Can an artist afford to stay off line? Can they afford not to? If there’s a balance, I haven’t found it, yet.
on May 29th, 2012Today I received a letter from a webcomicker who wanted to know what I thought about twitter, etc. He’s not getting what he wants out of it, and feels it’s sucking time away from work. Also, every day he reads something that pisses him off and distracts him. He wants to know if creators really must keep a web presence to be taken seriously by fans and pros.
I feel his pain.
Here’s my response, with some clarifications for my blog readers.
I struggle with the same things you do. In fact, there are days I have my family come and take my ethernet cord away.
I’m afraid we can’t do without social media and be pros these days, because the fans don’t seem to notice you if you are off the grid for even a short time. I stopped blogging regularly, and switched to three day a week posting on my website. My traffic plummeted. I couldn’t believe how much impact it had. So yes, it makes a difference.
On the other hand, if you get caught up in the dramas, and you don’t regulate your time, social media will just suck the life right out of you.
My advice is to stick to a strict time limit (which I also have trouble with) and avoid ANYTHING that upsets you or blocks you. Really, there is no subject online that is entitled to your time, unless it’s the zombie apocalypse, and if you’re tweeting in the middle of that, you’ll be eaten, so you deserve to die.
You have to be focused, disciplined and selective about your attention online.
I say this as someone who is struggling with this same thing. A lot.
I noticed a huge difference when I went to Australia and New Zealand this fall, and was not on my twitter, facebook or the blog regularly. I was charged as much as $1 per minute for internet service, so you understand my need to cut it short.
After just a few weeks, even though my webcomic was still posted day after day, my traffic in all areas dropped like a stone and has yet to recover. I experienced a 2/3 drop in overall web traffic.
I don’t think this has had any impact on my core audience. I am not entirely certain about sales, because I had a sale in February that went very well, but I took most of my product out of my shop shortly after due to time constraints. Mail order can be really time consuming, and drawing wasn’t getting done. So, I can’t run a real comparison against last year.
Also, even though the online sales were really good over the last twelve months, the impact on my work output as an artist dropped the more time I spent online. For about 5 months last year, I was really doing well (much better than 2006-2008, which were pretty bad, but at least I had the excuse of illness) but I see a marked drop in my ability to concentrate and be productive as an artist as I tweet and FB and blog.
For me, it is not as simple as just turning off the internet. That’s the easy advice. It’s like telling someone not to twist their hair or pick a scab.
When I am not around the internet I do not miss it. But in my office, I’ve developed terrible work habits, and I know I check my email and all that crap way too much. If something upsets me, I stay upset all day. I need a very quiet, peaceful environment for work, and the internet brings a lot that isn’t peaceful. I turn my attention to things that aren’t productive.
The solution is self discipline, but I used to be the most disciplined person I know. Of course, if I was disciplined before, I can be disciplined again. I’m doing a piss poor job of it right now, though.
If someone like me, who used to get two hours exercise a day and draw fourteen hours a stretch, can turn into a web surfing junkie, it can happen to anybody. And this transformation has just been in the last few years. It may be due to living in an isolated rural area, but I know I had periods of bad web habits when I lived in the city. I was just a lot better at snapping out of it. I know part of this is also related to anxiety issues I’ve dealt with for a very long time, too.
I find web surfing can not only relieve anxiety, it can cause a lot of it. I have not found the right balance, yet.
I am working on it.
I firmly believe almost no creative person can afford to go without staying in regular touch with their audience. I was shocked by how much my traffic plummeted after only about two months of light blogging and not doing much twitter.
On the other hand, I got a hell of a lot of drawing done. And I want that back.
c
It’s something we all have to work on. I struggle with too much web surfing myself, but I have a few “tricks” to help me (at least a little). I use lists on Facebook and Twitter so target what I look at at any given time (say, only updates from my relatives or just the ones related to my work). If I see an RSS feed or a Facebook page that isn’t giving me any value after a few weeks, I remove it. I set daily deadlines of work that needs to get done, so there are priorities. I save some of my web checking for the evenings away from work computer, too. I also give myself reward time: finish a project, I get to spend 15 minutes checking Facebook. It’s all far from perfect, but it helps!
Everything I try works for a little while. Until it doesn’t.
I know this is a First World neurosis issue, so none of us are asking for a pity party from the universe, but I’m cutting and cutting one distraction after another, but the internet is such a big one.
I have my dream job. I just need to face the board and get ‘er done.
There may be things you could do that would help productivity AND gain audience.
For example, videos of you working on a comic or cover or something. (I know you don’t do a lot of digital so you couldn’t livefeed, but you could still set up a camera at your work desk.)
Obviously it would only work for something that you’d be allowed to show, either a private project, maybe fan commission, or something else done with permission, (and possibly have to be recorded a bit before its posted) but people do love that sort of thing (myself included) and you’d probably get a huge audience… plus, being doing it doing what you need to anyway!
