Artwork, web projects, and updates to LiamDaly.com
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Books & Paintings
Damien was wondering how the Free Books thing went, so it's probably time to put an initial reaction together. In short it's gone great, was a blast to be involved with, though a little frustrating at times as people didn't believe you were talking about real books, really for free, with no catches.
Although people are rightly sceptical about anything free, that problem was probably something always likely to touch a book offer, with the Web full of a million free books - depending on what you mean by 'free', and even by 'book'.
Not so with paintings though. I am very close to saying how it will work, so I'm inclined to say less about the details as I get closer because it's the actual details I'm finalizing right now. What attracts me to the idea is the fun and the unknown of its indirect and organic impact.
Because I work in websites I'm honestly not even in search of traffic - at least not to this site, given that it should be split into at least two categories and running on WordPress i.e. I wouldn't know what to do with the traffic if it got here (the monetization through AdSense here is largely for test purposes and probably hurts me through SmartPricing).
Some things considered were:
1) Open to everybody or to bloggers? I've been blogging for several years and like our world, but if Technorati is to be believed it isn't that special anymore, even making allowances for the spam blogs.
2) Shipping? I'm a fan of simplicity. It's clean if I pay shipping, but it's also simple if it's open world wide.
3) Practicality? One painting seems like a lot of fuss about nothing, yet a hundred paintings does have implications for what I eat.
4) Openness? How to illustrate things are what I say they are, no messin'.
5) Visitor involvement? I want some sort of conversation to take place, because that has more of an effect on me.
6) Fun? Much as I'd like to eat better, and do less computing work and more painting, there's really no point if it's not fun. For you and me.
Anyway - I'll have more specific details on the book's progress soon - and exact details on the paintings thing also.
Although people are rightly sceptical about anything free, that problem was probably something always likely to touch a book offer, with the Web full of a million free books - depending on what you mean by 'free', and even by 'book'.
Not so with paintings though. I am very close to saying how it will work, so I'm inclined to say less about the details as I get closer because it's the actual details I'm finalizing right now. What attracts me to the idea is the fun and the unknown of its indirect and organic impact.
Because I work in websites I'm honestly not even in search of traffic - at least not to this site, given that it should be split into at least two categories and running on WordPress i.e. I wouldn't know what to do with the traffic if it got here (the monetization through AdSense here is largely for test purposes and probably hurts me through SmartPricing).
Some things considered were:
1) Open to everybody or to bloggers? I've been blogging for several years and like our world, but if Technorati is to be believed it isn't that special anymore, even making allowances for the spam blogs.
2) Shipping? I'm a fan of simplicity. It's clean if I pay shipping, but it's also simple if it's open world wide.
3) Practicality? One painting seems like a lot of fuss about nothing, yet a hundred paintings does have implications for what I eat.
4) Openness? How to illustrate things are what I say they are, no messin'.
5) Visitor involvement? I want some sort of conversation to take place, because that has more of an effect on me.
6) Fun? Much as I'd like to eat better, and do less computing work and more painting, there's really no point if it's not fun. For you and me.
Anyway - I'll have more specific details on the book's progress soon - and exact details on the paintings thing also.
And Here's The Stuff I Wrote Earlier:
