Opportunities Lost

My wife and I have learned about marketing the hard way.  A few years, JoAnn produced two children’s books.  We found a publisher who offered a “one-stop” service that took care of everything from printing to distribution and marketing.  We self-published thousands of books and bought a few thousand dollars worth of advertising.

We carefully planned the whole process to put the books in stores in time for the Christmas season.  The books got to the warehouse at the last possible minute, and we let friends know they could buy them in bookstores.  They tried, but the retailers couldn’t order them – there was a computer glitch.

The publisher insisted there was no problem, and by the time JoAnn and I got to the bottom of the mess and straightened it out, our advertising had gone out of date and the Christmas season had passed.  We ended up with an inventory of thousands of books to sell.  It was a nightmare.

We have never taken the time to count up exactly how much money we didn’t make – or even how much we lost.  But if we ever self-publish a book again, here are a few things we would do differently:

1)  We would put a minimum of money at risk. There are many ways to do this.  One way is with a small print run.  Yes, it’s always cheaper per book to print ten thousand than five hundred, but printing is only part of the cost.  What about shipping?  Storage?  Insurance?

Another way is to presell the books.  If we know that we know we can sell two thousand or ten thousand, it makes sense to print that and more.  But thinking big is no guarantee that a big dream won’t become a big nightmare.

2)  We would give at least as much thought to marketing as we did to producing the books. A good product won’t necessarily sell itself.  Our publisher sent us an email to say he had gotten another client’s books into all the bookstores, but nobody was buying them.

We had to terminate our contract with the first distributor and work with another.  They taught us something they called the “push-pull” principle of marketing.  We needed to advertise to the retailers to push the books into their stores, then we needed to advertise to consumers to pull them into the stores, looking for our books.

Our first publisher knew a bit about how to push the books into stores, but hadn’t thought about what it would take to pull customers in.

3)  We would do all the free or inexpensive marketing we could. This includes press releases, getting book reviews, creating a website, and more.

If you look for inexpensive ways to put your work before the public, you’ll be surprised how many you find.  Search the web for “free marketing” and similar phrases.  You can find dozens of good ideas, many of which don’t cost much in time or money.

I’m writing my wife’s testimony as a book.  (You can read the summary at http://diaryofanexorcism.com.)  I go back to God again and again, looking for fresh ideas that will make my writing sparkle.  But I’m also looking for marketing wisdom now, even though the manuscript is only half finished.

I believe our first publisher meant well and was sincere, but he simply hadn’t mastered the art of marketing.  Most of us haven’t.  But if we start small and do the things that don’t cost an arm and a leg, we’ll learn.  Then when we have money to pour into the project, we’ll know when and where to spend it.

Stan Smith  ::  © 2008, GospelSmith  ::  www.GospelSmith.com

Create Your Opportunities

I have always been fascinated with the parable of the sower, Jesus’ story of the farmer who threw seed into good ground and bad.  Some seed fell on the hard ground of the pathway and produced nothing; some fell in rocky soil, sprang up, and withered; some fell among thorns and were choked; some fell in good ground.

I always wondered why the farmer didn’t simply plow his field.

Many artists tend to be like the sower.  They produce work after work, perfecting their technique.  They fill the attic with paintings, the closet with recordings, or a file cabinet with manuscripts.  But like the sower in Jesus’ parable, they don’t prepare the soil for their works to take root and grow.

Solomon addressed this in Proverbs 29:18 –

He who tills his land will have plenty of bread,
But he who follows frivolity will have poverty enough!

The farmer who prepares the ground will succeed, but the one who doesn’t won’t.  And the lesson here applies to everyone who has creative gifts, whether in the arts or in any other innovative field.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with using your art frivolously if it’s just a hobby.  But to make a kingdom impact with art, you have to till the land if you want plenty of bread.  The “bread” here is success in whatever God has called you to do, and your success may be measurable in dollars, in prestigious awards, or in lives touched for the kingdom of God.  (See Success In the Arts.)

Your work is the seed, and tilling the ground is the process of preparing the world around you to receive what you have to offer.  Here are a few ways to do it.

1) Find the stories of others who have already done something similar to what you are called to do.  Their stories are unique and you can’t expect to follow them step-by-step like a recipe, but at least they tell you it can be done!  If you don’t know where to start looking, run a search on “artist success stories” and similar topics.

2) Do the basics.  If you don’t have a business card, create one. Prepare a flyer to introduce you and your work.  Design a poster to announce your next show or performance.  You may begin with something modest that you can print on your inkjet printer at home.  In time, you will want to upgrade to something with professional graphics and printing.

