Taking Our Art Online - A new group on CCS - Your feedback please?

[Dan Goodwin]

Hi everyone,

There's been a growing need expressed by a number of us here on CCS to have a place where we can talk about how we publish our art online, and finding an audience who loves what we do.

So I'm proposing a new group on CCS, where we can start discussion threads to talk about this kind of aspect of being an artist.

Between us here on CCS we have a vast array of knowledge and experience of doing different parts of what this entails, and pooling some of that knowledge and experience together, and having a place where people can go to ask for help and advice, makes a lot of sense.

Here's the proposed name and outline description:

Group name: Taking Our Art Online

Description: A place to share our tips, questions, ideas and experiences about all aspects of publishing and selling our artwork to an online audience. We talk about blogs, communities, ezines, letters, photo sites, podcasts, videos, social media, online stores and market places, and more. The group is free, and everyone is welcome to join.

I'd love to gauge the interest in starting such a group, so I'd like to ask you the following two questions:

1. Would you be interested in being part of such a group?

2. What's the biggest single question you have about taking your own work to an online audience?

Thanks for your input, I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Dan

[Atlantic Flower]

Great idea Dan-

biggest single question? securing images from freeloaders - ("stamping "copyright" across, preventing Right-click - Save Picture As" I think there is a way of making a slideshow into Flash, so the images are no long ..jpgs)

second - tagging with keywords for search engines - we still want the art to get out there!

Brenda

[Dan Goodwin]

Thanks for your input Brenda, I'm sure there are others with similar questions.

[Dawn Howell]

my slideshow program has making it into flash available, but when i make a video i dont think they show up as images anyway even in avi format, unless i choose to include the images. they also have a lot of other choices, and for the record I really....i mean REALLY enjoy making these, and at the moment I dont have too much going on and would love to do a few for free for someone wishing to "advertise" their art, I promise i will erase all of your photos-images- whatever.... the only thing is for the music portion, I need you to pick domain music or purchase the music for a DVD copy, for youtube you need some form of the free domain music. but I am game if you are!

[TCam]

I would love this Dan.  I think my biggest questions are regarding copyright and pricing your work.  I have no idea how to put a price on my work.

[Dan Goodwin]

Thanks for your response Teresa. Great questions! They'll be added to the pot for discussion thread topics if/when we start the group up.

[June Walker]

1. Yes.  Good idea for a group...sharing web resources.

2. Talk about sites which seem good at bringing customers to view your work. 

[Dan Goodwin]

June, good to see you!

Yes, good ideas - ways to share resources online that are helpful in a technical sense (eg how to do stuff like set up a blog) and that work well as platforms to share our art. Thanks for your input.

[Anita Fischer]

I've never sold anything online so I don't think I could contribute much to the discussion but would be very interested in seeing what everyone else has to share.  Perhaps it would help overcome some obstacles and fears. 

Copyright would also be something I would be interested in learning more about.  Not just protecting anything I might put online but  knowing how to be sure that I am not infringing on someone else's rights as in images used in some mixed media.

Dan, thanks for always looking for new ways to help move this whole process of art forward for each of us.

[di]

me too.........I'll be watching and asking beginner questions........as this is something I've been wanting to do too. ........taking my art on-line.

[Dan Goodwin]

Thanks for responding Di, would love to have you on board. It's clear there's a demand, and together we have a lot to share and learn from, and with, each other. 

[Dan Goodwin]

Anita, I'm pretty sure that some of the things people put off because they thinks it's too difficult or they don't know how to start are far more accessible these days. It's never been easier to start a blog for example - you can do it with Tumblr with a free template that looks fabulous in literally 30 seconds and you're off. 

I hope this group would be a place where we not only share what we already know, but a place where we can experiment together and return with our new experiences and learning. If a group are doing this together we're all going to have a much greater collective pool to draw from than any of us doing it alone.

Good one about the other side of copyright. I researched Creative Commons enough to know that the images I used to use from Flickr for my blog had the creator's permission, provided I gave attribution, but again I expect many would not have that knowledge, or there's confusion around it. One to explore in a discussion thread if/when we get the group running. 

[Julia]

You can count me in on this one Dan .....I have noticed on my Flickr account that the images reproduce well, and it is possible to post anything from thumbnail size to large...so the way I see it, if you keep the file size to small or medium, it will be quite good to view, but people would need the larger view in order to print a high res, so there are plenty of options there :-)