You Made a Thing. Now How the Hell Do You Get Anyone to Look at It?

Alright, sit down. Take a breath. Put down the tiny paintbrush or the fifth draft of your tragic backstory for a minute.

I’ve been doing this for a long time. Talking into a microphone. Grilling people who’ve seen the mountain top. And let me tell you something nobody tells you in your fancy MFA program or your “find your light” artist retreat: Nobody cares that you worked hard.

I know. It hurts. It hurts my little recovery-honed feelings just saying it. But it’s true.

You spent six months on that folk album about your childhood cat. You wrote a 400-page novel about the inherent loneliness of beekeeping. Beautiful. Valid. And also, completely invisible unless you figure out one nasty little word: The Hook.

And I don’t mean a catchy chorus. I mean the thing you say in the first three seconds before they scroll past you to watch a golden retriever fall off a paddleboard.

Why You Can’t Just Be “Good” Anymore

You are competing with the entire history of entertainment. The entire thing. Every movie, every podcast, every algorithm that knows you better than your own mother.

So you, the artist, the sensitive genius, you have two choices:

Get bitter. Say “the algorithm hates me.” Smoke a cigarette and feel superior. (I did this for a decade. 0/10 stars. Terrible for the lungs.)
Learn the hook.

A hook is not a lie. It’s not clickbait. It’s a promise. It’s the door handle. You are not selling out by having a door handle on your gallery. You are just letting people in so they can see the weird, beautiful mess inside.

What a Hook Actually Does (Therapy Edition)

Here’s the psychology, stripped of the buzzwords.

It stops the “So what?” The average person’s brain, when confronted with your art, goes “So what?” automatically. A hook answers that before they ask. It says, “So what? I’ll tell you so what. Because this painting is about the one time you almost died.” Now I’m listening.

It finds your tribe. You don’t need 8 million fans. You need 800 freaks who get you. A good hook filters out the normies. If you say, “A horror novel about a haunted IKEA,” the person who loves that is in. The person who doesn’t? They weren’t gonna buy it anyway. Goodbye. Next.

Real Examples, Because I’m Nice

I’m gonna give you three hooks. These are for you. The artist. The author. The person who thinks marketing is “icky.”

Example 1: The Author

The Boring Way: “My new literary fiction novel explores themes of grief and redemption in rural Montana. Available now.”
The Hook: “*For fans of “*”The Shipping News”*” and Succession: A widow discovers her late husband’s secret cryptocurrency fortune, and the 22-year-old mistress who wants it back.*”

See the difference? That second one is a movie poster in your brain. It has conflict. It has specific weirdness. It’s not lying about the grief, it’s just making the grief watchable.

Example 2: The Visual Artist

The Boring Way: “New oil paintings on canvas. Inspired by nature.”
The Hook: “I paint landscapes using the same colors my grandma’s kitchen looked like in 1978, harvest gold, avocado green, and cigarette smoke.”

Suddenly, it’s not a landscape. It’s a memory. It’s a vibe. I want to see that. I don’t even like art and I want to see that.

Example 3: The Musician

The Boring Way: “Indie folk singer/songwriter. New EP out Friday.”
The Hook: “This EP sounds like driving home at 2 AM after you just quit a job you hate. For fans of Phoebe Bridgers and existential dread.”

That’s not a genre. That’s a feeling. You just sold me the feeling.

The Bottom Line

Stop treating your marketing copy like a legal affidavit. You are allowed to be interesting. In fact, you have a responsibility to be interesting. You made art to connect, right? The hook is just the first handshake.

Write a hook that scares you a little. That feels too specific. That your polite aunt would say is “a bit much.” That’s how you know it’s working.

Now go do the work. And please, for the love of god, put down the scone and open the laptop.

Every week I pop in and give some very niche marketing advice for those who want more creating time and less marketing time. If you want these useful posts in your inbox, then just drop your email in the box below. Zero spam.

If you want an all round program to get yourself marketing more effectively, and who doesn’t, then my handy guide will help find your audience and get you marketing more effectively. And by effectively, I mean selling your creative output. You can get this book here

Every once in a while, someone passes by the blog and correctly assumes I am fuelled by bitterness and coffee… sadly you can only help with the latter and buy me a coffee.