Stop being 'demure and mindful' when sharing your creative work
Promoting without caveats
Hey there! Stop headlining your work with easy opt outs!
What am I talking about?
If you are like me, you might have a tendency when discussing your creative work with friends, colleagues and strangers to include weak opt out language without even realizing it:
“Maybe if you’re not busy on Saturday, you can…”
“Hopefully you’ll like this, but here is this thing I made…”
“I’m so nervous that its not any good, but if you want to see the thing that I’m writing…”
and the irritatingly innocuous— “…..if not, no worries!!!!!”
STOP THIS.
You may think you are being humble but you are shrinking yourself away.
As women-type-people especially, we’re taught to be gentle and sheepish, and not seek or command attention.
This is why we default to anemic language when sharing and promoting our work.
I did this too, until I did not—
A week ago I had a show, and it came up rather suddenly so there was not much time to promote it.
I was opening for a Norwegian indie-rock duo who had never performed in Atlanta before. Though their social following was sizable, this does not necessarily equate to real fans who show up to shows.
Meanwhile, the people I would expect to be at my shows are not exactly scrappy young kids. They are mostly people with busy lives and they do not do things “last minute.”
Yet, I had this thing that I was going to be asking them to do last minute—during the holiday season, mind you!
Whereas I had been very demure and very mindful when mentioning my creative output in the past, I’ve also played to some empty-ish rooms and it’s not ideal.
This time, I decided to utilize a more direct approach.
My prior promotion strategy was to tell my husband, tell a few friends, and put it online a couple of times in the hopes that people would see it.
Instead, I made a list of every single person I had ever interacted with that seemed remotely interested in hearing more about my music. Then, I contacted them directly via emails, text messages, DMs and face-to-face. I was going to make sure that everyone I could think of was invited, personally, by me to my show.
(I have
and to thank for this inspiration, by the way).I also intentionally decided to stop caveating my calls to action.
This does not mean I was forceful or intimidating, or uncomfortable or too hard-hitting.
Here is the text of my email to a man I met once at an open mic months ago and whom I barely know:
“Hey [name],
I just wanted to let you know that I'm going be opening for a Norwegian Indie Duo called Ask Carol at Smiths Olde Bar next week. It will be on Thursday, Dec 5 and I'll go on at 8. I hope you can come, I think you’ll really like it!”
I eliminated all traces of anemia from this email. There are no if you’re not too busy’s or if you feel so inclined to’s. And I did not explicitly tell him not to worry if he can’t make it.
His worries are none of my business.
And that is how I stopped performing my promotion dance as a timid woman. Even amidst bouts of self-doubt and ‘not-good-enough-ness,’ I acted as if what I was doing was worth sharing and watching.
And here’s the #1 thing—people already know that they can not come to my show. They know that they have agency over which artists they support and when. Duh.
I do not need to reinforce that, or provide them additional reasons as to why it is okay.
I do not need to call out the opt out!
It is buried all the way at the bottom of the communication, in small squinty type. They can exercise it, if they choose.
None of my business.
And here’s the #2 thing— art and creative work products are subjective.
Like, some guy paid a million dollars at an art show for a duct-taped Banana last month.
How much confidence must an artist have in order to fetch a million dollars for a duct-taped banana?
We’re all over here being like, “ it’s not that good, but I made this…” or “it could be better but here…” or “if you have some time maybe you want to see or hear or read this thing that I made maybe, IF NOT NO WORRIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
And this asshole is getting a million dollars for a banana duct-taped to a wall.
I don’t care what the quality of your work is, but you should share it like it’s a million dollar banana.
Most people do not consider themselves art critics, some do not even trust themselves to know whether something is good or not. They look to the energy around a work to determine its value.
You have a lot of agency over that energy when you share it yourself. Bolster it don’t diminish it, ffs.
As for my show, it would have been killer to be like, “I sold out the venue.”
Alas, I did not sell out the venue and neither did the other band. But you know what I did have? An fullish-feeling crowd of people, especially for an artist of my reach and numbers.
Plus, plenty of people who I had never seen who wandered in of their own accord to watch ME.
In short, this was a success. I will never go back to being demure and mindful when discussing and sharing my creative work.
I would encourage you to do the same.
And if not…
… its none of my business.
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I also live in other realms.
I make moody, mid-life alt-pop too.
You may find me and my music in the following places:
I am so so so very guilty of this shit. In fact, it was all I could do to keep it out of this comment. It still is. Right now as I’m typing I want to apologize for myself. Arrrrg! Thanks for the reminder.
Excellent! 👊🏻