Feedback Gathering.

So you spent your valuable time crafting you delicately sensitive masterpieces only to find that nobody gives a damn.

Audience gathering is a very particular skill, how do you round your buyers up?

So far I've found one of the most difficult things about being an artist is you never know why you make what you make. Backing it all up with reasons and justifications is fine but if your work never acutually leaves your own home what's the point?

I've got most of my feedback in 3 ways:

1 Leeds Metropolitan University asked me to be an Artist for hire on Light Night in the UK. The goal here was to draw pictures for members of the public who having given their home addresses would go on the University mailing list. It was an intense but enjoyable 4 hours which meant I was face to face with the people who would be receiving my work. The only thing was only immediate feedback was possible, they could request different styles at the time but it was very much of the moment. What they really thought later on when the work was finished wasn't possible to judge but it did mean I glimpsed their  faces before hand.

2 Google have an area of their site called Google Insight for Search. Typing this into the search box brings up a whole world of possibilities as to what Google users have been searching for over a whole range of different time frames.So say it's Halloween coming up and you want to know whether witches or wizards are going to be the most popular searches. Up it comes not just with which search was more popular but also where the person lived and what other things those people looked for in their search history. The main thing this feature does is help you avoid wasting time on subject matter because if nobody searched for skeleton suits on Halloween then this would not just show it wasn't searched for but witches and wizard suits kicked it squarely into touch. Conclusion; only bother making the stuff people want and not the stuff you like making all by yourself. 

That said I am a massive hypocrite and frequently only draw things I care about but Google Insight is very useful.

3 Google analytics. Some days are great others less so. It can be very addictive looking at rising site view stats Most of the time it's a massive time wasting distraction and I should avoid looking at it the way I do.

Nothing makes a good site quite like good photography. Update it often and update it well and the theory is that the site will rise in rankings and be enjoying success in no time. If your camera is lacking borrow one off a friend,