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Show '"Jh rough y-v the PvJJ Lens All the news By HOLT CONFER Copley News Service When you create pictures pic-tures or stories, you need customers but the question ques-tion always arises: Where do you find them? There are several ways. You might refer to the publication pub-lication of Writers Digest Books Writers Market and Photographers Market, Mar-ket, available at your local book store for $15.95 and $12.95 respectively. You'll get lots of names of publications publi-cations you've probably never heard of, but in most cases, all legitimate markets. mar-kets. You'll also get some pretty fair advice on how to prepare your manuscripts manu-scripts and photographs so the person passing judgment judg-ment will be as favorably disposed as he or she can possibly be. Now while I certainly believe the information you'll get in these books is important, I don't want you to believe not even for a second that doing everything every-thing right is going to make you successful. There are a lot of people who do everything right mechanically. There are a lot of people who take pretty pret-ty decent pictures and who write fairly literate stories. And there are many times when you have to sit back, scratch your head, and wonder how old so-and-so managed to get his or her pictures and stories published. pub-lished. The reason you'll be scratching your head and wondering is because what you see in print appears to What are the "other factors"? fac-tors"? For one, there's promotion. pro-motion. You can be very, very good, but if no one knows about it, you can also be very, very broke. Perhaps you remember how university professors were admonished to "publish "pub-lish or perish." They didn't publish because they enjoyed enjoy-ed going through the tedium tedi-um of writing technical books and papers. They published to keep their name circulating in a particular par-ticular field of endeavor, and when they became recognized rec-ognized authorities (and the key word is recognized rather than authority), chances are they'd be quoted quot-ed by the press, get government govern-ment grants for additional research, receive consulting consult-ing assignments from business, busi-ness, etc. When you're a staff of one, there will be many times you'll feel there just isn't enough time to create new things and tell people how wonderful you are. The advice is simple keep on creating, but you must take some of that creative cre-ative time for self-promotion. If you should write a book on "How to Catch Frisbees in Your Teeth," and the publisher thinks there's a chance it will be a best seller, the creating stops and off you go to do a series of nationwide interviews inter-views on radio and television. televi-sion. The publisher will expect ex-pect you to make catching Frisbees in your teeth the most exciting thing anyone could do and you'll have to make it exciting at four or five or six interviews every day for a month. The whole thing will get boring, but the boredom decreases as your bank balance in- , creases. But promotion isn't the only way people are trying to help themselves. Next week, we'll talk about the value of "friends," some "under the table activity," and the value of subscribing subscrib-ing to newsletters. Stay tuned. indicate the pnotograpner or writer should be in some other line of work. What I'm getting at is something you need to learn up front and if no one tells you, chances are you'll bum up a lot of good years pursuing a creative career down the wrong path. Talent is not a primary consideration when it comes to being successful. I didn't say you could get by for a long time with no talent what I said was that talent wasn't a primary prima-ry consideration in being successful. When you've progressed to the point where you could be considered "good," then a great many other factors begin to take the place of talent in the race for the roses. |