What would make our blogging more successful?

Consider this a bit of honest self-talk. The message is for me and if it's helpful to you, I'll be thrilled. But mostly, I'm going through this exercise to share the kinds of things I've been thinking about and hope that at the end of the conversation, I might have an answer that will be of use to all of us. Ready?

Okay, so here's what's been on my mind...how do I build an audience for my blog that extends beyond a few artist friends (or even a lot of artist friends) and develops a mainstream following? I've been noticing that a lot of blogs that I follow are followed by the same people, that generally we all post our artwork with or without some related story or commentary, and that even those who have a gazillion supposed followers have few likes and fewer comments. Sharing my blog post on other social media sites - even once per site - does not get me more readers...it might get me a lot of likes on Facebook, quite a few 1+s on Google but it doesn't really get people to come in and read and leave a comment. Viewers are "liking" the art which is a nice thing to do - rather than getting much out of the blog itself. We're all trying to be so supportive of each other - sharing or reblogging - assuming more likes will move our blogs up higher in the search engines (and maybe it does but I'm not seeing a huge ROI -return on investment). Sometimes it can feel a bit as if the "music" is falling on deaf ears even when we're all trying so hard to be nice!

So I got to thinking about some fundamentals and some rules of the road. First - why am I blogging in the first place? Why are any of us? Probably most of us would say it's a marketing tool - one more way to get our artwork into the public eye. For some, that might be reason enough - if your artwork already has a significant following, your customers are going to appreciate seeing your "brand" in as many places as possible. But I'm guessing most of us are "wanna bes" - we're trying to develop a brand and a customer base and expand the market for our artwork. Blogging and posting to fellow artists probably isn't going to make that happen - as nice as it is to get positive feedback from friends who like what we write or create. And it occurs to me that while I might work my rear end off to write frequently and to present my artwork as part of a broader package, the truth is that my blog is just one more excuse to post images from my portfolios on other sites.

Truthfully, I don't want to flood my friends' social media feeds with post after post about my blog - or my art - and not have more to offer them than that. While I enjoy seeing my friends' artwork or being reminded - ONCE - that they've a new blog post to look at, I really don't like seeing the same reminder from someone show up a dozen times in a dozen different groups on Facebook and I'm sure no one wants to see mine more than once either. In fact, I mistakenly posted an image yesterday that I had posted about 4 days ago and someone rather pointedly (but sweetly) said, "It's nice to see this lovely piece again." I got the point.

There's got to be more reason than trying to "sell" my artwork to justify the work it takes to maintain a blog. And certainly, there have to be more good reasons for anyone to read the blog than just to look at one more post of my artwork. What are those reasons - and would any of those be a clue about how to grow an audience for what I write? Unless the content I provide is both interesting and useful to you, reading this blog is just one more way to support a fellow artist - and take up valuable time doing so and getting little in return. I've honestly tried to keep the content relevant and meaningful, to share some insights on the meaning and purpose in life, on how to remain hopeful in the face of difficulty, and on what virtues or values we might express in our art to add value to it. But in the end, it's all still tied to my art work.

What could I offer in my blog that would make it worth your while to actually read it? I can share insights I've gained from others - people far more successful than I am. Or I can share non-art related ideas and opinions. I can share the love - by sharing the work of others or the ideas of others that is certainly more valuable than mine. I can make my blog more of a conversation and less of a sales pitch. But what else? Why don't you tell me what it is that keeps you reading other blogs, leaving comments or spreading the word about that blog? (Besides the fact that you are all such lovely people and so supportive!!) What would you like to see here that would interest you, inspire you and be of value to you in your own life or art career? This is one case where comments are certainly more welcome than a like - no matter how precious those are!! So I'm inviting you to express an honest opinion and assure you that I will value each voice!

Thanks in advance,
Lianne

Could you give it up???

“I am interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living.” 

