The Pros and Cons of Online Exhibitions for Art Societies (ref. SOFA Winter Exhibition)

Many moons ago, just after I'd taken early retirement, I had the pleasure of exhibiting with the Society of Feline Artists at the Llewellyn Alexander Gallery on The Cut, near to both the Old Vic and Waterloo Station in London. Unfortunately, although SOFA exhibited very happily there for 25 years, that gallery "shut up shop" a while back. Since then they've tried a number of alternative venues - and online exhibitions.

The Society of Feline Artists has been exhibiting paintings, drawings, sculpture and other feline-inspired artwork since our very first exhibition in 1995.

This is about SOFA's new Winter Exhibition (17th October - 15th November) - which is not in a gallery, it's ONLINE. 

AND It's a very different kind of review given it's very much focused on

• pros and cons of online exhibitions 
• what you must do when selling art online 
• the legal and regulatory compliance side of online exhibitions selling art

I'm seeing art societies do more and more online art exhibitions - with art for sale. 

I do wonder if all those organising know all the questions they need to ask re what they need to do.

"Welcome to the SOFA Online Exhibition" on the website

This post will comment on:

• viewing the SOFA exhibition 
• Pros and Cons of Online Exhibitions
• savings for the art society!
• buying the art
• selling the art 
• plus Trading, Ecommerce, Money Laundering, VAT and GDPR Regulations

My comments are largely focused on helping SOFA (or any other art societies aiming to sell via online exhibitions) to be more effective and completely legal.

Below is one of my artworks which was exhibited at SOFA many years ago! - of my cat Cosmo (who passed away 10 years ago + more drawings of him). 

It now hangs opposite where I'm sat writing this.

I spy a spider

12" x 8", coloured pencils

selected for SOFA Annual Exhibition 2008 

at the Llewellyn Alexander Galleries

copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Artworks

Let's not forget that very many famous artists loved drawing and painting their cats! Never ever "sniff" at somebody who mainly draws and paint cats!

Leonardo da Vinci famously sketched cats in various postures and movements across his notebooks, marveling at their anatomical balance, agility, and grace.

The artwork in every SOFA Exhibition celebrates cats - and if you're a cat fan, you'll LOVE looking at the artwork on this website. Subject matter includes both domestic felines and wild / big cats and the art media and styles are various and diverse.

We are thrilled to showcase an incredible collection of feline-inspired artwork, celebrating cats of all shapes, sizes, and personalities. From bold digital paintings to cozy traditional sketches

• There are 125 artworks in the show. That's about a third of the number exhibited by the bigger national art societies at the Mall Galleries. It's enough to need a large space - but maybe not enough to make the budgeting easy.
• The artwork is by more than 50 artists, who work in a variety of media, from oils and watercolour to pencil and printmaking.

The SOFA Winter Exhibition

The return of the visitor map!

I've been using counters for visits and pageviews for the last 20 years. I like quick information - but I also want indepth information.

A Quick Look - on the blog

For many years, I have used clustrmaps.com to provide a visual map in my side column of where visitors to my blog come from.

I've always been completely amazed that I can sit typing at home in East London and the words that get published on my blog get read by people living all over the world - literally on every continent (bar Antarctica).

However, very sadly Clustrmaps has died.

Hence I was very pleased today to find a product which seeks to replicate it. Indeed I think it might even be the same team with a different name as they seem to have the same ethos - which is one I like and very much approve of.

Map My Visitors was created by a small team — just three guys working together. We are passionate about making web analytics accessible to everyone. We understand that tracking website traffic is essential for businesses, bloggers, and individuals, but the cost and complexity of existing solutions can be extremely overwhelming. That's why we set out on a mission to create a hit counter service that is not only accurate, fast, and responsive but also user-friendly and affordable.

You can find out more about them and what they do here.

Introducing MapMyVistors

MapMyVisitors

MapMyVisitors has a real time visitor map widget - and produces 

• either a map of where all your visitors come from (unless they are blocking their location)
• or a Globe widget (which moves!) I'm not a fan of things which move!

Visitors are either a red dot ie past visitors) or an amber or green dot ie visited recently

You can see the map near the top of the right hand side column.

Today - with just a few hours of stats on it, it looks like this

ON MY BLOG - as a widget

MapMyVisitors Widget
This is an enlarged version of the widget in the side column
after a few hours (i.e. installed on 19th August)

ON MY DASHBOARD

MapMyVisitors: This is the map on my screen re the dashboard.
Below it lists all the various locations

Statcounter

I cannot remember when I first started using Statcounter - but my stats suggest it must have been nearly 20 years ago.

I also use Statcounter to provide an incredibly detailed map - which allows me to drill down to region and city and ISP - and allowed me to identify I was being absolutely hammered by visits from people in South East Asia earlier this year when my stats went totally wild for two weeks.

This is today's map for the last 7 days

Statcounter: Visitor Map for the last 7 days
- with lots of the countries labelled

HOWEVER they don't have a nice widget sized one for my blog which I can look at really easily - hence my use of MapMyVisitors

How to lose your website's domain name

There's a very easy way to lose your Website's presence on the internet AND all its followers.

