Julian, Alan, and others, I’m a career marketer and have a web design/development background. I’d be happy to help you to get set up on Wordpress. I have a window of time over the next couple of months as I enact some life changes.
I use a modern theme that has extensive design flexibility so the site feels personal and vibrant, not templated. Wordpress allows for easy updates once it’s set up. Here’s my site: https://drewdelaware.com; need to update a couple things but that’s always the case with websites! If you’d like to explore working together, feel comfortable reaching out to me off-list at [email protected]. Cheers! Drew > On Mar 16, 2023, at 7:38 AM, Winston, Alan P. <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Hi, Julian -- > > I'll await other answers with interest, since I similarly don't have a caller > website and it's a Project I could theoretically do but am rather overwhelmed > by. (Pre-pandemic I was getting all the gigs I could realistically handle > with a full-time job, more outside of contra than in **** > > I also want to empathize with you about being reluctant to self-promote, > reach out to organizers, etc, for fear of being obnoxious, although when I > have my series organizer hat on I'm usually happy to hear from out-of-town > callers/bands who will be coming to my area anyway. But I've never > programmed a weekend or camp so I don't know how that feels; my impression > locally is that programmers often have a vision and some favorites already. > > -- Alan > > > ________________________________________ > From: Julian Blechner via Contra Callers > <[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2023 8:51 AM > To: Shared Weight Contra Callers > Subject: [Callers] Asking For Website Help and Self-Promotion Question > > Hi callers, > > Website help request: > > As I've been ramping up my accepting gigs again post-shutdown, I'm realizing > that I've put off my "get an actual website" too long. > > Any suggestions for website designers for caller pages or contra performer > pages? > I can provide photographs myself, for what that's worth. > > This is one of those things where, yeah, I could trudge through it myself > with a DIY site-builder attached to a standard web host or Square, but I do > UX Design as my 40-hour-a-week job and I already have many things on my > plate, and I just really haven't found motivation to take on Another Project. > So I really just want to be able to hand someone some money and know I'll get > a good product that isn't needlessly complex. > > > Self-promotion perspective request: > > I'm also looking for ways to appropriately do self-promotion as a caller. > I love doing series dances, and also love doing the dances for groups with > lots of new folks, too. But I also would enjoy expanding doing more special > events, and am getting more comfortable with traveling again, pandemic-wise. > > There's this sort of odd condition where the A-List Well-Known Callers don't > need to advertise, but to get there, you need to either/both advertise and/or > have your summers off so you can do All The Tours and All The Summer Camps. > On top of that, New England is kind of a funny area because we have so many > weekly/monthly series dances that we don't have big dance weekends like > pretty much everywhere else in the country. > > And ... I dunno, for many of us, there's an unknown of "How much > self-promotion until you become pushy / obnoxious?" > > I've been calling for 11 years. Before the pandemic I was doing 30-40 gigs a > year, including some wedding/One-Night-Stand events and smattering of special > events. I've headlined at Flurry in 2018 and got positive feedback. I known > where I'm at in terms of effectively choosing and teaching dances from simple > through advanced. I solicit feedback from organizers I call dances for. And I > know that being an advocate for Larks/Robins as well as dancer-safety has > been a black mark for me in some bookers' minds. > > But I still get people being like "Oh, how long have you been calling?" --- I > realize part of this is the name change from Ron to Julian, but, part of it > is definitely hesitation to like, I dunno, email organizers I don't > personally know asking about dance weekends or whatnot. Maybe there's partly > the "imposter syndrome" in there as well. > > One thing I do know is that I now have no recent good video of me calling, > which I'm earmarking as part of the website project. > > Perspective on self-promotion is appreciated, and perspective for anyone who > also books dances is appreciated. > > In dance, > Julian Blechner > he/him > (Western Mass, USA) _______________________________________________ Contra Callers mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
