Last Saturday we had to spend the day in the city. My daughter was doing her first (and probably her last, she doesn’t want to continue) ballet show and rehearsals were in the morning and the show itself after lunch. So, me, my wife and my three year old son wandered Dublin city for a few hours.
The city used to be my second home before we had kids. And it was lovely to spend the day with no real purpose there. Everything’s changed but it’s still the same. Different shops, same streets. It was on Grafton St. where a busker was performing. A puppeteer. We stopped and watched for a while as the “silly statue” (as my son called it), interacted with the small crowd that gathered. The puppet itself looked old like a ragged classic jester but the puppeteer played loud modern dance music. A weird mix as this puppet made modern poses to the music while pretending to “steal” passerby’s shopping. It was quite obvious the skill and art the puppeteer had in bring his puppet to life.
I explained to my son that if you enjoyed a busker’s performance you should give them some money as a thank you but he was much too shy to come near the puppet.
I’ve wrote a little about my experiences on creating something for fun and my thoughts on creating as a product. But I also think how you present and frame your outpourings is as important, if not more important, than the thing itself.
For some reason, after I saw that puppeteer performing I thought of this article where a world famous violinist decided to busk in a subway station instead of a $150 per ticket concert hall. He dressed in ordinary clothes and just played his violin. Barely anyone noticed. By any definition or expert opinion, the music would be among the best in the world.
The article kinda makes some point about people rushing too much, not slowing down to listen and other such things. But I’m not surprised either. Any urban dweller learns to tune out things, “chuggers”, buskers, blaring music, glaring advertisements, smells from rubbish trucks and restaurants, etc. Sometimes something catches your eye and sometimes, like last Saturday, you don’t mind being distracted.
The puppeteer picked a street that’s popular for busking, on a weekend when people are browsing and willing to be entertained. The street is also popular for tourists to the city. He interacted with anyone who did stop. He framed his performance. His presentation was nearly more important than his actual act: he choose the best location, time and how to engage his audience. He stood on a box so he marked himself as not someone else on the street. If, like the violinist, he had chosen to perform in a busy train station, early on work day and refused to interact with his audience, do you think he’d have gotten the crowd we saw on Saturday?
And it’s like that with the internet. People prefer short blog posts than long winding slow-to-the-point ones. The internet is so full of spam, adverts, attention-whores, me-toos, trolls, re-posts, etc. that any good internet citizen, like any urban dweller, learns to tune out these things. Normal. Though we always slow down for certain voices (like specific friends or authoritative personas, reputations), certain trends (cats) and so on.
Producing a good or great work and putting it online means nothing without promoting it and sharing it in the right places and presenting it in a way that doesn’t automatically turn people off (like say presenting it as a “wall-of-text” or as a Word document instead of a webpage).
I remember arguing years ago that putting something, like say a free RPG online, was pointless because no-one would attribute any value to it. If they had to pay for it, they’d sit up a bit more (but also expect more). To be honest, that was a terrible simplistic view point. But “free” does have it’s own value indicators.
Which brings me all the way around to me being a moany git really. My frustration at my lack of ability to better present stuff I make. It’s not about validation. Going back to my previous blog posts on “making it for fun” or “making a product”, there is some thing to be said in treating the “making it for fun” as “making it a product for fun”. Which is a whole package of skills, that make introverts like myself don’t have by default.
What say you? How much does the way something, like a free RPG or fan-fiction, is presented/packaged (artwork, layout and other media) or how it’s framed (it’s relation to other similar things, it’s author’s profile, interaction with the audience, etc.) determine how you perceive it?
Content isn’t king. People say it is but it’s a misnoma. Look and feel is king, content is secondary. Content willl give you fans that will come back over and over but you can’t pick up those fans if your stuff is ugly. Most new users bounce. Even off the Free RPG Blog - which is pretty and nearly always has a picture on each post. I do interact with the community a lot. I comment endlessly on other people’s blogs. I give interviews, I join in forums. This is how you get readers. It’s marketing. Regardless of how good you are at self-marketing, your site still needs to look good.
It’s the same for Free RPGs. I won’t play a text-only RPG because experience tells me that if they have put effort into the graphics and layout then the system is likely to be solid too. I’ve read a whole load of text-only free RPGs and I know they tend to be very, very basic. Most people won’t even get passed a poorly designed website, which I argue here. I ignore the website normally but then I know I’m not the usual audience for a free RPG.