Just FORGET TO RENEW YOUR DOMAIN NAME

Your website still exists - but nobody can see it. That's all. It's really very, very simple.

I've lost count of the number of artists and art societies / groups / organisations who have fallen foul of thinking somebody else would remember to remind them that the licence for the domain name needs renewal.

This morning I came across another to add to the list.

Things you must remember

1. You do NOT own your domain name
2. When you pay for a domain name, you license it for a specific period of time
3. If you do NOT renew the licence in time you risk losing your website's presence on the internet i.e. your website ceases to exist
4. If you are unable to re-register the domain name, all the effort you have made to get the domain name recognised is wasted

More VERY IMPORTANT TO BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS TIP at the end - and the last two are critical!

Why are domain names important

Domain names provide a unique way of referencing a single unique site on the internet.

Hence they are very precious. They are that important. 

Quite often people buy their domain names before they've even worked out how they are going to build their website.

Speaking personally, I own far more domain names than I do websites. That's because I've got a bunch of them which were bought for defensive reasons i.e. I didn't want anybody else having the name.

How domain names work

A timely art business reminder

It's a timely reminder for me! 

In the days of digital calendars we can set up reminders to renew:

• website hosts
• domain name registrations
• any other service we pay for relating to our website

The thing is we tend to input credit card details or include a balance on the account to pay for these - thinking everything will just rollover automatically when it comes time to pay. No need to worry

Forgetting that our cards all have expiry dates - and when the card is expired - as mine did at the end of last month - it cannot be used to make the automated payment.

I just spotted the email in time to get things sorted - as my payment was due and the notice about my card having expired had been issued 

This was the notice I got this week.

It's really very easy to lose an email if you get a lot (as I do) and they race off your front page or you're very busy and don't look at your emails for a few days - or you get ill!

So 

• keep a note of the credit card used against each website service / domain name and WHEN it need to be updated
• input the renewal dates for all relevant services to your digital calendar - with an alert set up for a week beforehand and an annual reminder turned on

Otherwise your website or your domain name could end up like VERY MANY I've come across in my time looking for artists websites - offline and potentially dead and buried.

To be honest, the most common problem seems to be the failure to renew the domain name. I've come across many websites which indicate a domain name renewal problem.

Do you have a Weebly website?

This post is for owners of a Weebly website. It's a bit techie - but not as techie as it should be!

What follows covers

• the background to the transition from a Weebly Account to a Square Account - by 6th October 2022
• problems encountered en route
• the appalling transition documentation
• TIP when you create your new Square account
• How to login after you've setup your new Square account
• What next?

Background to Weebly to Square Account Transition

Weebly is one of the main webware houses for artists' websites - with Wix and Squarespace being the others (as in millions of websites!)

Weebly is currently trying to transition its website owners from the Weebly account / login to a new Square account / login. That's because Square - which is essentially an ecommerce operation - acquired Weebly in 2018. 

As a current Weebly user, you are required to update your login and connect with Square by October 6, 2022. With Square, your site will have an extra layer of security with two-factor authentication, access to a suite of business tools, and the ability to process payments more securely.

Problems encountered

There's just a few problems! Such as:

• the transition process is not very customer oriented - as in writing a set of "this is what you need to do in very plain simple steps + this is how it works in future" i.e. specifically for the consumer
• the new login URL for Square is buried DEEP within the transition FAQs text. It's https://squareup.com/gb/en
• this is the screen you are presented with when logging in - after you've found the new URL for login! There is absolutely no way you know how to transfer to the website suite - because there's no recognition of its existence on the dashboard!!

The appalling Weebly to Square Transition Documentation

The transition documentation is essentially totally non-existent - in terms of what is commonly understood as best practice.

I doubt very much if they tested any of it with existing Weebly account holders.

You are referred to Weebly and Square FAQ (which is a Weebly Document)

When you create a Square Account (from the button in the notice email) you get access to documents associated with Square (i.e. General Terms of Service, Payment Terms and Privacy Notice you get when you set up your new Square login)

By creating a Square login, nothing will change with your existing website. For more information, please read here.

This link takes you to back to the document identified above - which does NOT provide a step by step transition process

Then in tiny type at the top of this document you notice it says  

If you're a Weebly user being prompted to change your login to Square, review our Weebly and Square FAQ article in our Square Support Center for the most up-to-date information.

The difference is this document sits within the Square Support Service - even if it is not recognised by the search facility for support!!!

It's titled Weebly and Square FAQs and states in one of the FAQs

I don’t have a Square account. How do I set one up?

Creating your Square account should only take about 5 minutes. As a Weebly customer, you’ll receive an email asking you to update to a Square account. Use the link in the email to get started. You can also start this process from your Weebly dashboard via a button in the announcement banner.

Once your Square account is created, you’ll log in from squareup.com using your Square email address. This means that you’ll have one login to manage everything related to your website and accepting payments online.

Check out our switching to Square Online FAQs for more information on accessing and managing your sites in your Square account

This highlights another document - which similarly does NOT provide a step by step process for those confused by the very poor communication for this transition process

Switch to Square Online from Weebly FAQs starts by marketing Square - which is wholly irrelevant at this stage!!

