Self Promotion for Heroes is a self-paced online journey designed for creative people who desperately want to tell the world about their talents and art but lack the time, money, and know-how. Priced at Euro 29, this 2-5 hour course lets you start anytime and guides you through practical, proven strategies to market yourself effectively—quickly, easily, and affordably.

Are you an author, actor, artist, or accordion player looking for fresh, off-beat, and cost-effective ways to build a business or develop a successful and fulfilling career? This course is packed with winning strategies, innovative ideas, and proven sales and marketing techniques that will help you go from starving artist to superstar status.

Your guide, Peter de Kuster, will teach you:

• How to market without money
• How to create marketing materials that sell you even when you are not around
• How to build a buzz using word of mouth
• How to use the internet in ways you never thought of to promote yourself
• How to get the leaders in your field to endorse and support you

Self-promotion is one of the most difficult yet critical tasks for a creative professional. This online journey helps you overcome this hurdle so you can get the attention and recognition you and your talents deserve.

By enrolling, you’ll receive a full syllabus that covers:

• Introduction
• I Create, Therefore I Am? (Why you must make yourself more marketable)
• You Can’t Be Everything to Everybody (Writing a Right-Brain Marketing Plan)
• Show Off (Get Your Ass Out There)
• Do the Hustle (Persistence Pays Off)
• Walk Tall and Tell Great Stories (Make Yourself More Memorable)
• Image is Everything (You Are the Message)
• It Takes a Village to Raise a Business (It is Who You Know)
• Raving Fans (Making the Most of Word of Mouth Marketing)
• Show and Sell (Selling Without Selling Out)
• Full Quest Ahead (Positive Publicity)

Through this journey, you will acquire the skills and confidence to build your presence and career sustainably and effectively. You’ll learn how to craft your personal brand and story, create buzz around your work, and develop meaningful connections that lead to real opportunities.

To start your journey, simply send an email to Peter at peterdekuster2023@gmail.com, and he will send you the syllabus to begin this empowering course.

This journey blends practical business advice with the transformative power of storytelling, helping you turn your passion into a sustainable, impactful creative career.

I CREATE, THEREFORE I AM?

Why you must make yourself more marketable

It is called self-promotion for a reason: If you don’t do it yourself, it usually doesn’t get done! It is definitely a do-it-yourself proposition. It’s an overwhelming proposition to make it big in the arts, and impossible if you don’t take a proactive role in your promotion. This journey will take the mystery out of marketing. It can’t force you to embrace the concept, but it will teach you how to do it. It is the willingness (and ability) to market yourself and your art that increases your odds of making it. A lot of creative people have talent, but few have the know-how or desire to promote themselves. This isn’t anything new. Throughout the years, creative people have grappled with the conflict of creating great work and then being expected, and forced to sell it. ‘There should be a single Art Exchange in the world, to which the artist would simply send his works and be given in return as much as he needs. As it is, one has to be half merchant on top of everything else, and how badly one goes about it! Guess who said that. GIve up? Ludwig von Beethoven.

I am not saying you have to like it, you just have to do it. For better or worse, we live in the age of media. Self promotion is a necessary evil for the creative person who just wants to gain a little exposure for their art, let alone achieve fame and fortune. Simply put, if nobody knows you exist, it doesn’t matter how good your work is.

The business world and the art world are interlinked. Sometimes it feels more like a business than an art form. You can’t ignore one or the other. You need to make money, and you should be getting paid for what you do. I don’t know what your dream is, but for most of us it is to be able to earn a comfortable living while working on projects that we enjoy or are passionate about. Is that too much to ask for? I don’t think so. Both of those goals (to make money and work on art that motivates us) are the direct result of a successful self-promotion campaign. So suck it up, get over your squeamishness and do it, because the reward is worth it.

I am not saying it is easy. You send out your résumé, distribute your brochure, network like mad, write a stellar proposal, force yourself to make cold calls and carry your portfolio all over tiime, sometimes with little luck. It takes a lot of your time, time you’d rather be creating. It’s not just in the beginning either, it’s like all the time. It’s a business and you are the product. That means you have to sell the product – constantly. So you have two jobs, innovation and marketing. As you will learn in the hero’s journey, it doesn’t necessarily have to take a lot of time or money to do it well.

I have also found that when you are the creator, it is hard to step back and come up with ways to market your creations. For some reason, all that wonderful creativity dries up and you end up blocked and frustrated when it comes time to create your own marketing materials. Another phenomenon I have encountered is that after working on creating something for months, the last thing you want to do is promote it. You are ready to move on to the next great idea. Fight the urge to abandon your ‘baby’. Your creations need you to raise them until they are self-sufficient.

