“How do you find enough work?”
This is one of the most common questions people ask me. Now I don’t pretend to have all the answers but I do have a few ideas that have worked for me.
I don’t have a business card or flyers, I rely on this website as a point of contact (to anyone looking for a website designer I can’t recommend Pilcrow and Pixel highly enough. Not the cheapest but worth every penny!)
Word of mouth is always best. This can mean getting recommended by happy clients to new ones, or having people say nice things about you online (whether that’s reviews, Facebook or whatever…)
But I think the best way to find work is just getting out and meeting people. Not necessarily other storytellers* but just friendly people in the world with every kind of job, occupation and hobby.This gives you ability to create your own opportunities and set up relationships with people who have never used storytelling before.You get chatting with people, anyone, and share your enthusiasm for why storytelling is so powerful and exciting (or they see you perform) and you see the cogs working in their head….
The next thing they say “do you ever do adults parties?” or “This is a funny question but do you ever research stories about the local area? I’m putting on a history day and it would be great to have some storytelling.” or “I don’t suppose you tell in Universities…?”
This is better than a million flyers, Twitter ads and mail-outs. People realise how great storytelling is and wonder how they could get a bit of that magic into what they’re doing.
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* NB I am passionate about networking with other storytellers for lots of reasons- but they’re not usually in a good position to give you much work!
Pic by Georgie Jasper White