You’ve worked your ass off to complete your project, and now it’s time to let the world know about your zine or book or album or website or movie or whatever.
It may seem like a daunting task, but getting the word out about your independent project is not impossible. You may not have the backing of a major media conglomerate, but that doesn’t mean that you’re cut off from the promotional highway. It just means that you’ve got to work a little harder, be creative and make sure, at the very minimum, that you do the simple things presented in the Get the Word Out Project.
The fact that you’ve taken the initiative to independently create a project proves that you’ve got the energy and the drive to go the extra mile to get the word out and let people know that your project exists.
With regard to money, you probably have less for your whole promotional budget than those corporate suits and short skirts spent on a pre-planning marketing lunch in which they discussed next year’s Janet Jackson pin-up calendar.
But that’s okay. You don’t need that much money. You’ll need some, but not that much.
It’s important to note that this is a time of information overload. There are a gazillion projects out there vying for people’s attention. Even if you’ve created a masterpiece, something so brilliant that it should easily attract attention based on its sheer existence alone, it might still get buried beneath billboards for CocaCola and a catchy Gap commercial. Your plan to GET THE WORD OUT has to be solid, interesting and well-executed.
As the mega-mergers continue to consolidate media power, a smaller and smaller number of corporations wield a larger and larger amount of influence over every aspect of our lives. Corporate logos are being fire branded onto our brains. Independent projects are a way to fight this power. It’s important to work hard to get the word out about your project, to stake a claim on the national attention span.
You’ve done the project. Now it’s time to get the word out.
–Jeffrey Yamaguchi