Category Archives: motivation
10 Publicity Tips for Artists
Moi, Carla Conlin & Shelley Dunstone going a little Vanity Fair-ish on location for a recent Cabaret Summer School promo shoot. Image by Naomi Jellicoe, The Advertiser
With Fringe season well upon us – which for me, equates to crazy self-promo season – I thought I’d pry my fingers away from my own shameless promo-ing duties and put them to work sharing some of the best publicity tips I’ve garnered over the years.
When it comes to pursuing your passion in life, as we were told in no vague terms at the recent Cabaret Summer School by Sidonie Henbest, “there’s no point in being brilliant in a bubble.”
I heartily concur. No matter how great your work, it ain’t gonna happen if people don’t know about it!
So, without further waffle, here are my 10 publicity tips for artists. Okay, hang on. Bit more waffle. Bear in mind these are:
a) assuming you already have some idea of how to draft up a media release. If you don’t, go get thee to google!
b) as the intro suggests, the best publicity tips I’VE garnered. Me. Moi. Yours truly. I’m not saying they’re the Bible, yo! Unless you wish to endow them as such. In which case, who does that make me? Oh yeah. Awesome. Totally do that.
1. Use Free Web Listings.
This is quite literally my first point of call when I do ANY show EVER. List your event on anything (relevant) you can. It’s free. It’s easy to find. A little time consuming, perhaps, to hunt down all the websites that might be appropriate. But once you’ve got the list for that city you’ve got it. Google things like “things to do in X” city: you’ll come up with a ton of starting points. Don’t hold back: they need events to fill their calendars so that they can provide that service to their customers!
2. Prepare Yourself For Operation Copy and Paste
Before you start uploading listings, sending out media releases and the rest, write your show details down in one document (I include in this document the basic show details, a small blurb, a longer blurb, the full media release) so that when you are ready to put the info out there, you’re not wasting precious time typing the same kinda details over and over: you can just copy and paste the relevant info.
3. Personalise Invitations
If you’re inviting somebody, be it a reviewer, a VIP, an industry person, a friend…where possible, I think you should actually invite THEM. I know for myself that when I’m on the receiving end of an invite, my interest radar fades rapidly when something reads like a bulk-send. Address people by name and if there’s a specific reason you want them to see your show, tell them.
4. Consider Using an Online Electronic Press Kit
A few months ago, I decided to give powerpresskits.com a go. At first I wasn’t sure why I would bother with this service, given that I already have a website with pictures galore, deets on my show, etc. however having already had some great feedback from a couple of journos I’m pretty well sold. I can send people the link directly to my kit, which has all the info on my show, looks super professional AND they can download the hi-res (i.e. printable) quality version of my photos, without me having to clog up their inbox.
5. FOLLOW UP.
Why is this in caps, you ask? Because if I had to give one promo tip to rule them all, this would be it. Send your stuff (and by stuff, I mean media releases) via email, sure. But once you have, give it a few days and then either email with a friendly note to see whether they’ve received it and/or call them. Let me tell you a secret: almost EVERY media success story I’ve had is the result of me chasing up an initial contact. Of course, don’t harass people; if I follow up once and then don’t hear back, I will usually let it go (unless they’ve explicitly said they’re interested and to get back to them with more info). But don’t just give up because you sent an email to a magazine and heard nothing back. They get a gazillion media pitches a day. It’s not personal.
6. Get a Virtual Assistant.
Once you’ve drafted your emails, media releases and/or other titillating blather, AND you have the lists of media people to send them to, consider hiring somebody to send them out for you. You can find people on sites like Elance for incredibly inexpensive rates to do the copy/paste/send combo so you are freed up to spend your time better elsewhere, doing the jobs that really only you can do.
7. Get Professional Photos.
Have them ready to go. Not snapshots, not iPhone shot, professional shots. Do not send these through to the media, however, unless the journalist requests it. (Note: this is another benefit of having an online EPK to refer them to, it’s all there without clogging up their inbox). But do write in your media release: ‘Hi-Res Images Available On Request’ or similar.
8. Join forces!
Are there other similar events/performers who, when you join together, can create a good story? Band together! If the Spice Girls taught us nothing else, it’s that there’s power in numbers.
