Turnstyle Prints - Historic Racing Today Series

[John Turner]

First of all, I have to thank the Owners/Administrators of this site to allow me to post this thread up.

Some of you may know that over the last couple of years I have commissioned our revered 'Hall of Fame' artist, Andrew Kitson, to do a couple of paintings of the historic racing scene (a relatively untapped area in my view). This started really as a hobby, but, of course, original paintings are expensive, so to offset the cost, I have arranged for a limited edition print run on both paintings and also on an earlier painting Andrew did for Grahame Bryant (Cobra). Thus I now have 3 limited edition prints (all from Goodwood) and another (Coys, Silverstone) from Andrew on the way, plus some more in the pipeline if the early ones sell sufficiently well. I have therefore formed Turnstyle Prints, and registered that as a Limited company.

The upshot of this is that I am about to set up my own website to start marketing the 3 different prints already prepared, and if I can persuade you to buy, the range will continue to be extended! Although this may not interest many of the posters/visitors on this forum, I'm also working with another artist, Chris Dugan, to cover off some of the modern GTs, another favourite of mine.

However, I'm seeking some feedback about what else the site should contain because a few prints are not going to hold your attention for long. Naturally, there will be a links page, and the first to go up will be to here, of course. However there needs to be more, and I have it mind to set up a gallery of all the better examples of photos that I have taken over recent years. For a whole number of reasons, I cannot sell these images, but despite their amateur quality they have appeared on one or two websites and in 'flyers' so I don't think that they are too bad. So, I'm considering charging people a one off £10 charge for access to the gallery and they can then download as many pictures and as often as they like, and without watermark. There will be thousands, eventually. However, anyone purchasing a print will get free access to the gallery. That's my thinking at the moment, anyway, but obviously subject to changes which may depend on the views expressed here.

Any feedback on the above would be most welcome, but, of course, I have to be realistic, and there is a cost also in terms of establishing and maintaining the site, so I'm not going into this lightly, and you shouldn't be offended if I don't adopt any or all ideas that are presented here.

[Peter Mallett]

As the proud owner of one of these prints (Aston Martin) I'm looking forward to your website.

[MagnetON]

On a technical side, you could take a look at some of the motorsport photography sites that the guys in Art & Photo have, that may give you an idea on the type of sites that are available. With membership/subscription and free download there are quite a few bits of software that can do this. The harder area to work with is the physical prints as there's a physical order fulfillment process that needs to happen.

If you're not sure about website design/hosting/content management etc. then I would suggest finding a local web design company and have an initial consultation with them. Take a list of websites you like the look of, or are doing something similar to what you want to do and they should be able to advise on the software needed.

Regarding processing credit cards, it's probably more likely that you'll want to use PayPal as your credit card processor as it's unlikely you'll get a Visa Internet Merchant account and (no offence) you'll probably not be doing a high enough level of business to warrant merchant gateway fees. Most web "shopping cart" software can use PayPal as the payment processor.

You can choose and register your domain name with someone like www.joker.com before you go to a web design company, registrations are cheap and I've looked at two suitable domain names for this project that are currently un-registered, PM me if you want to know which ones.

[terence]

From the quality I,ve seen John,when do you want my tenner?

[John Turner]

Reverend MagnetON, you, more than most, will know my techical shortcomings; afterall you have had to tolerate them long enough! However, as part of the registering of the company name process, I was directed to a particular website designer who I have signed up to. Initial dealings seem positive and they are addressing the sort of issues that you have highlighted for me, including domain name.

Peter, Terence; thank you for kind remarks. I'm hoping others might offer their support or suggestions, particularly in respect of the image gallery charge.

[Alan Raine]

Nice idea John. There have been quite a few artists around over the years (including myself), but very few can make a living at it, so anything that promotes Motorsport Art gets my approval.

I'm also fond of your photo reports from the meetings and your personal comments that go with them. Great for those of us who can't get there.

Good luck with it - and I agree with Terence.

Your ISP may be able to help with web design. Although I do my own website, I have come across a few sites produced by my ISP's own software (which I think is free). They are adequate for their needs and should be easy to manage.

[John Turner]

Thank you, Alan. I'm sending you a PM.

Noting the number of people who have viewed this thread and who view my pictorial reviews, I'm a little disappointed not to get a bit more feedback about the proposal. I'm awaiting the first draft design for the website homepage for the sale of the prints at the moment, and this will go ahead in any event. However, the addition of an image gallery also carries an additional cost, so this is the area in which I'm looking for reaction.

[COLIN STUBBS]

I dare bet that lots of us havnt replied,and are just waiting for it!I am anyhow John...Keep us informed!!

[terence]

From little Accorns,,,Rome etc etc

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by terence bower

From little Accorns,,,Rome etc etc

Mighty Romes do grow? Hmm, not sure that's quite right.

[terence]

I,m not even going to try to explain

[John Turner]

Well, 6 months later, it was finally launched today. I'm still not sure it's exactly as I intended but had to start sometime.

Those who are already members (yes, there are a few!) will receive their passwords within the next 24 hours. Hope that you enjoy browsing the image archive; it has taken me ages just to load up those from 5 meetings so far (about 600 images, I think!) and I will be adding to it regularly. I must have at least another 25-30 meetings to add before I even get started on our new season!

http://www.turnstyleprints.co.uk/

[Peter Mallett]

Good luck and well done John. I look forward to a relaxing browse.

[delta]

Where do we send the £10.00 John. Does being a member give a driver a waiver on yellow flag infringments. Fantastic idea my full support . Good Luck.

[john ruston]

Well done and best of luck.