After almost two years of influential but unremunerative blogging, CultureGrrl is going commercial.
Beginning within the next two weeks, you can run your ads on the site that has become required daily reading for the most important museum directors and curators, art dealers and auctioneers, collectors, art scholars, art critics and journalists, and just plain art lovers throughout the U.S. and in Canada, Europe and Asia.
I’ve gone in a relatively short time from a new blogger to one whom virtually everyone I encounter in the artworld knows about and finds at least useful and, at best, influential. Last year, CultureGrrl logged 382,000 hits. This month alone (with three days still to go), I conservatively expect more than 38,000 hits, projecting from the actual 35,800 hits in January thus far.
But much more important than the quantity is the quality of this audience and their respect for this site. You know who you are. And you know who I am (or, if not, see my profile and my linked mainstream pieces, in the righthand column).
I’m hoping that my blog’s new third column, coming soon, will be your place to advertise exhibitions, educational programs, art books and publications (both online sites and mainstream media) and, of course, fine jewelry, luxury cars and other coveted objects of conspicuous consumption!?!
One important word about conflict-of-interest: There is an inevitable perception of such conflict when the writer and the beneficiary of ad proceeds are one and the same. I am uneasy with this, but I am more uncomfortable about spending so much of my workday blogging as a hobby, not a source of income. The benefit of the ArtsJournal network is that all advertising arrangements will be handled by the managers of the network, not by me.
I will be hands-off when it comes to my third column, and I pledge to continue my gadfly role as an equal-opportunity cultural curmudgeon, regardless of whether my targets are advertisers. You’ll have to trust me on this (or not). I’m aware that one of my chief values to my readers is fierce fearlessness in taking on the foibles and follies of the artworld, wherever I find them—even among future advertisers. You can buy “CultureGrrl,” but you can’t buy CultureGrrl.
Considering the elite and very targeted audience that you will soon be reaching, the introductory ad rates are very reasonable. For more details, or to express interest in being among CultureGrrl’s inaugural advertisers, you can go right now here