Art Print Issues by Barney Davey

Art-Exchange.com Brouhaha Still Brewing

A four-year running discussion about Art-Exchange.com and its business practices has been raging on Wet Canvas, which is the largest artist discussion board on the Internet. A search for the term "art-exchange" there returns 21 results of different threads or discussions. Nearly all are started by artists asking for help, opinion and firsthand experience with the company.

The primary thread with "Art-Exchange.com...any opinions?" was started in June, 2005 and has more than 100 replies and 7500 views. This is an enormous amount of response and that it continues to stay lively nearly 4 years later shows the amount of interest and angst generated by the company's business tactics. The near universal response has been outrage and anger from the Wet Canvas art community. Discussion boards such as Wet Canvas serve a great need. The work as a communal watering hole where like-minded folks can gather and share their experiences, knowledge and shared interests.

The latest round of posts were started when a poster named David Miller, who introduced himself as the new president of Art-Exchange.com came on to try to defend the company. He was rightly disturbed by a comment that the employees there should be shot. We all know such talk is meaningless hyperbole attempting to portray the level of anger towards the company and its aggressive sales staff. But, on this point I think he has a right to be disturbed. Not so much, or not at all on reasoned explanations of how artists were treated and solicited by his sales staff.

Needless to say, the response was not pleasant to Mr. Miller's post. A request was put to him to provide artists who would come forth and tell about their positive experience with the company. A suspicious first-time newbie poster named Bill joined the conversation with a kind of passive-aggressive defense of the company. When challenged to prove he was not a shill by providing a Website or some evidence of a real art career, he lamely says he hasn't joined the 2000s yet and has no Internet exposure. He further says he is contemplating working with Art-Exchange.com. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

The discussion of this company is not isolated to just Wet Canvas. You can find strongly held opinions on www.artspan.com and www.artscuttlebutt.com. The later has unfortunately lost many of its older posts when its forum was hit with a hacker attack. It contained some lengthy posts and replies all pointing to artists who had poor experiences dealing with Art-Exchange.com.

There are lessons here. For artists, take the time to perform due diligence when being asked to put up front money for marketing assistance. For companies who have vocal constituents, don't wait years to try and correct a negative perception about the company. In this case for Art-Exchange.com, the ship has sailed and the cow left the barn. Perhaps Mr. Miller can turn the company around, but it will take a long time with an ongoing effort by the company to change its image with the artist community, especially those who participate regularly on discussion boards.

The final lesson is no matter how small or large your company may be, don't take for granted that customer satisfaction is paramount to your long term success. Caveat emptor.

No Time to Create - a Facebook Group Topic

Some readers here may recall I have blogged about the artist Valentina and her very successful Val's Art Diary Web site replete with regularly updated and always entertaining vlogs. Surf her site and you will also find useful information for artists in a section called Val's Art Tips.

Val's latest efforts to help artists and create a little buzz for herself in the process involves Facebook. She has started a group there called Artists who refuse to starve. Creative people share their business secrets. It has quickly grown to more than 1,300 members. It is just another example of the viral power of social marketing and how Facebook has become a dominant force in it.

It looks as if my November 2007 post titled Bet on Facebook -- It Could Be the One was accurate. It's not too late to get on Facebook now. Get on board, don't forget to friend me and join some groups like the one Val has started. Or start your own like artist Maya Green with her Art of Maya Green group.

Spend some time on the discussion boards on groups such as Val's mentioned above. You will make friends and admirers and learn some things too. I couldn't resist adding my thoughts to the "No Time to Create" topic started by Dan Monroe. He is lamenting there are so many sites and not enough time to join them all and participate in them. I couldn't agree more and offered this commentary to topic:

Pick something more than just the next big thing

This conversation strikes a chord with me. I believe there are plenty of reasons to have angst over not having enough time to do enough of the things that are truly important. It is quite easy to get carried away on the next best new thing to do. One can literally twitter (pun intended) away their time till nothing gets done.

FB offers promise, as do other online sites that can help get an artist gain awareness. I've always thought the best approach is a planned one. It seems the art that stands the test of time was rarely if ever impulsively put together. Same has to be true of great marketing.

Well executed smart moves make the most sense

Sure random strokes of genius can propel a piece or an artist, but it is the years of experience and raw talent that give the artist the ability to translate the lightning flash into real genius. Often the first stroke is carefully reworked until perfection. And, in retrospect, one can nearly always see it, the stroke of genius that is, actually is the culmination of hard work, dedication and talent and not just dumb luck.

Making a career work successfully is not unlike planning to create your best work. You wouldn't sit down with a willy nilly idea and think the result is going to a museum, or will quickly sell tons as a print. Likewise, it's hard to take seriously that a few blog posts or building a ginormous FB friend list, who mostly just want to see their own friends number climb, will make a big impact on a career.

Online communities are the bomb

Don't get me wrong. I think online communities are the bomb. We are just beginning to see the groundswell of where this is going. As such, I support anyone's efforts to make dent in the FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, etc. world. I just think it needs to be done as part of a much larger overall plan for nothing short of world domination. Well, okay, a little hyperbole there. But, at the very least, a marketing plan to become huge in your world.

