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.
