Excessive self-promotion may cause headaches, nausea, palpitations of the pituitary gland, helium voice and existential drought, but now that I’ve launched my story consulting service, an honest-to-goodness entrepreneurial enterprise, I need to step more firmly into the ether of the internet.
Our social media feeds are already an endless stream of commercials, but I still loathe the idea of self-promotion. Like many people, I feel uncomfortable, uneasy, and dead inside when posting on social media for the sole (and not so subtle) purpose of self-promotion. In the gig economy, however, freelancers need to stay in front of people’s faces enough to land gigs and advance their careers. So I’ve bought some big boy pants and figured out some ways to be more e-present so This Time/Next Time can thrive alongside my career as a screenwriter.
This moment reminds me of when I finally admitted it was wise and necessary to aim some of my screenwriting brain at genre stories instead of the intimate, odd, or intimate and odd indie stories I was writing. Eventually, I chose to focus on science fiction and psychological thrillers as my genres of focus In order to not rely too heavily on the predictable tropes and expectations of the genre, I asked myself at the time, “What is my version of a science fiction story?” What is a psychological thriller that I would love to watch? Similarly, I am asking myself, “What is a form of marketing that would NOT annoy me as a human/consumer? For me, the answer to this conundrum is to continue to share the words of my collaborators and colleagues and clients and even past students. I’d like to use their voices to highlight the work I’ve been doing over the years in the name of inspiring people to contact me to explore how I can help them with their words and stories. Maybe that’s you even.
Moving forward, I plan on occasionally sharing the words of others along with some context or memory connected to that person. In that way, I hope to share something meaningful about the work I do while also…yes…promoting myself to clients. I’ll leave by sharing the unsolicited gratitude of my most recent client who was able to execute a much more substantial revision of a pilot script with a tight deadline after talking to me.
“2nd draft done. Your session took it to a place i wouldn’t have been able to get to with what i had. More work to do but thank you for helping with this next step.”
Of course, this made me happy. This time and next time…
