You win, I lose!

As creative artists we have been trained to see things in a particular way which is if you win, then I lose.

We either get the publishing or recording contract or we get rejected.

We either get the gallery show or it goes to some other artist

We either get the sale, or we don’t

In this type of world, it’s fairly easy to see who are the winners and losers of this game.  Everyone is in competition with everyone else.  Everyone else’s win becomes our loss.  If they succeed, then we fail.

We watch as all of these other artists on Twitter and Facebook announce their latest gallery showing, sale, or publication and sometimes we can’t help but cringe inwardly because we know it means that it is yet another opportunity we have lost.

We can’t help but keep score in our head, and eventually we begin to measure our self-worth as an artist by it.

We’re afraid…

We’re afraid that these other artists are not only going to steal our ideas, but ultimately our paying customers as well

I’m certainly not going to sit here and pretend that I’m immune to these petty feelings of jealousy.  Those of you who have been hanging around these parts long enough know that I wrote an entire post about artist envy and beating the green-eyed bastard that certainly doesn’t paint me in the prettiest light.  I’ve also written frequently about the futile quest to keep the content scrapers and ne’er-do-wells from stealing your creative work online.

In fact, if one was foolish enough to actually go back and search through the Skinny archives, I would bet there are probably a half a dozen posts that deal directly with my own sense of professional inadequacy and fear of competition (and those are just the ones I’ve published!)

The more time that I spend online, however, the more I am beginning to realize that perhaps I have been looking at this from the wrong perspective.

There is no spoon.

Perhaps we have simply been asking the wrong questions.

Those of you who watch metaphorical and somewhat shlocky science fiction films may remember the film “The Matrix” that was released in 1999.  In the movie, the main character is forced to see the world around him from an entirely new perspective.  At one point in the movie the main character Neo is trying to bend a spoon with the power of his mind.

Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead… only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you’ll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

In other words it all comes down to changing your perspective and the way you see things. The world doesn’t change just because we want it to bend to our will.  The world changes when we are able to alter our perception of it.

It’s a leap of faith.

There is no spoon and ultimately there are no other competitors for your creative work

The idea of you competing with another artist is simply a flawed way of looking at things.

The online art world is not a zero-sum game where if someone else wins, you lose.

There is a matrix or web of connections that runs through every online community.  Simply by being online we have joined this massive community and have become connected in some way to one another.  Every day we can choose to either strengthen these connections or weaken them.  We can build those relationships, or we can neglect them.  We can embrace them or we can fear them.

For example, if we introduce Artist A to Buyer B and Buyer B ends up purchasing Artist A’s work, then both of them are happy because they each got what they wanted.   I know what you’re thinking, well that’s great for them, but what about me?  I’m the one who introduced them and I’m the only one who didn’t benefit from the deal, shouldn’t I at least get finders fee or something?

Here’s where it gets interesting, though.  Remember you are the one who introduced Artist A to Buyer B, so chances are Artist A likes you at this point and Buyer B is going to think that you are well connected and have your fingers on the pulse of the arts community.  In other words, both of them are likely to become your personal ambassadors and start telling everyone just how awesome you are.  So maybe you didn’t get the sale, but you got something potentially even more valuable, which is their friendship and respect.

You can bet the next time Artist A talks with someone who is looking for a piece of art, a certain song, or a manuscript that matches your particular writing style — your name will probably be at the top of the list.  The same holds true for Buyer B as well……

This is the power of making connections and building relationships that have nothing to do with making your next sale.  It’s all about offering something of value to someone else, whether it is a referral, praise for their latest work, or simply a word of encouragement. There’s nothing calculated or mechanical about this — it’s simply what friends do for one another.

In other words, there are no other artists, there are only friends

Once you recognize this, you will discover that it is not everyone else who has changed, it is only yourself.

Welcome to the real world…..

Here are some other articles you might enjoy:

1. How to Create (and destroy) your Reputation Online as an Artist!
2. Parting with your Art
3. Introducing Skinny WordPress!

