…which I think can work equally well for the visual arts:

Following up from my “Microsites for Arts Projects” post in August, I noticed that Maki at DoshDosh had (quite separately) published a similar article in September entitled “How ‘Mini-Funnel’ Websites Can Help You Increase Traffic, Generate Leads and Build Exposure“.

Maki lists five points (far more clearly than I did) about the benefits of microsites, the first three of which I’ll paraphrase here as I think they’re the most relevant:

1. Single issue: clear, simple, immediate.
2. Reference-friendly: people are far more likely to link to a microsite than to a page on a larger site.
3. Novelty/Simplicity: easily digestible, fun, engaging.

I’m glad to see that the idea of microsites is growing – they can only get better as clever people than me work out how to make them more interesting.

In my earlier post on using Facebook to promote your artwork I promised an update on how it was going.  So here’s the first update.

Rather than doing a massive campaign of promotion for my Facebook page, I’ve been doing a few smaller discrete promotions to study the effectiveness of each one.  It’s been a slow start, but things are building up.  First of all, let’s look at Page Views:

Graph of Facebook Pageviews

As you can see, it’s still low-level but the trend is definitely upwards.

So what have I done so far to promote it?  Well, very little to be honest.  I added a small mention of it in my last email newsletter and put a link to it on the front page of my website. I wanted to see what “organic growth” could be achieved first.

I haven’t used Facebook’s own “Facebook Ads” (the adverts that you see on your Facebook profile depending on your interests and basic demographic information).  This isn’t so much a conscious choice as a technological flaw – if you’re using Firefox 3 on Linux then the JavaScript doesn’t work.

After submitting a support request I’ve been told that the Facebook Ads creation system is only supported on IE6, IE7, Safari, Firefox 1.5 and 2 (For “PCs” or Macs – I have the strange feeling that Facebook think “PC = Windows”).  Whatever the definitions, Facebook won’t let me give them any money to run some ads.  This may not be a bad thing – I’ve always been cynical about the effectiveness of interruption advertising, even though the Facebook ads are relatively inobtrusive.

I’ll be doing some more prominent promotion for my Facebook page in the near future (maybe a special offer or something similar).  I’ll let you know how things go.  If anyone else has been using Facebook to promote their artwork I’d be interested in hearing your experiences – please feel free to comment (and yes, you can add a link to your Facebook page!)

The Lazarus Corporation on Facebook

In my job at a publishing company we often have to create special one-off mini-websites for individual books, book series or for the books by a particular author.  These are in addition to the book’s page on our main website.  They act as focused marketing sites for books that are likely to sell well.

Similarly, every new movie has its own website with its own domain name – they’re not all just pages or sections hanging off the main Universal, Paramount or Twentieth Century Fox website.

Conventional Search Engine Optimisation wisdom tells you not to do this because your incoming links get diluted – some go to one website, some to another, rather than all pointing at the same website and increasing its search engine rankings.

So why do the film studios create separate websites for every movie they make?  Why does the Publishing company I work for create unique websites for certain books?

Because a separate website—a microsite—for a new film/book/product/project makes it in some way more special.  A dedicated microsite also attracts more links than the same number of pages hanging off a main site (I don’t have any empirical evidence I can give you yet – I can’t publish statistics from my day-job or from previous professional roles: you’ll just have to believe me that I’m not lying when I say this!).

While SEO is important, sometimes understanding human behaviour is more important than optimising your site for search ranking algorithms. And dedicated microsites seem to appeal to people.  If done correctly, a microsite lifts your project out of your ordinary promotion and makes it truly special.

So, to put my money where my mouth is, this weekend just gone I created a microsite for The Book of the Erinyes, my current art project of a limited edition series of artists books. It’s quite a simple website – four static pages plus an embedded WordPress blog dedicated to this project.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’d be interested to know whether any of you artists/musicians/writers have also tried this approach?  Did it work for you?  If you haven’t tried it, would you consider it?

Lauren Simonutti is a Baltimore-based artist/photographer. Having been told that her work didn’t “fit in” in the US (and having more positive experiences in European and Australian markets), she turned to the web—more precisely, to self-publishing her artwork in print-on-demand books through Lulu—in order to reach her audience.

I’ve been interested in using print-on-demand for some time, so I contacted Lauren who kindly agreed to answer my questions about her experiences (and for me to publish her answers here – thank you, Lauren).

Lauren, how did you go about promoting your books on Lulu?

“sorrow…and the end of sorrow” by Lauren Simonutti – available on Lulu.com”

Promotion is always difficult for me. I would rather work than spend time on marketing and I have very few outside resources so I have to find them myself.

