Ideas for promoting and selling art, music, and writing, using long tail economics, and the new internet business models available for artists, writers and musicians, from artist Paul Watson.
There’s an interesting discussion going on at TechDirt about the evolving business model being used by musician Amanda Palmer. One commenter, Kevin Stapp, sums it up perfectly: The more I hear about ‘new business models’ for musicians the more I’m reminded of a very old business model:…
Software costs money. Actually that’s not true – there’s plenty of free software out there for artists, and the ones detailed below are just as good as the expensive versions. Browsers Web browsers are usually free (or their costs are “hidden” within the cost for the operating system,…
It all started when Amazon removed the “Sales Rank” from all gay & lesbian books (apart from homophobic books which now appear at the top of an Amazon search for “Homosexuality”). The story is covered in detail on Jane’s Dear Author blog. This got picked up in a blog, then spread…
Twitter is the rising star of social media at the moment, and is a surprisingly good tool for artists. From US President Barack Obama’s use of Twitter throughout his election campaign to the UK comedian Stephen Fry’s high-profile use of Twitter, it’s clear that it’s gaining a lot of ground…
Read the rest of “Twitter as an essential tool for artists”…
I thought it was about time to give you all an update on the free open-source Artists Website Software I’m currently working on. I’ve got a very basic skeleton completed so far, but the alpha version is still some way off. I could have written it much quicker if I’d taken a more traditional…
Read the rest of “Artists Website Software – Feb 2009 Update”…
In my last post I talked about the Artists Website Software I was planning. It’s been a busy few months (both with my day-job and with moving house) but I have made some progress, and I hope to have an alpha version available in the new year. At that point I’ll probably upload everything…
Read the rest of “Artists Website Software – December Update”…
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…
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…
Read the rest of “Microsites for arts projects (revisited)”…
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…
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…