Banding together in The Advertiser for The Cabaret Summer School. Picture by Naomi Jellicoe
9. Pay It Forward.
You’re trying to attract attention to your own shows, so why not extend somebody else the same love you’d like to get? Plug other people’s shows on your blog/site/facebook/twitter (note: make sure these are shows that you really do love; if you just promote everything you will more than likely damage any credibility you have!), become champions for others and take joy in other people’s successes. (Note: Rachel Hills wrote about this very idea this week here.) It’s a good feeling: don’t do it with an “I scratch your back now you scratch mine” attitude, but be generous with promoting others work who you genuinely admire, without any thought of pay-back. The arts world can be competitive, but only if you let it be that way for you. I think that celebrating others feels like a much better way to live!
10. Include Your Show Info!
This seems obvious, but I myself have been guilty of being so caught up in crafting a beautifully composed email that I have overlooked including this very key piece of information! It’s ESSENTIAL: include your show details in EVERY media release, correspondence, etc. that you send out! Format it simply, but don’t forget to add your show title, venue, dates, ticket prices and how to book, usually at the bottom of your page. I’ll do it here at the bottom of this post, both to illustrate the point and to flaunt my inner promo-slorry.
Happy publicising!
AN UNEXPECTED VARIETY SHOW
Adelaide Fringe Festival
THE LIGHT HOTEL – HIGH ROLLERS ROOM
141 Currie St, Adelaide
25-26 Feb 7pm FREE
28 Feb, 6, 13 Mar 7pm Cheap Tues $10
1-4, 8, 10-11, 15, 17 Mar 7pm $20 full, $15 conc
Tickets available here. Or phone 1300 FRINGE (374 643)
Our artsy attempt at a Family Purpose Statement
This vision you see before you is the result of a family bonding event gone this past weekend.
Let me start by being honest: things can get pretty nuts around here. I know this is true of pretty much every family household I know, so I’m certainly not pleading special circumstances, but just with the added factor of Mummy dearest to-ing and fro-ing all over the countryside for performances and such, well yes…I’m pleading special circumstances.
And with more performances coming up this year than ever before in our family’s history, I’ve recently realised more than ever how much we are in dire need of some help in:
a) making our time together really, REALLY TRULY count; and
b) getting more organised in terms of practicalities. (Oh dear HEAVENS when we can finally afford professional help with that I will consider that my moment of having “made it”. You have it in writing.)
So, I headed for the first place any approaching-overwhelm mother would in such circumstances: an all-you-can-drink buffet a helpful e-book. After seeing it plugged on another blog, I opted in for this one: One Bite at a Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler.
Thus far, I’ve checked off a couple of these projects, much to my delight (hello morning routine! Menu planning! IS THERE NOTHING I CANNOT CONQUER?!) and last night, the five of us gathered together to nut out one of these tasks as a family: crafting our Family Purpose Statement. A little cheesy? Sure. But those of you who know me well know how I love to embrace the dairy in life.
We each contributed ideas to the kind of family we want to be, even littlest (whose contribution of a Buzz Lightyear quote: “I come in peace!” was included on the grounds that:
a) we wanted everybody in the family to be a part of the statement; and
b) once we adapted it to “we”, it actually is rather cool indeed. WE COME IN PEACE, YO!
Then today, we set about emblazoning it in gold. Only that didn’t work out, so we opted for the next best thing: a mixed media collage.
It now has prime position in our kitchen. And I kinda love it. Now I finally have something to stare dreamily at when I find my happy place.
Note: I have already uttered the phrase today (that’s right, on DAY ZERO):
“Where does it say “hit each other!” on the family purpose statement? WHERE?!?!?!”
I am not proud.
And yet…I am.
2012 Goals and other Shiny Things
Goals.
Yes, I know, I know, carrying on from my last post about the year that’s been, clearly I have absolutely NO lightbulbs going off at all as to how to go about lowering my ambitions. I know all about the ‘why’, but it doesn’t translate into any tangible changes.
As I watched Eddie Izzard’s “Believe” doco again the other day, this time with my sister, it really struck me how even though he came to the realisation that his ridiculous over-achieving compulsion was directly related to his early childhood trauma of his mother’s death, evidently, just knowing it is not enough to actually change it. For instance, since that doco was made I believe he’s run something like two billion marathons, day after day, all in the name of charity.
Point is, understanding the why of your behaviour, doesn’t automatically equal changing your behaviour.
You may hereafter refer to me as Doctor Phyllis.
Anyhoo, being the change-impaired ball of compulsive “doing things” that I am, I have made my usual list of year goals, however this year I am doing so with the help of Accompl.sh.
I’m not sure if it will help me any. I tend to jump on the newest and latest exciting bandwagon all the time, only to get a little distracted by the next bright and shiny thing that comes my way. But heck, why not?
Oh look! Something shiny!
More Pip and Pop. Are you not helpless in its wonder-grips?