Copyright is Not the Problem, You Are!

by: Cory Huff

Pinterest is upon us!

For some reason, the Internet decided to throw a giant fit over copyright over the last few weeks. It started (sort’ve) with this interesting blog post by a lawyer who tearfully deleted her Pinterest inspiration boards. Her post spread like wildfire, got picked up by a whole bunch of major blogs, and even garnered a personal response from the founder of Pinterest. Of course, her post isn’t the only one. There have been hundreds of articles written about Pinterest’s copyright issues.

Here’s the thing – this issue is not new. Pinterest is just the latest round of copyright and privacy issues on the Internet. The same thing has happened with Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, various blogs, and other online media. Remember burning CDs? My favorite example, however…

The Music Industry

In 1999, Napster rocked the music world by becoming the first highly successful file sharing site. Millions of people began using Napster to share files, and some of them were using Napster to illegally swap music. The music industry leaders freaked out and spent millions of dollars going after individuals who downloaded music, making examaples out of them. This led to countless ridiculous stories about children and elderly women being imprisoned and slapped with terrifyingly high fines.

This did nothing to curb the decline of the music industry. People continued to download music and share files with each other. The music industry spent millions more lobbying and got the Digital Millenium Copyright Act passed. Suddenly small websites were getting nailed for doing innocuous things like linking to another website that was illegally hosting a copy written song. It’s still going on, and it’s a legal nightmare.

In the mean while, along comes Steve Jobs and Apple. This next part is really important, so pay attention. It’s detailed in Jobs’ biography, and it’s just fascinating. While the music industry was busy arguing about who was at fault for declining revenues, and suing everyone, Apple invented iTunes and stole everyone’s lunch money. They found a way to get people to pay for what they had been doing illegally. While the music labels said it couldn’t be done, Apple went out and did it. They were looking for a solution, not a problem.

Copyright Will Not Make Your Career

Here’s the part where I explain why I’m talking about the music industry. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, the art world is in a very similar place to where the music industry was back in 1999.

People are sharing images online – without your permission. It’s happening, whether you like it or not. Sure, it would be great if you could stop anyone who tries from profiting off of your work – but that’s not my point here.

There are some artists who don’t even worry about copyright. Check out painter Gwenn Seemel’s take on art careers without copyright law.

Sharing is What Makes the Internet Work

The Web gave people the ability to share images easily. That’s why there are thousands of image sharing sites like Flickr and SmugMug. People want to share images that excite and motivate them. Sharing is how the internet works. We link to things that we find interesting. We talk about it on Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. Personally, it’s one of the best things about the Web.

If I can find a piece of art that I like, I don’t just bookmark it. I want to subscribe to their blog, follow them on Twitter, and tell everyone else about their work. If the artist is smart, they’ve added some sharing buttons to each of their individual pieces. This is how people build buzz about what they do. It’s how the Internet has changed things.

Where’s the Disruption?

You can protect your work if it’s that important. Add a watermark to your images. Reduce the resolution to 75 dpi. But don’t disable right clicks. That’s just annoying (and you can just take a screenshot anyway).

There are several companies that are doing very innovative things with art on the Internet. Art.sy is interesting. ArtSumo is surfacing art from obscure places. Artsicle lets you try art in your home before you buy it.

Technology is not the only way to disrupt a market. You can change the way that you sell art. One of the early bands to recognize the change in the way that that the music business was heading is Radiohead. They began offering their music as a pay what you will download from their own website. They did an end run around their music label and it worked.

What will you do? Can you start selling directly to collectors? Will you find an innovative way to offer prints? Build your own social networks built around your art?

I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments.

Cory Huff runs TheAbundantArtist.com, where he teaches artists how to sell art online and dispel the myth of the starving artist.

Image courtesy of Horia Varlan

Here are some other articles you might enjoy:

1. What the #$@% is a Creative Commons License? [Video]
2. Stop stealing my sh*t!
3. Introducing Skinny WordPress!

Why Skinny WordPress?

