Hi,

I'm a web developer with a good amount of experience. I currently have 2 clients who are artists and I've built their sites from scratch. The advantage with building from scratch is that the customization and function is exact, but the disadvantage is that maintenance is all by hand -- and making layout changes is a real pain.

I'm wondering if any of you out there know of some kind of management backed that's available for use for artist sites? Most of the image software I've looked at(coppermine, gallery, lightbox software) really seems to be geared for photographers, and the software didn't seem to play well with complex categorization of artwork.

Any direction for such a program -- even a commercial one is greatly appreciated. If you are an affiliate for a certain product, I'd be more than happy to use your affiliate ID to compensate you for your time if I choose the software you recommend.

So in summary, how do you developers handle your artist clients? Oh, and I need a solution with no flash, and I want to host the site on my own servers.

Thanks.

Well I'd recommend lightbox software although it seems it's not what you're looking for and already threw that out. Hhhmmm. Have you tried a Google search? You may be able to find what you're looking for in just a simple search, you never know.

As a digital publisher, I have a few insights that may help you.

1. As a first time author, you are much better off with a publishing house. However, I realize why you don't want to -- and, truthfully, in digital you don't have to. But there is a lot of work in putting out a book -- if someone else isn't doing the work, you have to. Marketing and publicity is HUGE. Be prepared to spend a lot of time promoting your book.

2. DO NOT put a book up on the web without a way to monetize it. In the world of Kindle, MobiPocket, downloadable .pdfs, and POD services there are many, many ways to publish a book without spending a lot of money up front. I highly, highly recommend Kindle. You can also have your book in an e-reader friendly download format for people who have e-readers that aren't Kindle. If you can, get onto a book app for iTunes as well -- large audience, less back end costs.

3. Content on the web is about socialization. The webcomic model, at it's heart, is sharing content. We want people to see it, read it, comment on it, and share it. There is a plug in for Wordpress called "Comment Press" that was developed by the "future of the book" study group. It is designed to enable people to comment on a novel online. Cory Doctorow used it to great effect when making "Little Brother". He got thousands of comments from people involved in computer hacking, homeland security, and residents of San Francisco (where the book takes place). If you want to involve an audience in your book -- Comment Press is a great way to do so.

4. A novel isn't like a comic. The way you read it and the reader's expectations are very different for each medium. I recommend you post as much of it as you can. People will read it as they read it. If you have a way to capture the socialization, you will grow readership.

5. Think Book Club. Use your blog to lead discussions on your book. Engaging readers is the key.

6. The "Value add" for your printed book is the printed book. There are ways to spruce it up, but basically, people who want a printed book want it because it's printed, not because its a super limited edition with special artwork. That might get people to pay more for their copy of the printed book -- but they are looking to buy a printed book. But, again, think e-readers and iTunes.

7. Multi-Media is good. Podcasts, video blogs, you tube -- they are all good things. Use as many as you can in as creative a way as you can. Read from a rocking chair, act it out in a puppet show, get random people on the street to read a couple of sentences and string it into a narrative. Think outside of the box -- the more creative, the better.

8. Your website is essential. I highly recommend Wordpress, as it is configurable, easy to use, and fairly inexpensive. You don't need to go crazy with the thing, but make sure it is clean, well organized, and functional.

9. Use hyperlinks in your text. Link to Wikipedia, link to National Geographic, link to Google Earth -- make it a multimedia experience. If you have music in your book, have the music available right there in the text. Videos of fight scenes, are another good one. Hell, videos of of any scene you feel is relevant. You are no longer using a printed page -- your novel is going to be on the web, so use the web to your advantage.

Good luck -- it's tough out there. But, if you're creative and you're willing to work, you can acheive a great deal in digital.

using photo gallery scripts like lightbox would certainly help you. Or you may want to develop a custom application to help your clients.

what i noticed and think is, no two clients have same requirements.
so it would be better option to show your clients demos of some popular
scripts/programs and finalize as per his choice.

Once finalized you can customize it as per your needs too.

I've gotten some great use out of the scripts at airtightinteractive.com (free and pro versions). Be careful with various modal scripts (lightbox, thicjbox, highslide, et al) if you intend on loading anything outside of images in them as IE8 has major problems with Modal pops... no surprise there though!

Doing it "by scratch" is as archaic as you can get. Especially if you didn't make use of simple includes for duplicate content (eg: header, sidebar, footer)

You should really invest your research into a content management system what would be your better choice. Managing layout (theme) edits would be easier as you wouldn't need to change EVERY page. It would be apparent once you've saved to say, sidebar.php, that the sidebar for every page it's used on, would be changed as well.

With that being said: Wordpress. Excellent media management too when it comes to photos. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins -- Search through there for further photo gallery options from 3rd party sources.