One thing I am sure of is that you can’t wait to be discovered, or for that time when others promote you. I know so many creative people who don’t understand that creating something is less than half the battle and that the real work has just begun I know, you are ‘an artist’ but you must also become a salesperson, booking agen, performer, publicist, pitcher, promoter, publisher, presenter – in other words, you will wear many hats. This takes an incredible amount of your energy and enthusiasm away from your real work. You can get help with the promotional side of your business, but in my opinion nobody can promote you as well as you can promote yourself. This journey is designed to help you do it yourself. You can do it. You know you should do it. Let’s agree, you will do it. Let me help.

If you aren’t marketing yourself, you’re falling behind someone else who is. You need to embrace the concept of self-promotion and actively engage in it or else you will always be on the fringe. You need visibility and credibility. You can accomplish both by weriting articles, speaking in public, putting up a first rate website, writing a book, or associating with a well-known person in your field. Do good work and it’s a little easier, but they won’t always find you. You have to market yourself Every successful creative person does it; even the supersuccessful still promote themselves. This journey is loaded with helpful ideas to make it easy for customers to find you, talk you up and get you to the next level.

We will cover all kinds of inexpensive, innovative and effective ways to get the word out about who you are and what you do; how to reach a larger audience and build a loyal fan base as well as getting the media to recognize you for your efforts. It’s about getting influential people to say yes to you more often, whether you’re an actor, artist, carpenter, cartoonist, comic, dancer, designer, entrepreneur, filmmaker, landscap architect, musician or involved in any other type of creative endeavor. You will learn how to compete against bigger competitors by tapping niches and doing the creative things the large players can’t do. We will discuss how to improve your marketing materials, create an effective promotional plan, take action and have fun along the way. This isn’t brain surgery, and it doesn’t have to be boring, either.

WHY CREATIVE PEOPLE DON’T DO IT

Don’t you think I’d rather spend all my time making art rather than marketing it? I would love to just write stories all day, sitting by the pool sipping a cool drink, and never have to write another press release, design another brochure. I know, get real. My journeys don’t sell themselves. Today’s creative person has to wear many hats, from publicist to promoter. The trick is to learn to love it. Technology aside, you still have to use your imagination to create simple, effective, and creative methods to market, and then you have to act on those ideas. I realize it isn’t quite that simple. I mean , if you are blocked as an artist, you can imagine the big boulders your brain puts in your path when it comes time to devise an approach to promotion. Somehow some of us have managed to overcome and manage to market. So will you, if you can accept the idea that you should.

We have been conditioned to think that somehow hype and mainstream success are bad things. But you don’t have to struggle to be a ‘real’ artist. Being paid well for your art is not selling out. Enough already with the myth that to create great work you can’t have widespread appeal. Do you really believe that? We must stop feeling guilty about our success as artists. What’s so bad if a lot of people love what we do? Does that lessen the quality somehow? ‘If you’re in jazz and more than ten people like you, you’re labeled commercial’ laments jazz great Herbie Mann. IT can be so frustrating remaining in obscurity while you watch other less talented people made it. May artists get cynical, bitter, jaded and give up. I like the attitude Mettallica has to promotion. When pressed by an interviewer about whether they have sold out, they replied ‘Yes, we sell out. Every seat in the house, every time we play’. That rocks!

Instead of promoting yourself you can hope people will magically discover you, and then you won’t have to market at all. It is true, there are some self-promotional things that are easier and more platable than others. If you don’t like interaction with others, you can still do a website, newsletter. Maybe you don’t like detail work but have no problem talking up what you do. Find what fits into your comfort zone and start there. After that you can begin to face your fears.

Let’s talk about the fear of rejection and failure. It will happen – often. Get used to it. It is extremely hard to put something of yours out there and have people criticize it. It takes a really strong person to not take it personally. You must validate yourself, rather than rely on others. Stop worrying that they will ‘find you out’ and that you are a fraud. There is also the fear of selling. Relax, it is not your father’s selling. The hard sell went out with tell sell. Now it’s all about forming mutually beneficial long-term relationships. It’s a soft sell with warm leads. You can do that. There is also the fear of selling out. Look at self – promotion as another outlet for your creativity, and when it works , it’s very fulfilling. In many ways it’s an art form. There is the fear that you may waste your money on marketing. Good. Be very cautious about how you spend your marketing money and look for free and inexpensive ways to do it.

Finally – and I left this for last because it is big – there is the fear of public speaking. We will talk about how to make this a part of your marketing and where you can go for help in polishing your presentation skills to the point that will want to get out there and speak.

WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A SELF PROMOTOIN SUPERSTAR

There must be a market. It is naive to believe ‘If you build it they will come’ . You have to build something they want and will pay for (and then promote the hell out of it). You can’t expect that if you create whatever you feel like creating, people will beat a path to your door and gladly pay your price for it. The fact is, you need to know if there is a market for what you do. You have to get your mind around the idea that publishers, studios, labels, galleries, retailers, and even clients want to make money. They want creative people and marketable creations. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to compromise yourself or your art. If you can find an outlet, or people who will pay or appreciate what you do the way you want to do it, that’s all being marketable means

Just find some people to sell to. This said, you have to understand that people’s preferences can determine your promotability. If, for example you write poetry, it will be harder to promote yourself and your wrok than it would be if you took those same words and write a hit song. Sorry, that is a fact of life. Many creative people have a nice career living on the fringe. You don’t necessarily have to turn into an idol to make it in music – or any other creative endeavor. There are areas in the arts, where no matter how hard you try, there simply is little or no market, or there may have once been but that market is now extinct. Move on and come up with something newer and better. Reinvent yourself. Focus on reaching people, and reaching the right people. This journey is for the creative person who wants to reach a hundred people or hundreds of thousands. As long as these people want what you are marketing, then that is a market.

You need a marketing mindset. It is okay to want to promote yourself and your art, and always to be on the lookout for opportunities to do so. To use your creativity and imagination to come up with unusual and offbeat ideas to get the word out. That self-promotion is an art and a worthy pursuit and a necessary part of being an artist. It also is an understanding that everything about marketing is about your audience and not about you. What’s important to them? What do they need? Want? Even classical musicians can target an audience take an innovative approach, and turn themselves into a brand name. They may take some heat from traditionalists and critics but it’s worth it.

Marketing know-how. It’s not enough to want to be promotable – you also have to know how to do it. There are so many amazingly innovative and creative people who design and invent such neat stuf, but when they hand out their marketing materials. I’m struck by how boring, complicated and bad they are. It has never been easier to be your own publicist, promotional director and graphic designer but just because you can, doesn’t mean you should – at least not without a little training. That’s why this journey will be so valuable. It is a crash course in promotion. Though there are countless types of creative people, in many different fields, there are some universal truths and timeless techniques that will work, regardless of your medium.

The only thing not covered in this journey is the new and ever chaning opportunities that technology is making available to the savvy marketer. You will want to use every weapon at your disposal. You can mourn the way things were or move forward and make use of these mostly mind-boggling marketing weapons. Even so, one thing that will never change is the ability to turn what you are offering into benefits for those to whom you are marketing. Decisions are usually not logical ones, but if ou can elicit an emotional response by playing on people’s desires and dreams, you will succeed.

LIght up your desire to market. When you see other creative people making it big and enjoying their fame and fortune, you, of course whant to strangle them – slowly. You mistakenly believe they were just lucky. True, some were in the right place at the right time, but most mastered marketing or had people around them who did. You must think and act licke an artist and a businessperson. When you come around to the realizatioin that you must market and make yourself more marketable, you will be amazed at how things will ‘magically ‘ start happening for you, too.

You’also notice that people who can make you a star – in whatever creative field you are in – will treat you differently when you understand how to promote yourself and are willing and able to do so.

Focus on marketing effort and action. Marketing is not magic, it’s a plan and an attack. Without one or the other, a plan or an attack, you may win a battle or two but you will lose the war to a competitor who is more organized, agressive and consistent. As you will learn in this journey, a plan can be as simple as a one-page outline of who your audience is and the best way to reach them. Your efforts don’t have to be all-consuming either. Maybe you decide Monday a marketing day or use your lunch break for promoting yourself. You set a goal of securing at least one promotional opportunity a week and then you DO IT!

If you do nothing, nothing happens. Your creations sit in a drawer and maybe someday you pull them out and show your grandkids and tell them ‘I could have been…. Think about how sad that would be. Just a little promotional effort on your part is better than none at all. Focus on what you think you can do now, with what you have.

Develop a never say die attitude. Yes, there is an insane amount of competition today. Yes, it can seem like an impossible proposition to get anyone to pay attention to you. It seems more and more like a have-and-have -not world for the creative peson. Those who have been able to land promotion for themselves and their work and those who haven’t had any luck. The fact that some are getting promoted should give you hope. Now it is your turn.

Great, what do I have to do. Outthink, outhustle and outlast your competition. It is not easy but it is doable and that means YOU CAN DO IT. You may not see results right away, but then, marketing isn’t a short-term proposition. It takes patience, persistence and consistency. The good thing is that once you start to see results form your efforts, they will multiply. Opportunities will start coming to you.

Be willing to be a do-it-yourself marketer. It has never been easier to be selfsufficient when it comes to promotion. With acess to some amazing tools, self promotion is now a do-it-yourself proposition.