There is no shame in prettying up your content. Providing the right picture to accompany your content is a skill. It’s not a purely writer’s skill (it’s a publisher’s one, really) but it’s definitely worth having in your blogging toolkit.
What are you going to do to spice up your content, Mr C?
Not enough it would seem.
I’ve gone down the DIY website design over the years. And I’ve learned, I suck at it. Learned loads of technical stuff, even designy stuff, but just never got it together. Which is why I now go with simple WordPress themes, that present my content reasonably/functionally well.
It’s bizare in that I can draw well enough, not exceptionally, but okay. Yet that creative ability does not translate into layout of content. I believe I can write, and I can certainly code, but bringing it all together just hasn’t yet gelled for me.
For the moment, I’m not yet willing to shell over hard cash for someone with better expertise to do the things I can’t.
I think it’s a personal struggle between hobby versus product. I love the writing. I love the drawing. It’s not the end product that really matters personally for me. Yet working in a vacum is quite self-destructive. But to get people to look at your work, what ever it is, requires a different frame of mind. One I haven’t grokked yet and I think that leads to procrastination and doubt among other things.
I’m not really an extraovert, even online. It requires energy and effort I don’t always have in reserve and I don’t know how others do it, but I quickly find myself swamped by just a few forums and/or mailing lists. I can make a big effort, but take time from something else, and tackle it or I can skim over it which really isn’t the same.
I suppose the next question you need to answer for yourself is “What do I want from it?”. Is it shouting in the void? Is it advertising revenue? Is it a steady dialog?
There are plenty of free blog skins out there so you don’t have to have a plain one.
As for communities, only involve yourself in ones that closely match your needs. Which is why I like the RPGBA forum and 1km1kt.
That’s actually a damn good question. Thank you.
I have to admit though, I don’t frame the question like that at all. I find often, but not always, the process itself is worth while. At least that’s how I approach drawing. And since I realised that, my drawing has improved drastically over the last few years despite not putting enough time into it. Of course, it’s still nice to share/show the work with others, but at least with something like drawing, it’s easier to appreciate you’re own work despite the mistakes you know there.
As for writing RPGs and fiction, well I think that might be different. With my (free) Lost Heroes RPG, it was a lovely focus as a project and for other projects. Something to use as a excuse to read myths and folklore, comment on story-structure and heroes, gender roles, as a subject for my drawings and a world to use for writing among other things. I have a much deeper appreciation of stories and their meanings now then I ever had and also on the necessity of planning, editing and the importance of presentation. But ultimately, I guess, I would like others to play it. Steady dialog, advertising revenue, donations, etc. would be simply confirmation and validation of that.
I think perhaps that might be the problem. I aimed to do Lost Heroes RPG as a “product”, while if I had gone for a more organic approach (i.e. “for fun”), I’d be quite happy playing/running it with a local group of players. Though never as deeply researched as it was. Maybe, ultimately that’s what I should do, scale it back and focus entirely on a local group and well, fuck the internet. Ack! Now I’m conflicted!
Is this plain theme so ugly?
(Disclaimer, I didn’t make it, though I’ve made all the previous atrocities-to-web-design I’ve used over the years)
I actual prefer simple, even plain, website design then cluttered or flashy. Pictures are cool, if you use them, but I prefer to get to the content quickly. I guess that’s just me.
Communities, yea that is certainly a larger discussion. I certainly found twitter as an excellent place for connecting me to folks. (Sorry for not contributing 1km1kt, I’m more of a lurker on forums these days than anything else).
It is neither and it is both. Your content has to be compelling, but your presentation of it has to be appealing. There is no silver bullet.
I am focusing on my content for right now, and I have slowly seen an increase in my readers and followers. Soon I’ll be switching gears and will begin working on presentation again, because that is what I did before and that gained me a small increase in readers and followers.
The social networking is tied to presentation, but it is not completely isolated from content either. In many ways it is the core of your content because it is you! You have to be your own brand when your footprint is small.
I respectfully disagree. Yes your content must be good (and the better your content, the better the response of course). But if you have presented or framed it wrong, then it’s pretty irrelevant how good your content is. You can have okay content but presented right (as in the puppeteer in my blog got the framing of his act right) do much better than great content with bad or non-existent presentation (the world renowned violinist playing in the subway).
Also talking about presentation/framing and content as two distinct parts is really incorrect because there is always a mixing of the two. How you title you’re piece, the lead-in to your content and even how you present yourself are all parts of framing and presenting as much as they are part of the content.
