Here’s an update to my Elaine’s Rules for Blogging post, which you can read here.
I’ve been visiting lots of artist’s blogs lately, and I have these observations and recommendations, specifically for jeweler and artist bloggers:
No politics.
No religion, unless your jewelry or art is religious in nature.
No references to bodily fluids, of any kind. Okay, maybe tears, but that’s it. I clicked from a reliable source over to a blog, where I read the statement, “I don’t do poo,” and shortly after that, a reference to vomit. I was done! I clicked away.
As an artist blogger, you’re really a business blogger. And if you’re not a business blogger, then it’s a personal blog, which is something completely different.
To sum up:
Don’t be offensive. We may love your art, but we may or may not agree with you on matters of politics, religion, or um, bodily fluids.
Keep it clean, it’s just good manners.
Agree? Disagree? Is there ever a good reason to discuss these topics on an artist’s blog? Discuss. Dive into the comments and take a stand!
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
kaytaylor 11.12.08 at 11:07 pm
Here, here, Elaine!
shelbyvision 11.13.08 at 9:10 am
I’m having trouble taking you seriously. Here’s what you said in your rules for blogging:
2. You must self-host your blog. You may start out on Blogger if you must, but then you must move to self-hosting your blog. Why? Because if you don’t, you won’t be taken seriously.
But here you are on a non-self-hosted blog.
Other than that, it looks like good advice. I’m new to blogging and have a lot to learn. The social media thing is a total mystery to me. Maybe you could do an explanation of that for dummies sometime.
Steve Shelby
http://www.shelbyvision.com
Heather M Skowood jewelry 11.13.08 at 9:58 am
I understand what you are sayin’ and pretty much agree, but making art is really personal so sometimes it isn’t always about business. I have a website (www.heatherskowood.com) that I use to market my work and I use my blog (www.heatherskowoodjewelry.blogspot.com) to give people a more indepth look into what inspires me and how I create my work. As with everything you should just refrain from being preachy with your views/opinions…
allthingsmetalclay 11.13.08 at 5:00 pm
@Steve —
My blog _is_ self-hosted with Wordpress at http://www.creativetexturetools.com/news.
It is automatically _duplicated_ over here on the Orchid blog network. When I added the Orchid copy of the blog over here, all 500+ posts from my main blog came over here.
So there were some unexpected consequences — like the problem you mentioned above. Now that you’ve pointed that out, I’ll go add a note to that post.
The great thing about being part of the Orchid blog network is that new readers find me, who maybe didn’t know about my blog before.
allthingsmetalclay 11.13.08 at 5:01 pm
@Kay, thanks!
@Heather, good point about art making being personal. I’ll go visit your blog, thanks for giving the url.