Your world can be being a star artist in your local community. It can be being well known in your state or region. It can be wanting nothing short of national and international recognition. None of those things just happen. Yes, some incredibly lucky people get monster breaks that propel their careers that in comparison just seems downright unfair to a hard working artist who is doing every thing right.

You can create your own luck

The thing is, one can't prepare for their future by banking on getting lucky. Might as well buy lottery tickets because the odds are about the same and will take much less work. So, the alternative is to construct the very best, most robust, most creative overall marketing strategy you can devise. It is an organic thing that will grow and morph on a regular basis, but having such a thing in place is the way to best create one's own luck.

Part of creating such a thing requires taking a brutally honest assessment of what one wants, really wants, and what one will do to get what they want. One thing you will find in virtually every successful person is ambition. It's a certainty without it one will fail. This assessment includes being as clear as possible where one wants to take a career and then realistically evaluating what resources are available to follow a plausible plan of action.

Look at the fearless leader of this pack, Val. She makes doing what she does seem effortless. It would be hard not to be more than a little jealous of her. She is photogenic, charismatic, self-deprecating, talented and funny. Those traits belie the fact she is driven to succeed.

Ambition will where talent will not

What Val does makes for a great presentation. But, guess what, there are tons of other artists who have all this going on and don't have her success. I'd say her desire to be successful is the fuel that makes her successful. Naturally, she has to produce work her collectors will willingly repeatedly buy, but it is the other things she does that gives her the channel or path that leads to those collectors.

Her collectors only found her because she set out to whatever she could to disrupt their lives and make them aware of her and her art. And, now today, she has a growing FB audience to add to her list of accomplishments. One should not be surprised at this at all. Kudos to her for her success here and with her art career. She finds the time to work the business and be creative. proving it can be done

I'll close this unexpectedly long missive by saying I think besides talent and ambition, the thing that makes the difference is a good plan that works all the angles, including publicity, advertising, shows, galleries, online presence, blogs and so forth. Don't just hang out online and hope for the best. Plot out what you can do. Work on creating systematic approach that strikes a balance between those long term things that seem somewhat frivolous now but show signs of future potential and those urgent important things that can impact a career now will both pay dividends. The result will be to lower the angst over feeling like there is not enough time and allow you one to avoid feeling guilty by enjoying some fun with new and old friends on FB and elsewhere. When discipline, desire and details intersect with talent and ambition, success ensues. 

Making time for and making money online requires an ongoing effort. But, let's face it, there has never been an easy quick way to building a business as an artist or for any small business. Customers and collectors are won one at a time. If you can spare a little time getting the hang of how having a Facebook following can help you, I think it will be worth the effort in the long run. It offers global exposure and great potential to help you reach and influence the right people.

Art Marketing Today - Making Sense of the Bits

Artists are seekers. I've never known one that wasn't seeking something with his or her art. Once bitten by the potent urge to create and make something of the talent, it's hard, if not impossible, to put the quest down. Put it off for expediency and steady currency yes, but forget about it -- never.

Here are a collection of disparate bits (links) I found to be interesting and compelling on their own. And, I also find a common thread running through them. Let me see if I can thread the needle for you.

Meet the boss

We'll start with the boss. That would be the formidable Katherine Tyrrell, the unparalleled blogger of Making a Mark. I call her the boss because she has put together a authoritative world class series of artist information Squidoo lenses to go along with her widely read blog. How she finds time for it all and manages to paint marvels me. It rivals the likes of the creative informative output of Robert Genn with his famous Twice-weekly Letter.

Katherine's post today is about something on every artist's mind, or ought to be. That would be how can I learn more about and get better at selling art online? She has decided it is enough of a big subject itself she is breaking if from her information rich Art Business - Resources for Artist Squidoo Lens. She is calling for your help. If you know of other sites where artists can sell their work not listed on her Art Business lens, please forward them to her.

High-end art market tanking...duh!

Bloomberg News had this headline today: Art Market May Take 3-5 Years to Recover, Survey Company Says. Go figure. Who would have known? I surmise it woud be just about every lucid person on the planet. But, somebody paid to prove the obvious. The article was based on research by an outfit called Art Tactic, Ltd. Granted, the article is what is happening at the top-tier "art as investment" fine art auction scene. However, what happens at the top trickles down. That is, it's hard for lower priced work to take big leaps up when prices of the most highly valued pieces are being depressed. The lesson here is it is another reason to be figuring out how to sell your art online, or any where else where willing buyers can be found for that matter. Perhaps the message is to work in a style that suits your local area in a way that will help insulate you from the larger push down on art prices.

Would have Picasso sold giclees?

This brings us to an article published by artist Henry Bateman. He's made a living as an artist for a long time and is an astute observer of the market from both a personal perspective and from a more macro look over time and circumstances. He published this online article, Are Giclee Prints Collectible? In it, he makes the case that Picasso would have embraced the giclee medium. He concludes that those prints that are remarqued with a bit of "graffiti" as he calls on it are the ones that will be collectible. He could be right. Another way to look at it would be sequentially numbered, but open edition pieces, might see the lower numbers become more collectible than higher numbers.

What is just as interesting about this article is where he published it. That is, the Home Improvements Directory.com. A very good place to be promoting himself as a knowledgeable art insider who just happens to be an artist himself. Nice bit of self-promoting to a targeted audience. Kudos to Henry. He's thinking outside the box on how to up his visibility online and potentially with some of his best prospects.

