[Callers] Re: Asking For Website Help and Self-Promotion Question

Hi, Julian -- I'll await other answers with interest, since I similarly don't have a caller website and it's a Project I could theoretically do but am rather overwhelmed by. (Pre-pandemic I was getting all the gigs I could realistically handle with a full-time job, more outside of contra than in **** I also want to empathize with you about being reluctant to self-promote, reach out to organizers, etc, for fear of being obnoxious, although when I have my series organizer hat on I'm usually happy to hear from out-of-town callers/bands who will be coming to my area anyway. But I've never programmed a weekend or camp so I don't know how that feels; my impression locally is that programmers often have a vision and some favorites already. -- Alan ________________________________________ From: Julian Blechner via Contra Callers <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2023 8:51 AM To: Shared Weight Contra Callers Subject: [Callers] Asking For Website Help and Self-Promotion Question Hi callers, Website help request: As I've been ramping up my accepting gigs again post-shutdown, I'm realizing that I've put off my "get an actual website" too long. Any suggestions for website designers for caller pages or contra performer pages? I can provide photographs myself, for what that's worth. This is one of those things where, yeah, I could trudge through it myself with a DIY site-builder attached to a standard web host or Square, but I do UX Design as my 40-hour-a-week job and I already have many things on my plate, and I just really haven't found motivation to take on Another Project. So I really just want to be able to hand someone some money and know I'll get a good product that isn't needlessly complex. Self-promotion perspective request: I'm also looking for ways to appropriately do self-promotion as a caller. I love doing series dances, and also love doing the dances for groups with lots of new folks, too. But I also would enjoy expanding doing more special events, and am getting more comfortable with traveling again, pandemic-wise. There's this sort of odd condition where the A-List Well-Known Callers don't need to advertise, but to get there, you need to either/both advertise and/or have your summers off so you can do All The Tours and All The Summer Camps. On top of that, New England is kind of a funny area because we have so many weekly/monthly series dances that we don't have big dance weekends like pretty much everywhere else in the country. And ... I dunno, for many of us, there's an unknown of "How much self-promotion until you become pushy / obnoxious?" I've been calling for 11 years. Before the pandemic I was doing 30-40 gigs a year, including some wedding/One-Night-Stand events and smattering of special events. I've headlined at Flurry in 2018 and got positive feedback. I known where I'm at in terms of effectively choosing and teaching dances from simple through advanced. I solicit feedback from organizers I call dances for. And I know that being an advocate for Larks/Robins as well as dancer-safety has been a black mark for me in some bookers' minds. But I still get people being like "Oh, how long have you been calling?" --- I realize part of this is the name change from Ron to Julian, but, part of it is definitely hesitation to like, I dunno, email organizers I don't personally know asking about dance weekends or whatnot. Maybe there's partly the "imposter syndrome" in there as well. One thing I do know is that I now have no recent good video of me calling, which I'm earmarking as part of the website project. Perspective on self-promotion is appreciated, and perspective for anyone who also books dances is appreciated. In dance, Julian Blechner he/him (Western Mass, USA)