ZAP! POW! BOOM! (Or, “Getting A Virtual Assistant”)
Image courtesy of Supernova Studios
Employing a virtual assistant is an idea I’ve been toying with for quite some time now (seriously since reading about Sarah Wilson’s experience, which part sold me and part deterred me) but have put it off and off and off because…well, why? Fear? The belief that it couldn’t possibly work out, that I would never find somebody who would really get what I need? My control issues?
However, having recently gotten to the point where I simply cannot keep up with my workload, the VA idea kept floating on back.
2012 is looking insane, albeit in a very, very wonderful way, and I’m finding that the hours required to do the things that need doing are simply not in my reach. Unless I want to expand my work-related expenses to include “coke” with a little c.
So…yesterday I pulled my finger out and put it to the keyboard. Not to find somebody, but rather to create a picture for myself: if I did have somebody to help me, what jobs would I actually get them to do?
Turns out there were plenty.
- emailing media releases to media lists;
- listing my shows on event websites;
- creating event pages for shows on social media;
- scouring my blog for posts which I can expand into articles to pitch;
- quotes and organising manufacturing of CDs and DVDs and other merch options;
- researching potential venues: workshops and performances;
- researching to find suitable accommodation for festival runs;
- travel planning;
- tweaking my blog/website to improve design/functionality;
- researching blog posts/web content related to funny parenting/mother/comedy issues, compiling them into a list of things to write about, reference;
- compiling an Electronic Press Kit from my existing promo materials;
- scheduling my time…
…the list continued.
Seeing these tasks written out was the kick in the pants I needed to take action. I think I’d worried that even if I found somebody, I’d find myself staring into their Skype-pixelated eyes, twiddling my thumbs and going “Well…what do YOU think I need you to do?”
And so it was that I jumped onboard Elance. I typed in some keywords (e.g. “social media, research, writing) and browsed some profiles, which, I found both inspiring and overwhelming.
I found a couple of people I thought sounded fantastic, and then realised that I really needed to post a “project.” It was super easy, based on my existing list of tasks I’d brainstormed, plus the suggested template Elance gives you (based on the position you’re advertising for, in my case, just good “old” fashioned Virtual Assistant), it was done, dusted and posted in less than ten minutes.
ZAP! Within half an hour I had two applicants.
POW! Within twelve hours I had nine.
BOOM! Within fourteen hours I chose one.
Within twenty-four hours we had exchanged our first emails, getting this thang started.
I have committed to four weeks, but am really hopeful that if all goes well, this might be the beginning of a beautiful cyber-friendship.
Anybody else out there have a VA? Been thinking of getting one? Thoughts?
P.S. The next person to comment is officially my 1000th commenter! Candles and sugar for you! xx
I Don’t Know How She Does It: A Review. (Or: “Meh.”)
Image courtesy of Hollywood Blurbs.
I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from this movie, namely cos I’d already read a lot of bad about it. Sometimes I find this works to a film’s benefit. Walk in not asking for much, be pleasantly surprised.
So, to be clear, I wasn’t expecting much, but was hoping for a little.
Also, it is worth noting that these days it takes a lot for me to hate a film.
Firstly because I appreciate just having a night with my hands free of children and instead full of popcorn, shoved at a possibly dangerous rate down my helpless throat before my gullet has a chance to reject it.
Secondly because…actually, no, there’s really only the first.
My auntie, the wise.
The above summation from my auntie pretty much accurately sums things up.
I didn’t hate the movie. I didn’t love the movie. It was just a bit…meh. OBVIOUS.
Lady looks like she can do it all.
Lady actually can’t do it all.
Lady realises this.
Lady spends a lot of time with a co-worker.
Lady very quickly snaps out of any notions of that shizz.
Lady smiles adoringly at her family while snowflakes fall.
I mean, come on. Who hasn’t had THAT?!
As I said, I didn’t hate it. But, in the words of Carrie Bradshaw, “I couldn’t help but wonder…”
Couldn’t they have dug a leeeetle bit deeper?
Then again, as complacency incarnate at times, perhaps I can really learn from this.
Here’s hopin.
Now can somebody please throw rice at me and I can pretend it’s snow?