How to hook new customers and great publcity

Joan Ambrose-Bibbo is a multi-talented artist with a unique story. One that begs for publicity that practically writes itself. Son of a gun if that isn't exactly what happened. She was recently covered in a hometown paper, The Mercury, which serves Pottsdown, PA and surrounding counties. The story is titled, Hooked on Art. It details her career as a graphic artist (A familiar tale about paying the bills.) 

Her real passion is making hooked rugs. With her artistic talents, she has come up with great designs and an in-demand product. So much so, she's turned to making giclee prints of the work and has a new source of revenue with the pieces selling in local galleries. She obviously has a look that ties in to the design themes and interests of her regional locale. Finding more and new ways to stretch your talent and reach a willing market is more crucial now than any previous time. There is lots to be learned here. Follow your passion, be creative about how to make your work, be unique and look for opportunities to let the media blow your horn with stellar priceless publicity.

Living your dream in the 2000s

Lastly, we'll look at Katie Davis. Like Henry Bateman, she has taken up pen to write articles online. This format gives her a boost in awareness while promoting a point of view and a subtle, but nonetheless obvious, agenda to help her sell her art. And, she has a great message for artists, or anyone else for that matter. In her article, How to Live Your Dream, she narrates navigating an interesting and changing career and life path that I'm sure many reading this can relate to in some fashion.

The path has taken her from starting out with a fine art degree and gravitating painting sets for movies and television. The tour takes her through creating greeting and notecards sold in local galleries. Where it gets interesting is how she has morphed that interest and talent into her own online e-card company at www.KatiesCards.com. The business allows her to unleash her creativity, learn new skills and enjoy a growing business where she works from home allowing her to be there for her kids. Nicely done Katie.

Seek and ye shall find

If you see a pattern of entrepreneurship, of not following the beaten path, of using the Internet in unique ways, then you have followed the thread. The artists mentioned here all are finding the time to do things to help themselves, to promote themselves, away from the easel. They have each embraced the Internet in their own way. Let them be an inspiration to you to try new things and to not convince yourself there is not enough time. If it's important, there is always time. Nurturing your career is as crucial as building your body of work and growing as an artist and as a seeker.

Phony Prosperity Plummets - Chinese Oil Painting Biz Hits the Skids

Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and bestselling author of Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America had an December 20 Op-Ed piece in the NY Times that caught my eye. In China to the Rescue? Not!", he discusses how China is not in a position to stimulate its domestic demand and thus help lift the rest of the world's economies out of their collective downward spiral. In a nutshell, it's not going to happen. 

Phony Prosperity Too Good To Be True

In the phony prosperity propped up in great part due to our partnership with China, where we bought ever cheaper stuff we thought we needed, but really didn't, while they bought our deepening debt, it worked until it didn't. That's where we are today. Now Chinese workers are feeling the same pinch as are those in U.S.

Chinese Oil Painting Suppliers Feeling Economic Pinch

To illustrate his point, Friedman used the example of how the art village of Dafen, the world’s leading center for mass-produced artwork and knockoffs of masterpieces — had been devastated by the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble. Apparently what used to be said about our neighbors to the North and South is now a global phenomenon. That is, when the U.S. sneezes, they would catch a cold.

Art Business Has Sex Appeal

Friedman could have picked from any of thousands of other industries where low cost Chinese manufacturing has knocked the pins from under them. It proves that although relatively small by comparison to giant businesses making furniture, machinery, etc., the art market is intriguing. It will good to remember on the days when you have second thought about painting for a living you are in a sexy intriguing business. The kind a well known columnist will showcase in an Op-Ed piece.

Sex appeal aside, you have to instinctively realize that this news from China is as much a cause for concern as it is an opportunity to look up the meaning of schadenfreude. So, take a moment to feel some glee for knowing your knockoff nemesis has hit a very rough patch. Then take a breath and realize there is little upside for you in their downfall. 

Holiday Sales Hit Retail Businesses Hard

The news today on retail sales is it is alarmingly abominable. The deepest discounts and desperate bundling techniques failed to shake dollars from consumers wallets. Considering that we are in a business providing a product that is to most a completely dispensable luxury, none of this is good news.  

There has been a slew of articles from business pundits, art and otherwise, offering untold guidance on how to survive the current downturn. It ranges from the practical to plain pollyanish. There seems to be so much that if one were to digest and act upon all of it they would soon find themselves enveloped in a paroxysm of paralysis induced by a potent combination of overexposure to bad news and bland advice. Undaunted, yours truly weighs in with observation and opinion.

Consumers Have Spoken - Make Sure You Are Listening

The consumers have spoken; they get it. They are scared and not buying things they don't need any longer. Keeping up with Joneses has given way to keeping up with the mortgage. This puts artists in a bad position, especially those who have not yet developed both a strong dealer and collector base.

Anyone who would seek to soothe you now offering advice laced with few bars of "Everything's gonna be alright," or "Don't worry, be happy" is be taken skeptically. While it's not time to get a gun and head to the hills, it's surely not time to be laying out grand plans for major expenditures either. Certainly, it's not a time to take lightly that economic conditions are eroded nearly beyond comprehension or to be persuaded a turnaround will be measured in months. Here is the unvarnished truth. It's going to take years to fix the problems we are dealing with now. And, that is if we don't take more unexpected shocks on the economic, war or terrorism fronts.