Make time for marketing. Whatever time you have available to spend on your art, take that number and divide it in half and use it for self-promotion. I am not kidding. I know, you are working on that big project now and you’ll get to it later. There is always something that will get in the way of making time for marketing. You have to schedule it in. We are all too busy to market. But some of us make it a priority and find ways to fit it into our busy schedules. Do it as a warm-up before doing your creative work or do it during the downtime during your day. How much time do you spend on marketing now? Is it enough? Do you have all the business you need? Are you exactly where you want to be in your career.?

Use offbeat marketing techniques. You can’t survive in the crowded, competitive creative fields unless you are willing not only to embrace self-promotion, but also do it in a big, bold way. Look at what makes you unique. Interesting hobbies. Do you have a hidden talent for something outside of your field.

Be willing to meet and greet your market. It is wishful thinking to believe that you don’t need to do any promotion because people will come looking for you. Get to know them and listen to them when they tell you what they want. It is arrogant and foolish to ignore your core fans and what they are telling you.

Have an ability to market your stuff. Selling is something anyone can and should learn. There comes a point in every creative person’s career when he realizes that he is in business for himself and that he has to sell himself and his creations. It is always a difficult pill to swallow. You are actually more than a salesperson. You are providing goods or services or experiences or transformations that will entertain, enrich, or enhance your customers in some small or big way – maybe even make them money. It is a win-win in every sense of the word. You do something wonderful for them, and they tell all their friends and associates – making for lots of warm leads and no more cold calls.

It starts by being able to describe what you do in a few words. Focus is probably not a creative person’s strong suit, but it is essential when you are selling something. Selling starts with being able to answer the inevitable question So, what do you do. Being able to answer in a concise and catchy way can open a lot of doors. We will show you how to focus and communicate – in other words, sell.

Market through word of mouth. Coming up with new and innovative ways to make your customers and clients say WOW! is the start of your word-of-mouth campaign. Combine your efforts with those of other creative people and pool your resources. Instead of competing find ways that you can complement each other.

Find marketing mentors and support people. Successful self promotion is usually a process that requires the help of several key people along the way. Don’t worry if you don’t know anyone who can help you yet. Let’s first discuss the difficulty many creative people have in asking for, and accepting help from others. Many of the creative people I know are Lone Ranger types. We prefer to work alone and do everything ourselves. But there comes a time when we can’t do it all ourselves and we have to start looking for a trusty companion, our Tonto. Most of all, find a mentor who can give you good advice and please make sure you nurture your fans. You may have figured out by now that creating positive word of mouth is a huge part of marketing.

Develop an ability to plan and organize marketing efforts. Without some kind of system to stay on top of your promotional efforts, you will end up all over the place doing double the work and wasting an incredible amount of time and energy. In my opinion, the most important part of promotion is follow up. It is almost impossible to do this without at least a simple plan and system to keep track of your promotional efforts. Otherwise, things can get out of hand so fast you’ll be overwhelmed and give up.

Other aspects of a successful marketing campaign are referreals and word of mouth that come form networking and staying in touch with people. This requires a method.

YOU CAN’T BE EVERYTHING TO EVERYBODY

Thomas Edison’s first patent was for an electronic vote recorder. There was no demand for such a thing at the time and Edison earned nothing from his invention. After the frustration fromthat experience he vowed to never invent anything unless he was sure it would be commercially marketable.

When someone is asked, ‘Who is your audience’ and they reply ‘everyone’ you know they are in trouble. It is impossible to try to turn everyone into a customer or client. The smaller your niche the less you have to spend on advertising and the more personal attention you can give. This kind of myopic focus allows you to stay in touch with core customers and meet their needs. You get to know what your prospects want and expect from you, and the best way to approach them. Then you can create and sell them almost anything that interests them. The goal is to have a narrow but deep target audience, one that is interested in you, loyal to you, and willing to pay for what you do.

You must focus and be great at something even if there isn’t mass appeal. And once you know who your target is, everything else seems to click into place. When you focus your promotional efforts in one specific area , you’ll see the results multiply faster. It is easier to build a name and reputation for yourself within a small targeted group. Since it is a smaller community, word spreads faster and they seem to see your work everywhere. It is easier to open doors when people know who you are and have heard of your work. Then youŕe able to branch out within that niche and expand.

Or you can create a niche for yourself. Example story. The goal is to find the perfect fit for you and what you want to do.

Part of planning your promotion is knowing what your target audience does on a daily basis. What do they read? Where do they hang out? What websites are they browsing? Knowing an audience means figuring out who they are, what they want and how much they are willing to spend. It is also handy to know who you don’t work well with and to eliminate them as potential clients. It saves time and money and helps you focus on those who are a better fit. It is one way to eliminate some of the endless possiblities for promotion. Otherwise self promotion is overwhelming, expensive and too broad. You don’t have to give in to a trend or target audience if it’s wrong for you. You just need to find people who appreciate what you do. There may not be mass appeal for what you do, but you also don’t want to compromise, either. Do you art your way and find people who appreciate it.