How to get your work out
Welcome to the 64th edition of this newsletter!
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I've had a few sign ups here after I announced my withdrawal from Twitter. If you're new: welcome! Feel free to be in touch with anything that comes to your mind. It's as simple as replying to this (or any other) email.
You might have heard that the billionaire whose name sounds like a bargain-basement perfume bought Twitter. If you are or were active on the site, you might (or might not) see that as bad news. For sure I did, so I set my account to inactive (meaning I'll delete it eventually).
If you never spent time on Twitter, good for you. Joking aside, even if you weren't on Twitter you have to deal with the same challenge everybody else faces. That's what I want to write about today. This is the question you need to find an answer for:
How do you get word out about your work?
I'm making an assumption here. The assumption is that you want to get your work out, meaning: you would like other people to see what you have produced, whether it's your pictures or your writing. Maybe you even want to sell them a print or a book. This seems like a reasonable enough assumption to me. But it's possible that you personally aren't interested in that. If that's the case, you can stop reading now and wait for my next email.
I'll have to admit something. I personally find it very difficult to promote my work. For reasons that are neither here nor there I find it embarrassing. In an ideal world, I would sit in my office/studio and do my work. Every once in a while a fairy would drop of wads of cash in my mail box while picking up physical materials I might have produced, while the digital stuff just goes into the world in a magical fashion.
Unfortunately, I don't live in that ideal world, and neither do you. So we all have to do something that will have people see what we do. In other words, our audience will not somehow find us (even though occasionally for a few lucky people this might happen). Instead, we will have to reach out to establish that audience.
You might note that above, I wrote "establish" instead of "find". I personally do not believe that one's audience magically exists, and all you have to do is to find it. Instead, it's your task to build it, which is a combination of finding the people who naturally gravitate to what you do and of building up an appreciation in other people who might not have looked at what you do but whom you get interested in it.
This process takes time. I think that's possibly the most underappreciated aspect of the whole process. Unfortunately, in our neoliberal culture we mostly are exposed to people who became an overnight sensation. It's true, these people exist. But they are the outliers. As an artist, you can't rely on becoming the next sensation any more than you can rely on winning the lottery. The moment you accept that the process takes time, you can engage with it in a more meaningful manner.
How the hell do I get word out now?
To begin with, you will have to understand that there are quite a few tools at your disposal that can help you. But you need to be careful approaching them, because they work in very different ways. As far as I am concerned, some work a lot better for photographers than others.
Sites like Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, or Facebook are static. That means that as a photographer, you will have to squeeze what you do into the format that they provide. For example, you can't customize your Instagram page to make it look different than everybody else's. That's the first problem: after all, if everything looks the same how can you create something that is uniquely yours?
The second problem with these sites is that you'll be at the whim of some billionaire who might decide that starting today, it's all about video (instead of photography). Also, if you post something they don't like it just gets taken down without giving you a chance to do anything about it. And there's some unexplained, hidden algorithm that determines what people see. So even if you post something, nobody might actually see it, even if you have thousands of people "following" you.
This is a big problem for all kinds of reasons. In the context of this email, it means that with those sites you're at the mercy of some corporate overlord (who might or might not be a far-right lunatic). Even if you build a consistent profile, that profile might stop functioning at any stage for reasons that are completely out of your control. That's not good. This doesn't mean that you can't use those sites. But you absolutely should not rely on them because you're basically putting your own artistic profile at the mercy of a bunch of rich dweebs.
Over the years, I have come to accept (if that's the word) those sites for what they are. But I also quit Facebook many years ago because it was becoming too odious, and now I quit Twitter (ditto). A number of people have told me that that's a mistake because I could spread word of what I do more easily there. It's possible. But at the end of the day, I always want to be able to look myself in the mirror in the morning. I am not adverse to making compromises. But there's a limit.
With the above, I don't mean to argue that Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, or Facebook are bad (well, they are, but your mileage might vary). Instead, I want you to think about what I wrote: if you use those sites, how do you keep enough control that the sites work for you -- instead of the other way around?
This leaves us with the tools that aren't static. With that I mean that as a user, you can (mostly have to) customize them so they look the way you want them to look. These tools include websites (duh!) or email newsletters. If you're really old school, you could add physical mailers to the list. These tools are great because not only can you make them look the way you want, you can also use them the way you want. What's more, you typically can avoid things changing in ways that are out of your control.