What Can You Do?

Watts Wacker, the brilliant futurist, a subject of a previous post here, who along with co-author Jim Taylor wrote the 1997 international bestseller, The 500 Year Delta: What Happens After What Comes Next . Here is part of a review of it from the InnovationWatch.com Web site:

The 500-Year Delta ultimately is about the shifts of perception needed to prosper in a future that is fundamentally, unrecognizably different. It is about surviving and thriving in an economy inhabited by two kinds of workers: owners and temps -- in a marketplace where customers must literally be bought, one at a time, and where mass merchandising utterly ceases to exist. It is a world, in short, where borders -- political, economic, and technological -- simply disappear.

Desire for Authentic Unique Goods On the Rise

Considering the book and review are a decade old, it is interesting how both now seem quite prescient in describing our current condition.  A point made in the book that to me is yet more poignant today, one that carries a lesson and offers a path for visual artists in this most difficult time is this: In an age where nearly everything is mass produced there will be a very strong yearning for products that are authentic. You may feel it yourself. Sites like Etsy, EBSQArt and The Artful Home and publications such as NEET Magazine all respond to this yearning. These are just a few of many serving the market as conduits between independent artists and consumers.

As a visual artist, you are in luck.

You have more control over what you produce and how. You have ways to easily stretch what you do and how you offer it. A recent segment on the Oprah program was titled Wallpaper Makes a Comeback. Hand-painted wallpaper is an example and inspiration of how you might stretch yourself and fill that need for an authentic one-of-a-kind product. Can you make wallpaper? Are their other ways to utilize your talent and training? I'm betting there are once you put your mind to what is possible.

You don't have to paint wallpaper to make authentic products. You don't have offer originals only either, although there is a movement for that notion with the painting-a-day phenomenon as one example. There are plenty of other ways to stretch yourself and find niches for your creativity.

Tap the Knowledge of Your Giclee Printer and Other Suppliers

Talk with your giclee printer, they see way more than you do. Ask what you can do to collaborate to use the technology to create reproductions of your original that are each unique in some demonstrable way. Consider everything including substrates, sizes, colors and graphic wraps, etc. Challenge yourself to think of what you can do. Test your theories about what you would never do. There are certain to be things among them that upon second review might just offer a new opportunity.

You Don't Have Make Your Own Canvas To Be Authentic

Authentic doesn't mean it has to be made from scratch. If you bake a pie with pumpkin filling you scrape from the pumpkin and use a store bought crust, is it enough to say made from scratch? Or would a purist say you had to grow the pumpkin, wheat and sugar cane to make it authentic? You already know the answer.

The point is consumers have become fickle and not inclined to buy stuff right now as the dismal Christmas retail season bears witness. What they are inclined to buy are things that offer meaning to them in their lives and that bear the mark of authenticity. Your challenge is to find ways to connect your images to your audience, to provide them with work that goes beyond decor. Work that resonates with them so they want to live with it in their home. That mission is really the same as it always has been. It's just today your focus needs to be more intense and in tune with your art buying public.

Slow Down, Produce Less, Make It Authentically Right, Charge More?

If might just be the time to make less, make what you make more pricey and more unique. Doing so could be an antidote to trying to mount a marketing scheme aimed at production run sales. In other words, just because the Chinese artists in Dafen are getting clobbered, it is still not a good time to attempt to go after their market share.

The Death of Blog Rush - Is It the Tip of the Iceberg? Why It Matters

The blog syndication network known as Blog Rush abruptly shut down a couple of days ago. There were as many as 50 readers who signed on to use them after reading about it here, or seeing the widget for it in the sidebar of this blog. If you are a Blog Rush publisher, you are advised to remove it as it is no longer serving the widget.

I liked the idea of Blog Rush because it was novel and appeared to be something that would be beneficial. Also, I liked it because it was the brain child of John Reese. who is a pretty savvy Internet marketer. He has made a fortune for himself and others, including enough to invest $400k of his own money in Blog Rush.

What has happened to Blog Rush, despite being a unique approach personally backed by a successful and experienced Internet marketer, is indicative of what can happen with nearly any Web 2.0 venture. Seeing Blog Rush collapse is a foretelling sign for some other Web 2.0 darlings. To wit, Rafe Needleman, editor of the Webware: Cool Web Apps for Everyone column for CNET News, ran a piece on October 10 titled, 11 troubled Web companies: The next Kozmos? Here is part of it:

"We are going to lose some good companies." That's the warning cry from investors in tech these days.

Some we won't miss, of course: the lame, me-too, or single-featured "products" masquerading as businesses. But be prepared. Some Web 2.0 start-ups that are well-loved by many are in serious danger of falling off the cliff.

The problem is that being loved is no guarantee for success. Even being used isn't enough. Remember Kozmo, the munchie messenger service from the last bubble? Not a person who used it didn't love it. In the interest of building a user base, the company was OK with losing money on every transaction in its early days. But when the time came for it to become a real business, it was too late. It couldn't transition to a viable company, and it folded. It was a tragedy.