Initially my promotion always begins with imagery/layouts that I create and post on deviantart and flickr. The majority of my sales have come via deviantart.

My work seems to hold much greater appeal in Europe and Australia than it does in the States, and in my home city of Baltimore I have been refused for every single thing for which I have applied and just this week was actually refused as a volunteer to work a photobooth at an arts festival (Artscape).

It’s become rather amusing but I have been told in no uncertain terms that here I simply do not fit in.

I mention all this because that is what brought me to the web in the first place. I make considerably more sales in prints or handmade artists books but Lulu.com does provide an alternative.

How easy was it publish your book with Lulu?  What did the process entail? Were there any problems?

Lulu is free which was its first appeal as I have no money.  The process of signing up was simple, it is best to give them a PayPal account for revenue payments as they are faster and require no minimum amount.  I had no problems.  I am adept at design so while it was time consuming that was because of my pickiness.

Now here’s the main issue.  When I signed on and for my two extant books there was the issue of starting with a blank slate – a simple white or black page.  Your picture placements were somewhat limited but not beyond reason and I opted to include the text into my JPEGs as opposed to using their text option.

They have since changed their options to themes – they have pre-ordained themes from which you can not alter page colour or even have a blank background.  This also leads sometimes to unwanted cropping.  I wrote them about this change (they do answer questions quite readily) and replied that the themes were greatly preferred by their clientelle.

Now keep in mind they keep good records, they pay revenues directly and without fuss and their Calendars which I make seasonally are really very nice.

After trying another option I have since gone back to Lulu and believe that using their ‘Portfolio’ book option I can get what I want, it will just take some tweaking and again the text will have to be incorporated in the JPEGs.  But I think it will work and there is the option of hardcover.

Important Note: I have noticed, not just with Lulu but with overnightprints.com and a few others that you should lighten your JPEG in levels about 15 to 20% lighter (using the midtone arrow) than you want them to look.  Digital printing tends a little towards the dark side.

So that has been my experience.  I am working on the new portfolio book selection at this time.  Again, there is no financial outlay and no obligation and if you use the themes it is very fast and easy.

You can see Lauren’s work on her deviantArt account, her Flickr account, and, of course, her Lulu account.

Facebook Pages are a recent addition to Facebook, and they’re currently the best way for an artist to promote their artwork on Facebook (better than Facebook Groups, which are an earlier addition).

If you’ve got a normal Facebook account then setting up an Artist’s Page is very easy: go to this page, make your choices, and follow the instructions.

Facebook supply several resources to help you maintain and promote your page.  First you’ll need the Facebook Pages Insider’s Guide -  a PDF guide to how to do everything.  It’s only 28 pages long, and to Facebook’s credit, is very clearly written and easy to understand.

Customising your page, adding applications (such as a feed from your blog) and uploading gallery images is easy.

You can promote your Facebook page both on Facebook itself (with Facebook’s Social Ads program if you’ve got a budget), and outside Facebook (so long as you follow their guidelines) like so:

The Lazarus Corporation on Facebook

(Go on, follow the link and become a fan!)

Expecting a longer post? Not this time – I was very pleasantly surprised to find how quick and easy it was. I’m planning a follow-up post soon with some strategies for using your Facebook Artist’s Page.

EDIT: a follow-up can now be found here.

Those of you that venture beyond this blog to other parts of this website will probably know I’m currently working on a limited edition series of handmade artists books.

In this post I want to show how all the elements of this website will work together to help promote this new artwork, and a possible freeconomics model I’m looking at for selling the artwork.

Public documentation from the beginning of the project

Public documentation on my website

Firstly, I’ve been documenting the whole process in the Notebook section of this site.  The Notebook section is free open-source wiki software called Mediawiki – the same wiki software originally written for Wikipedia.

I chose to use wiki software because it meant I could simply log into it, create and edit pages, and cross-reference between pages very easily.  Unlike most wikis, I have turned off the ability for other people to edit it.  This is because I just want to use it as my notebook rather than as a collaborative tool.

I’ve also just started a thread in the discussion forum.  This only has an introductory post at the moment, but I expect that side of things to get busier as I progress with the project (I don’t expect to finish the artwork until around November/December 2008).  The discussion forum thread will enable people to ask questions, creating a dialogue rather than a monologue.

It’s important to note that public documentation starts the moment the project starts – it’s not something that is put together afterwards.  The Notebook section especially makes the creative process itself open and transparent.

