My website has grown organically over 12 years, but the code is looking very messy and unmanageable, so I’m thinking of recoding it from scratch (while adding a lot of improvements).

I decided that I may as well make any such “artist’s website application” available as a free open-source application for anyone else who wants to download it for their own use.  It’ll be PHP5 (object-orientated) with a MySQL back-end.

The main core of the script would be the galleries (gallery add-on modules for other applications like blogs always seem to leave a lot to be desired for a serious artist) with a strong emphasis on search engine optimisation.

There’ll be a “leave comments” function for each image in the galleries, integration with PayPal and/or Google Checkout for online sales, automatic thumbnail creation, and RSS feeds of new work in the galleries. There will be a facility to add a few static pages (artist’s statement, front page, contact form etc).

There’ll be an exhibitions/events listing function - with incoming and outgoing iCal feeds for calendars and geo-tagging of galleries/venues (so I can integrate it with Yahoo/Google Maps).

Rather than trying to write a blog application, I’m going to concentrate on writing “bridges” that allow the galleries to integrate with existing blog software (Wordpress etc).This is because there’s no way I could write blog software that’s anywhere as near as good as WordPress.

The same applies to discussion forums - I’ll just write bridges for SMF and phpBB. I am thinking of writing my own email newsletter application, though (because I’ve never found one that I’ve been 100% happy with).

I’m also going to investigate some ways to allow it to integrate with social networks, Flickr, etc.

So, my question to you is this:

What features and functionality would you suggest I include?  What’s important for you in an ideal artist’s website?

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.

I’m going to concentrate on HTML email design here rather than best practice for sending your emails or building your email list.

Suffice to say that you should never email someone without their clear and express permission (opt-in NOT opt-out should be your strategy) - don’t get impatient and cut corners because your email list is growing too slowly for your liking.

Many people still want to receive update via email, and it’s certainly something I continue to get a good response from (here’s my sign-up form if you want to subscribe).

Here’s an example of one of my email newsletters (it might be worth opening it in a new tab or window while you read this post). I want to explain why I design it like I do.

1. Minimal design & branding:

I’ve noticed a growing tendency to “over-design” HTML emails - too many emails use far too many graphics and fancy layouts, trying to emulate a web page.

However an email is not a web page and shouldn’t be designed like one. I use minimalist “branding” and layout - a red bar across the top and a graphic at the top right.

2. A big font size and lots of whitespace:

Emails are full of text trying to impart information and promote your artwork.  Reading emails with small font sizes makes reading all this text hard work - your readers are likely to ignore your email.

I use a nice big 16px sans-serif font combined with plenty of whitespace that makes it easy for people to scan through the email.  This makes it more likely that they’ll (a) bother reading it, and (b) be able to quickly spot something they’re interested in.

I also insert quite a few sub-headings in bold to further help people scan through the email and spot items of interest.

3. A personalised salutation:

Any email that includes my real name clearly at the top gets far more attention than a non-personalised email.

The inclusion of my name means I must have provided some information (my name) to the sender and so the email is far less likely to be spam - and far more likely to be something I actually want to (and have asked to) receive.

4. A few small graphics:

To break up the text and provide elements of interest I include a handful (just two images in the example) - large images take longer to load and clutter up the email.

Typically the images I use are around 100px square - although I have occasionally used slightly larger images if it’s justified.

5. Clearly defined links with relevant link text:

I use a red colour for links (as I do on my website) and always use relevant link text.

I frequently use bulletted lists to list recent blog posts rather than just a link to the front page of a blog - it helps the email recipient scan through the posts and go directly to one which catches their attention.

6. Clear unsubscribe link at the bottom:

Don’t be tempted to make this smaller to put people off unsubscribing - they’ll just flag your email as junk mail if they can’t easily unsubscribe, and that could end up with your email being blocked for people who do want to receive it.

If you have any comments, please leave them below.

And of course you can always sign up to the (approximately monthly) Lazarus Corporation email newsletter for the latest updates on the artwork from the artists here.

Another follow-up post, this time following up my post on Self-publishing your art books on Lulu.

From http://www.lulu.com/content/2709735:

“Dear Lulu” is a test book researched and produced by graphic design students and Prof. Frank Philippin at Hochschule Darmstadt, Germany, during an intensive two-day workshop with London-based designer James Goggin (Practise). The book’s intention is to act as a calibration document for testing colour, pattern, format, texture and typography.

Exercises in colour profile (Adobe RGB/sRGB/CMYK/Greyscale), halftoning, point size, line, geometry, skin tone, colour texture, cropping and print finishing provide useful data for other designers and self-publishers to judge the possibilities and quality of online print-on-demand — specifically Lulu.com, with this edition.

The book’s price is set at Lulu.com’s exact printing cost per unit.

The paperback version (96 pages, 5.83″ x 8.26″, perfect binding, full-colour interior ink) is £10.47 and the ebook version (62501 KB) is downloadable free-of-charge.

A great resource to see the quality of printing that Lulu.com can offer the artist wanting to self-publish books of their artwork.

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?

Every week I seem to read some nonsense spouted by ill-informed journalists regurgitating a press release from the music industry.  This week it was Dan Sabbagh in The Times condemning “…the traditional net libertarian nonsense that feels good if you want to live in a world in which there are only pub bands with pages on Bebo or some other social networking site”.

Dan was obviously ignoring the phenomenal success of new business models made well-known by pub bands such as Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails etc.  But hey, he’s only a journalist repeating what he’s been told by the music industry. (The thrust of his article was that the draconian nonsense of having your broadband connection limited was better than the draconian nonsense of having it cut off completely - it’s not like he was intelligently investigating viable alternatives).

Anyway, poorly thought-out press pieces like that frequently incite commentators such as myself to write long, detailed explanations of why the original article is wrong.  Not anymore. Nope - I’m officially giving up on the nay-sayers in the music & publishing industries and their pet journalists.

There’s now more than enough theory published on the web about the viability of the new business models available to musicians, writers and artists.  The argument is never going to be won by an endless succession of arguments and rebukes.  The argument is going to be won by the success of musicians, writers and artists using these new models.

To facilitate this I’m going to concentrate in this blog on writing practical articles about how musicians, writers and artists can use the new business models rather than debating theory.  I’ve been moving towards this position over the past few months so it’s probably no big surprise to regular readers, but I thought I’d be clear and open about it.

But you know what I’d really love?  A website where innovators & commentators could record practical tips for musicians, writers and artists in using new business models.

Imagine a website where the likes of Chris Anderson, Mike Masnick, Kevin Kelly, Seth Godin et al (and numerous not-so-well-known commentators and innovators) could post practical articles for musicians, writers and artists.  That would be more powerful than any argument.

Would this be a useful resource for you?

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.