BOOKS – A Good Inexpensive Resource for Artists to Learn About Marketing

The Simpsons quote:

“OLD SPRINGFIELD LIBRARY WE HAVE BOOKS ABOUT TV” ~Banner at the library

How do you learn to market yourself as an artist? Being a marketer is such a different skill set than being an artist.

Even though this is true, it’s a learn-able skill.  Plenty of non artist have learned it, why can’t we?

The problem is, where to begin?  There are so many options.

Well, I have a suggestion. I have a low cost entry point to start learning this stuff in the form of a marketing book which I will share with you in this post.

So you can either watch the video or read the post.

(All links to the book below are affiliate links. I appreciate your support if you decide to buy the book and use the links to do so. Thank you.):

What We Do as Artist Online is Not Enough

I’ve been investing a lot of money learning marketing recently. One of the best resources that I’ve gotten for my money happens to be a book called, The Ultimate Marketing Plan: Target Your Audience! Get Out Your Message! Build Your Brand! by Dan Kennedy.

This is a really good book that helps you start wrapping your head around marketing.  It’s $15.00 but you can probably go the library and see if you can borrow it there.  This is really a low cost entry point to learning about this stuff.

There’s really a couple of thousand dollars of information in the book for $15.00 (or for free if you borrow it from the library). You really let a lot of info.

As artists we’re always putting our stuff online. We’re on Twitter, we’re on Facebook, DeviantArt, and we’ve got our own websites.  All these things are really good, BUT there’s a reason why we’re not getting more hits to our work. Why we’re often, not really making money off this stuff. There’s a reason why it’s not enough.

What’s In the Book

It’s because there’s a little bit more to it than that. A few things we’re not doing well.

The core of this book is this triangle:

Which defines marketing as:

Getting the right message to the right people via the right media and methods–effectively, efficiently, and profitably.

This is the core theme of the book. The beginning of every chapter emphasizes one of the sides of the triangle.

What We Tend to Neglect

For example, we’re pretty much obsessed with the “media” part: websites, social me

dia and the other thing I mentioned above. That’s fine but we often neglect the other things.

We might not be targeting the right Market (Who). We really should do some homework on that and the book shows you how to do it, what to think about. It gives you things to brainstorm and examples of what  has worked. It’s really good about doing that sort of thing.

We often neglect what message we’re putting out there. What are we trying to say? What’s the best way to say it? The book gives you a marketing plan. It helps you think about how to plan this stuff so you can get the most out of what you do and how you do it.

I can’t recommend this book enough. I’ve spent more money on marketing material that has been less useful than the information in this book.

Now, a Warning.

The Ultimate Marketing Plan is a marketing tool for Dan Kennedy. As good as the info in the book is, it’s not absolutely complete. There isn’t such a thing anyway.

There’s still gaps in the information. Those gaps in the info require their own books. Well, what do you know, Dan Kennedy also wrote a book about the thing that he didn’t write about in this one.

The book itself is a platform he uses to market for something else.

Dan Kennedy is a business man who got wealthy helping to market products for other business and got really good at it. Now he teaches marketing so you can do it too. So he has a website where he does it from and it’s really great. His book does everything it can to get you to go to that site.

On the one hand, the information in the book is really great. On the other hand, you have to be aware of the “meta-learning” factor of the book, which is that, the book itself is a marketing tool. As you read the book, you can see where he markets himself and his products.

The book is a low entry item that he uses, to get you hooked so that he can then get you into the system and try to, up sell you into higher and higher tier items in his business. This is not a bad thing. It’s in fact showing you HOW he does what he does by example.

Just be warned that the book is a marketing tool. It’s not only going to teach you how to market yourself, but it’s also going to market TOO you.

But I really do recommend this book. Give it a read whether you buy it or get it from the library.

If you Read This Book

I hope you liked my review.  If you liked it, let me know. If you read the book, tell me what you think. I’d love to hear from you.

This Week’s Opt In Surprise

This week I sent off a special drawing full of art that was done by the Simpsons Crew around the time I started on the show. They sat around and made fun of Jurassic Park, Simpsons style.

If you’d like like to see that art, opt in below before Thursday of next week and I’ll send you a copy of the e-mail just for you (yes, I’m totally marketing my e-mail opt in right now. Is it working?).

THE SIMPSONS NEWS – Why You Should Still Be Watching The Simpsons

Saw this article on Wired.com defending The Simpsons.

There are so many people online always bashing and attacking the show, it’s very nice and encouraging to see a positive view of it.

Go give it a read:

Defend Your Show: Why You Should Still Be Watching The Simpsons

VIDEOS – Star Wars: Hard of Hearing Vader

And now for something completely different….

When I first saw this, it made me laugh so hard I started crying:

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