On Finding Your Life Values
Have you read this post by Sarah Wilson? I add her blog posts to my “faves” list so often that I might as well go ahead and automatically star her entire blog. Anyhoo, this one particularly got me inspired. Specifically this bit:
“Conjure a moment where life felt great, where you were in your sweet spot.” For me it was a random moment during a solo mountain bike trip in the Blue Mountains. Sweaty, my bike shorts sagging in the chamois gusset, I’d lain down in a hot patch of gravel overlooking a valley. I can’t think of a moment where I felt more enriched. Harris got me to reflect on what mattered and what personal qualities I possessed in that moment. I was up high, away from the busy-ness of the city; I had perspective and wasn’t “sucked in”. I was dusty and boldly being myself. In an impassioned babble I outlined succinctly what my values were:
authenticity, boldness.
Naturally I thought about my own moment: on a snowboarding date with Tim in Canada, one particularly amazing moment I recall with clarity is sitting on my snowboard, on the top of the mountain, just savouring the incredible sight of a gloriously snow-capped mountain right in front of me and soaking in the silence all around.
What surprised me about this choice of moment was realising that the feelings it evoked in me were not at all related to “achievement,” which, had I been asked, I probably would have said was one of my core driving forces in this life.
But no, that moment on that mountain had nothing to do with it. Rather, the feelings it brought out were more like: Adventure. Beauty. And just…really living. i.e. being an active participant in life.
Nothing to do with success at all.
This was quite a revelation to me.
As was the reminder, yet again, of just how damn much I am doomed to forever miss Canada.
The Road Less Travelled: Will the Money Follow?
A study into business school graduates tracked the careers of 1500 people from 1960-1980. The graduates were grouped into two categories:
Category A: students who wanted to make lots of money first, so they could do what they really wanted to do. 83% (1245) of the students fell into this category.
Category B: Students who wanted to pursue their passions immediately, sure the money would eventually follow. Only 17% of students (255) were risk takers.
Can you guess what happened? Of the 1500 graduates, 101 were millionaires in 1980 – 1 from Category A, and 100 from Category B. Source: The Practice of Leadership.
This excerpt from the e-book I’m currently reading: “Unleash the Beast: Releasing Your Inner Creative Monster” by Steff Metal (downloadable for free here) is timely. Not that I’m expecting to become a millionaire, but it’s comforting to think that maybe the road less travelled doesn’t always have to be paved with home-brand.
Conan O’Brien’s Burning Building Approach to Getting Stuff Done
A friend asked me a couple of days ago what my advice would be about putting on a show.
I almost instantly launched into a rant about Marc Maron’s recent interview with Conan O’Brien, where Conan talked about his ‘burning building’ approach to getting shit done.
You can listen to the interview yourself over here – but in a nutshell, he says that even though people congratulate him on stuff he’s managed to do in this lifetime, really he thinks the ‘secret’ of this success, is putting himself in situations where he feels he has no alternative BUT to get it done.
This means, for instance, committing to a project deadline before you’ve even had time to freak out about how serious the commitment is and whether or not you can actually do it. The bottom line is, the fact that you’re committed with no escape route or room for procrastination in sight, you just do what you need to do and bam. You’re through the door.
I realise now how much that principle has come into play in my own life…
- the first play I ever produced, happened because the theatre venue sent out an email saying they’d had a show cancellation and did anybody want to do a 4 night run of something in 5 weeks time? Without so much of a synopsis written, I said yes. And we did it!
- the first time I ever signed up to do stand-up (I just rang up and entered Raw Comedy), I had no idea what my set would be. But I knew that a deadline would force me to come up with something.
- When we moved to Canada, one of the first things we did was just book the damn tickets! It made it real. It gave us less leeway to question the sanity of moving across the globe with small children, and more focus on just getting done what needed to be done.
Ergo, my advice if you want to put on a show?
Book the venue. Or the tickets. Just make it real.
The rest will follow. (You’ll make sure of it).
Part Three of the “Five Things I Need to Change Around Here” Series
Note: forgive me for my absence this week, I’ve been mad at work on my other beloved project of late: Small Hands, Big Hearts. I’d love if you would care to pop over and take a peek!
Part Three: Shut-Eye
I used to (up until this very minute) subscribe to the “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” theory of getting stuff done.
I say ‘used to’, and ‘up until this very minute’ namely because this very contradiction pretty much sums up the state of things right now: that is:
a) Right ‘up until this very minute’, I stay up WAAAAY too late each night getting my work done; only…
b) I ‘used to’ not feel bad about it.
If I could survive well on just a few hours sleep, you know, function properly, be happy as little Snow White, fa-la-laing while little Disney birds sat on my pastey fingers, then I could keep it going indefinitely. And without guilt.
But…at the ripe old age of 32, it’s catching up with me.
It may be all well and good to sleep when I’m dead, but I fear now that if I keep compromising my sleep while I’m alive, my body might just take me up on the dare…
So.