People just need to know

• how to set up a Square account correctly to link with their existing website - and
• to understand very clearly what are the implications of different options offeredIt does NOT address this in a simple and easy to read fashion.

It also says

What effect will this merger have on my Weebly account?

As part of our merger with Square, we ask that you replace your Weebly account with a Square account. You’ll use the Square account to sign in going forward, and all Weebly logos and branding will be replaced with Square branding

This note also states

Once your Weebly and Square accounts are linked, you’ll log in to your account from squareup.com using your Square email address. This means that you’ll have one login to manage everything related to your website and accepting payments online.

Finally they indicate what the url is for the login!!!

But - to come full circle - this is where I came in - this URL only provides access to the Square Dashboard and no way of accessing my websites!

The Square Support Page generates NOTHING about the transition for Weebly website owners (that's several million people!) 

Plus if you type in "Transition" you get nothing. Major mistake!

It's an all-round COMPLETE SHAMBLES! (I speak as one who used to implement new IT systems and understand full well the importance of the documentation which accompanies the transition)

TIP When you create you Square account

The BEST ways and places to sell your art - RESULTS

Back in January I created a POLL: What was the best place to sell your art in 2021

• on this blog - and
• also included it on the How to Sell Your Art on my Art Business Info for Artists website - which introduces the different options for selling art considered on the website.

The question artists were asked was 

PROFIT FROM ART SALES: Which 3 options generated the most profit (after expenses) for you last year? (i.e. 2021)

107 people have responded to it - and this is the chart of their responses - followed by a commentary on all the various options and suggestions about what some of the results might mean. For me they mean it might be instructive to try some more polls focused on particular ways of selling art.

If you want to see a bigger picture of the chart

• right click and open the pic of the chart in a new tab, you'll see a bigger picture.
• Or you can go to the  How to Sell Your Art  page my website - which provides a bigger picture

Of course it all depends on what you're viewing it on! I don't think you'll get the best view on a smartphone...

Commentary on profitability of different options for selling art

Scope of responses

Responses are from people who view the Poll and vote. There is no way of knowing which country they are from or whether they are 

• amateur, 
• semi-professional (i.e. beyond hobby income) or 
• professional (i.e. make a living from being an artist).

So the results need to be viewed with this in mind. Nonetheless they provide some interesting perspectives.....

Profitability

Never forget that this is a Poll and Chart about PROFITABILITY i.e. 

• NOT how many sales you make 
• but rather which options make you the MOST PROFIT.

People who have successful businesses understand how they make profit. 

Never ever confuse turnover with profit because If you have significant expenses you won't be making much money. 

By way of contrast if you don't need to incur third party expenses and are good at marketing your art, you can eliminate commissions to galleries and listing feeds for third party sites.

The big surprise

They can't cancel Spring

"They can't cancel Spring" started last March with a message from David Hockney.

He posted the iPad drawing below to Instagram - from his base in Normandy where he was under lockdown.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @david.hockney

The Art Newspaper (and various others) took it up and published A message from...David Hockney: 'Do remember they can’t cancel the spring' exactly a year ago today.

Jonathan Jones followed up in the Guardian with his article on 2nd April How David Hockney depicted a spring for self-isolationists

Spring Cannot Be Cancelled

Spring Cannot be Cancelled by David Hockney and Martin Gayford will be published by Thames and Hudson on 25 March 2021. (The link above goes to Amazon UK - my copy is already on order!)

This is 

a new book of conversations and correspondence between David Hockney and his long-time friend and collaborator Martin Gayford, in which the artist reflects upon life and art as he self-isolates in rural France.

Hockney moved to Normandy after he became 80.

when Covid-19 struck, it made little difference to life at La Grande Cour, the centuries-old farmhouse where the artist had set up a studio a year before, in time to paint the arrival of spring. In fact, he relished the enforced isolation as an opportunity for even greater devotion to his art.

The book is illustrated with images of Spring drawn and painted on his iPad. Many who viewed his major exhibition at the RA in 2012 (see my post Review: David Hockney RA - A Bigger Picture) will remember how much Hockney said he exalted in the arrival of Spring and loved to paint the foamy blossom on the Hawthorn bushes in in the East Yorkshire Wolds west of Bridlington where he lived at the time 'on location".

This time we'll see what he makes of Normandy!

They Can't Cancel Spring

.....is also the name of the Spring Exhibition of the Royal Watercolour Society. See They Can't Cancel Spring on the RWS website

This opens this evening - with a virtual evening reception on Instagram....

Two websites to resurrect - the question is where

What to do when your website host pulls the rug out from under your website

Today I discovered that my first two websites - Pastels and Pencils and my "hub" Making A Mark website - are no more. My Statcounter stats seem to suggest they disappeared sometime earlier this week.

On the plus side

I've had 15 years of free hosting from SiteKreator due to the fact that back when I was originally building these websites I recommended the web host - at the time - to very many artists who then adopted the host for their website and, as a result, I got upgraded to being a VIP customer. What I think they now call an "influencer".

Plus the websites worked well for many years.....

The page referencing my Portfolio website on my makingamark.co.uk website

On the down side

Sadly in recent times SiteKreator has been a platform which was 

• VERY SLOW to gets its act together in relation to various online developments
• had some very suspect developments - in terms of odd pages which would appear on my domain - which really got me wound up.