Public documentation on Social Networks

As well as documenting the project on this site, I’m also documenting it on various social networks.  My DeviantArt profile was the obvious first choice—it’s an applied social network dedicated to artwork—so I’ve uploaded some of the initial photographs and text, and also explained the project in journals entries.

MySpace and Facebook are perhaps less immediately useful, but still important.

MySpace bulletins and blogs provide a space to explain the project and give updates, and images can always be uploaded to your MySpace photo albums (so long as they comply with MySpace’s somewhat restrictive photo policy), but linking out to your own website for further information is a grey area – MySpace seems to allow it for some sites, but not for others.

Facebook is also useful – and the ability to create groups and pages is something that should be investigated.

Using a Freemium model

I’ve blogged about Freeconomic/Freemium models before, but I’ve never suggested how they can be used to sell artwork.  So now I’m going to explain how I’m going to use them.

In the my blog post A Summary of Freeconomic Models I described the “multi-tier freemium” model used by the Trent Reznor’s band Nine Inch Nails:

Nine Inch Nail’s recent Ghosts release. 9 free tracks are available for download for free. The full 36 tracks are available for download for $5. Various limited edition high-(visual/tactile aesthetic)-standard production CD/DVD versions are available for higher prices (full details on Techdirt).

So, how do I apply this to a limited edition series of handmade artists books?

Well, having turned pale when adding up the costs of my materials so far, I am resigned to the fact that the thirty to fifty handmade artists books I create are going to have to be priced quite highly.  I’m not sure how much yet (because I haven’t finished spending), but for the purposes of this post let’s presume each one is going to be around £200 ($400 US).

Now, not everyone can afford that, or is willing to spend that much money on artwork, or—let’s be honest—likes my artwork enough to spend £200 on it.

So, here’s a possible multi-tiered freemium model I’ve been considering:

• A downloadable PDF ebook.  It’s not tactile, it’s neither handbound nor letterpress-printed by the artist, it’s not got the high production standards of one of the 30-50 books, it doesn’t even exist in hard-copy format (unless you chose to print it out on your printer) but it’s free.  This is for people who—for whatever reason—would never buy my artwork but quite like it.
• A print-on-demand hard-copy book.  Again, it lacks a lot of the high-(visual/tactile aesthetic)-standard production of an original piece of handmade artwork, but it’s printed by a professional print-on-demand publisher for around £25 (I’ve spent more than that on a round of drinks).  I need to do some research into the print quality of images in print-on-demand books.
• A Limited Edition series of thirty to fifty handmade artists books, finished to a very high standard, with photographs collaged in and the text letterpress-printed.  Each artists book will be uniquely and individually hand-bound by the artist.

I may slot some other options in there as well. How about a more expensive print-on-demand book, but with a limited edition set of postcards of some of the images?  Or just a set of postcards of the images as something people could buy separately?

By providing various options, from free to expensive via a mid-range of prices, I can not only get my artwork out to as many people as possible, but also make money as an artist.

I’ve seen a lot of artist’s websites with fierce and furious demands not to “steal” their artwork (by which they mean the small digital reproductions of their artwork), insulting visitors before they’ve even begun to explore a website.

I’ve seen those annoying cut-and-paste JavaScripts to attempt to disable the right-click functionality (as well as a lot of other useful and legitimate functionality) to prevent visitors from saving the small digital reproductions of the artist’s work, in the process crippling visitors’ browsers and pissing them off.

I run things slightly differently – I agree with Tim O’Reilly’s seminal post “Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution” where he stated:

“Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy”

To me the small digital reproductions of my artwork that I display on my site are not my artwork – they’re my marketing.  And if they’re viral marketing (i.e. visitors want to download them and use them as their PC wallpaper or—even better—distribute them to other people on their MySpace pages) then I’ve been even more successful.

My artwork—as you’ll know if you’ve taken a look at my galleries—consists of collages, assemblages and drawings, with a few photographs.  It doesn’t consist of the small digital images of those pieces of artwork.  So when people take those images and use them for their own non-commercial purposes then it isn’t theft, it’s other people doing my marketing for me.

Now, you could say that because I don’t watermark my images then how can it be marketing – how can someone seeing one of my images on someone’s MySpace account possibly help me when the image can’t be attributed to me?

It’s simple – people like being Mavens. When asked “Wow, where did you get that image from” (OK, it’s probably more likely to be phrased as “OMFG!!111 – WHR DD U GT THT PIC FRM?!!”, but you get the idea) then the person can show off their knowledge by pointing the amazed newcomer in the direction of the originating website – my website!

Sure, in that situation some idiots may claim that they made it themselves, but that doesn’t cost me anything so I don’t care.