Argh, great suggestion, but I am not exhibitionist enough to want that in my home. I just want to draw and pick my nose in peace.
You’re right, there would be no way to live feed. I’d have to shoot something and then load it. I’ll give it some thought, though. It is a good idea.
I started instituting a few changes in my web habits. They’re not totally effective yet, but they’re nudging things.
1: I set two alarms on my cell phone, one to go off at 10:30 a.m., the other at 4:04 p.m.(but just for Monday through Friday). If I’m still dawdling over morning emails and Facebook at 10:30, that nudges me to get on with other stuff. The afternoon break is just a sort of “take a break” or “time’s a-wasting” marker, because it is easy for me to lose track of time sense. If I have evening events, the afternoon alarm tells me I need to start winding things down to prepare for the evening.
2: On Facebook, I pull up the “All Notifications” list and skim it from the bottom up — looking for the status posts of specific friends, photos from certain friends, notices of Likes and Comments (if they weren’t already in my email notifications). Skimming the stuff on that list where there are no pictures to distract me helps me decide how much time to spend on FB. Sometimes after I’ve checked email and the notifications list I go on to my other computer tasks. It keeps me from looking at every single LOLCat share or videos that might otherwise distract me.
But the fact is, if you do want to build an audience, you have to engage with it where they are, which means maintaining a sort of presence. I still haven’t figured out the type of rhythm I need for Twitter, so I get lousy usage out of it.
Yesterday, I was with some of my screenwriting friends, and we chatted idly about social media. And one of my friends (who teaches screenwriting) dismissed Twitter as a waste of time. Now, she’s a “successful” screenwriter (as in, working on scripts that have deals with studios, some of which actually will go in front of cameras). But she doesn’t look beyond that arena. And most screenwriters don’t think about building their personal audience. Directors give a little bit more attention to it. Me, as an omni-medium writer, I know I absolutely need to continue building an audience — I have a smallish one, but at least it’s there and I know it.
There is definitely a need to strike a balance on where the time is committed and how it is committed.
I’m a bit of an online hermit. I literally dropped my Wow Subscription and disappeared from twitter and facebook for months. I suffer from online class guilt. (eg: I have an online class so I should be working HARDER to avoid slacking badly).
That being said I do have roleplay sites I frequent and they are the big time suck for me. I also cut another site out of my regular interaction because the drama there was just phenomenal. Its amazing how online comments can get under ones skin. And like Colleen it would stay with me all day.
Its not that I have to have yes men around me but the passive agressive folks are ones I do not need. Another thing I’ve found that helps is not being on social media sites when I am tired. I am more likely to get my feathers ruffled over things if overly tired.
FYI, there are programs out there that will block email, Facebook, Twitter, or even all external network from your machine for a user-set amount of time. So even if you want to check them, there’ll be nothing new there until the block ends.
Thanks. I figured out how to get around Leechblock in no time, and have not found anything else. Suggestions?
Well, Neil’s quoted as liking macfreedom.com (works on both Macs and PCs), but given the webpage says you can get around it by rebooting, it’s probably not good enough for the addicts who actively try to break through to the ‘net.
http://visitsteve.com/made/selfcontrol/ claims to be not affected by rebooting, but is Mac only and possibly a bit dated. The page does have links to other similar programs which might work for you.
Otherwise, can’t really suggest a specific program.. I’ve not gotten to the point of using such myself, so this is based on news items I’ve seen gone by and a quick web search.
While I’ll agree with you that one — probably — needs to have some kind of web presence these days, that’s what a web site is for. No one needs to be on Facebook. And absolutely no one needs to be on Twitter. I promise you faithfully that I will cut my own throat before I open a Twitter account. Really, life is too short.
I’m only a hairsbreadth away from leaving Facebook behind. A thoroughly pointless waste of time — if I want to contact friends and hear what they have to say, y’know I can e-mail ‘em, or phone. Just like we did before the current social media fad. Yes, “fad”: in ten years time we’ll struggle to remember what Facebook was. By then, there’ll be some other Big New Thing.
It’s time to cast off the “chain” created by clever marketing, stop following the crowd, and regain a real life….
Colleen,
. )
I feel your pain!
I know I spend way too much time on-line but it’s not even Facebook or Twitter.
I have managed to limit my Facebook time and refused to join Twitter. ( When you got on Twitter, it killed one my favorite sayings
But I still find other ways to waste time on line. As you said, the key is focus and discipline.
And with that I am signing off now.
wow, I love having my twitter accounts–one for me, one for my books– and have done some decent networking with them so far and with friends it’s better than chat. Don’t really see it as that big of a time sink. I spent more time looking at funny cat pictures.
but there’s no way I will get on facebook. WAY oversharing.