Plus SiteKreator sent me precisely ONE NOTIFICATION EMAIL back in June indicating that my site would go offline unless I upgraded and moved to their offering - and PAID!!

No reminders - nothing more.

I'm NOT impressed.

an extract from my "website Options" page on my artbusinessinfo.com website

How and where to move a website #1

Consequently I'm faced with either paying for new websites or letting the content go.

While neither website has been updated for some time (i.e. osteoarthritis makes making art difficult and I've still got a mega sort out job to do re. my resources info) I'm somewhat reluctant to let them go altogether 

What I'm doing in the short term

Here's what I'm doing

• checking my own checklist (!) on Options for developing an Artist's website
• keeping both domain names going with my registrar ( Namecheap - recommended )
• archiving pages from the websites - using the Internet Archive / Wayback Machine - into Evernote (very easy and good practice for anyone with a website - and I find Evernote indispensable!)
• identifying options for potential future sites - which might include 
• Weebly - currently used for Botanical Art and Artists and Art Business Info for Artists
• Wix - which lots of friends use
• SquareSpace - which I've lusted after forever - but is more expensive
• Google Sites - which have just reinvented themselves as from 1 November 2020 
• SiteKreator - except I'm thinking they would have to pull out all the stops to interest me
• trying the free trials with any new host I'm interested in
• comparing KEY FACTORS for choosing a host (see OPTIONS above)
• storage
• bandwidth
• technical sophistication
• pricing
• (I'll do a blog post about this!)
• thinking about how to 
• prune and edit existing content
• split the content between 
• any new site(s) and 
• existing new websites already in draft (on Weebly re techniques / genres / art materials)

Making decisions and building at least one new website

I think what's very likely is that between now and the New Year - which is always pretty quiet traffic wise - I'll start moving content and setting up one (maybe two) new websites.

Plus maybe blogging about choices and decisions.....

But blogging a lot less about art.....

Thumbnails versus slideshows versus videos

See if you can spot the artist who will make their mark in future years - in the online Graduation Show 2020 by recent graduates of the Heatherley School of Art.

Heatherley's Graduates Exhibition 2020

I was left wishing that the show was a slideshow - because 

• going back and to (due to the lack of a right arrow for the next image of decent size) 
• means inevitably you only look at some artwork as a thumbnail.

I clicked around in vein trying to find the arrow for the next image - and finally realised there wasn't one.

Hence this post

I'd also have liked to see a text document - providing a summary about each artist and links to their websites and social media accounts.  Being an artist is so much more than producing the artwork....

Presentation of art on a website

Presenting art on a website demands some careful thought about what's likely to generate the best response.

The critical issue is to remember people have limited time and need an efficient and effective method of viewing art they might be interested in.

It's really worthwhile thinking about:

• the optimum size of image to display your work to best effect - now that buyers are much more used to buying online
• how best to display a sequence or series of your artworks
• thumbnails only - enlarging to larger image if clicked (and then you have to go back and start again as per the Heatherley's Show)
• slideshow of decent sizes images
• slideshow of decent sizes images - properly annotated with title, media and size (framed and/or unframed as relevant)
• a video of your artwork - with successive static frames - working in the same way as a slideshow - but with a bit more control for the viewer. (I usually put my cursor on the bottom and speed through - and then only come back and watch slowly if I like what I see)
• thumbnails AND slideshow - i.e. give the viewer the choice of how they want to view.
• what's the best thumbnail for your artwork? 
• Not every artwork is created in a standard thumbnail shape (eg not everything is a small square!)
• the critical issue is whether or not the thumbnail "reads well" and tempts the viewer to click it and open up the larger image
• Hence a decision may be required as to how best to format the thumbnail before converting to larger image of the whole work

Thumbnails in the Heatherley's Graduate Show which worked for me are by:

• Sarah Thorneycroft
• Zhouzi Zhang (more than one)
• Jayson Singh (more than one) - who impressed me the most - who has a Twitter account but no website

Jayson Singh is a visual artist based in Battersea and has a fine art degree from Central Saint Martin's. Recently, he has completed a portrait diploma from Heatherley's school of Art and achieved a special commendation from the painter Andrew James RP at the graduating show this year.

Note that I did not open every thumbnail - just the ones that appealed.

Hardship lies ahead #1: Checklist for Artists

This post provides some CHECKLISTS FOR ARTISTS 

• thinking about the future and 
• wanting to get to grips with the basics of surviving as an artist AND an art business within the context of both Covid AND the Recession.

i.e. Neither the Coronavirus Pandemic nor the Recession are going away completely in a hurry - so it's time to tease out and get to grips with some of the practical implications for the medium and longer term.

For what it's worth I reckon it will be at least two years before we get back to normal.  Possibly three.

In the meantime people have some difficult decisions to make.

"Hardship lies ahead" is the new slogan of the Chancellor of the Exchequer - and he's absolutely spot on.

• Not all businesses will reopen
• Not everybody will have a job in the businesses that do
• Not everybody is going to enjoy the income level going forward that they have had in the past
• LOTS OF PEOPLE ARE GOING TO FEEL VERY UNCERTAIN - and lack of confidence depresses spending on art.