~Robert Henri

Postcard - Impressions of Niagara

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/postcardimpressions-of-niagara-lianne-schneider.html

Over the past few blogs, I've written a lot about motivation, marketing and how to avoid burnout, particularly if our artwork isn't selling. As a result, I got quite a few personal messages from fellow artists who wrote about discouragement, about all the ways they were turning themselves inside out to be successful (financially) as artists, about the frustration they experienced when they saw work by artists they didn't feel was as good as their own selling well while they sold nothing. Most of these heart-wrenching letters were completely sincere and not a few people suggested that perhaps it was time to throw in the towel and either take some period of time off or get out of the art world except to putter at home for their own enjoyment. These friends had honestly tried everything they knew to market themselves. That's not to say there might not be other sites or methods out there that would work but at this point, they'd tried everything and had come to the conclusion that no one really wanted their artwork hanging on their walls. 

The truth is that no matter how hard we've tried, most of us are NOT professional artists. I know a few of you who truly are but most of us are not. We're rank amateurs regardless of whether we have fancy cameras with $5000 lenses, a complete studio with stacks of canvases and $200 brushes, pens and notebooks full of ideas for our next story or poem, or the best kiln and clay on the market. What we're trying to do - most of us anyway - is market our hobby. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. But we should not expect the kinds of results that a professional artist expects and strives for. And we should not be so frustrated and disappointed when we don't achieve that level of success. 

I say hobby because being a professional artist/writer takes enormous discipline. It has nothing to do with how many courses we take or how many positive comments we get on the work we present to the world. It has to do with whether we cannot let a day go by without working at our art - not just for an hour or until some distraction comes along - but literally setting aside a good portion of our day to create. It has to do with writing or painting or sculpting even if we feel no inspiration today at all (and believe me I've gone through months where I complained that my muse was on vacation!). The wonderful writer, May Sarton, and the much loved Annie Dillard both wrote about writing for hours every morning after a walk - even if at the end of those hours everything they wrote went in the trash. It has to do with working through lunch if we're on a roll. It has to do with believing in ourselves enough to be persistent in marketing ourselves through every possible means. It has to do with not comparing ourselves to anyone else - or their success - because we believe in our gift and our talent. It has to do with knowing that no matter what happens - we could not give up what we love to do.

There is a lovely succinct little blog post that struck home to me when I read it and I think you might enjoy it too. Doug Hoppes wrote recently, "However, in my mind, if you really are meant to be an artist, you won't give up.  It's part of who you are.  Rather than having the fancy paper or pens, you'll get a ream of copy paper and a ballpoint pen and draw.  Rather than having a fancy studio, you'll work at your desk... or dinner table... or wherever you can sit.  Making art is not about having the fancy materials.  It's about expressing yourself in only the way that you can imagine the world around you." Read the rest here: Ever felt like giving up? | Doug Hoppes Fine Art

If writer/artist is who you ARE, there's no way you could give it up and go back to being something or someone else. Be courageous (which means to have a strong heart) and be persistent and believe.

 

Are you "first rate?"

“You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are.”

Anna Quindlen 

Mockingbird Have You Heard

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/mockingbird-have-you-heard-lianne-schneider.html

In case you haven't noticed, I've spent a good deal of time in this blog advising - myself more than anyone else - how to live our artistic lives with integrity and purpose. And not just our lives as artists either...but more importantly life in general. I've given a great deal of thought in the past few years to meaning and purpose...to what the point of it all is. At the beginning of the year, I began my commitment to this blog with intention and along the way, I've explored with you the heroic virtues required for our sacred quest for a good life, a worthwhile life. I've spoken about success and motivation and goals. I've even spoken about happiness as if I had some answers different from those the rest of you have arrived at on your own! In the last post, we had some great exchanges about burnout - whether it's possible to successfully market ourselves without losing our creative edge and purpose. Whatever your answer to the question was, one thing is certain - we cannot be "first rate" artists/writers if that is all we are. Even the most successful of us cannot eat, sleep, breathe and market our art all the time or I would venture to say, it soon stops being "art" and becomes "work." 

Which brings me back to Ms. Quindlen...or rather to Maria Popova's blog about Ms. Quindlen's beautiful little book about life - "A Short Guide to a Happy Life." Quindlen, says Popova, "considers the question of the self and what makes us who we are, what makes us worthy of being...Even those trying to find their purpose, even those engaged in fulfilling work, and even those of us lucky enough to have no separation between “life” and “work,” can get consumed by our modern cult of productivity. Quindlen’s words come as a vital reminder of what matters, what counts, what the true aliveness of life is." 