3) Identify opportunities in your region.  Where can you show your work?  Ask questions, get in touch with the contact people, and commit yourself to getting involved.

4) Keep learning.  Go online to search “marketing” or “growing your business” for more ideas.  Who knows, maybe an articles about selling butter and eggs will show you how to create an opportunity to make an impact with your art.

It’s work. It’s plowing.  Some of the steps aren’t particularly exciting, but it all needs to be done.

Make a firm decision to get your work out where it can make an impact.  Then spend time with God, asking Him for wisdom and for help.

God answers prayer.  As I have asked for wisdom, He has given ideas during my soaking times – for example, to create templates for my marketing materials so I can revise them as needed.  Sometimes He has showed me areas I need to study, or given me phrases to use in search engines.

And He helps in other ways.  He leads us to key people.  He sometimes sends opportunities to us; though they often arrive at an inconvenient time, it’s important to rise to the occasion and do our best.

Stan Smith  ::  © 2008, GospelSmith  ::  www.GospelSmith.com

Connect With People

Artists are often tempted to live in isolation, producing all they can without distraction.  But it is wiser to engage with the world around us, so our art can touch people.  This is what Solomon said:

A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire;
He rages against all wise judgment.  [Proverbs 18:1]

I have to admit it’s a lot more fun to write an article than to make an effort to get it into print.  It’s more fun to write a new song than to drag my keyboard and speaker onto a stage and to play it.  And my wife enjoys creating new computer graphics, but dreads setting up a display at an art show.

As we meet other artists, we find that we are not alone.  Many creative people are very backward about getting their work out before the public.

Solomon learned this.  Maybe he learned as a poet and writer who had to get his works out where they could affect people.  Maybe he learned as a king who found artists continually seeking his favor and patronage.  Perhaps he saw what many artists notice: that success doesn’t necessarily go to the best artists, but it goes to those who present themselves and their work well.

I don’t know whether this is unfair or not.  But Solomon lived on both sides of the fence.  He was a writer, and he was a patron of the arts. And from this dual vantage point, he said that the man who isolates himself is seeking his own desire – that is, the artists who will not make an effort to connect with the marketplace is self-absorbed.

Solomon’s words don’t have to be harsh. There is nothing wrong with using art as a hobby.  It can be a God-given way to unwind; in that case there is nothing wrong with being the man who “seeks his own desire.”

But if God has called you to make an impact with your art, the creative process does not end when you have gotten the last of the paint on the canvas or learned a new lick on the guitar.  The same creativity that inspires your art can also inspire your marketing:  presenting it at shows or in concerts, taking it to the streets, putting it online advertising it, writing press releases about it…

It’s vital to spend time with God, letting Him give you ideas.  If you want your art to make a kingdom impact, you need His inspiration in your work itself.  Then you need that same creative inspiration in your marketing, and in finding ministry opportunities that your art provides.

Many artists are afraid of promotion.  They fear that a sense of hucksterism will cheapen their work.

But Solomon isn’t calling us into a gaudy marketing scheme.  He contrasts isolation with “wise judgment.”  If you are wise enough to produce quality art, you are creative enough to come up with a marketing plan that reflects the high quality of your work.

Solomon’s words make a specific point for artists:  your work isn’t finished until you find a way to get it to the people God intends for it to touch.  It all demands creativity – and time spent with God will cause your creativity to blossom.

Stan Smith  ::  © 2008, GospelSmith  ::  www.GospelSmith.com

CD Cover — From Above

A few years ago I produced a prophetic worship CD, and realized I would have to have a cover.  Production costs were straining my budget, so I knew I would have to create the cover myself.  I prayed for God’s help.

I am a bit color blind and have almost no experience in graphic arts.  My CD producers would accept a cover in one of several formats, including Quark, a program my wife had on her computer.  I found a tutorial and within a couple of hours knew I could create the layout.  All I needed was the art.

Common sense told me I needed patches of dark or light where text in black or white would have enough contrast to be readable. A key song focused on the Father calling His sons home, so I wanted an image that would suggest both the glory of God and a homecoming theme.

I had bought Corel software a year or two earlier and went through their stock images.  I found a farmhouse in a sunset with mist.  A golden cast ran through the image.

It was much longer than it was high, almost like a license plate.  I squared the image, to fit the graphic requirements of a CD.  Depending on the needs of each page of the cover, I cropped and resized the image.  It came out as I had hoped:  a golden mist reminiscent of God’s glory, a farmhouse with cars parked outside, and room for text where I needed it.