PLUS at some point, we'll all have to pay for the enormous bailouts which have been going on around the world - which may well mean tax increases in the longer term.

This post is about translating that context into the PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS for artists and selling art generally and providing CHECKLISTS for

• artists - this post
• future posts re.
• art societies 
• art exhibitions 
• art galleries
• art teachers

A preamble

I last wrote on this topic in The Pandemic Recession: Likely Impact on Art Sales and Artists

HOWEVER I gathered afterwards that quite a few people felt I was probably being too negative and miserable - and that "everything will be back to normal soon".

I wonder if others might also now feel it wise to revise that view?

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered one of the worst jobs crises since the Great Depression. There is a real danger that the crisis will increase poverty and widen inequalities, with the impact felt for years to come. OECD

Now that

• business closures and job losses are now being announced on a very regular basis as we begin to come out of the furlough period (i.e. closure of 8 branches of John Lewis is NOT normal! Nor is M&S reducing staff by 950 jobs.)
• businesses are talking about it taking years to get back to normal AND
• we're seeing some very fierce covid-19 spikes (i.e. second wave) around the world (notably in the USA) as people "got back to normal" much too fast and without taking appropriate precautions 
• PLUS as of today we're got local lockdowns in the UK and we're back to no more than 6 people meeting together I think it's time to get serious.

I'm really NOT being negative.

I'm essentially a really pragmatic person who likes to know the parameters of a problem - including the nasty bits!

I'm also a great believer in planning for what's coming.  Probably because I'm "cursed" by a very marked talent for being able to predict what's coming over the horizon - and a very good track record of being right. It has proved to be useful in a career (sometimes) - but there's always been a tendency to want to "shoot the messenger!" when people really don't like the message - so I wasn't surprised at all by the reaction to the last post.

I'm going to be like Chris Whitty and Dr Fauci and just keep saying what needs saying until people get it!! :)

CHECKLIST FOR ARTISTS

Just for a moment consider the following scenario - and how realistic it might be.

• Your art galleries close down - and your art gets stuck inside
• Your sales incomes dries up or reduces significantly - because fewer people are buying - because of lack of confidence in knowing how long the pandemic / recession will last
• Your regular Bread and Butter job which pays basic bills disappears - it's happening to a lot of people even if they are working for FTSE 100 employers!
• Your online platform suddenly shuts down - don't forget it's not just bricks and mortar businesses which shut down. Small entities are the ones which shut down in the last recession. Consequently all my blogs and websites are with very big hosts for a reason.
• Your partner loses their job - it happens.
• You will be living on a much reduced income - do you know how much you need to keep a roof over your head - and or how long you can last on just savings?
• BUT you haven't got a clue about....
• what you do that makes money or maximises your income and 
• which activity/activities is/are basically a self indulgent money pit

Bear in mind a lot of people have had to face this already.

So now is the time when spending some time on working this out is a really good investment. 

Otherwise life may very well come and bite you on the backside when you're not looking!

TIPS: FINANCIALS

Now is a really good time to work out the ABSOLUTE BASICS

• which income streams maximise profit for time and effort expended and 
• which represent a really poor return after you take every aspect into account.

Art Instruction Books: 10 years after

Ten years ago I wrote two very long posts about Art Instruction Books. I posted one to my Making A Mark Facebook Page this morning and it seems it still has a resonance with my followers.

The two posts are:

• Art Instruction Books #1: different ways of learning
• Art Books #2 - the economics of publishing (the one posted to Facebook this morning)

This post is about what they're about - and what I think has happened since and what may well happen next.

a small section of my Art Book Bookshelves - before I rearranged them again.

Different ways of Learning - in summary and since

The first post Art Instruction Books #1: different ways of learning summarises some of my thoughts back then on:

• the way people learn
• the way people learn about art
• how this all relates to art instruction

It took different models of the way people learn - and extrapolated this into how this applies in relation to art instruction (but not art instruction books)

It strikes me as interesting that over the last ten years

• in some ways art instruction has remained the same (for some) in terms of how it works
• in other ways it has changed hugely.

For example technology has well and truly arrived :

• Lots of artists now teach students remotely - as a matter of routine
• Lots of artists now control their own websites and online learning schools / video output / podcasts - and are not beholden to other publishers / platforms etc to deliver their content and generate their own followers in terms of students
• It's normal to have art students who don't live in the same country as you

In order to do that art instructors have had to become good at making videos and/or podcasts and/or modular instruction.

What I find very interesting - as somebody whose first degree is in education and who has initially formally trained as a teacher - is that most people are doing this with no idea about how to teach.

So we have 

• on the one hand - democratisation around publication of art instruction; and 
• on the other - there's an awful lot of utter [expletive deleted] out there - because there is no accreditation and there are absolutely no quality controls. Anybody can produce complete rubbish!
• not forgetting that some artists are proving to be excellent instructors despite no training 

For the most part, people have not been so much into writing art books as they are about writing content - of a chunked up modular kind, which sometimes has - but often doesn't - an underpinning structure of what needs to be learned. No matter what kind of art.