You can read the rest of Popova's blog post here: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/03/11/a-short-guide-to-a-happy-life-anna-quindlen/

And then you might want to go out an buy Quindlen's book so you can reread her beautifully intuitive advice again and again. "Get a life," she says, "Get a life in which you are not alone...get a life in which you are generous... All of us want to do well. But if we do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough." We won't find our happiness in being or having nothing in our lives that is more important than our art or our writing. We cannot be happy if art is all we are and all we do. I think all of us know that already...but in the push to be commercially successful artists, we may find ourselves on that slippery slope at the bottom of which our art has become work and our lives are consumed with productivity and marketing, rather than an expression of our very human spirits and our desire to generously share the goodness we see all around. To be happy is to share our dreams and our passions and to inspire others to share theirs and most of all, to be truly, gratefully present to every moment we are blessed enough to have. 

Motivation and marketing

People don't like to admit it, but it does motivate you to make work if you're selling it.

There is a drive in that. (Zoe Benbow)

Chanson d'Amour

http://www.lianneschneiderart.com/DigitalPainting/Florals-and-Macros/i-LHQ6vXX/2/L/chansondamourdesatcl-L.jpg

Continuing the discussion from the other day about different kinds of art sites and the potential for burn out from having to keep up our presence and participation in various online art venues, I thought I’d tackle the other half of the equation – the reason we do all this! As I mentioned, our first priority may not be sales, but I think it’s a bit ludicrous to say, “I’m only in it for the art” when we’re working our rear-ends off trying to market ourselves every which way to Sunday. There probably isn’t one of us who wouldn’t celebrate a sale even if just as an affirmation that what we create appeals to someone besides ourselves.

And we’ve probably all bitten off more than we can chew when it comes to self-promotion. We read blog after blog about how to market ourselves online, how to be more visible to potential buyers. Maybe we even buy packages that promise to show us how to get 10,000 Facebook fans in just weeks. Then…the next blog you read says, “Don’t count on Facebook to sell your art.” More successful friends recommend Google+ or Pinterest and so you do that too.

As artist Dan Turner says, “Too often, artists start down the online art marketing path and quickly find themselves bogged down in “how-to” details. They reach burn-out before they ever get a fundamental marketing plan in place. Trying to connect the dots in a half-baked, half-finished marketing plan is disheartening and counter-productive.” Dan’s written a simple, easy to follow art-marketing primer called, “7 Keys to Selling Art Online.” Best of all – it’s a free e-book download. Remember though, just because Dan makes it look simple with his clear, step-by-step advice, doesn’t mean it isn’t going to take work…lots of work…but at least the end result might be those sales we keep pretending aren’t important. That doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind about why I create in the first place or how I measure my success as an artist…it just means that it would be less than honest of me to suggest I wouldn’t like to sell a few pieces now and then too!

You can get Dan’s free art marketing guide here: http://danturnerfineart.com/dan-turners-7-keys-selling-art-online-free-ebook-artists/  But don’t stop there…he’s got lots of worthwhile advice in his blog too!

Perhaps it's true that as Abigail Brown says, "We cannot judge our art because it does or does not sell." In the ideal world, that's the way it should be. But the real world is more likely to be like this:

A Singular Creation – a different kind of art community

If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist will answer you:

I am here to live out loud.

Emile Zola

Avec Tout Mon Couer

 http://fineartamerica.com/featured/avec-tout-mon-coeur-lianne-schneider.html

Most of my readers probably belong to a number of various art sites they use as a jumping off point for marketing their artwork through social media like Facebook or Google+. There are literally hundreds of such sites though we'd probably agree that only a relative few have the kind of following and membership that make them worth our investment of the time it takes to maintain a presence on any such site. Probably among the best known are Fine Art America, Red Bubble, Saatchi, Imagekind, Society 6, and Blue Canvas as well as multi-purpose sites like Zazzle and Etsy. In every venue, there are expectations of some form of reciprocity for comments or promotion of our work. Most sites have groups or communities to which you can belong but you are probably also expected to participate in group forums, promotions or discussions. In truth, it's easy to get so caught up and then overwhelmed by the rules and expectations that participation in the site becomes burdensome rather than joyful and at the same time, that need to stay caught up on return comments or promotions can rob a person of both the time and the inspiration to create new work with anything meaningful to say.

