How to support your favorite artist, up front and honest (with how to do it for free)

You walk down the street without a care in the world. It's a good day. The sun is shining and birds are singing. You hear music coming from just around the corner and there he is. His hat is overturned on the pavement and his fingers work that guitar like he was born holding it. He plays to entertain the masses and will take anything you care to drop. Some drop change, others drop dollars. He even gets the occasional ham and cheese sandwich from the deli next door. He's a busker, singing and strumming for a dollar.

Ah but those days aren't so common now are they? Well, sure, there are still buskers and street performers in plenty of places. Some pay them and some mock them, but they still exist. I'm kind of like them. I apply my talent (what I have left) to your entertainment, I just do it online. And you get something you can print out right at home or order at your leisure through a website like Amazon. You see, there are new ways to be that busker guy with things like paypal and patreon. And why not?

Alas, I still get asked how a person can help out their favorite artist and these don't seem to be a common knowledge as they should be. The idea is this when it comes to today's starving artists like that fellow with the guitar: if you enjoy it... support it. There are several ways you can even better than on that street corner.

DO IT FOR FREE:

Every so often someone says to me: "Just imagine when you go viral!"  I want to say if everyone who said that, shared my work, I probably would. And that's the key, sharing is caring. No place allows for it better than right here on the internet. You have Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc and if you would share that work you enjoyed today, you would help take that one more step toward making it go viral. You increase visibility of the artist and get more people to stop and take a look. And if you want to do something only slightly more awesome...

COMMENT. Yeah, don't just lurk silently. Say something. Posting a comment also increases visibility and more than just sharing does (although both is freaking phenomenal). And it takes seconds to do either one! But let's say you want to be a big freaking help without spending money you don't have (hey I understand).

You want to contribute some serious golden effort? Grab the link to your artist's work page and post some of his work on your twitter or pinterest or instagram with that link attached. On pinterest, that's absolutely GOLD.

Okay, so now we talk about your options to support an artist for costs. Well, you can do it just like with the busker on the street if there is paypal involved. For example,

thewildeman2@yahoo.com

is my paypal email. Feel free to drop a dollar in my "hat" anytime. It helps me cover small costs and keep providing some content for free for everyone.

Love it enough to do more? PATREON. If your artist has one you can subscribe for as little as a dollar a month and score some niceties in thanks. You can cancel at anytime with no questions asked. That link is to my personal patreon of course. Or maybe you need something you can space out even more... well

Does your artist have an ETSY page? Books on AMAZON? Buy their products, and post REVIEWS.  Reviews are a big help that few people come back to post.

See. All sorts of ways to support an artist of nearly any kind. The more you support, the more that artist grows and expands their content. Through you, someone could be the next JK Rowling or Marvel Comics of the age. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Yes, all those links are for my works as I've been asked many times how to do all this. That's why I'm posting it all together right here for quick and easy reference. If you love it, support it. Just like you support any other favorite business in your town. Now you know.

Creators: Understanding your audience

It's not magic

Your audience is a collection of the people who follow your work, taking interest and ultimately buying your product. So how important is it to understand your audience? Well, if you don't have your own marketing team or money to dump into advertising, it's fairly important. If you aren't already considered some kind of guru or master of your craft, it's fairly important. Your audience is how you make a name for yourself. But how do you manage that?

Right now, you can break your audience reach into three forms; internet, local, and in person. Internet offers connections to far more people at great distances, but can be super difficult to navigate and gain the acceptance of those audiences. Anything in person is usually much simpler because you have the human connection that the internet lacks, but you are limited in access to people based on who is physically at whatever event you are part of.

Let's look at the internet audience. Everyone goes to the internet. You practically have the entire world at your fingertips. Or do you? You certainly have access to a great diversity of consumers. But there's a huge catch. Unless you are paying for advertising (and this session of my blog assumes you aren't) you can't just jump into some forum of people and say, "here's what I'm selling, everyone!". It won't work. That's because the one thing you have to understand about the internet audience is the universal bloody eyed hatred of spam. This hatred is so strong that it makes internet social marketing a veritable mine field.

This is even if you are talking to people of a group that is all about the product you have created. That's even if the forum you are taking part in, has clear rules that allow you to share your project in certain time intervals. It's not evil to be excited about your product. It's a great achievement for you. But this is the rule you need to follow.

Be a person first. People on the internet want to know that you are personally a human being they can take interest in. That means the want to have idle chat and basic entertaining post share. They are going to want to that for a significant amount of time as well. After all, how long does it take to get to know someone. They want to know that you aren't just a market bot on the net. No, just saying you aren't isn't going to work.  This is how you market yourself as a person. Just take part in the average discussions and present yourself as an interesting human being. Be yourself as much as you can.

Local audience is important too. This is audience you can go out and spend time with in person. Making local connections branches out into more local connections. But what's the secret? Be interested in other people. Learn about them and their projects. Be supportive of their projects. Often enough that will come back around to you. Be social and prepared to just shoot the breeze. Be personable. Remember that in many situations where you are approaching other people, the dynamics are the opposite of the last point I'm about to make.

The best way to find that "in person" audience is at events like conventions. The primary difference is that people are now coming to you to find out what your product is. It's a big part of the exact reason they are there. If this goes well, word of mouth will carry news about you. The more events you can go to for your book, game, etcetra, the better. This is practically the polar opposite of trying to market via social media outlets.

To sum up, remember that your audience is made of people. You need to understand what they want. They want you to appeal to their interests. Find the people who have the interests that match your product/project, and you will move forward (so long as you remember they are people first).