The Economics of Publishing - in summary and since

I think I was absolutely spot on with Art Books #2 - the economics of publishing! However it's difficult to summarise briefly - so read the post!

 In fact I'm somewhat amazed that I was quite so prescient. But for the fact that I used to have a boss who periodically used to roll me out in front of the management team peers and ask me to perform my party trick - which was to tell everybody what was going to happen in the next 5-10 years. Based on the fact I seemed to have developed an uncanny habit of being able to tell what was going to happen over a strategic time period. In fact I was only ever doing what on any sensible R&D set-up would do - which is keep both eyes and ears open and read around to see what everybody else was doing and what new developments were getting underway and building traction. That way you assimilate the clues that are out there and sooner or later they begin to make a coherent story which either becomes even more convincing or morphs and changes into something slightly different.

Which is why I always knew the UK would vote for Brexit if they ever got the chance!  But that's a different story....

In terms of publishing what I predicted would happen has happened. 

• publishing hit the same buffers as the music industry due to the changes technology and the means of production - and a lack of experience within the industry about how manage change and how to cope with new ways of working. For example see 
• Owner of Artist Network, Wet Canvas & North Light Books files for Bankruptcy Protection and 
• F&W Media Bankruptcy Protection UPDATE re SALES of Artist Network, Wet Canvas & North Light Books
• even if some of the same publishing names exist, they've often been bought up within a global conglomerate which retains the name as a brand 
• others have gone bust or no longer print art books
• more or less all printing is now done in India or China and timelines have to accommodate the time for shipping books actually via a ship!
• the entry level / amateur hobby market continues to obsess publishers
• so much so that many books are printed now with very little instruction and lots of blank pages so that people can fill them in like a workbook. My jaw dropped when I saw one of these for the first time. I couldn't believe people were actually buying them - but they do!
• colouring books took over the world - a bit like 'paint by numbers' did when I was a kid - and totally invaded every known category of art instruction books on Amazon. Apparently a colouring book is now to be regarded as an art instruction book!
• books seem to have more pictures and fewer words - because that's actually cheaper and suits an audience which has become image obsessed and text light
• people are publishing small quick guides online
• more or less all art instruction books must now be made as ebooks as well as the printed version
• which has implications for both content and how they are formatted if they are to work well as e-books (but not all the authors have made that change!)
• publishers now LOVE authors with major online followings - half their marketing can be done for nothing by the artist!
• those that stick with conventional publishers now understand the real financial benefit comes via the workshops which can be sold off the back of the book rather than through the book itself - when you take the opportunity cost of taking time out to write and produce a book into consideration 

When I wrote my book it was made very clear to me that the only way to make it economic to publish was to sell the international rights around the world. The spin-off was that the content had to be capable of being acceptable to different audiences around the world - which accounts for why no brand names appear on the art media in my book - because not all art media exports around the world!

So what happens next?

What I'm doing next is buying up second hand versions of older books on the basis that "text on paper" is a disappearing commodity. 

The future will be more of the same for the time being

• rather less artists having a bread and butter job as an art teacher in schools and colleges - as their second job - and rather more running an online art school
• too many untrained people teaching others despite the fact they only have a partial grasp of some of the basics of art
• fewer experienced people creating art instruction books
• too few decent art instruction books - unless lovingly produced by an artist who cares deeply about passing on good art instruction in relation to his or her specific area of expertise
• more and more publishing companies going under - unless small independent operations which are resistant / immune to the overtures of the corporate big boys flashing their wallets!
• much more art instruction via video and online modules and much less via art instruction books

I have hopes though that we may also see an emergence of the in-depth manual for advanced artists by those recognised to be expert in their craft - and a re-emergence of a high regard for knowledge about the craft of making art - in different media.

I know of one in the offing - being published by a specialised art society in the USA. It occurs to me that in fact art societies are excellent vehicles for creating specialised texts for the future. Maybe we shall see more?

Maybe I'll write another one of these posts in another ten years. The scary bit is I can include a reminder to self on my iPhone!

Do let me know what you think! Comments on my Making A Mark FB page please. 

Commission an artist: 'Home is where the Art Is' (Episodes 11-15)

This post is about 

• my overall conclusions about Home Is Where The Art Is 
• information and links about the artists participating in Episodes 11-15.

If you want to find out the details of artists who participated in the first two weeks see below for the links to previous posts.

In general, the series has been a real education in terms of the client's perspective. 

• Overall some of the artwork during the course of the series has been simply stunning and very professional. By way of contrast, some of it has been distinctly amateurish.  
• I've been amazed to find that both domestic and corporate clients can really like artwork which fails (from my perspective) to demonstrate any real skill or talent.  My view - and I'm entitled to it - is that what is considered to be quality art varies depending on your experience of looking at art and your perspective (likes and dislikes)
• I'm wondering how many other people are like me and ended up, over the series as a whole, quite bemused by some of the choices of both artists and artwork. 
• Notwithstanding commissions are always about personal choice and there is no right or wrong if it makes the client happy.

The process of looking for the links has also clearly demonstrated how vital marketing and social media is for selling art and commissions

• the extent to which some artists fail to design websites with commission clients in mind
• why some people can make an income from commissions. This seems to correlate strongly with being organised and/or better at marketing and/or social media and/or getting the artwork out and shown wherever - including on BBC1!