There's also the reality that if you seriously want to make your artwork a commercially successful venture - that isn't everyone's goal, I know - you have to blog regularly (about which I'm notoriously bad) and participate consistently in following other blogs and in developing a following on Facebook, Twitter, Google + and Pinterest among other social media sites. The "workload" is staggering if you belong to several art sites and all the prominent social media sites. So it is with some hesitation that I'm going to mention one more site to add to the list of places to belong. But let me be totally above board here - I have only just joined myself and the reason I did so was because of this article in ArtProMotivate, a blog I follow that deals with many different topics of concern to today's artists. You'll find the original blog that caught my eye here:
Artpromotivate: ASC – A Singular Creation – Free Online Art Commun...: A Singular Creation (ASC) is a free online art community devoted to providing resources and promotion opportunities for all artists and photographers. (Read the rest of this interview with the founder of A Singular Creation).

But I don't think the interview alone would have gotten me to add one more site to my already long list of often neglected art sites. A look at the home page of this site, however, did convince me that here was something different. Even their terminology is different. The site's creator, Joe Barrouk, says this about his unique site - "A free membership gets them access to our contest and opportunities calendar, forums, ability to enter our monthly showdown competitions, a gallery with unlimited albums and unlimited images, a community profile page and blog. The profile page could act as a website of sorts. It has room for bio, website links, contact info, gallery images, etc. All of the artists forum posts, blog posts and gallery images can be shared on Face Book, Twitter, LinkedIn, Stumble Upon, and many other social networking avenues. My site is definitely evolving into a community of artists that share, learn, teach, promote, critique and discuss." More importantly the site offers monthly contests and showdowns that not only get your work out there but pay money. And there is a quarterly contest with $1000 grand prize. Take a look at the main page and see for yourself where the focus is - on giving the artist opportunities. You can read more about A Singular Creation here:
http://www.asingularcreation.com/

For those of us increasingly frustrated by the expectations of our home art sites/groups and ill at ease with self-promotion on social media sites, A Singular Creation offers not only opportunities for exposure but perhaps more importantly, a chance to grow as artists. The forums are not like those on many sites and there are no "groups" to which one must belong to get seen. But if you have courage, you can submit your work for critique and learn from others with more experience or mastery. Truth is...belonging to all the best art sites in the world means nothing if you allow your creativity to suffocate under the weight of expectations and do not give it room to breathe.

Is your art stressing people out?

 Stress is related to the environment you live in. As an artist, the ideal is 

to live in calm, peaceful and intriguing surroundings where earth meets atmosphere.

Lida Van Bers

 Dreamer Dream No More

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/dreamer-dream-no-more-lianne-schneider.html

I know my title today seems like an absurd question, particularly if you pursue some aspect of the creative arts specifically as a mechanism to be an outlet for yourself, to be cathartic or therapeutic for you or in some way to relax after a stressful day or week. But it's possible that what works in a positive way for you is actually inducing stress in your viewers!! Oh no!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How could that be and what does that mean in terms of marketing?

Well first - let's look at color -

 

A new study published in Science magazine revealed that while the color red can help you be more accurate in your work, the color blue spurs creativity. For most people, red signals caution, danger or mistakes while blue suggests relaxation, peace and freedom. Blue is more conducive to imaginative problem solving while red stimulates attention to detail, recall and being "right." Sounds as if red is more stress inducing than blue - at least initially. 

"People are not aware of this effect at all," says researcher Juliet Zhu of the University of British Columbia, who studies how environmental cues affect behavior. It's entirely a subconscious response. The subconscious effect of color is a hot area of psychology research, in part because marketers try to use color to hook people onto whatever they are trying to sell.

