Creating and marketing at the same time

Most creators I know have lamented to me at least once about how they just want to create, and not have to worry about marketing. Since I’m trying to meet you where you are, I’ll give you a couple of my favorite ways you can market AND create at the same time.

• Be a part of anthology projects – apply for anthology projects and when you’re accepted you automatically have an in with the editor, the other creators, and anybody who reads the book. It’s a perfect way to expand your network AND audience while creating. A good benchmark is 5-6 anthology projects a year. While you won’t make much money, you will be creating while doing marketing.
• Editing anthology projects – editing IS creating, so editing an anthology and being the one who puts it together is creating while you market, as you’ll have your name front and center for every person who hears about, checks out, or works on the project.
• Do guest posts/pin-ups for other creators – If you have an audience LIKE another person, then you can do creating while you market by offering to do pieces for them, either a short story or a pin-up, or even a guest comic. You’ll be getting in front of other people’s audiences AND creating new things.
• Drawing/writing fanart – plenty of well known artists got their start doing fan art and writing stories in other universe. Ones you would recognize, and you can leverage yourself by have a distinctive voice in a genre that you are passionate about creating in, while you are creating and marketing yourself. If it’s popular you can even repurpose it like E L James did with Fifty Shades of Grey.
• Write magazine articles or draw for newspapers magazines that service your ideal readers – There are always media outlets that need new editorial cartoons, reviewers, and other creatives.
• Do a crossover project with all of your characters – This is tried and true in comics, in art, and to some degree even in novels. Each person works on a part of the story, or the piece of art, and together you bring all your fans to it and promote it together. This is like an anthology, but you aren’t making different pieces, you are making one piece that has all your footprints on it.
• Volunteer for an organization you care about doing art or stories – many organizations have big networks that can help elevate your work.
• Do live streams with other artists/writers where you create a jam piece or just do your own work while you’re on their stream – You can literally make a piece for you to sell after the live stream while you are working on it for either your audience or whoever’s stream you are on at the time, literally creating while you market.

Those are some of my best thoughts about how to market WHILE you create.