Needleman's list includes companies that will be shocking to some, especially devoted users. It includes: Twitter, Skype, Pandora, Meebo, TripIt, Second Life, Zillow, Ask, Daily Motion, MySpace and NetVibes.Wow! Several of those are companies whose services I really like. I can't imagine losing MySpace, Zillow, Pandora or Skype. I'm sure many regular users of other names on the list will be just as chagrined and disbelieving as I am about my faves on it.

Why does this matter and how does it affect visual artists?

I often cover items of interest regarding Internet marketing here for a reason. I've repeatedly stated in this economic climate and with distribution methods continuing to evolve, it is imperative for visual artists to take control of their own distribution as much as possible. While I'm not advocating revolting from the gallery or publisher systems, I am saying success for visual artists today requires they take more responsibility for getting their work to market than any previous time. Not that it is hasn't always been crucial, just more so now.

Get the real moral of this story here

Obviously, the Internet and other technological advances are the main causes of disruption in changing and altering distribution channels. At the same time, these same forces also offer artists more choices and opportunities to be in charge of building their reputation and making direct sales. It is important to have an awareness that some services or companies you might use and take for granted or not as rock solid as you might think. As such, I will continue to report on progress surrounding Internet marketing and Web 2.0 and apropos Web 3.0 developments.

The real lesson is your business model has to be predicated upon being profitable. If you are sheepish about your pricing and not taking a fair markup on your work, it will come back to haunt you. Better to lose sales than to give it away. The well worn adage, "You can't lose money on every sale and make it up on volume", is as true for artists as it is for Blog Rush, MySpace orTwitter.

How to Sell Art Prints - a reader question answered

Occasionally, I get questions from readers that are good sources for blog posts. That is, they are general enough in context to help most who read this blog regularly. If you have specific questions, I also offer consulting in the form of hour sessions by phone or via email.

In either of these consulting cases, I urge you to first read my book because it may have the exact answer you need, or it will avoid you spending time in consulting on what you could have easily and more afford ably learned by reading it first. And, should we proceed from that point, you'll be better informed to ask better questions and get more from the experience.

I do have a day job and find it stimulating

Because I also work an 8-5 gig in the marketing department of a high tech firm to help with benefits and retirement income, (and because I like the diversity and the fun of working with a talented group of creative individuals.), I have limited availability for consulting, especially phone sessions. Accordingly, I don't actively market my consulting services. But, if it is important to you, I will find time for you.

Here is a great question posed to me via email:

My name is Kasie Sallee and I'm a young artist and mother. In the past year I've been focusing very seriously on my art with the hopes of building a career. I recently bought and read your book "How to Profit from the Art Print Market" and I truly want to thank you for writing it. The book is a treasure trove of information that I will be referring to over and over again.

In the past year I've begun a series of work, promoted my art through a blog, and very recently have set up a website. I have a question about the best path forward and was wondering if you had some advice.

My ultimate goal for the future is to license my work or to work with a publisher. My question is:

If this is my ultimate intention, will selling prints on my own, say through a site like Etsy, cause publishing companies to not want my work? I guess what I'm trying to say is will publishing companies want to work with images that I have already printed and sold?

Thank you so much for your time. I'm a long-time reader of your blog and I sincerely respect your advice.

Here is my reply

Dear Kasie:

Thanks for your kind words and question. You are on the right path in setting up a Web site and accompanying blog. They are both integral components of a solid marketing plan for an emerging artist. Both are works in progress and investments in your future. That is, neither are likely to immediately begin to return a substantial income right away. However, if both are properly maintained they will be invaluable components of your marketing efforts for years to come.

Your goal of licensing with a publisher is a good one. If you are thinking posters or open edition prints, you have to realize the income from such a situation is likely going to be minimal, especially at first. If you are thinking about giclees, your income could be more substantial as price points are far greater. 

As a way to broaden their lines, many poster publishers are now also offering POD print-on-demand reproductions. These are usually open edition and lower priced than limited edition publishers. Overall, it is a most challenging time for poster publishers with no real relief in sight. I think it will take more than time to revive the market.

Many poster publishers are also active in the third party licensing arena as represented by such tradeshows as Surtex and The Licensing Show. Surtex is where one would primarily find find companies seeking images for stationery, wallpaper, linens and so on. The Licensing Show tends to run to the animated and action figure images and less to fine art, but both can be important as sources of tertiary passive income for artists. The royalties are small and it can take a few years to make it worthwhile, but for artists with the right look, it can turn lucrative over time.

To be successful in getting a contract from publishers, you need to determine where your prints fit into the market, then determine which publishers are the best fit and most likely candidates for you to contact. It takes researching time, but it is just part of what you need to do to pursue appropriate publishing opportunities. Regardless of the outcome, the education will serve you well throughout your career. I think it was Yogi Berra who said, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." This is true of all of us. You have to make an informed conscious decision about what you want from your career and use it as a North Star to guide your underlying decisions.

To answer your questions about being on Etsy, or other online sites that can sell your work, I will say no, in general, it does not affect your ability to land a publishing deal. If anything, if you have some demonstrable success with online art sales, you will give most publishers more confidence they can move your images to their customers. That said, publishers are not going to accept you competing directly with them for the same images, if at all.