Thanks again and I hope that you enjoy the new site!

Visit Skinny WordPress at: http://SkinnyWP.com

Here are some other articles you might enjoy:

1. Parting with your Art
2. The Muppets Guide to World Domination
3. Stop stealing my sh*t!

The Muppets guide to life and personality development

I distinctly remember watching the old Muppet Show growing up and thinking that the vast majority of these muppets characters were completely insane.

For those of you who may not remember the show, it consisted mostly of slapstick chaos and really bad jokes.  Kermit the frog would come out and try to organize a variety show of sorts and invariably things would quickly fall apart.  Of course I had no idea at the time how much this would later become an overarching metaphor for my life, but I do remember wondering — Why does he do it?  Why does this poor little frog continue to try to put this show together week after week when he has to know that things are going to fall apart?

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s not easy being green . . .

Now even as a seven-year old watching this comedic chaos week after week, I found myself becoming far more annoyed than amused.  I just didn’t understand why all of these other muppets characters couldn’t get their act together and do what they were supposed to do. And although my knowledge of labor negotiations were rudimentary at best, I often wondered why Kermit didn’t just fire the entire lot of them and find some more agreeable replacement muppets who would do as they were told.

It wasn’t until years later when I began watching reruns of the show with my own kids that I realized how incredibly boring the show would have been if everyone had gotten along and played by the rules. If reality television has taught us anything, it’s that conflict makes compelling programming.  It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the misguided cast of Jersey Shore or a bunch of miscreant muppets, in the end, it’s the chaos and drama that create “must-see” TV.

So what does any of this have to do with my promise of world domination?

Any one of these muppets characters would have failed miserably on their own.  I mean think about it for a moment. . .

First of all you have Kermit the frog, who is very nice, but is also a bit of a doormat for all of the other characters.  While we may initially be attracted to him for his kind and generous nature, we are also a little appalled that he can’t get his little ping-pong ball eyes to see the grim reality of the situation around him.

You have the femme fatale Ms. Piggy who is constantly demanding the spotlight like some kind of porkchop diva who is never satisfied.

You have the always-on Fozie Bear who is endless array of bad jokes reminds you of that annoying uncle who you had to eventually ban from your family get togethers.

You have the “Animal” character who not only is unable to speak intelligibly, but has apparently just escaped from the local mental asylum as well.

You have Gonzo the lovable blue wackadoo who is always coming up with some crazy new idea and then finding a way to make a mess of things time and time again.

Not to mention the dozens of other muppets characters who all seem to possess their own unique set of social and psychological issues.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. . . (I think)

My point is that individually, the personality of every one of these muppets characters is severely flawed and quite irritating, but together they combine all of the traits we will need in order to succeed as creative artists online. They are essentially little furry Jungian archetypes that are a part of each one of us.

Perhaps each of them has their own karmic lesson to teach us.

From Kermit the frog we can learn the need to be a connector and look for ways to bring our fellow artists together.  We might also learn the importance of humbleness and understanding that when we are online, we are a part of something much larger than ourselves.

From Fozie Bear, we can learn the importance of keeping a sense of humor and not taking our work or our life too seriously.  We might also learn not to judge ourselves or our self-worth by the opinions of others.

From Ms. Piggy we can learn the value of publicity and self-promotion. If an artist paints something beautiful in a forest but there’s no one around to see it, then what in the hell is she doing painting in a forest by herself anyway?! That just doesn’t seem very safe. . .  Anyway, my point is that you can be an extraordinary artist, but if no one knows who you are, than you’re probably not going to sell much of your work. You need to get out there and talk about yourself and your creative work.  Now having said that, a little self-promotion goes along way. 

From Animal we can learn the value of having a true passion for what you do. We learn that sometimes a little bit of “crazy” is exactly what we need.  We also learn that more often than not, it takes a lot of determination and sheer persistence to get to where you want to be.