I wrote "typically" in the above because there are many providers that will help you set them up. I'm not overly familiar with them (with the exception of the one that sends out these emails). But the reality is that most artists simply are unable to program their website, so a site like "Squarespace" makes it relatively easy. That's the major drawback of these tools: you'll have to do work to set them up. If you don't know how to do that, find someone who can do that for you. It's as simple as that.
What you will want to end up with is a tool that a) does the things you want it to do while b) looking the way you want it to look. Furthermore, if you need to produce something new (whether it's adding work to your website or sending out an email), c) there should be an interface that's easy to fill for you.
If you manage to have someone set up what I described in the previous paragraph, you can then focus on the content. And that's the most important aspect. There might be the need for a technical update every few years or so. But in between, your energy goes towards your own personal goals.
I'm writing this as someone who made one crucial decision early on. I started out as a blogger. Roughly twenty years ago, you could start a blog either by using any of the various sites that made it easy to start one (they were called "Blogger" or "Blogsphere" or whatever), or you could set up the software on your own server and do it yourself. I picked the latter because I want to be independent (at the time, blogging software was technically a lot simpler than it is now). With time, I learned that that was 100% the right decision. I don't remember what happened to "Blogger" or "Blogsphere". But it was the usual story of website that were incredibly popular, only to then disappear or get sold or whatever. I didn't know this beforehand, but I just wanted to do my own thing. When "Blogger" or "Blogsphere" disappeared, my blog didn't.
As a consequence, with my blog I have been focusing on what I wanted to do: write articles and publish them. That's where my energy went. Regardless of what you think about what I write, I'm confident that you have a pretty good idea of my voice. I was able to shape it because I didn't allow myself to be at the mercy of some corporation and its frame work.
What this boils down to
I want to leave you with my personal suggestions for how you can approach getting your work out. The suggestions are simple in form, but they will require a bit of work. The reality is that any effort to spread the word about your work will require effort. Don't focus on the effort, focus on where that effort will lead you. So
Focus on tools that you can control. If you don't know how to set up a website, work with someone who can do that for you.
Think about your voice. Think about what you want the tools to do for you. Don't let anyone talk you into using a tool that you're not comfortable with. There's no reason why you should have a mailing list or a website if you hate the format. With any tool you use, think about how what people receive will reflect who you are as a person and an artist. The world is your oyster: you can make it funny, endearing, very serious, very matter of fact... As long as what you produce reflects you and your work, you're in business.
Don't expect short-term rewards. If they come, treat them like a bonus. But build up your voice in incremental steps. For example, if you have a mailing list, make sure to create a schedule (maybe an email once or twice a month), and then make sure to get the work out. Be flexible enough that you can change the schedule if it becomes too restrictive. But do not give up easily. Stick with it. Take it from me. It works.
Don't necessarily rule out using sites like Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, or Facebook. But keep in mind that they will change all the time (they might even disappear). So do not make yourself too reliant on those sites. They'll make it hard to communicate your unique voice (if they don't, that's great, but, again, don't rely on them).
Anything you do should feel good to you. Don't force yourself to do things that you don't want to do even if everybody else is doing it. In the medium to long term, that will only make you unhappy. Life's too short to be unhappy. So anything you do should feel like something that tells people about you in a natural fashion. Again, always think about your voice. Don't let other people tell you what to do.
Don't look at numbers or popularity. Popularity is the pest. Instead, focus on what you want to do, and trust in the fact that you will build your own audience. Some people might be happy to have a huge audience, others will have a smaller one. It's not the size that matters, it's the personal connections that you can make with your audience.
With these "rules" you can basically do anything. I don't have an idea what might work for you. The only person who knows that is you. So trust your own inner voice, and build it up. If you look around, all the famous artists you can think of have done exactly that: they've built their personal voice. And they're all very different.
It's like what I wrote earlier this year: make the tools work for you. It's doable, and it's going to be worth the effort.
With that I'm going to conclude for today. Next time, I'm going to be back to more regular programming (links, articles, pictures). But the above was very important to me. I hope you'll find it useful.
Thank you for reading!
-- Jörg