Sleep.
Or rather, a solid sleep routine.
Which will then, feed into my new morning routine.
Which will help me calm and slow the heck down…
Wow, these really are connecting now, aren’t they? Maybe I should rethink the whole ‘this ain’t gonna be a lifehacking blog’ thang…
The real struggle is post-gig; it doesn’t matter how low key the gig is, post-performance I inevitably cannot sleep for many hours. It’s the adrenalin, the analysis, the pats on the back, the slaps on the forehead, the new material I want to work on…it’s like being high as a kite and then trying to go have a nanna nap.
Not happening.
When I was at Adelaide Fringe it was perfect – my wonderful host Julie was such a gem and was all “just sleep all day if you want to!” which meant that even while my nights ended late (some of them being technically ‘mornings’ I suppose…), I was able to compensate for it. Note, however, that I didn’t have kids with me. During festivals when we are all together, it’s a different story.
Mummy gets cranky. Very cranky.
(I said that last bit in an Arnold Schwarzenegger/Sylvester Stallone hybrid accent, in case you were wondering.)
I need a strategy. For the high and low seasons of this mummy/performing combo.
Hmmm…..
Any suggestions?
Delusion, Entitlement, Belief and Taking the Time To Get Good
Oh heavens. Several of the comments on my past coupla posts are inspiring me so ridiculously much, I could possibly start another blog stemming from each of them respectively. Which, naturally, is exactly what the internet needs. More blogs. And emails. Oh yeah, and possibly trolls.
I particularly love the stuff on ‘taking the time to get good.’ I’ve been mulling this over a lot this past week. In doing so, I remembered a moment way back in the early days of my career (you know, those really early times when you’ve had enough of a taste of success to make you completely and utterly deluded about your impending meteoric rise), having a post-gig chat with a much more experienced comedian. He proceeded to give me some of the best compliments of my life about my potential, and then said: “You do know comedy involves a ten year apprenticeship, don’t you?”
I didn’t.
And I didn’t believe him.
I kinda nodded and smiled, but thought secretly to myself “Yeah, maybe for some, but not THIS little pile of brilliance!”
Dear Lord, I was full of myself.
Now don’t get me wrong. To even bother pursuing a career as an artist, I think you have to have some degree of delusion. It comes down to that whole ‘Champions Lie’ idea (that I first encountered on a Nike ad, no less), that is to say, it’s all so very impossible, that you have to lie to yourself, to tell yourself that you can do it, even when the reality is that you quite possibly can’t, to even have a HOPE of getting there!
What I’m saying is, you kinda need to be full of yourself. You need that confidence. You need to, as Eddie Izzard put it in his doco, BELIEVE.
What you don’t need is to feel entitled.
Which is what I think I was back then.
However what I’ve realised since is that:
a) there is a long apprenticeship period to this thang; and
b) that is okay; and
c) the shit I was flogging before really wasn’t nearly as good as it needs to be. Not even close.
That was another part of the Eddie Izzard doco that struck a chord with me – when he was talking about how early on in his career he was parading about as though the material he had was brilliant, when, in his own words “it really wasn’t.”
I’m currently working on my show for the Adelaide Cabaret Fringe Festival (well, re-working it, to be accurate) and I have never felt so motivated to work hard. To make sure the delivery is there, for sure, but more than anything, to work on the material.
Anyhoo, I wanted to share a couple of bits that regular reader and friend of mine Mona posted on here recently, just in case you’re not a comments looker. They’re too good not to share on here; they spoke to me loud and clear and I hope they might speak to you too…thank you Mona!!!
1. Ira Glass (host of “This American Life”, one of my fave podcasts) on how freaking long it can take to get good; and
2. John Wells (creator of ER and The West Wing) on what he would say to himself back in his uni days:
“I wish I’d known how long it was going to take. You come out and you sort of assume it’s going to be a couple-of-years process and you don’t really start making any headway until you’ve written about a foot and a half of material, measured up off the floor. That’s when you really start to think of yourself as a writer in the way you look at the world. It’s a craft that takes a tremendous amount of time.
“I wish I had more of a sense that it was much more like learning to play a musical instrument. After four or five years you start not to embarrass yourself. It takes 10 years before you can even begin to call yourself proficient. (…) It looks deceptively easy from the outside. If you look at the lowest common denominator you think “I can do that.” The craft that’s necessary – the time it takes to have enough trial and error to keep going with it — that takes a very long time to develop.”
A flipping men.
*Image courtesy of gfpeck