From Gonzo we can learn the value of taking chances and risking failure with our art.  We begin to understand that most of what we try may not work out the way we initially expected.  We need to stop worrying about the results and begin to focus more on the creative process itself.

And finally from Lady Gaga and others, we learn that Muppets do not make good wardrobe choices after all. . .

So what exactly are we supposed to take away from all of this?

In order to succeed online as a creative artist, you’re going to have to find a way to combine the passion and determination of Animal with Gonzo’s willingness to take risks and think outside the box.  You’ll need to find a balance between Kermit’s ability to connect and lift others up, with Ms. Piggy’s ability to attract attention to herself and get her message out to the world.  You will also need to maintain your Fozie bear sense of humor along the way and not take yourself or your work too seriously.

In other words, it’s not about doing one particular thing.  It’s not about having to get on Twitter, setup your Facebook fan page, update your Flickr account, or start one more @#$%! website.  It’s about being able to find a balance.

People who only show one side of their personality eventually become comic caricatures of themselves because they are unable or unwilling to open up and show their friends, fans, and potential future customers who they really are as both a person and as an artist.

In the end you don’t have to be a selfless doormat. You don’t have to be the life of the party. You don’t  have to constantly be in the spotlight.  And you don’t always have to take chances that scare the crap out of you . . .

But sometimes you will.

Tell us what you think!

Who is your favorite Muppets character?

Which Muppets character/trait do you generally identify with the most?

Which one of these character traits do you think that you may still need to work on?

Here are some other articles you might enjoy:

1. Parting with your Art
2. How to Create (and destroy) your Reputation Online as an Artist!

It all seemed so simple in the beginning…

These days it seems as if everyone is telling you that you need to find a way to “engage” your fans in social media (whatever that means) if you are to have any hope of surviving as an artist/writer/musician in the 21st century.

So you sign up for Twitter and Facebook and start talking about your latest project or what you had for lunch that day because you don’t know what else to say to all of these people that you’ve never met before.  Suddenly feeling like the friendless fool, you desperately try to find whatever Facebook friends and Twitter followers you can by blindly following back every social media expert and “branding” guru who tracks you down with their insidious little spam machines.  Meanwhile all of the people you are actually hoping to attract, like other artists and future paying customers (gasp!), somehow continue to elude you.

But then it’s still not enough…

Then just when you start to feel more comfortable sending out tweets and status updates, you’re told that it’s no longer enough.  You also need to be on Tumblr, DeviantArt, Posterous, and Flickr if you’re going to have any hope of building your online reputation as an artist.  So before long you have six different social media accounts that you now need to manage and update regularly, and what started out as a fun way to connect with other artists, has suddenly become a part-time job.

Not only that, but then you have annoying people like myself telling you that you still have more work to do.  You also need to have a website as your “virtual home” where you can control and pull all of these other social media profiles together in one place.  Oh, and while you’re at it, why don’t you go ahead and create a witty and informative blog to keep all of your readers (yes, both of them) up to date on what is happening in your professional life.

So now you not only having to constantly update your Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Posterous, and Tumblr accounts, but you also have to design and update this #$%@! website/blog, which according to your traffic stats only about 19 people are visiting anyway.

So here’s the big question (finally)….

Is any of this social media gooblygook really doing anything to build your creative business or is all of this simply sucking up more of your time that you could be spending, you know, actually creating something?

I generally hate to throw around corporate buzzwords, but have you ever stopped to think about what your ROI (return on investment) might be for all the time you are currently spending “networking” on these social media sites?  And even if you could, how would you go about measuring something like that?

I was wondering about this stuff myself, so recently on our own humble little Facebook page (I know ironic, right?) I asked what you’ve been getting out of using Facebook and Twitter, and whether or not it was really worth all of the time and effort involved?

Here’s what some of you had to say….

Rachel Troutman I haven’t had any luck with Facebook really but I’m probably not using it right but I really like Twitter and it’s been beneficial for me to meet other artists and feel like I’m part of a creative community.

