Networking and Marketing for Writers and Artists

Last night I went along to the Horsebridge Arts and Community Centre in Whitstable to take part in a Creative Canterbury networking event, and very good it was too. I met Alma Caira there - she makes hand made silver jewellery, does web design, animation, and photography in addition to teaching art and crafts. I'm hoping she soon gets a website showcasing her work to which I can direct you for all your jewellery and web design needs...my commission is cheap too! I also chatted briefly with the Arts Development Officer, Mitch Robertson who now wants to come and scream in my garden - living out in the sticks does have its benefits, maybe I could start up a whole new sideline of offering a Place To Scream.

Anyway, in amongst eating strawberries and grapes we listened to a brief talk about marketing for creative businesses which was mainly aimed at visual artists and craftspeople. All fascinating stuff as the speaker mentioned building a brand and giving added value. Most writers today already have to do this in order to get ourselves out there and known but rather than us providing gift wrapping or technical knowledge about displaying work we promote ourselves and others on our blogs, Twitter and Facebook. We write articles (like this one) which we hope will be of some use to other writers and maybe of some interest to our general readers too. We tell you what we're doing, how we do it and how you can do it too. We aim to entertain and inform and with any luck you'll come back and read something else here again, or perhaps you'll remember my name and look for other things I've written elsewhere. In other words, we try to build a readership, a following. I know I'm very much still in the early stages of this - I completed my Masters Degree only two years ago (feels longer).

The marketing man last night told us how important our network of satisfied customers is and how each happy 'consumer' experience is related to seven other people but the bad ones are told to...I think he said ten but maybe it was twenty-one people. Anyway, his point was that when you're not making an effort with your customers they tell more people how bad you are and people like to feel good about their consumer choices. For artists producing an item like a painting, a sculpture, jewellery or similar things this means talking to your customers; telling them about yourself and the item, giving them a story which they can recount to their friends. It also means making your 'product' a real luxury item by providing specialist knowledge, wrappings, in short giving or offering something extra. As consumers we all know this works - just think about the difference between a supermarket own brand packet of pasta and the one 'handmade' in Tuscany - be honest, is there a huge difference between the cooked pasta by the time you've covered it in wine drenched bolognase? Not really, but then look at the packaging - cheap clear plastic with the supermarket's name printed in large letters or gorgeous dark blue paper with jaunty yellow stickers. I know which one I'd rather my friends saw when they come over for dinner - my bank account doesn't agree but that's besides the point. The luxury item says something about us as consumers - it says, "I have good taste" and quite possibly, "I have more money than sense" but I'll gloss over that....And if you're purchasing something that costs over £500 (and a good piece of art or design will cost this) then you should be getting more than the cheap clear plastic wrapping with the supermarket name on it. The marketing man talked a great deal about how there are no real differences between BMW and Mercedes Benz cars, for example, but branding relies upon our emotional choices - how we feel about ourselves for buying one brand over another.

And before you think that this is useless advice for writers...just consider for a moment which books you'd rather have on your shelves or to be seen reading in a coffee shop....Jackie Collins or Margaret Atwood? Dan Brown or A.S Byatt? I'm not saying that any of those authors produce a bad 'product' - I've read books by all of them. I won't tell which I enjoyed most....but I'm a firm believe in wide and eclectic reading, a mixed diet for the mind if you like but I know an awful lot about sex, shopping and secret codes.

I think that for writers, and indeed for anyone in the Creative Industries, it's important to know your market; to know who reads or buys what you produce, to know what they like and then you can produce more of it that's better and more desirable. Personally I'd love to be a literary writer who deals with deep philosophical questions and appears on an A level syllabus (don't ask why that's important to me...I don't know, but it seems like the pinnacle of achievement - keep your Booker prize, I want to be studied by spotty seventeen year olds). That's my dream. My reality, as I'm quickly beginning to realise, is that I find it easier to write light humorous pieces with the occasional bit of thought-provoking going on - rather like a puddle with a hidden pothole - and I've been paid to write like that in the past. Maybe I ought to return to that half-written humorous novel, plot it out properly and get it written....

Last night was really worthwhile, it's given me plenty to think about and plenty to write about Now all that remains are two things, firstly a question I need to ask you, dear reader...what would you like to see more of here?

And lastly, that by reading this blog and telling others about it you're showing the world how erudite, amusing and downright sexy you are. Honestly.

Developing confidence as a writer

I've been writing professionally for about three and a half years now and it's only very, very recently that I've developed confidence in my writing to believe what we're all told - that editors turn your writing down sometimes not because it's necessarily bad but because sometimes it's just not what they're looking for.

Writing for Magazines


I've done a bit of this - I had a regular column in a national magazine for three years and because I found it fairly easy to write I didn't always see any value in it. I truly believed that if something is worth doing it should be hard to do it well.
That's simply not true.
Some things are easier for me because I'm good at them - as writers we should print this out and pin it up somewhere!

That said, just because you're good at something it doesn't mean you shouldn't practise it and try to get even better!

Today I'm taking the athlete Usain Bolt as a case in point - he was the fastest man in the world last month yet last week yet he went out and beat his own record. I'm sure if that had been me I would have simply dined out on the first record...well, for at least a few months.

As everyone knows - you're only as good at the last one. Bolt knows that he's only as good as that last record, and what a record! Writers, poets, musicians, artists, we're all only as good as our last piece so we owe it to ourselves to keep writing, keep practising and keep getting better.

How do you get better?

Keep reading, keep writing and keep learning with an open mind, it's as simple as that. The more good quality writing your read the more you'll absorb and then begin to produce good writing yourself. A good writer is always a reader first.


Okay so preaching over for a while.

The reason I think I've become more confident is because I believe in what I've written. I believe it's clear, concise and sounds like me, it's not me trying to fit with some style I think I should be following. I've read a few blogs recently that advise just this - write in the style that suits you - if you're a crime writer or a romance writer, write that! That's not to say you shouldn't try your hand at expanding your repertoire and improving your writing but don't turn your back on what you find easy just because you think it should be difficult.

In writing this blog post I've also realised something for myself....I don't like the standard bookmarks feature in Firefox (which I use)and I need to find something easy to use to collect up all those excellent blogs that I've read so I can share them with a wider audience. There is a wealth of knowledge out there and I'm losing a good deal of it by not cataloguing it properly.

Hmm...something for me to work on next.

On having a crisis of faith

I’m currently having a creative crisis of faith – not any religious faith you understand, although I suppose that would be rather useful for me right now – faith in my writing and its (my?) abilities. It’s the nature of writing to be rejected at every turn until at last it finds some receptacle – be that a journal, magazine, publisher, or wastepaper bin. I know that writers have to be thick skinned, believe in their work, keep refining their writing, keep reading, keep networking and all those other worthy pursuits. I realise that the readership for new poetry is tiny and by my reading more and publicising more other new writers I’ll increase my own slice of the literary pie – or at the very least there’ll be a few more crumbs to go around.

It’s hard work keeping the faith and getting out there, it just is. I feel like a petulant child – I want to be taken notice of but equally if someone did make a big deal about my work I’d be suspicious mainly because I’m not sure I’ve paid my dues or have enough knowledge yet. I think that’s the biggest obstacle for any new writer – looking at what’s gone before and realising that you probably can’t match up to most of it and you probably never will. It’s the Socratic idea of knowing that you know nothing – how bloody depressing.