Self Promotion for Artists 101

August 12, 2008 4:22 PM

I need a crash course in Self Promotion for Artists 101. Help!

I'm a writer working at trying to do fun, innovative stuff with online storytelling. I'm not out to make money with the work I'm doing right now -- my paid projects do OK by me. I'm just looking to explore the edges of narrative and maybe polish my reputation a little.

But... how do I find an audience for this work? The paid projects, well, there are press releases and big media interest because of their sponsors. But I've got no idea how to promote my own stuff, or at least not in a completely classless way, which would actively work against any good karma I'm trying to build up in the first place.

Help me, AskMe. Tell me how to make my work easy to find for the people who don't yet know how badly they want to see it.

(I'm posting anonymously because I don't want this question to seem like a bald attempt to grab attention for my work in an inappropriate venue. That would strike me as one of the way-bad-mojo ways of doing it.)

posted by anonymous to media & arts (3 comments total)

Lee Silber has a book about exactly this. It's chock ful of ideas.
posted by divabat at 5:07 PM on August 12, 2008

The book for you is Ariel Gore's How to Become A Famous Writer Before You're Dead" which is less concerned with the "how to become a writer" part and more concerned with the "famous" part. It's all about creative self-promotion.
posted by Brittanie at 10:12 PM on August 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

Mefi Projects? I'd check it out if you posted something there.

Also, simply creating something unique, interesting and original is a good start. The 'tragedy of the commons' is that there is an awful lot of very poor, derivative crap out there on the web, so it takes a while for really good stuff to bubble to the top. The upside of course is that the tools to get your work there are accessible to anyone with a web connection, so work that never saw the light of day before is getting an airing. If your stuff is available, subscribable and good, you will start to see people coming along and checking it out.
posted by Happy Dave at 2:51 AM on August 13, 2008