Kat Monaghan I use Facebook & Flickr as webpages/gallery. Twitter seems better to make new connections, meet new people/artists, check trends/events

Peter Hobden So far Facebook has been more of a sounding board and networking with other artists kind of thing. I can’t attribute any sales to Facebook. Though I did once sell same small paintings to a Twitter contact.

Catherine Vibert I did sell a painting via Facebook and I’ve sold a few prints and cards here. It hasn’t been substantial however. I’ve sold nothing via twitter, but I’ve very much enjoyed the contacts I’ve made there. A nice community. The best part about the Facebook artist page is that it is a very easy way to display work and get instant feedback.

Gillian McMurray I have met some lovely people via Facebook and exposed my work to more folk but it hasn’t done my sales any good and I do waste a lot of time on it when I should be working. I haven’t taken to Twitter at all though. My life just isn’t exciting enough to give people a blow by blow account of my working practices or what I’m thinking – LOL.

Brett Winn Art Like any marketing tool, especially new, it takes time to find that niche. I’ve had success on facebook, however I would not put all my eggs in this one basket. For me, it’s a good tool to direct potential customers to my sales sites and to meet artists, be inspired and stay motivated. Skinny Artist thanks for posting this article and starting this conversation. Posts like this are another reason for artists to use visit Facebook.

Tracey Fletcher King I think Facebook is all about a sense of community, and being able to connect even when you are in your studio. I have had really supportive friendships grow out of fb contacts and that is a rare and precious thing in its own right.

Tracy Wall Just another way to diversify; spread the word, baby!

www.trevorjonesart.com I think using any social media tool effectively is about finding balance and, most importantly, about using it to add to one’s credibility as an artist. Although I use them to help drive traffic to my website, I don’t use any of them to sell my work directly and additionally, I think that they can very easily have a negative impact on one’s professional image.

The artist has to ask, “Who is my market and can FB (or any other social media tool) be used in anyway to positively affect this market?” Although I don’t see social media as a tool for selling it can, if used effectively, help inform the decision making process of a potential buyer as well as help previous buyers keep up on what I’m doing… and, importantly, to help them spread the word to their friends.

Nevertheless, as mentioned above a couple times, FB or any social media tool for that matter can dangerously take up too much of one’s time. This not only becomes a detriment to ones progression and development of artistic ideas and skills, it can easily begin to affect one’s professional image. If a previous buyer of my work sees nothing but loads of irrelevant dross on my page or in my tweets what are they going to think about me as a professional artist? Are they going to think that buying my work was an (emotional or economic) investment or was it a waste of their time?

Also, how are gallery owners who tune into my online chat going to view me, my artwork and my “brand”? If I use social media tools effectively, smart gallery owners will see the benefits of this ie. it makes their job easier by expanding their market of potential buyers and thereby getting more people through their doors or onto their website when my work is on display. But if I’m using it in a way that detracts from my professional image then a gallery owner will very likely want nothing to do with me. It’s the same as businesses investigating potential employees through social media networks to find out what kind of person they are. So many people have so much online access to so much of our lives now that we have to be very careful how we portray ourselves through social media channels.

Here are some other articles you might enjoy:

1. Follow me Dammit!
2. There’s no place like home

(and why should I care)

Click here to view the embedded video.

“Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors than piracy”

~ Tim O’Reilly

.

Creative Commons Reference PDF:

Creative Commons License Reference Sheet ..(right click and “Save File. .” or “Download Linked File”)

Creative Commons License Links:

http://creativecommons.org

http://creativecommons.org/choose

https://creativecommons.org/about/downloads

http://creativecommons.org/licenses

http://wiki.creativecommons.org

http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons

Creative Commons Controversy:

What happens when Creative Commons Licensing goes too far?

Creative Commons and Copyright Protection in the Digital Era

Now it’s your turn. . .

Tell us what you think!

