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Look at me! Self-promotion without shame |
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Written by asap
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Saturday, 19 August 2006 |
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The good news? Thanks to the Internet, showcasing your talent as a rock star, author, or director is a snap. The bad news? It’s just as easy for everyone else, too.
With Malcolm Gladwell blogging, Zach Braff debuting his film wares on YouTube and John Mayer writing regular MySpace diary entries, the stigma of self-publishing is clearly a thing of the past. But getting attention is no safe bet. Technorati now counts more than 50 million blogs and Lulu makes it possible for anyone to publish a book and have it on Amazon.com within minutes.
Still, there are plenty of success stories: After his 11-minute “MySpace: The Movie,” became a YouTube phenomenon -- 8 million views and counting -- David Lehre scored an agent and is now developing a comedy show with Fox. Brooke Brodack signed a deal with Carson Daly Productions after Daly noticed the 20-year-old’s YouTube videos. Book deals for bloggers are now so common that they have their own trophy, the Lulu Blooker Prize: the first winner was Julie Powell, whose book Julie and Julia has sold more than 100,000 copies.
We’ve got enough books, music, and movies to keep us entertained forever. What we don’t have enough of is attention, writes Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine. asap spoke with Anderson, the author of “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More,” to get tips on getting notice for your self-released work noticed on the web.
1. Know your niche
Don’t try to win the New York Times over on your first day. And Bookslut might have to wait, too. But someone will love your work -- and it’s your job to find out who. “It’s a match between the niche content and the niche content makers,” says Anderson, who stresses the importance of finding your genre. Conserve energy by figuring out which blogs, small magazines, or online publications focus on work like your own. Infiltrating online funk or sketch comedy fan sites, as a rule, is easier than general music or movie rags.
2. Make a mark
The easier you are to find, the better. Self-releasing your work eliminates what Anderson calls “Pre-Filters,” like editors and record label scouts. In its place? “Post-filters,” or ways that content gets filtered on the web: blogs, playlists and reviews. How to get them to notice you? Come up with a band name or book title that isn’t already overflowing with Google hits. Put unique tags on all of your Flickr photos and YouTube videos. Register with Yahoo! groups. Give yourself a Wikipedia entry. In other words, personalize your thumbprint before you get ready to leave your mark on the Internet.
3. Start small
“There are a lot of mp3 blogs out there, and some of them are not being inundated with tracks and e-mails. The old model was you beg and plead your way onto the radio. New model: you go to Internet radio, of which there are an infinite number of stations, and they’d be delighted to have a new track to play and have contact from the band themselves,” says Anderson. He points to the success of a former Wired staffer’s band: “(They) got attention by sending tracks to very small mp3 blog, Music for Robots, and eventually got noticed by Pitchfork, which is the biggest one in the states.”
4. Even better: start at home
“You are expected to have grass-roots support. That’s nothing new -- it’s just more true now than ever before. Some of that’s the number of people who show up to your shows, some of that’s just the number of friends you have on MySpace, but all of those things are good predictors of success when you finally do go up to the next level,” says Anderson. Though you might be trying to get away from your hometown, don’t leave without some name recognition. Want to get noticed for a reading in a new city? Up your chances by passing along a glowing blurb from a local paper. Want to fill a big venue on tour? Fill the small ones at home first -- and then, let everyone know about it.
5. Keep it new
You’ve got evidence of grass-roots support and a glowing recommendation from some tastemakers. But keeping your site up to date lets people know you’re still in the game -- and still for hire. “If you think about it, today’s hit is tomorrow’s niche ... for online media, like media anywhere, there is a tyranny of the new. Yesterday’s news is fishwrap,” writes Anderson. And yes, he should know: online gossip site Gawker recently chided the frequency of Anderson’s blog entries.
6. Don’t be afraid to redefine success
Thanks to all the competition and easy access to the competition’s merchandise, the definition of “hit” just isn’t what it used to be. Last year’s top-selling album, “The Emancipation of Mimi,” by Mariah Carey, moved 4.86 million copies. That’s less than half of the 9.94 million copies ’N SYNC sold to make “No Strings Attached” the best-selling album of 2000. File-sharing and CD burning don’t account for the total decline of the blockbuster. The rest of that business is splintering and channeling into smaller niche hits that the Internet makes easy to find. “People join bands because they want to have fun, and they want to be heard. Now everyone can be heard. But having fun is up to you.”
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asap contributor Karla Starr loves her MySpace friends. Really.
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