Recently, I saw a post on the Storytellers Facebook Group from Limor’s Storytelling Agora blog that made an interesting statement:
“I’m a storyteller. What do I need to improve on?”
So I asked myself this question and here’s what I came up with.
What I need to work on is how I sell myself to schools, event organizers, and festival organizers. I’ve won competitions, I’ve won awards, I organize events, I’ve hosted storytelling events: these are all experiences that recognize that I have talent as a skilled storyteller. What continues to elude me is how to market this skill to make me an attractive artist to potential employers.
I keep trying to come up with new and innovative ideas to create storytelling shows that appeal to a mass market, but the mass market still relegates storytelling as a juvenile activity and not worthy of adult interest. Someone suggested to me recently that I need to market to a niche market instead, allowing me to specialize rather than generalize. I think there’s some wisdom in that.
In the meantime, I waffle between trying to acquire the skills myself or to hire someone who understands branding and marketing to help me bridge this gap.