I guess. But I’d rather just do something, than be something. My thinking is that you can create for the sake of creating or you can create a “product”; something that has an audience in mind. If you’re into it for enjoyment of creating, which is really why I create stuff, then the idea of having to promote and connect with others and be seen in the scene, etc. can feel forced and false. But if you’re creating a product, then dealing with others and interacting etc. is part of the process of creating a product. Does that make sense?
Out of interest, what do you mean “working on presentation”? Surely the two “content” and “presentation” go hand in hand while building a blog?
I’m with Mark on this one.
I think the plain layout would be ok if the typography was more interesting. Also, the ads at the top are jarring. Other sites make use of graphics to blend away the graphics.
@Rob Lang Thanks for the website feedback! Next time I feel like tinkering with code I’ll try and improve it.
I disagree as well, but with respect for you as always.
What was the content of the puppeteer in your example? The puppet? No. The content was the act itself. The puppet was merely a tool in the presentation of that content. One could argue that with a nicer puppet the content would have been presented better.
Of course, I wasn’t there so I am basing this on my own experience with puppet shows at county fairs and such. A really cool puppet might get me to stop and watch for a moment (the puppet as the presentation), but a great act will get me to stay (the act as content).
And a world class violinist picking a bad setting for his content is an example of bad presentation, but reverse the scenario and have a bad violinist play at $150 a ticket. The content matters just as much.
As for working on presentation with my blog and other sites I am talking about the placing of features and the overall accessibility and appeal of the site. I’ll be commissioning a new logo soon for the site, and maybe some more custom artwork to accentuate it. I’ll be posting more of my own drawings, which may not be the greatest but they are mine and as I adjust to the tablet they improve in quality. Yet these things are not always the content (sometimes they are though).
@Patrick Benson We’re getting into semantics here! TBH I define content as anything I think is content. So I win!
While I make a distinction between “framing” or “presentation” with “content”, the distinction is now always clear and often it’s so fuzzy to be meaningless. By using the term presentation and content, I’m actually “framing” this discussion along certain lines. Of course you always need content, however you can get away with okay content if the presentation is amazing. There are endless examples, just look at popular music, okay or mediocre music that seems to do really well, because of who sings it. But if you have great content, but no presentation/framing, that content might as well not exist. I could be the greatest artist in the world, but if no-one sees my work, then it doesn’t matter.
For the purpose of the point I was making, the “content” of the puppet act was the highly skilled act of being a exceptional puppeteer. He used that skill for cheap laughs but to then engage the audience so they could enjoy his skill. Likewise the content of the violinest act was his violin playing. Presentation/framing is every else including the performer’s reputation, location of performance, relation to everything else, cost, etc.
Semantics are the curse of the English language.
My response to you is Miles Davis. A man who cared only about content. He never cared about the presentation. He never thought of himself as an entertainer. He was a musician, and perhaps the greatest trumpet player to have ever lived.
His content was so strong it presented itself. People commented on his style and his look and adopted it themselves, but for them it was a presentation. For Miles Davis it was Miles being who he was.
Miles Davis focused solely on content, and his content was so good that it spoke for itself. Why do the rest of us focus so much on presentation? Because our content isn’t that good.
Your world class violinist example isn’t proof that the content was ignored. The artist was already recognized. That example just tells me that most people do not listen to classical violin music. They did not care for the content. They would not buy the $150 ticket to go see the violinist in concert where the presentation would be excellent.
Now what if your example was a rock musician playing electric guitar? A world class electric guitarist would get recognition in the same situation for their content.
And the argument that if you don’t have a good presentation you won’t get noticed is confused with exposure IMO. You play the violin beautifully in the privacy of your home your content will never be exposed. If you play it dressed in rags in the middle of the town square your presentation may be awful, but your content might be discovered by the fans of violin music.
Thinking about it more, the reason why your blog and game aren’t getting attention has less to do with presentation as it has to do with content and exposure. You are not posting regularly, that is a content issue. Are you publishing links to the world for the blog? I am assuming no, because I don’t often see them. So try sticking to a regular posting schedule. First day of the Month, every Monday, daily, whatever works for you. Try using a WordPress plugin like Tweet This to automatically tweet a link to each article when it is posted, and make sure that your Tweets are posted to Facebook too via on of the many plugins available there as well.
I hope that those tips help you.