There are some high-end publishers you would expcect to look down their noses at artists doing business on Etsy, but if your research is effective, you would have ruled them out as unlikely candidates to approach anyway.

Some publishers will want an exclusive on the images they want to run. Others may want more exclusivity. You have to be aware of the quid pro quo to make a good deal for yourself. This means making negotiations with publishers. I recommend you read at least one book on negotiating, such as Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. A little studying now will help you to make better deals for yourself in every aspect of and all throughout your career.

A couple of caveats here. If you paint slowly, it could be a problem for you if you have to create a new line for a publisher who in most cases will expect to be fed a steady stream of images. The other is if in your researching, you find the publishers most desirable to you frown upon seeing your work online, you may need to reassess your online strategies and marketing efforts.

The best situation for artists working with publishers would be the publishers immediately finding a bevy of repeat buyers for your line. The more likely scenario is you have to grow into your role with a publisher learning along the way what its needs are and what its buyers needs are. Conversely, a good publisher will seek to understand how to best work with you.

I would hope you get a publisher that will allow you to publish your own work. In some cases, artists use a Nom de Brusse (alias) to avoid having a conflict with their publisher. There is no hard fast rule regarding any of these situations. You must keep in mind you need to do what is best for you. You have to know whatever you are going to invest your time, talent and energy into that you stand a decent chance of getting a reasonable return for your investment.

With that in mind, do what you can to further your career, to sell more work regardless of the source. In the end, it's up to you to make it work. Having a great publisher to help you get started is wonderful advantage and great learning experience. As with many, if not most, things in life it is not where you start, it is where you end up. That is, did you fulfill your dreams and talent potential? Making the right choices for yourself is a key to your future success and your own self-satsifaction.

You see examples of this all the time. The music industry is easier to relate with this concept because much of what happens is on a national or international scale. Think about song choices and how that affects an artist. No matter how talented, ultimate success requires making good choices for content, style and ability. It's the same with visual artists even if it is harder to judge how things are going for visual artists. They don't have the equivalent of Billboard Top 100 list to let us know who is moving up the charts and who is just treading water. Nevertheless, if you consistently find some artists tapping the zeitgeist and getting great results with a steady stream of print sales over the years, you can be certain they have not only an eye for art, but an instinct for what their buyers will want to own and display in their homes and businesses.

I hope these thoughts help others as well as you Kasie!  All the best to you,

Cheers,

Barney

Reality Check: StumbleUpon Doesn't Work - Website Magazine

There is an ongoing thread on the Wet Canvas Internet Strategies discussion board titled, Anyone Using Stumbleupon. Begun more than a year ago, it has recently come back to being active with new comments. The range of experience is interesting to note as it has its supporters and naysayers. I have to say the studious infomation on the link below from Website Magazine would cool my ardor, assuming I had any to begin with, towards spending time to generate traffic from Stumbleupon.

Reality Check: StumbleUpon Doesn't Work - Website Magazine - Website Magazine

Posted using ShareThis

Right in-sync PC World magazine publishes this article Hands-On with the Worthless New StumbleUpon Design

There is no question that certain social media platforms can be helpful. I've suggested here before Facebook is a leading candidate. Right now, there are too many companies looking for a share of your interest and traffic. Until that gets settled, it will remain difficult to determine where to spend your limited time and energy on such projects.

As an interesting aside, I used the "Share This" feature at the end of the article on Website Magazine to make the blog post here about Stumbleupon. All I had to do was enter my username and password and the software did the rest. I'm editing it by adding additional thougthts, but really like the idea that I can conveniently repost valuable information with just a few keystrokes. That's a neat Web 2.0 development I can brag about.

Indie Art Intersection

By virtue of reading this blog, you are likely part of or interested in the Indie Art movement. Indie Art primarily encompasses visual arts, music, films, fashion, design and crafts. It is an exciting time to be an independent artist.

Your Choices Drive Your Results

If you choose to, you could let all the economic troubles and related bad news we are faced with daily and the ongoing deconstruction of traditional art marketing venues get you down. Or, you could rejoice in being living in what perhaps is the most exciting time ever for independent artists. Your outlook and opinion are sure to shape your results. I don't believe you can wish your way to success, but I know for certain you can't create success unless you believe you can.

You have more options than artists from previous eras

You may not be able to change macro conditions rocking our world with climate, political and economic turmoil, but you can choose how you react to them and decide to use what is available to you to help you fashion your own success. The reality is you may have to adjust your thinking about what you are creating, or how it is produced or consumed to achieve success. But, that same reality gives you more options to get your work to market than artists in any previous era.

What is interesting now is as an artist, you have more opportunities to make your career happen. In the past, if you weren't working for "The Man", you weren't working. While that statement is not completely accurate, it is not totally off the mark either. What it means is that whether you were independent or with a publisher, you had to pass through a limited number of portals to get your work to market. Today those portals have erupted into an abundance of opportunities. The combined effect of the rise of the Internet, the development of print-on-demand technology coupled with a growing interest from consumers for authenticity and uniqueness in their purchases, gives you a means to market yourself in ways previous generations could not even conceive of, much less act upon.