I also discovered a few things in the final week of Home Is Where The Art Is

• One enterprising artist who participated in the programme has set up a Home Is Where The Art Is Facebook Page to promote the work of those participating. However that's going to be a lot of help to those artists who participated without a website or Facebook Page. One wonders who people are intended to contact them....
• Next - some of the artists produced work for the commissions based on other work they had done previously. Now this is quite a common approach used by some artists - and one which is often used for clients who have a tight budget. However I'd hesitate before calling it "bespoke" unless it was unique in every respect and only available to that client. Of course it's quite different if the client requests "one like that but tailored to our preferences for colours / things which are important to us".

Finally - some other individuals have also documented the details. But my posts remain the most comprehensive! :) 

• below are website and social media links for the artists who participated in Episodes 11-15 in week 3
• contact details are embedded in the artist's name
• commissions details are provided if self evident

Commission an Artist (Episodes 11-15)

This is about the artists with a name in the end credits of Home Is Where the Art Is (Episodes 11-15). 

It follows on from my previous three posts

• Home Is Where the Art Is - needs a makeover! in which I highlighted
• my concern about the absence of any name credit in text in the programme
• explain why it should be mandatory that all participants who are professional artists get a named credit.
• my attempt to redress the balance in 
• Commission an artist: 'Home is where the Art Is' (Episodes 1-5) 
• Commission an artist: 'Home is where the Art Is' (Episodes 6-10)

Episode 11

Location: South Lake District
Commission: up to £500
Budget: a piece of art to celebrate their recent move, and in particular to thank their children
Media represented: metal sculpture; glass or watercolour painting
Outcome: BOTH pieces were bought

Both artists sold their commissioned artworks.

The Artists in Episode 11 were:

Commission an artist: 'Home is where the Art Is' (Episodes 6-10)

This is about the artists with a name in the end credits of Home Is Where the Art Is (Episodes 6-10). It follows on from my previous two posts

• Home Is Where the Art Is - needs a makeover! in which I highlighted 
• my concern about the absence of any name credit in text in the programme 
• explain why it should be mandatory that all participants who are professional artists get a named credit.
• Commission an artist: 'Home is where the Art Is' (Episodes 1-5) - my attempt to redress the balance

I've worked out what the credits in the end credits of each programme are about. They all seem to relate to all the OTHER professional artists whose artwork is on the walls of the homes of the buyer!

Ironic or what?

I'm actually quite getting into it as a programme - in part because it offers a real insight into the reasons why people commission artwork.

However I'm not getting any better at guessing which artists the client will pick.  Nor working out why they love artwork which I think is awful!

That said there is some excellent artwork on last week's programmes - but not all of it ended up in the clients' homes.

Commission an Artist (Episodes 6-10)

This is how the BBC describes the programme.

"Home Is Where The Art Is" is inspired by the real world trend of commissioning artwork. Rather than spending money on ‘off the shelf’ pieces from the high street this series will show how accessible and easy it is to commission local artists to create beautiful, bespoke art for the home.

As last week, links to websites and key social media are provided.

• If the website has a commissions page this is included.
• Contact links are embedded in the name

WEEK TWO

Episode 6

Location: Oxfordshire
Commission: an uplifting legacy piece celebrating the joy of life (for a couple where the husband had a terminal diagnosis) - and nothing muted
Budget: up to £1,000
Locations: identified throughout the home
Media represented: metal sculpture, painting, textile art
Outcome: both works made by the metal sculptor and textile artist were purchased

The Artists in Episode 6 were:

11 tips for how to get 1 million website visitors quickly

One of the reasons I don't write every day for Making A Mark is because I've got other websites to look after. One of these - Botanical Art and Artists - celebrated one million visitors sometime earlier today!

As I developed the site, I applied all the things I learned while developing Making A Mark.

Consequently, it made one million visitors MUCH faster than Making A Mark!

This is about what I learned and what I did to help develop an ever increasing number of monthly visitors

A chart of one million visitors by every month of its life

Note the upward trajectory - when you start to see an upward trend, you can keep that going up

In terms of traffic

• Year 1 (2015): 24,007 - but that's only for 8 month as it started in April - averages 3,000 visitors a month
• Year 2 (2016): 116,773 - an average just under 10k per month
• Year 3 (2017): 243,838 - an average of just over 20K per month
• Year 4 (2018): 392,459 - an average of nearly 33k per month
• Year 5 (2019): January 2019 - 47k 

That means it's a site worth visiting, telling people about and coming back to - if you happen to be interested in botanical art!

The website now has a global audience from every continent except Antarctica and is way out in front in terms of ranking on the first page of Google for a lot of very relevant search queries.

What helps make your website successful

Botanical Art and Artists Home Page

Below is a list of things I know I did and which I think helped make my website succeed - and quickly

1. Make your website very focused 

The more niche your topic the more likely you are to attract visitors who want to find out more about it. By the same token if your art relates to an area which provides lots of competition, you're going to have to work harder to make your website stand out.

Your site needs to niche enough to lose lots of competition and big enough to provide enough content to get lots of traffic.

Traffic is important - because traffic begets traffic (i.e. people tell their friends).

