It has never been easy, being an artist. No matter what your art was, there is one aspect in particular with which countless writers, musicians, painters etc. have been struggling throughout the ages. Selling your stuff. Putting your name out there. And in this age of information bombardment, even those who try face a hard time. Press releases are likely to be ignored, blog posts (such as this one) might easily drown in the sea of weblogs out there and so on. Agents still work to sell other people’s stuff, but even getting one of those is anything but easy - and then there’s the whole fear of not knowing whether or not this person will actually do anything to promote you, whether you’ll end up getting ripped off or forgotten.
In 2001, my first novel was published in Denmark. It sold as predicted, which wasn’t a whole lot, and compared to the time it took to write, it certainly isn’t something I would recommend doing for the money. I dealt directly with the publisher, because Denmark is too small a market for agents, and though they paid me a decent percentage per sold unit, I would hardly call it a career. But I love writing, and will not let this stop me. My dream is to some day be good enough to make a decent living off of it, one way or another.
For the better part of a year, I have been working on my first novel in English, a crime novel set partly in Seattle, partly all over Europe. Needless to say, I am not household name in the English speaking part of the world (or in the non-English speaking part for that matter), and faced with this and my experience from the first book, I have started thinking about ways to generate interest ahead of actually having anything published. Not that I even know if anyone will want to publish my book yet.
I have blogged about it here and spread the word other places too. But how effective of a tool is blogging about something anyway? I feel, I have to do more, and so, I looked to the music industry for inspiration.
Artists wanting to promote an album have some very effective tools available. They put out singles that get pushed to DJs and radio networks, they go on tours and perform high-energy concerts in front of their fans. A writer can’t really put out chapter eight to get interest going, and going on public reading tours doesn’t really peak a lot of people’s interst. If you were to choose between going to a reading from an unknown writer or a concert with an unknown band - what would you choose?
Chances are that you would google the band and the author before deciding. You might find both their websites. You might read excerpts from the writer’s work and listen to some songs on the band’s myspace page. And even if you liked both, you’d probably end up going to the concert anyway, simply because it’s more fun.
Accepting defeat in the live-performance department, I thought about other ways to compete. Not against other writers, but against the general constant flow of new media and information. But just because it wouldn’t work to go reading on big stages using colored lights and sexy hip-movements to attract attention, it doesn’t mean, I can’t steal another idea from the music industry: I could put out singles too, though in a slightly different way: By writing supplementing short stories, centered around some of the main characters in my novel. An expansion on the universe that is my book. I could put these stories up beforehand, to get potential readers interested and introduce both myself and my stories. A good idea, that given time and effort might work. Maybe.
But even so, short stories take time to write. Time that would otherwise go towards working on the book. How would I justify this? And should I just give the short stories away in the name of self-branding, or would people be willing pay a couple of bucks to download them as e-books? After all, it’d be nice to get something back for all the work, and after all, short stories are pieces of art in themselves.
Truth be told, I don’t have the faintest idea whether or not something like that would work, but it’s definitely worth thinking about. And if I find time to sit down and write any shorts, I might even try it. I am not sure supplemental short stories would be enough to actually build the basis of a best seller or support a self-publishing writer, should that be the case.
It has never been easy to be an artist. Modern tools, from word processors to home studios have made some aspects a lot easier, true, but selling your stuff is just as hard as ever. Maybe even harder. With all the possibilities to create out there, and all the people doing it, even getting noticed might end up being more work than the work itself. Still, we go on.
Usually, I put up a new stock-article every week, but a couple of weeks have gone by and no new tips for up and coming stock photographers. What gives? Well, life. I have been busy with things that help me pay the bills, so to speak. As much as I love writing these articles and getting feedback from all of you out there, I have had to prioritize other things for a bit.
