Marketing Art

Bold self-expression can be even more satisfying when you're able to make a living at it: that way you can do it full-time, and get it out into the world.

Jackie Battenfield is an expert on how visual artists can do that. Writers and other artists can learn from her as well; I've attended a couple of her classes and found her thinking inspiring and her suggestions specific and useful--and applicable to what I'm doing as a writer.

Now she has a book out: The Artist's Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love. She knows what she's writing about. She has been a self-supporting painter for over 20 years, and launched her career visiting Washington galleries with newborn in tow.

You might also have a look at Jackie Battenfield's art. I particularly like her Water Series.

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Get Your Message Across

See this yellow-backed vehicle? The owner of this car was seizing an opportunity. Written on the back is a message that says, in essence: okay, while you're sitting in traffic behind me, why not write this phone number down so you'll have it when you need it. The number is for a towing company. I thought it was a fine piece of advertising. I felt as if I was being addressed personally.


(Sorry about the worse-even-than-usual quality of the photography: it was one shot with a cell phone on a rainy day while driving a car with a dirty windshield with hand-painted morning glories on the hood and my arm in the way.)

My own car has a license plate that says SISINDIA for my novel Sister India. But that's really more for fun, for vanity, than anything else.

I'm wondering what other surprising inventive everyday ways there are for a writer/artist/entrepreneur to get his/her message across. Some artists cringe at advertising and self-promotion. Though we vigorously want publishers and galleries to invest heavily in promoting our work. And some madly promote and then pretend to be shy.

To me, to create the work and then decline to help it out into the world is like not taking care of the dog. It's falling down on the job.

So this past week I started running a wee ad for my critique services for writers. Never did this before. It's one of those little boxes on the right side of a Google page, the copy below, but with lines around it.

Get Book Feedback
Intensive Report: Novel/ Nonfiction
From NYT Notable Writer
www.peggypayne.com/service.html

The "NYT Notable" means that Sister India was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Google Advertising wouldn't allow me to use the whole name in the ad because of trademark worries or some such.

So far it has appeared 65,937 times (when someone enters a phrase like "feedback on my novel"), been clicked on 11 times, and cost me $9.59. Haven't heard yet, that I know of, from anyone who clicked it, but we'll see. It's kind-a fun, like having a fishing line in the water.



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Sunlight Shining Through Cobalt blue

Simply because my new novel is called "Cobalt Blue" and I'm in a novel-aggrandizing mood...



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Help with Book Marketing

Book Candy Studios is a new company that's doing beautiful "movie preview" style ad spots for online marketing of books. Fees range from $350 to $1500+. I haven't worked with them, but am very impressed with their sample trailers.

Getting someone else to help with promotion is one way to make easier the process of tooting your own horn.

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Graceful Self-Promotion

This advice is from, of all places, a year-old Cosmogirl magazine. It's aimed at teenagers: "Here's the trick to talking yourself up without sounding conceited." (I don't think I've heard the word "conceited" since high school.)

But anyone with work to sell needs to know how to self-promote gracefully. Here's one very good tip from the article: "Get psyched." We're advised to think of our most spontaneous friend talking with excitement about what she/he has been up to. "You don't feel like she's bragging because you're having so much fun listening to her, right?"

Basically let your passion for doing the work show, and it doesn't sound like petty personal bragging. Instead, what we're doing is getting other people excited too.


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The Admirable Art of Self-Promotion

For anyone who is hesitant about promoting her or his own work: take a look at this piece of encouragement in the New York Times.



I am one who is blessed with what my politician brother calls microphone fever. I like promoting my work. I respect others' efforts to promote theirs.



The only time I ever cringe in embarrassment is when my husband leaves my business card, with book credits and contact info, etc, at a restaurant table for the waiter to pick up with the credit card. That's my limit. Maybe it's the fact that he's doing it and not me. I'm not sure. (I keep giving him cards, because he puts a lot of them to good use when I'm not around.)



In any event, I think most of us have some shaky moment about advancing our own passionately-held cause. I believe that, on the whole, holding back from telling people about our work is a bad idea. It leads to resentment and poor sales, and who knows what else.



You might also have a look at the book refered to in the article: Brag: The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It. One review says it defines bragging as an act of authenticity. Seems right to me.