Text snippets every creative should have on hand to save you time in your business

As a creative running a business, you already have 1001 things to do. What you don’t need to be spending your time doing is re-writing the same thing 100 times when it’s not necessary. But we often do.

We have to apply for something and find ourselves trying to come up with a bio that makes us sound amazing for the millionth time. Or we go on holiday and have to slap together an out-of-office message that magically directs people to the right places at the last minute. Or we get an Instagram DM from someone asking a question that we’ve answered before but never saved so we’re typing it out letter by letter because we’re a lovely person.

It’s tiring work but it has to be done, right?!

Yes, but it can be done differently. Easily. More efficiently. And I’m gonna show you how!

If you want to start building your own text snippet library, try Notion. Notion is a free, all-in-one workspace that you can use to store all of your useful pieces of copy, brainstorm ideas, keep all your business information together, and so much more. Check it out for free here!

What are text snippets?

Text snippets, also known as boilerplate text or swipe files, are pre-written, reusable pieces of text that live in a library so you can copy and paste them whenever you need them, which saves time and effort in rewriting the same information over and over again.

For example, instead of rewriting your bio every time someone asks for it or you need it to fill in an application, you can write it once, save it in your text snippet library, and copy and paste it whenever you need it.

Text snippet ideas for creatives

Let's talk about some examples of text snippets that artist and makers can have on hand that will help you to make things more efficient and more effective and save you time in your creative business.

Artist statement

As a creative, you might have come across an artist statement being required as part of applications for funding, exhibitions, or other opportunities. This is usually a brief description of your philosophy, style and the themes and concepts that inspire your work. It can be hard to write, so you definitely don’t want to have to do it more than once, but it’s useful when submitting your work to galleries, online portfolios, or other creative endeavours.

Bio

We all know that writing about yourself is the hardest thing to do! But you’ll have to do it more often than you think when you’re a business owner. One way to minimise that is to create a text snippet for your bio. A well-written artist bio is essential for your website and social media accounts, and you’ll need it if you ever want to be promoted for your participation in markets, guest appearance on podcasts, or other featured opportunities. Your bio should have a concise overview of who you are, a little bit about your background, your journey, accomplishments, and anything else you want to include that people need to know about you.

Artwork or product descriptions

For each of your artworks, it’s always good to keep all the details of that piece on hand for adding products to your shop, posting new work online, updating your email subscribers about your art or submitting that work to galleries, for example. I’d recommend having the title, medium, dimensions, price, and a brief description of each piece as a text snippet in your library to save time and energy when promoting and publicising your work.

Exhibition or gallery submission email

If you are frequently submitting your work to exhibitions or galleries, having a boilerplate email template that introduces yourself, your work, and how you are wanting to exhibit can really save you a lot of time. Create a template with spaces where you can input the names of the gallery, curator, and specific details about your submission to customise each email and save that to your text snippet library.

FAQ responses

There are questions that you are bound to get asked a lot, and I'm sure you're answering them multiple times. Instead of having to answer them again and again from scratch, compile a list of those questions and their answers.

That might be inquiries about your creative process, the materials you use, your pricing, or your availability, for example. Having those prepared can help you streamline your responses to potential clients or your audience so you can save a lot of time and energy and make the customer experience a lot more effective for both of you.

Service, program, or digital product details

If you have any services, memberships, digital products, or a Patreon, for example, keeping the taglines, descriptions, and any other information about those offers on hand will be super useful.

I have the name, tagline, and price for The Next Level Creative, all of the products in the Maker & Moxie shop, and all of my email marketing freebies as text snippets so I don’t have to go hunting for these or re-write them from scratch every time I want to create content to promote them. I can save time, keep the messaging consistent, and focus more energy on sharing them with you!

Direct Messages

The DM features on social media mean we can get messages from anyone at anytime unless we’re quite restrictive in our settings. And managing all of those messages across multiple social media platforms can be a lot. But some text snippets you can save to help make this easier include:

• Collaboration inquiry
• Request for portfolio link
• Request for shop link
• Request for pricing or commission information
• Mentorship or advice request

Emails

As creatives we’re get emails all the time and it can be overwhelming keeping up with them all, especially when they’re often asking the same questions. Some text snippets you can save to help make this easier include:

• Thank you for your inquiry
• Response to collaboration proposal
• Unavailable for new projects
• Out of office message
• Invoice follow up
• Project completion and delivery
• Declining speaking opportunities
• Podcast outreach
• Wholesale outreach

With all of these responses, you’re gonna need to personalise and adapt them to the context for each message. The text snippets save time, but you want to keep the personal touch when you’re engaging with clients, customers, collaborators, and your audience. So make sure you’re paying attention to the details, changing people’s names, and customising the copy to the context of the conversation.

By having these text snippets saved and ready to use, you're going to be able to manage your communication way more efficiently and consistently so you can spend more time on your art and creativity, and on building and growing your business.

How to store your text snippets

I keep my text snippets in a super simple database in Notion, tagged with the category of snippet it is (DM, email, product description, etc.)

You could use a note-taking platform like Notion, Apple Notes, Airtable, or Google Docs, for example too.

Or you can also set up text snippets in the tool that you’re using to send those messages a lot of the time. For example, on Instagram you can set up saved responses, and you can do the same in Gmail.

Wherever you save your text snippets is fine, as long as they’re well names, easily searchable, and accessible wherever you are so you can find and copy them whenever you need them.

I recently set up a text snippet/swipe file library in The Next Level Creative for all of the members so they can grab all of my templates for anything they might need without having to create them themselves! If you want access to that and everything else you need to help take your creative business to the next level, join us at thenextlevelcreative.com.

You don’t have to add every text snippet to your library all at once. As you’re going about your life and running your business, next time you write something, ask yourself whether you’ve written this before, might need it again, and could add it to your library to save yourself time and effort next time!

If you want to start building your own text snippet library, try Notion. Notion is a free, all-in-one workspace that you can use to store all of your useful pieces of copy, brainstorm ideas, keep all your business information together, and so much more. Check it out for free here!