Work

This is Day 10 in the Great Writers series.

As they say on my own Cape Cod, a rising tide lifts all the boats.
—JFK

Great writers share. Not just their own knowledge, ideas, and expertise. They also share the work of others and credit them accordingly. And ironically, paradoxically, they ultimately benefit from their own generosity.

All great leaders understand this — that as you help lift up others who show promise, we all benefit from their success. It's an economic principle, but works in the world of creativity and influence as well.

This is more than curating content. It's lending your platform to another writer or artist, without any agenda or expectation or reciprocation. So let's get on with this. Stop self-promoting and start sharing.

Ways to share

Here are three ways to do it:

Tell someone else's story. Few things inspire like stories; find one that moves you and share it with the world. These can be great illustrations for your writing.
Promote a friend's work. Find someone's blog, article, book, whatever, and promote it. Don't ask permission (sidenote: you never have to give someone a gift).
Make someone else the hero. Use your platform (however large or small it is) to promote someone else's work. Dedicate an entire article or newsletter or speech to them.

Whatever you do, do it secretly and quietly. Try to not get noticed. Don't let your right hand see what your left is doing. Freely share the work of those who deserve to be noticed.

The Internet is a great place to do this. Networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest are uniquely positioned to help promote the work of threes.

Usually, these networks are marketing vehicles for self-promotion. But not today. Today, we're going to be generous. We're going to share. We're going to help those who can't help themselves.

The challenge

Find someone whose message we need to hear and share it on your blog or via Twitter or Facebook. Wherever people are listening to you (even just a few), use that opportunity to talk about someone else.

Use the comments below to promote a writer who isn't you — someone we need to be reading but otherwise wouldn't know about.

Update: If you haven't picked up a copy of You Are a Writer yet, you can do so here. If you're not 100% satisfied, I'll refund your money — no questions asked. And if you have bought the book, I'd love for you to leave a review on Amazon.

Who is a writer you'd like to promote here? Share a link, book title, name, whatever, and why we should read that person's work. Do it in the comments, or if you're blogging through the series, share your link here. You know the drill.