On-line sites and social networking communities create new opportunities

Web sites such as EBSQ Art, Etsy, (which landed $27 million in funding in January 2008), ImageKind and Indie Public are just a few examples of how visual artists are using online venues to get their work to eager customers. Lightning Source International, my POD book printer, has made it possible for authors to get their books online everywhere. The independent music distributor CD Baby has to date sold more than 4.4 million CDs for nearly 250,000 independent recording artists paying them more than $79 million dollars. The SXSW Music, Film and Interactive Media Festival has become one the most important outlets for musicians, film makers and artists to get exposure for their new work. Something like 700 bands played there this year. The interactive media portion continues to grow in importance and stature.

Resources to help you figure out what will work best for you are out there

The sites listed above are not intended to be exhaustive. You will need to do more research to find others suitable for your work and marketing. And just as the Internet makes looking for unique art possible for consumers, it gives you plenty of sources to find places to suit your marketing.

Granted, it can be challenging to figure out which outlets are right for you to invest time and money. However, there has never been a time when it wasn't challenging to learn how to best allocate limited funds for marketing. At least now there are viable alternatives to exclusively working the traditional artist-gallery connection. A valuable source of independent research and advice on which sites are potentially best for you is Empty Easel. Its regularly updated features about online marketing sites are full of vauable information. Retail galleries remain an important distribution channel for artists. But, for most artists in today's evolving climate, galleries cannot be relied upon as the sole source of revenue as in the past.

Artists must be involved in making distribution channel choices

At one point not long ago, it would have been career suicide for artists to compete with galleries. In today's market, it may be career suicide not to. That is not to say artists should attempt to distribute the same prints they have in the gallery market through their own distribution channels. That would be ill-advised bad form. You have to use common sense and decency in making decisions about how your work will be distributed and where. If you act with integrity and ethically, no one can accuse you of doing them wrong. The litmus test of whether you would be happy if on the other side of the question can help steer your choices.

Make your choices and set your sights

• What do you want your career to look like?
• What kind of art do you want to make?
• What art can you happily make that will make you the most money?
• What are the best ways to get your art to market?

Once you are able to satisfactorily answer questions like these, you can begin to use them to formulate a marketing plan based on your available resources. I'll see you at the top!

Five Ways to Market Your Art Direct

We pause this blog for a little shameless self-promotion.

An artist friend who I met after he read my book, which resulted in a series of consulting sessions over the past two years, has decided to take up the offer from a publisher to join his ranks. He had long held the notion that with his considerable business expertise and decent financing he would self-publish his work. He had begun to do that and also to shop giclees of his work to galleries in his local area. Additionally, he also managed to get some of his giclees put in the gift shop of a prestigious venue in his area.

I'm being slightly cryptic here because the ink is not dry on the contract and he has what I consider a terrific idea for an approach to working a niche. If all goes well, he will have a coming out party at the upcoming 30th Annual ArtExpo New York show at the end of this month. When I can share more details,I will be happy to do so.

My friend has recently been re-reading my book, How to Profit from the Art Print Market. It was interesting for both of us to observe what he was going through with the development of his print career. In many ways, his circumstances were exactly as I described in the book. This was down to my mention of having a marketing maven full-time to help grow the business as a key component of self-publishing success for many, if not most artists. His wife is a gifted driven very successful designer in the home furnishings field. Their company has for more than a decade supplied household name brands with licensed designs of all sorts. While she would be perfect in this role, she does not have the time to put her career on hold to help his. Nor would it make financial sense for her to do so.

Left to his own devices, this artist began to realize the difficulties for an unknown artist to be both marketing maven and full-time artist. Plus, he still puts in time at the design business as needed. The bottom line is the uphill battle was starting to look overwhelming given the plausible vision he has for his art and career. As the luck most often found in the residue of hard work would have it, a contact in one of the galleries led him to perhaps the most ideal publisher for his genre and his circumstances. I'm quite happy for him things are going to work out.

What he found was in reading and re-reading my book was two years after his first reading, the basic advice from what to do, what might happen, what the commission structure offered would be and many other things were still spot on and valuable to him in his decisions and dealings with his new potential publisher. It was heartwarming validation for me the underlying advice continued to hold water even though the business continues to undergo substantial, if not monumental, upheaval and change.

More Signs of Change for the Art Print Market

The state and health of the trade magazines and tradeshows that serve the industry are as much a harbinger of how things are working out as any. In October 2006, I put 20 years of tradeshow experience on the line and predicted the Decor Expo Baltimore show would be a bust. That was harsh given the inaugural show was still six months away in April 2007. While I have no official word, I notice the February issue of Art Business News has omitted the 2008 Baltimore show from its Calendar. Not a good sign things are working out. Further, the Web site for the show has no exhibitor list. Since this is a primary tool for enlisting more exhibitors, one can only conclude the show is being quietly mothballed, or in serious trouble. I'm left wondering if another prediction of a sale for the Art and Framing Group by current owner, Summit Business Media LLC, can be far off.

ArtExpo Booth Sales Appear to Be Well Off Previous Year Figures

Meanwhile, the aforementioned 30th Annual ArtExpo New York show appears to also be struggling to bring in the same number of exhibitors as last year. A check today shows 374 companies listed as exhibitors. The list has been updated regularly over the past month with more than 100 exhibitors added to it. Nevertheless, it remains well behind the 600 exhibitors published by the show producer last month. The trade magazines that serve the business also are showing a decline in ad pages. These are pretty good indicators it's rough patch for the art print market these days. The cover story of the ABN issue was on the state of the art economy interviewing some veteran players in the market. While most found some ways to put a bit of positive spin on their outlook, none was overly optimistic.

