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 written about social networks and their uses before, but I wanted to expand on some of my original thoughts.

So, let me start with a quote from my previous article stating my position:

I’m sure this isn’t just because I’m an anti-social bastard, but it seems like the big social networks have absolutely no purpose to an individual user. The signal-to-noise ratio is ridiculous - it’s just marketers (whether they be bands or brands) hitting you incessantly with really bad marketing. It reminds me so much of UseNet in the late 1990s it hurts. It’s like being forced to listen to Barry Scott shouting at you about the benefits of Cillit Bang, on a continuous loop.

You see, social networking shouldn’t be the raison d’être of a site. It’s a feature. Add social networking to a site that already has a purpose and you might add value to that site.

When a new concept or technology appears on the internet everyone wants it on their site. Or worse still, everyone wants their site completed devoted to it. Then after an initial—huge—adoption of these new sites, interest—and therefore usage—starts to decay.

This is not a bad thing. The massive adoption of MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Orkut, FaceParty et al. introduces people to the essential concepts: adding friends, creating and maintaining your profile, adding applications, deleting 99% of those applications when you discover they’re pointless, etc.

As you’ll probably have guessed, my prediction is that usage of Pure Social Networks—sites whose only purpose is “to be a social network”—will start to tail off, and sites which use social networking models as a means to an end (which I’m classing as Applied Social Networking ) will increase thanks to easy adoption of the new tools because everyone’s learnt the ropes on MySpace and Facebook.

I’ve used this example before, but it’s a good one: deviantArt is a prime example of an an Applied Social Networking site - it uses social networking tools as an integrated part of a multi-artist gallery site. It’s not perfect, but it’s on the right path.

MySpace has caught on and has been moving from Pure to Applied over recent years - it’s evolving into a music-orientated site, connecting bands with fans.  Networks such as Flickr and LinkedIn had a purpose from the start (although LinkedIn probably needs to do some work on making itself more useful).  Facebook, however, doesn’t have a purpose yet, and if I were Facebook I’d be worried about that.

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).

1. Start with a website

OK, here’s the easy-to-follow three-point guide:

1. If you are a competent web developer then create your own site.
2. If you have a friend who is a competent web developer then ask them to set you up free blog software (e.g. WordPress) on a web-host with your own domain name in return for a few free beers. Don’t ask them to set you up a non-blog site because otherwise you’ll have to keep harassing them to update it - a blog allows you to take control and regularly update your site without needing to be a web developer.
3. If you don’t know any web developers who can help you, then sign up for a blog hosted on a free blogging service (e.g. Blogger or WordPress - personally I recommend WordPress).

The Artist’s Web Wiki gives a good overview of what content to create, but I think it makes a strategic error when it says “Resist the temptation to display every piece you’ve ever created. Show off your best!”. I think this is totally wrong - it’s viewing the web in the same way as the limited space on a gallery wall (which it certainly is not).

Only displaying a small selection of work presumes a scarcity of space - and space on the web is anything but scarce (digital storage and bandwidth are abundant and their cost is increasingly tending towards zero). The only scarcity is people’s attention.

I would suggest putting every single piece of artwork/music/writing you have on your website - every finished piece, work-in-progress and preliminary sketch/demo/note. This strategy is based on the economic model explained by Chris Anderson in his book The Long Tail:

The theory of the Long Tail can be boiled down to this: Our culture and economy are increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of hits (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve, and moving toward a huge number of niches in the tail.

In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.

With the unlimited space available on the web, you don’t need to restrict yourself to a small edited selection of pieces which (you desperately hope) will accurately capture the entire range of your creative œuvre. You can put your entire œuvre on your website and let Google et al. bring in the niche customers who are interested in what—to you—is a half-forgotten piece of work, but to the searcher is the very thing they want to see - and, perhaps, to buy.

The important thing with this strategy, however, is to make sure that it’s all organised in an easily-findable way. Again, Anderson sums this up succinctly in his book:

1. Make everything available.
2. Help me find it.

When you move from displaying a carefully curated/edited selection to making available the entirety of your life’s work (so far) then you need to think about navigation, taxonomies, hierarchies, folksonomies, inter-linking, cross-references, personalisation, search, multiple-categorisation…

2. Set up outposts on Social Networking websites

Setting up shop on a variety of social networking sites enables you to take your work out to your potential audience.

MySpace, Facebook, DeviantArt (for visual artists, writers and film-makers), YouTube (for film-makers), Flickr (for photographers and visual artists)… I won’t list them all here because Mashable has a list of 350+ social networking sites with details of their niches and specialities.

You can’t just create an account and leave it, though—the very nature of social networking sites means that they work best if you work at them—you need to network with the communities that use them.

And by that I don’t mean send out thousands of spam “friend” requests - you need to actively engage with the community in the manner that the network in question encourages and respects.

This is a community you’re trying to be part of, not a crowd of passing anonymous shoppers to blindly hand-out flyers to.

3. Set up your communications

This means an email newsletter of some sort, an RSS feed (if you’ve gone for a blog then this will come as part of the blogging software), and an easy way for people to contact you (anything from your email address or a contact form to a discussion forum or the comments section under a blog post - the more ways the better).

In part two of this article I’ll be looking at how to use your website to help your art.

Tomorrow MySpace opens up its platform to developers. While MySpace have inferred that they’ve learnt from Facebook’s mistakes, in that their platform will be more resilient to spamming issues, I still can’t think of a single useful or interesting application (either for MySpace or Facebook).

Maybe it’s just that the whole social network app-development isn’t mature yet. Or maybe it’s because the current crop of social networking sites are just pointless and inane, so any application built on them is doomed to be pointless and inane as well.

I’m sure this isn’t just because I’m an anti-social bastard, but it seems like the big social networks have absolutely no purpose to an individual user. The signal-to-noise ratio is ridiculous - it’s just marketers (whether they be bands or brands) hitting you incessantly with really bad marketing. It reminds me so much of UseNet in the late 1990s it hurts. It’s like being forced to listen to Barry Scott shouting at you about the benefits of Cillit Bang, on a continuous loop.

You see, social networking shouldn’t be the raison d’être of a site. It’s a feature. Add social networking to a site that already has a purpose and you might add value to that site.

One site that got it right is deviantART. To explain briefly, deviantART is an art site where you can create an account and upload your artwork/poetry (or just browse through other people’s artwork). You can organise your gallery with a brief profile and an updatable journal - so far so unexpected. The reason it works, though, is that the social networking is just a feature, albeit an important one.

You can browse round other people’s artwork and add pieces you like to your favourites. You can also leave a comment underneath someone’s piece of artwork (or on their profile). If you’re really impressed by someone’s art then you can watch them. Watching someone is like adding them as a friend in any other social networking site, but it has a purpose beyond popularity contests. Whenever someone you’re watching uploads some new artwork then you get alerted via a thumbnail preview of it.

In addition to this, there’s the expected discussion forum, chat application, etc. - but it all makes sense because it has a purpose. I’ve been a member of deviantART since November 2002 - you can see my gallery here - and there’s the difference: you’re not just looking at a page listing my likes & dislikes and how many zombies/pirates I’ve killed, you’re looking at a profile which is firmly centred around something - in this case, a gallery of artwork.

The very fact that I’ve been active on deviantART for over five years says a lot about its ability to retain my goldfish-like attention. The fact that last year I upgraded to a paid subscription (£15.18 per year, which allows you more customisable features and no adverts - and I’ll definitely be renewing that subscription) speaks volumes.

Now, if deviantART opened up its platform to application developers then that would be interesting - because once you have a platform with a purpose, then you can build something exciting and worthwhile.