Friday, March 21, 2008

Speaking of Being Poor...

The next edition of Nelson Guide Book is due this year. We got a big blurby email chock full of marketing talk yesterday, and the gist is they will print twice as many books, retail price will be half that of the last edition, the smallest placement will be 1/4 page instead of 1/6 page, and to be listed will cost twice!! as much as the last, all because they're improving the book for us art practitioners, (by increasing exposure, to be fair.)

So I don't mind if I'm being biased, but I can't help thinking the decisions were made by marketing consultants who charge my annual income just to put these few words together, and by established artists who have an annual marketing/advertising budget. To me, it's only the first step Arts Marketing is taking, concentrating on marketing and making money by selling Nelson art collectively, and not so concerned with protecting and enhancing the artists' work and environment individually. A really big shift from Martin Rodger's times; perhaps he saw this coming and left Nelson.

So, I won't be in a nice shiny book this year. Unless I win the Lotto.

I'm kind of regretting signing up for a few workshops this year, and the Symposium in Dunedin soon, but I do have so much fun, and hopefully learn a lot. Oh, yeah, the design workshop post/s; coming up shortly.

No comments:

Post a Comment

I love comments. Thank you for taking the time to leave one. But do be sure to leave your real or blog name.