What about straight lines versus curves? Our brains are actually hardwired to prefer curves - even in architecture! Time and again, when asked, people prefer rooms and buildings and objects that are curved rather than linear - watches with round faces over square ones, for example. We like rooms to have more curves than stark lines, even if we have to accomplish that by floor design, furniture style. etc. There's a fabulous article on architectural design and emotion here.

So what does all this have to do with whether the art we're creating is causing negative emotions or stress in our viewers and whether it's more or less marketable because of the choices we make? Even putting your images on a blue background can make a difference apparently according to researchers studying the effects of color on advertising. But, there's one more factor to consider...countless studies show that images of nature or that give the impression of nature in terms of color, curve and subject matter actually reduce stress and leave people feeling more positive. Here's a little test to see how your brain responds to certain images. Consider that your own response is likely to be the same as the majority of people who view your art...we may make fun of "pretty pictures" but apparently they sell for a very good reason - people feel good looking at them! Abstracts too that people can associate with natural curves and favorite colors are usually more popular than stark geometrics in colors associated with danger or darkness. At least, that's what the research suggests...I understand about the curves and nature but I'm not certain I agree about color. I think a good deal depends on hue and brightness and where on the spectrum your color palette fits best. I'm going to keep a close eye on what is selling over the next few days and see if they're right.

Tough Love for Artists...an end to excuses

"Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what  you love and believe in, and it will come naturally."

David Frost

Braving the Storm

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/braving-the-storm-lianne-schneider.html

Art critic, writer, curator, psychologist Brian Sherwin goes head to head with the excuses many of us make about why we are less than successful in marketing our art - or our writing as the case may be. I admit to using every single one of these excuses at one time or another. How about you?

"Lack of action is often fueled by excuses. We can find examples of this within every angle of life. With that in mind, I want to discuss some of the common excuses artists use to justify their lack of action -- be it failure to develop OR market their art. The tough love starts now..."
Read the rest of this reblog at  Stop Making Excuses | The Art Edge

Mr. Sherwin covers the seven most prevalent excuses we generally offer for our lack of success and knocks those excuses on the head. I'd like to add at least one more...discouragement or feeling that what we're offering has been found wanting. I think it's possible to do everything right...at least in regard to Sherwin's excuse list...we can work at it daily, stop watching television, let the housework take second place, share care-giving responsibilities with other family and friends, go to gallery openings, stop worrying about whether or not we have an art degree, budget both our time and money so we have the resources we need to get it done and keep reaching out to contacts in the art or literary world both online and offline to widen our networks. 

We can go further...we can blog, create forums of mutual support for other artists, master social media marketing (there's a great big book out there called Social Media Marketing for Dummies that I happen to have bought in the face of what seems to be a time consuming need to have a presence on a half dozen social media sites!) We can do all of that - stress ourselves out with the need to respond and reciprocate for every positive comment or share we receive - and at the end of the day...or the month...or the year, be completely and utterly discouraged because we've not only sold or shown very little, if anything, but the response to our efforts is unenthusiastic at best or downright negative. Galleries and art magazines turn us down again and again and rejection seems to be the common theme day after day. I've been there...and I'll bet you have too. 

But like Sherwin's counterarguments to the excuses he discusses, I had to come up with a way to fight through that discouragement and the sense that my art or poetry had been found wanting and I do that by remembering that I don't just want a sale for the sake of a sale. I want my work to be bought and seen and read because someone out there recognized the passion behind the work, got what it was I was trying to say with it and one way or another shares those feelings. If that isn't happening, maybe I need to re-examine whether I've allowed my passion for the art to play second fiddle to the marketing of it. And then I need to honestly assess whether I've more to learn in terms of how I've expressed what I wanted to say - to get better at it every day.

Brian Sherwin concludes by saying, "In closing, as an artist you have two choices: You can continue to justify whatever it is that you feel is holding you back by spitting out excuse after excuse. OR you can learn from it -- get to the heart of the problem -- and change the way you approach art making / art marketing. You must make the choice." I say...choose passion. 

  From Dodinsky's "In the Garden of Thoughts"