I, Heather that is, have finally decided that maintaining two blogs is tedious. I had the notion it’d be wise to keep separate my personal blog — keeping it more about writing and the stuff going on in my own head — and this one, Take a Bite Productions, solely about my professional world.
Last weekend, the Northern Alberta caucus of the Playwrights Guild of Canada (very official-sounding isn’t it?), had a soiree (THAT’s more like it), with our rep, David Belke. The AGM of PGC is soon, and David had the lovely idea of arranging a chance for playwrights in our part of the country to meet, and discuss things we’d like to see brought up at the AGM. It came up that playwrights really have two (or more) jobs; the writing, and then marketing yourself…because no one’s going to do it for you. So I asked David if we could ask PGC if they might help arrange workshops on how to use the newest tools available to us — blogs, Twitter, Facebook — on selling ourselves. And it occurred to me that the personality behind the play, the person who writes it, has become as important to marketing as the play. A lot of people attending the Fringe go specifically to see the newest show by the person they’re fans of, Twitter is full of accounts for individual shows AND the people putting them on.
So, this is me taking my own advice. Take a Bite Productions really is me, so I am officially blowing my own horn. Happy reading!