A Hanging Offense
by Rebecca Gallant (a.k.a. The Web Goddess)

It's getting so ya have ta kill yourself to get noticed 'round here.

Does it really mean one must kill themselves to become a successful artist? (Don't go away yet, authors, I'm talkin' to you, too.)

The answer is yes - and no. Ok, so you'll have to hang there for a while and choke and gasp and wheeze and perhaps even turn blue a little. But is it worth it?

As Austin Powers once put it "Yeah, Baby! Yeah!"

See, the problem with us creative types is, well, we're creative! We're floating around in our little imaginary lands that our paint brushes or pens like to put onto paper for us. Does Bill Gates float around in imaginary lands? I doubt it. Does he hire someone to float for him? You bet.

My point here is, Bill is rich because he knows how to market his crummy $89.99 computer virus called Windows. Windows is by far an inferior operating system, but it's the industry standard.

Now, you could argue with me about what's good art and what's good writing, but I've seen a lot of crap published while silent genius' go unnoticed. Yeah I know, depressing. Does it have to be your fate? Not if you wise up.

See, you have this whole other hemisphere to your brain called the Left Side. It contains everything you need to arm yourself with, like Bill Gates' ruthlessness and marketing savvy. Easy enough, eh?

In order to wake up this Left Side, you need to do some marketing research. Here's what you do:

You study successful people. If you can, meet them and try to pry out into the open all of their success secrets. Find an artist or an author you like and write to them. Tell them you admire them. Ask them how they did it. That's what I did. That's what I'm sure they did at one time.

Here's secret number one: These successful people aren't lucky, they made their own luck. They had an idea or some raw talent. They pursued it and refined it. Probably for years! They clawed and they scraped their way up to success. They worked very, very, very hard to become successful. It didn't happen overnight and it won't happen overnight for you either.

Success will come. But it will come with the choking and the gagging and the turning blue. You can't cut yourself down early, if you do, it's much harder to string yourself back up. Nope, you just have to keep swinging, baby.

Now that you've been a good little doobie and read nearly my entire editorial, I will now charge up that Left Side of the brain by introducing you to a successful artist and let you pick her brain.

"Hi."

Yeah, it's me. The web goddess. Here's where you can learn all of my on-line marketing secrets:

It's titled "How to Promote Your Artwork On-Line", but it will apply to nearly anyone's web page.

http://www.wildlife-fantasy.com/beckyg.html
(it's not clickable because I want you to finish reading...)

For those of you without a web site, get one. Now. You're losing international exposure without it.

Meanwhile, do the following things:

• Go to art shows/writing workshops.
• Talk and hob-nob with people who've done this sort of thing for a while.
• Participate in them with your own work for feedback and possibly awards.
• Place ads in your local newspaper.
• Call newspapers and send them a press release about your artwork.
• Join local art groups (writers groups).
• Network, network, network!!!!
• Make up business cards and brochures. Find a friend with a computer to print them for you if you're broke.
• Surf the Web. Look up art marketing. Take notes.
• Send in classified ads/articles in related magazines.
• Above all, learn and BE SEEN!

Do as much of the above as you can. Do it constantly.

Do you know how many very talented people don't even realize that they must do these fundamental marketing steps in order to make it as an artist/writer???

Now you're already ahead of them.

It would be a crime if your idea/story/art didn't even get started just because you didn't know the first thing about marketing it.

Some would say it was even a hanging offense...

Visit Becky's web site for more insight on success. http://www.wildlife-fantasy.com/

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