I was happy to receive compliments for my cover, especially when they came from graphic artists.  I gave God credit for anything I had done right; He had showed me what to do.  Then more than a year later, the story took an odd turn.

I wrote a book about prophetic song, and wanted to reuse the image from the CD on the book’s cover.  I took the files to a graphic artist and said, “Can we take the bush out of the image and set it on fire – a burning bush?”

He tried it, and it looked scary.  When we zoomed in on the bush, it looked like a man in a robe, standing with arms extended.  Our added fire made it look like a man that was burning to death.  It was too scary to use, and I let my publisher, Xulon Press, design my book cover.

But the bush that looks like a man became a testimony.  It was as if God had put His signature on the CD cover, giving this token that He is indeed calling His sons home.

I was ministering out of town and standing with a cluster of people at my book table.  I told them about the bush, saying, “Look for Jesus on the cover of the CD.”  Suddenly someone exclaimed, “There He is!” as he pointed to the upper left corner of the cover.

“No, He’s in the center,” I said.  But the other person insisted.  So I looked again, and there He was, looking through the branches of a tree.  It was a clearer likeness than what we had found in the bush.

Other Christian artists tell me they too have had this kind of experience at times.  It doesn’t always happen; I made another cover for a workbook but, in spite of searching carefully, haven’t found any hidden images.

What does it mean?  For me, it has awakened me to the reality that God will give us sounds and images that will make an impact.  This little accident with my art – it was an accident to me, but a design by God – has caused me to be proactive in seeking God’s inspiration in my work.

This is just a token, of course.  There can be more profound fruits of God’s inspiration.  But if we are Christian artists, we have more resources to draw from than just our own talents or ideas.

Stan Smith  ::  © 2008, GospelSmith  ::  www.GospelSmith.com

Inspiration From Above

A River Of Inspiration

You can draw from your own resources when you create, or you can draw from heaven.

It almost seems like cheating.  It’s one thing to let our imaginations run wild as we try to be creative; it’s another to look to God for ideas.  It’s like the student who doesn’t know the answers, so he copies off someone else’s paper.

But lately, I keep running into a quote from Picasso:  “Bad artists copy.  Great artists steal.”

If you want to look at what Picasso meant, run a search on “Great artists steal.”  But his words echo a theme Solomon addressed in Proverbs 14:14 –

The backslider in heart will be filled with his own ways,
But a good man will be satisfied from above.

First he lists contrasting people, the backslider in heart vs. the good man ; then he shows that they both are filled and satisfied, but with different things.  We can be filled with our own ways, or from above.

For an artist, the contrast is clear.  Our own ways are our own talents, our creativity, our techniques, our ideas.  But that which is from above is the inspiration we receive from God.

Today’s art schools equip the artist for self-expression, but few train the artist to draw from heaven’s resources.

The key is in the phrase “backslider in heart”, a phrase that has a spiritual meaning.  It refers to those who have inwardly slid back out of a relationship with God.

We can be backsliders in heart while outwardly maintaining a form of spirituality.  We can be churchgoers; we might say our prayers or read the Bible every day; we can seek to develop good character as we go through life’s ups and downs.  But what’s going on inside?  Do our hearts engage with God, taking time to listen to Him for fresh ideas?

Many people have never considered the possibility that part of Christian living is hearing from God.  It’s not that we have slid back out of such a relationship; we never knew it existed in the first place.

Solomon’s father was David the king, a man who heard from God as he wrote prophetic poems and songs.  Solomon himself had learned to draw from God as a scholar, a lecturer, and a writer – all of this above and beyond his duties as king.  Throughout his lifetime, he met people who were creative leaders in the arts.

Solomon himself is famous for his backsliding.  He began as a young king who asked God for wisdom because he did not trust that his own mental and spiritual resources were great enough to enable him to look after the welfare of his subjects.  By the end of his life, he sank into self-sufficiency.

We don’t know at what point Solomon wrote this proverb.  But we can be sure he saw the acute difference between those who leaned on God for inspiration and those who drew from their own resources, first in others around him, and then later in himself.

Is it stealing to take inspiration from God? Picasso may have thought so; you may prefer to think of it as simply receiving a gift.  But the choice is yours:  do you want to base your creativity on your own ways, or on the resources from above?

Jesus has provided access to the Father.  He said, “My sheep know My voice.”  We will find Him very willing to speak to us about our art, just as He speaks about every other area of our lives.

It begins with the choice to cultivate a listening ear and a watchful eye.

Stan Smith  ::   © 2008, GospelSmith  ::  www.GospelSmith.com