Five Ways to Market Your Art Direct

It's a good time to review what you are trying to achieve from a business perspective for your career. I'm not talking about a year end review and goals for the coming months. I'm thinking more about what you want for your career financially and awareness. It could be like that of my friend who seeks to find an audience and appreciation for his work and to get the work to market in a way he could profit from the effort. Besides reaching a vastly larger audience, the appeal of the print market for most successful artists who embrace it is it provides them a way to generate repeat cash flow from the effort in creating an original.

I have said it before, but believe it bears repeating. Artists ought to be developing their own direct revenue streams with collectors. Easy to say, harder to do. But when you consider the traditional means are not nearly as robust as before, it provides extra impetus. Here are some ideas for how that might work:

1. Alternative spaces, such as coffee shops, restaurants, building lobbies and waiting rooms. There is a skin care salon located here in tony Paradise Valley that also offers art from local artists. The patrons are a perfect demographic for art. And, they are spending leisure time in the salon on a repeat basis. It works for the artists and the salon owner on multiple levels.

2. Create your own shows. You don't have to have a gallery to do this for you. Decide you are going to do it and follow though. You can create a show in a public space; perhaps a local community college, a church, a rented hotel room. Build some excitement around the uniqueness of the show with publicity or charitable components. Plan far enough in advance to get a good date not competitive with other activities. Enlist your family and friends to help you generate word-of-mouth.

3. Web sites and blogs. Are you selling direct from either? If not, why? Of course, you don't want to compete with any established galleries with an online site or physical location. Why not have exclusives for the galleries that are promoted on your Web site or blog along with exclusive images available only through you? eBay just announced it has new pricing. Apparently, the past year has been difficult with sellers abandoning the once juggernaut for other venues. It might be worth revisiting it for another shot in 2008.

4. Work with other artists. Get other visual artists, or musicians or poets to create a happening. Find ways to collaborate on art and promotion. The group dynamic could be very dynamic and stimulating. You can use something like Meetup that offers tremendous potential to the person with energy and a good idea and a dash of promotional verve.

5. Get in catalogs. The Guild, which is one of my most favorite for indie artists, offers a tremendous platform for sales and visibility for artists through its Artful Home catalog and Guild Sourcebook. It is by far not the only one, but if you are interested, you can act now to submit to its annual juried entry submission process. The competition runs through February 29 and is administered by Juried Art Services, which you should check out for all its offerings. A catalog or sourcebook such as this is one degree of separation, but you ship directly and you get promoted and create a relationship with your customers.

Bottom line is now more than ever, you have to think and act for yourself. The more you take your situation under your own control, the better off you will be. I'm sure there are plenty of other great ideas. If you have any and want to share, the comments section below beckons.

---

Enter your Email


Preview | Powered by FeedBlitz

Visual Art Marketing Tool, the Vlog

Unless you are a first time blog reader, or a new reader of this blog, you know the idea of blogging as an effective marketing tool for artists has been pounded, expounded and nearly ground to death. That's not to say give up on the idea, au contraire, if you haven't yet started blogging get with it post haste.

For those of you who want something more, who can visualize that YouTube is a force to be reckoned with and harnessed, there is video blogging, or vlogging, as it is known. I like the idea myself quite a bit, but haven't conjured how to make it work for this blog. Perhaps that day will come later this year.

Here are a couple of contemporary artists who are effectively vlogging. One is Natasha Wescoat. She is a natural in that there is not much she hasn't done or touched in the electronic media world to help further her career. If you have followed her career and realize she has achieved her success by dint of talent and perseverance on a budget and with other constraints that would have stymied most, it's that much more impressive. An early pioneer in selling art in volume on eBay, she's gone on to continue to develop an avid fan base via the Internet and the tools that come with it, including using vlogging. She has a wide range of video offerings. Here is a sample from her Natasha Wescoat's ArtCandy Web site:

Another artist effectively vlogging is Valentina on her Val's Art Diary site. She sells prints on eBay and DeviantArt as well as her prints. She also has a weekly drawing for a free prize using a clever dart throw selection. Watch the whole video to see how she does it. She uses the videos to give her viewers insight into her as a person and her thoughts about the paintings she creates. Viewer comments for her and Natasha substantiate it's working for both of them. Here is one of Val's weekly vlogs:

These are just two artists exploring how using vlogs can make their art much more accessible and real to their collectors. It's a brave new world out there. Whatever you do, don't forget Val's weekly admonition to eat your cookie. Explore her site and she'll generously show you in another video the tricks she used to make her trademark silhouette "Eat Your Cookie" video.

With the advent of blog and now vlogs, collectors can get to know the artists whose work they admire. Instead of reading the bio sheet and a couple of press clippings, they can get to see the artist, watch work created in time lapse videos and hear in the artist's own words what the the motivation is and what the meaning is behind their imagery. More and more people are spending time on sites like YouTube in lieu of watching reality TV shows. With the interminable Writers Guild strike, who knows how many more devotees the likes of Natasha and Val will be developed.