In Your Face!

Ask most successful people in showbusiness how they got to where they are, and you'll find that most of the answers will have some pretty similar themes. You'll hear things like "I could never see myself doing anything except playing the piano."; or "I want to act more than I want to breathe."; or "The only time I'm happy is when I'm on stage."; or "I knew since I was 5 years old that one day I was going to sing at Carnegie Hall.".

People who succeed in showbusiness have to want it more than say, the guy vying for Carpet Salesman Of The Year at the "Rug Shack" in Teaneck, NJ. They also have to be willing to starve for it, and to work really really hard for a very long time till it "happens". A few talk about being "discovered", like they're waiting for Magellan to come around. Those aren't the ones who make it.
Lana Turner is/was the exception to that rule. She got discovered in a soda shop, but that was "dumb luck". Don't count on luck.

So, how do you make it happen? Do you just keep perfecting your craft, working every little hole-in-the-wall club that'll have you? Do you write a blog, or screenplays for college films in the hopes that someone will find your work? Absolutely, yes! You take the work, and you "work" it. Get experience, perfect your craft. My friends who are comedians work their hometown clubs every night they're in town. The ones who are in New York, Boston and L.A. work six clubs a night sometimes.

NO doubt about it, you have to perform as many times as possible, in front of many many MANY audiences. You have to make mistakes, and you must consistently get better at what you do. What then?

Well, you have to get the word out. You have to be the best self-promoter you can be. No one will believe in you more than you do (at least until you get famous). Exploit every resource available that can help you spread your message. It's easy to do, and it's FREE!

The job of "talent scout" in the world of arts and entertainment has changed dramatically since twenty five years ago. A wise talent scout isn't just going from club to club, or open mike nights to find the next great talent; they're out here on the web, looking for every possible "place" in which the "next big thing"could be performing "on demand".

The web has SO many free means of advertising, promotion, publicity, that getting your name out there is easy. You've just got a lot of competition. So, assuming you can do something to merit the attention of a prospective fan or purchaser of your services; assuming you have to have "the goods" to be able to keep their attention longer than a few seconds, you've got a shot. Maybe your video will go viral, and will get you some attention. Maybe someone will forward something you've written to..."the right person", and things will start to happen. But you have to get "out there".

Most people have shorter attention spans today than they did twenty years ago. The number of messages that come our way every ten seconds is..mind-boggling. So your stuff better be a real attention-grabber, and an attention keeper.

Remember Lonely Girl 15? She was an actress who was hired to play the part of a, well, a lonely girl. She did this on YouTube. To date, her first video blog installment/webisode has had 1.83 MILLION views. It cost practically nothing to do what she did. The second episode had over 2.5 million views. Her least popular episode had a 150,000 views.

The series has had spinoffs for both the web and (European) broadcast television. See? Someone in their basement with captivating content, the desire to succeed, and the "grass roots" cleverness to market it well has a good shot. Lonely Girl 15's still makin' a dollar off what started out as a $500 a week lark.

In the age of YouTube, Facebook, and ...just the plain' ol' web, the means to reach out and GRAB your audience are are easily accessible, and are FREE-FREE-FREE!!!!!!!!! So how come you're not famous yet? It's about usin' the tools.

The self-righteous purists of the arts and entertainment worlds don't get it. About fifty years ago, Truman Capote said of Jack Kerouac's On The Road, "That's not writing, that's just typing.". Truman wasn't speaking out of professional envy, of course. Truman was already successful as an author when he'd made that remark.

There are many people out there whose "typing", gets published, and many others whose writing, is being seen 0nly by their parents, and the 75 followers of their respective blogs. Why, oh WHY is this injustice allowed to continue? Because the "typing" sometimes speaks louder than the "writing", and because most people don't know the difference between art and hackery.

People will judge what's in front of them. If you ask most people to choose between A and B, they won't think about C. "Coke or Pepsi?"..."Vanilla or Chocolate?". ..You might occassionally get someone who'll ask for "bottled water", or "butterscotch", or who might even pass on dessert, but most will pick one of the things you offer, because they assume that's all there is. If people will judge what's in front of them, get in FRONT OF THEM! Easier said than done? Yup. Nonetheless, it must become an important part of your daily activity.

Don't believe me? Coca Cola's the most popular soft drink in the world! They spent $2.6 billion in advertising in 2006. And they're already #1. You can be sure that one of the reasons they stay at the top is because their message is constantly out there; they buy the best possible message they can afford, and they can afford a LOT.

Another example in popular culture: Reality TV sucks! But a pretty large percentage of the world watches TV. The networks realized they could spend less on production by letting go of trivial luxuries like actors and writers, while increasing (or even just keeping the current) advertising rates. The broadcast networks were right: people will watch garbage on TV if that's all there is to watch on TV. But before the networks put something on, they hype the hell out of it. They spend tens-of-millions of dollars in advertising trying to convince you that watching people lose weight, or rebuild a house, or lose weight by rebuilding a house is better than some..."scripted" drama or comedy. They're just selling dreck. Collectively, they're offering you Dreck A or Dreck B. Either way, they win, and they continue to keep this junk ON the air because most Americans are buying their hype.

Cable TV subscriptions are up. There's never been a time at which premium content is more worth paying for than during a bad economy during which "Reality TV" is...a reality.

So, if you're a comedian, how do you get out in front of the world? You work every club, you play for every audience, and in your off-time, you update your website very often, you get a blog, you trade links with people, you tell every club at which you work that you'll link to them if they link to you. If you manage to get up in the morning, you issue a news release. Of course, you can't just write a news release and expect people to publish it. You have to work smart. This book will tell you lots about how to do it, even if you have no money.

So get good, then get great, but ALWAYS get your message in front of people OTHER than those for whom you performed that night. Use your creativity, ask your friends for help, ask me for help if you'd like.

Go get `em!