Once the traffic numbers start to climb you can keep them climbing if you keep doing the right things.

2. Make every webpage very specific - make it a niche within a niche

Being very specific as to the topic of your page really helps a lot with attracting visitors.

Think about when you are shopping for something online.

• Do you really start with a really generic term like "cars" or "paintings" or "watercolours"?
• Or do you get much more specific as to what you want eg "landscape watercolour paintings of the highlands of Scotland"

so, for example:

• "Watercolour paintings" = 51.3 million results
• "landscape "watercolour paintings" of "Scottish Highlands" " = 29,800 results

3. Make every title very specific in terms of its topic

The search engines use WORDS to search and EACH page needs a title which explains precisely what it's about.

No need to be coy or clever or too general - unless you don't want any traffic!

Make it very relevant to the content and illuminating enough to get people to open a link. Note the title of this blog post! :)

4. Provide a short summary of what each page contains at the top.

If the title of the page interests then the meta description needs to close the deal and get them to click the link

I still find it very worthwhile to write a meta description of each page (in the SEO section) - as this is what Google et al use when they list a page on your website (as opposed to your website). This is really easy to do if you use websiteware which gives you access to the SEO info for your whole site and each page

If I get stuck I use the Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool which really helps with keeping focused. Aim for about 120-130 characters.

It's also a good idea to make sure that you

• write a short summary of what each page contains at the top of each webpage 
• AND make sure that this correlates with what the meta description says!

5. Make navigation very easy

People will never travel from one page to another unless you make navigation clearly signposted and really easy - and that includes when they get to the bottom of the page

The trunk test for websites is the notion that somebody can pop you in the boot (trunk) of a car and drive you out to the middle of nowhere - and you'd be able to find your way home.  However those that provide poor navigation or no indications of how to get back to the HOME PAGE will leave you forever in the limbo land desert.

6. Have a plan for how your website will develop

Complete the important bits first - and then develop your website over time - and keep developing it (or reworking it) - because Google hates a stale site!

• Think about ways to expand your content. 
• Lots of snippets can be more useful to your site then one all encompassing "all in one breath" quarterly update. Think about it - do you ever read newsletter updates all the way to the end

7. Use statistics to guide development

Statistics can be really useful in terms of making best use of your time. I've often had my presumptions challenged in a major way by statistics about traffic and what people want to see

I use Google Analytics and Statcounter and the stats from my webware provider. They all count in different ways.

It's the overall trends which really matter. You need to know:

• which pages are very popular - and why 
• which pages do not get traffic - and then work out why.

PS I don't believe social media numbers and that's because there are few ways of triangulating them. I think they tend to be haphazard at best given the number of tweaks per year the owners give their algorithms!

I do believe my website stats - because they make sense once you factor in the different ways they count.

8. People look at images and read words - but really they scan both!

Length of stay is an important factor in ranking websites - so you need to provide them with something which makes people want to open more pages and look and read more about you and your work

If you don't give them enough images to look at or words to read then they'll depart fairly fast.

• make the images too small - they'll leave quickly
• make the image files too big - they'll never open your page as it'll be too slow to load
• if you have too many images showing on one page at a time the website may slow right down

You need to find ways of making images very easy to access, look good and yet not slow down your website. Personally speaking, I tend to aim for around about 100KB per image file but that's partly because I often have a lot of images on a page.

9. Write about what you know

Two things people want to know about

• who you are
• how you make your art

You are at least as important as your art online - people want to know about you and to know about your art. Show them your expertise and write about it.

Tell people about how you make your art. Seriously - it will make your website different from most! I linger longest on those websites where artists make their expertise accessible and informative. Show them images of your tools and materials and of you making art.

Write in a relaxed and friendly way. Don't be stilted - except when you're providing instructions and need to be precise.

10. Refresh and update a website regularly (use a blog)

Google really likes websites which are refreshed on a regular basis.

• that means make sure everything is bang up to date 
• check all pages on which you include items with date and make sure you update them as soon as an event is over. 

One of the excellent ways of doing this is to have a blog - and write regular blog posts. Remember they don't always need to be about your art - it can be about other art that interests you.

Use social media to drive people to your website - whatever works for you and your customers / clients.

11. Do link to relevant other websites - and encourage them to link back

So long as your links are seen as related in the eyes of Google, linking out is not a bad thing.

I should maybe point out that I have several thousand links out on the pages of my Botanical Art and Artists website - but they are all grouped in VERY SPECIFIC CLUSTERS i.e. pages. For example

• famous botanical artists
• or  top botanical artists in the UK 
• or my International Directory of Botanical Art Tutors 
• or Old Botanic Gardens in London

Being a resource is in fact seen by Google as "a very good thing" - so be helpful!

So if you consider yourself an expert at your particular form of art, it does you no harm to share and show off your expertise. Tell them about exhibitions you've enjoyed or galleries / suppliers / framers who have been helpful.

It'll certainly make your website different to all those that have the identikit artists website I have to look at from time to time.

You can read more about Websites for Artists on my other website Art Business Info. for Artists 
including

• Why websites matter
• ​Options for websites
• NEW - Web content for artists
• Web design for artists
• Writing for the web