[Regular 'catter, cookieless for reasons that will become obvious]

I've been singing folk songs for a while now. But if I used my real name you wouldn't have heard of me--or rather, you might know me on Mudcat, but the chances are you wouldn't know me as a singer.

I got up on stage at a folk club eight, nine years ago; I thought I could do it. Three minutes later I KNEW I could do it. I'd been coming to the folk club for a few weeks, getting up courage to put myself forward, and after I'd done my song the MC came up to me and asked why I hadn't told him I could sing.

So I'd arrived. Hooray. I'd arrived as a floor singer. Eight or possibly nine years later I'm still a floor singer--although I mostly go to singarounds these days.

It was reading the Elle Osborne thread that got me thinking. Everyone had an opinion--she's great! she's overrated! she sings flat! she sings like nobody else!--and so it went on. Now this isn't Elkie Brooks we're talking about or even Eliza Carthy. (Is Elle Osborne even professional? I'd be delighted if she was but I somehow doubt it.) In terms of fame and fortune she's not THAT far above the level of interesting floor-singers and singaround regulars like me--but at the same time she's in a different league. She's one of the people that people talk about on Mudcat, not one of the people who do the talking.

What makes the difference? Let's say it's about having an online presence. Or let's not, because I've got one of those. You can even buy my music (or listen to it free, obviously, I'm not stupid). So far I think the number of paying punters who aren't personal friends is 1. Might have been 2, I forget.

Or let's say it's about gigging; let's assume you've got to do the gigs, old-style, Transit van up and down the M6, whatever. So how do you get the gigs? Make it easier: how do you get the first gig, and the second and the third? If you're not an immediately attractive selling proposition--if you haven't got the kind of voice that you can listen to singing the phone book, and not many of us have--how do you get people thinking that giving this particular floorsinger half an hour might be a good idea? (To be fair somebody did once ask me to do a spot, but by the time I asked him about it again he'd sobered up and forgotten all about it.)

I don't want to climb the ladder--I don't kid myself I could ever go pro--but it would be nice to at least get my feet off the ground (or the floor). But how do/did you do it? How do/did you get started?