Comic strips

Success in cartooning speaker: Mark Simon

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Alan Gardner February 18, 2013 1 minute 0 comments

Mark Simon is a cartoonist, illustrator and animation producer. He gives a presentation called How to get millions of dollar with free advertising.

Notes:

• How to get millions of dollar with free advertising
• Promotion is advertising
• What is promotion? Any coverage in media that you don’t pay for
• Promotion always tells a story; you give them content, they give you mention
• The more promotion you get, the more money you make
• Build your contact list. If people liked your work once, they’ll probably like it again – give them opportunities to give you their money.
• Start with local promotion. National shows don’t do local because local is more unpredictable
• Media loves art and cartoonists have lots of that
• “Buy my book” is bad promotion – you need to give the media a story they can run with
• Media Kit – must include head shots, logos, sample art, suggested questions and canned answered. Media will use the canned questions and answers because they’re safe and predictable
• Do as much work for them as you can – they love it.

16 steps promotion

1. What’s your story – have a story (business deals, expansion, awards, celebrity connections)
2. Hooks – help media get audience attention, create catchy titles
3. Great art – give them good visuals
4. Don’t send attachments in your emails – only links.
5. Write only press release – make sure it’s a story not a sales pitch, use quotes; e.g. smallbusinesspr.com
6. Find publications that are read by people you want to pitch to. Write an article and be published in those publications.
7. Call personal press contacts – make friends with editors; treat them well
8. Post to PR and article sites (prweb.com; rpleap.com etc.)
9. Enlist help and network to get to people you need to.
10. Don’t be afraid of being outlandish. Outlandish gets attention; if you’re not pissing off people, your audience is too small. You only grow when you piss people off; It gets your name out there.
11. Become the local expert/local connection that the local media brings on to talk about larger issues (you can instigate this ? don?t wait for them to call you)
12. Be Controversial ? media loves energy, animation and conflict.
13. Local Morning Shows
14. Press Event ? if you?re doing something big enough, invite the whole media over at one time for a demo

(Editor’s note: I’m missing some of those 16 steps)

No such thing as bad publicity. Look at Kardashians and Charlie Sheen