Sure, it costs me a tiny bit of bandwidth if people are too lazy to host it themselves, but if that’s the case then AWStats—my stat-tracking software—will tell me where it’s being used (because the referring page will be logged), which lets me see who likes the images of my artwork and how they’re being used – which is incredibly valuable information.  And the bandwidth cost is neglible – my £100-a-year web-hosting package gives me 150GB bandwidth transfer per month and I only use a fraction of that anyway.

There’s just one exclusion to the above.  I specified people using these images for non-commercial purposes.  Commercial usage is an entirely different matter, and for commercial usage money should change hands (from their hands into my hands!).

1. Disabling right-clicking

JavaScript that disables right-clicking (to prevent people “stealing” your images) is wrong on so many levels. But it’s such a prevalent mistake that I feel the need to tell you why it’s wrong:

Small screen-sized digital images of your artwork are your most basic form of marketing, and (thanks to the wonders of the internet) can be reproduced and redistributed at no cost. If you think that trying to stop people from distributing your marketing material is a good thing then you need to rethink everything from scratch.

It doesn’t work anyway – anyone can disable JavaScript in a matter of a second. Which means I’ve still got your images, but now you’ve annoyed me as well, so I’m less likely to rave about (i.e. promote) your artwork.

2. Flash websites

Now I know this one tends to get Flash evangelists in a tizz, but I hate Flash websites. Part of the reason is that they often completely fail to work on my PC (I’m running 64-bit Linux, and there’s no official flash plugin for 64-bit Linux, so your “website” is rendered as an inactive 800×600 pixel dead-grey rectangle).

Flash websites are also favoured by linear-minded control freaks to dictate how a visitor views a website – they restrict choice. For example, they restrict the visitor from entering the site on anything but the “front” page (which invariably contains a painfully tedious animation that I’m forced to watch before the “enter” link appears).

They also seem to be used as an over-engineered “solution” to people attempting to help market your artwork (in that they prevent you from right-clicking and saving an image). Again, it doesn’t actually do anything but slow your visitor down for a matter of seconds (print-screen will capture that images easily) whilst pissing off your potential customers.

The worst Flash artists’ websites always seem to say to me “I’m a self-important wanker who demands that you see things my way – you will not deviate from the true way to appreciate my artwork” (in 8pt type that I can neither read nor resize). I know I’m ranting here, but it’s a pet hatred of mine.

I should add that I’m not opposed to small bits of Flash embedded within an (X)HTML website, where rich content or animation needs to be delivered, such as using YouTube’s Flash embedding to drop a video into a webpage. That’s fine – that’s what Flash is for.

3. Tiled wallpaper behind the artwork

Galleries have plain walls so that the viewer’s attention isn’t distracted from the artwork. Your website should too. It’s just visual noise that gets in the way of your artwork.

4. Arty Navigation

While I may be inclined to spend my valuable time analysing and building an understanding & appreciation of your artwork, I’d rather not spend that time analysing and building an understanding of your website’s navigation/menu – I don’t care enough and I’ll just go somewhere else.

I want a menu on every page of the site with the main menu items should be in writing and not icons/symbols/images whose meaning I can only deduce by clicking on them and seeing where I end up. I don’t care how “clever” they are.

5. Splash pages with “enter” links

I used to make this mistake many years ago. I had a splash page with an impressively large image and an “enter” link.

It comes from an over-extension of the analogy that an artist’s website is their personal gallery—with a door through which you enter—but that analogy is wrong.

A website is a gallery—and much more—where all the artwork is hung on the exterior walls facing out into the world, rather than being contained in a space for which there is only one entrance (this is a mistake frequently made by aficionados of Flash websites).

The 2006 blog post Five mistakes you’re probably making with your MySpace page (on Andrew Dubber’s blog New Music Strategies) applies equally to visual artists as it does to musicians.

The five mistakes (expanded on in much better detail in the blog post itself) are:

1. Using MySpace as your website
2. Using MySpace as your email
3. Having an impressive background image
4. Embedding lots of media
5. Writing lots of text

All of these points are absolutely correct. MySpace’s “My Pics” should not be your gallery. By all means, put loads of examples of your work in there (if they comply with MySpace’s image content rules) but don’t direct people there instead of to your own site.

Andrew Dubber reminds us:

Remember: MySpace is a tool. It’s one of many. It’s not your only shot at engaging with your audience or prospective market. It’s an important one though, and it’s one that it’s very easy to make mistakes with. Use it well.

MySpace, like any social networking site, should just be one of many outposts of your main website. In no way should it be your website (and nor should Flickr, deviantART, Artbreak, or any other social website).