I had to look up Miles Davis, I’m not familiar with jazz so much. Wikipedia says:
Reading the rest of the article sounds like he worked at it, joined numerous bands, studied music, built a career. I don’t see how this shows that content works without presentation. Sounds like Davis presented himself very well. And because his music was so great, he was very successfully.
I don’t see how you can strip content of any element of presentation/framing and expect it to be successful on it’s merits alone. It doesn’t work that way.
If you’re talking about “genius”, that’s a whole different category of conversation.
Exposure, imho, is presentation and framing. I see no distinction.
I know my blog and game and other bits and pieces aren’t getting exposure. That’s a tangential point to the article. I think Rob had the right idea. What do I want to get out of it? For me, not much really, discussion I guess for the blog, maybe. People playing my game (but as I answered to Rob, I’d be happy if it’s me running a game for friends).
I post when I have something to post about. I create when I want to create. I do not create because I want to present myself. This goes back to other stuff I’ve posted about in the past: “product” versus “hobby”. I know that having a schedule can aid in improving output and productivity, but, my blog is not central to… well… anything. I actually consider my blog to be a public extension to my twitter account. If I can’t fit it in one or two tweets, make a blog post or not (because if it doesn’t make a good blog post, it’s probably not worth sharing). It is and will always be a place I put stuff. And I’m quite happy with that. I’m not looking for exposure. The occasional comment and discussion is cool, I enjoy that.
There is also that personal thing that I’m actually quite a private person. Maybe I’m selling myself short. I don’t know.
In my mind, regular public posting is just as much about framing as content. Regular exposed output shared to multiple audiences. Even the title of this original article is framing, I purposely used a curse word and an inflamatory statement. It’s not an attack on it, I’m impressed by many bloggers who regularly post interesting articles.
Oh I do. Just probably not in the same time zone for you. I mean, me posting a link at 9am EST is 1am PDT. Now I’ve read stuff on self-promotion about sharign the link at multiple times during the day, but I don’t see the need. My roleplaying posts, which are few and far between these days, are including on rpgba and planet irish gaming. All my blog posts on planet redbrick. Some are shared to facebook.
Already done. I’m trying to reduce my FB usage though and my account is so locked down that it’s like sending an email to a bunch of friends who are going to ignore it anyway.
What we are talking about is basic marketing really.
Marketing isn’t just promotion - it is Product, Promotion, Place and Price.
Presentation -AND- Content are both part of the Product element. The product must be tasty, must look tasty, must smell tasty. If it is tasty but looks like ass, you are going to have trouble promoting it. Prettiness is also part of the Promotion angle, obviously, but the prettiness of the product itself is key, and isn’t promotion.
The conversations here also stumble into Price and Place stuff. Price is a very strong motivator. I’m not sure where I stand on price (free vs commercial) these days, I’ll let you know once my first commercial endeavours go on sale this fall.
Music is a poor example of content/presentation separation because you can’t separate them. As soon as a musician plays a piece of music, it has presentation. Getting back to the original point…
I _think_ you’re not complaining about your own “exposure” but instead feeling the pain for those people who create lovely content, which is ultimately ignored because of poor presentation. Perhaps you’re also reeling against those people who have gorgeous sites but the content is toilet.
It is unfortunate that content and presentation (I would include social media use in presentation too) is bound together but it is part of the internet medium and how it is consumed. It does mean great content gets missed but then I do not think it is a huge amount of effort to fix that.
A final note on free RPGs is that they rarely get much exposure. That’s why I started the blog. Stargazer Games is perhaps the only exception but only because Michael Wolf is prolific and his work of a high quality.
Suggested reading: http://www.erenkrantz.com/Music/MilesDavisInterview.shtml
I respect the conclusion that it appears you have reached. I don’t agree with it, but I wish you luck with what you are attempting to do here.
My 2 cents:
* As a hobby (or for just the pure joy of making it): Only content matters. Presentation comes from the GM.
* Wanting to share it to the World: Presentation comes in.
* Wanting to sell it:
Both content and presentation must be excellent.
@Rob Lang You’ve sorta nailed it there.
I do think music is still a prime example though, but I’m thinking more of popular music where an okay song (and sometimes a very bad song IMHO) is very successful because of who sang it and the money poured into production, marketing and the video. While some excellent artists and songs are “neglected”.
@jonathan susara I’d argue that content may need only be good or great if the presentation is excellent. Or indeed you happen to be lucky.
@Dyson Logos As an Engineer, Marketing is an evil word but yea perhaps marketing is the concept I was looking for.