Most creatives don’t look back much.
We do a job to the best of our abilities. Then we hand it off to whoever commissioned it, and we move on to the next thing. But lately I’ve been urging clients to see their past projects as employees, or assets that should still be working on their behalf.
Hopefully you still own your work. But even if you didn’t retain the copyright, you can show it, or discuss it. (Unless of course you signed a non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement.)
Put it out there. Make it pay its way, if you can. Or at least help you attract new commissions.
Here are a few suggestions to get your assets working for you again.
Take stock
List all your creative assets. Every substantial body of work you’ve created. Plus any smaller stuff you can remember, or that was particularly striking. Every workshop, talk, podcast, media appearance. (Even writing all this down can be positive, a reminder of just how much you’ve created and achieved.)
It’s all useful, and it should all be out there working for you in some way. Revisit your list regularly, and try and do something with each asset 2-4 times a year.
How much of this do you own?
If it’s an out-of-print book, for instance, check your contract to see if the rights have reverted to you. If so, it’s yours to revise, update, or just republish as is. (Do note, however, that the cover design, and any illustrations or photos inside are almost certainly not yours – unless you created them.)
Even if you don’t own the copyright of your finished work, there might be notes, research, interviews, out-takes you can use. Or you might repurpose the material in some other format: as blog posts, for instance. In a podcast or on social media.
Archive everything
It’s always hard to predict what will become valuable later. A throwaway article I wrote in my early 20s about my summer as a Bay City Rollers fan has been republished more times than I can count in.the decades since, appearing in several anthologies and various magazines and newspapers.
In the late 80s/early 90s, I worked with many photographers documenting the acid house explosion. Very few of them kept the pictures: it all seemed quite ephemeral at the time. Now, they could resell those images over and over.
Cannibalise your failures..
Any creative life has its share of flops and blind alleys. It’s worth assessing even these every so often, to see if you can fix them, learn from them, extract anything you can use in future projects.
..but don’t give up too soon
A rejection just means your project didn’t find its time and place. The person who rejected it was looking for something different at that point. They were too busy to take it on. Or they were simply having a bad day. That doesn’t mean someone else won’t love it. Persist.
Every time your spec script, design, story or proposal lands on someone’s desk, it also reminds them of what you can do. Even if they don’t want to take that particular project further, it might remind them that you’d be perfect for another project. The more you send out your pitches, your offers, your speculative projects, the more people see your ideas and talents.
Repeat, reiterate, recycle
Turn a twitter thread into a blog post. Record yourself reading a blog post to create a podcast. Tweak a presentation deck and it might work as a carousel on LinkedIn or Instagram. Cut a workshop you recorded into chunks and sell it as a course. Or leave it whole and sell it as an evergreen, on-demand digital product via your website. If it was filmed, put short clips of it on YouTube to promote something new you’re doing on the same subject.
No one notices you repeating yourself. And even if they do, they don’t much care. It’s an accepted part of the online world.
Remember also that people all have their favoured modes of taking in information. People who didn’t read your blog post might devour the same information in a video. Someone who would never listen to a podcast might love to read the transcript.
Don’t discount your workings-out..
How do you do what you do? There’s a growing market for checklists and templates to help other creators replicate systems that work.
Got a step-by-step checklist you use for writing and scheduling a newsletter, editing a big photoshoot, packing a painting or a pot so it’s not damaged in transit, loading your kitbag so everything is accessible?
Turn it into a PDF, a Notion template or some other resource and someone, somewhere will probably buy it from you.
..Or your unfinished projects
A musician I worked with a few years back found files full of half-finished tunes and beats that he uploaded to music libraries. His snippets have been used in ads and podcasts, as background in films and for incidental music at events.
It hasn’t earned him a fortune, but these outtakes and half-baked ideas have bought in a steady income trickle ever since. Is there a way you could put yours to work?
Repackage it
Compile past work into a book. Writers might collect together journalism, short stories or poems, then either sell it to a publisher or publish independently. Print-on-demand with Amazon or IngramSpark costs very little and is easy to do.
Artists and designers can also use Amazon’s print-on-demand to create blank notebooks with interesting covers, or low-content books such as journals, habit trackers. You could use a strong image for print-on-demand products from badges, mugs and T-shirts to cushions and duvet covers. Or upload digital images to sell online.
Still have products you made previously?
Sell them. Create offers. Repromote them. Bundle them with other products. Have a sale.
Take new pictures, write new sales copy, style them differently and see if they sell better.
Most of all, remember to tell people how and where to buy them. Regularly. On social media. On your website. Maybe even with carefully targeted online ads.
You might think you’ve already told everyone million times about your book, your prints, your workshop or course, your film or album.
Trust me: they didn’t notice. Tell them again.
Let your old work be your PR
Post it on social media. Include it in a newsletter. Tell a story about it. Share a behind-the-scenes picture. Celebrate anniversaries: the release date, the opening, whatever.
If it was a challenging brief, or something went wrong on the job, show your experience and skill by explaining how you overcame or solved that.
If it’s an area you haven’t worked in for a while, perhaps use this to remind people that it’s something you do:
- “I haven’t painted portraits for a while, but I’m always open to commissions. Here’s one I did in 2005..”
- “I’d love to do more travel writing/photography. Here’s a spread I did on Bilbao five years ago..”
Be shameless
Why should any of us be ashamed of our past creations? Be bold, be brave, be visible.
And if you do any of this – or have different ideas for using your past work – do let me know!
Sheryl Garratt is a writer, and a coach helping creative professionals get the success they want, making work they truly love. If you’re ready to grow your creative business, I have a FREE 10-day course giving you 10 steps to success — with less stress. Sign up for it here.
What do you think?