Here are some other articles you might enjoy:

1. Stop stealing my sh*t!

If you love something you have to set it free (right?)

Question: When you sell a piece of your art/writing/music, do you feel. . .

(a) Elated — Yay! Let’s go grocery shopping

(b) A little sad to see it go, but that’s part of being a professional artist isn’t it?

(c) Racked with guilt and regret and then finding yourself frantically trying to recreate a copy of it for yourself!

The irony here is that we spend all this time trying to make a living from our art only to discover that we’ve become emotionally attached to our work and can’t let it go.

This is the working artist’s paradox that Christine Terpening brought up a little while ago on our Facebook page.  In the post, she was asking other artists how they deal with selling a piece of art after they have developed an emotional attachment to it.

One of these Artists aren’t like the others. . .

What I found most interesting from this discussion, however, was not how artists become attached to their work, but how this sense of loss and regret seemed to affect certain types of artists more than others.

I would have to think that this partly has to do with the physical interaction visual artists (painters, illustrators, potters, sculptors) have with their work.  By physically manipulating the clay and the paint day after day, I can understand how a visual artist could become more emotionally attached to the final piece.

Writers, musicians, and even photographers who work increasingly in the digital realm–just don’t seem to have this same level of physical interaction with their work. Our composition happens primarily in our mind (which we get to keep ) and our work is then manipulated electronically into it’s final form.  This is partly why a copy of our book, song, or photograph means almost as much to us as the “original”.   Unlike a visual artist, we don’t feel the same need to hang on to the original because for us, it’s virtually indistinguishable from copies of the work.

This certainly doesn’t mean that non-visual artists somehow care less about the finished product, we just have the luxury of being able to have our work and sell it too.  Visual artists, on the other hand, know that an original work can never truly be replaced, which is why the decision to sell or not sell a particular piece can often be so difficult.

So to my visual artist friends . . .

How do you decide what to sell and what to keep?

When you do a commissioned  piece of work, you presumably have little choice but to eventually hand it off to it’s rightful owner (even if you may put it off for a little while) — but when it comes to your non-commissioned  work, how do you decide what you are going to sell and what you’re going to keep in your personal collection? Or do you simply let the marketplace decide for you?

So many of the artists I speak with, tell me that it’s the commissioned or promised pieces that are often the hardest to let go of. What is it about these commissioned pieces that makes them more susceptible to this type of emotional attachment. Is it just the lure of the forbidden fruit, or is there something else at work here?

Here’s what some of your fellow artists had to say:

Amy Lesser

I just did a blog post on some art I made for a 2008 art show. When the time came to part with it, I just couldn’t do it. It was as though part of my soul/personality was tied up in the artwork itself. I priced it at a silly high price, reasoning that if it *did* sell, then it was meant to.  . .  I think it is possible to part with one’s artwork. It has to be something we, as artists, decide beforehand–before our hands begin to touch the thing we are creating. And sometimes, even though we do this–sometimes the art is so personal that we are not yet ready to let it go. Other times, we are so critical of our own work, we cannot even bear to look at it. It appears ugly to us and beautiful to others. These are the things we can let go of, but sometimes these don’t even make it out of the house/studio. Or, a piece of art may take on a life of it’s own and shock and surprise us at it’s beauty. I think these are the specific ones that are difficult to let go of.

Pete Hobden

I don’t have a problem with this, for some reason. Once I’ve finished a painting. My attention goes almost immediately to my next one, even if I don’t yet know what it will be. Finished paintings become just paintings, which often allows you to see its strong and weak points more easily.

Christine Terpening

My husband and I were just laughing about overpricing art hoping it won’t sell. I just did that on my last one. I don’t have a problem selling portraits because they’re not my loved ones so I can take a photo of the finished work & ship it out…it’s my original works that I sometimes can’t bear to part with. They reflect my personality, they look great on my wall & I used my kids for models. Maybe it would help if I used some one elses kids but lets face it…mine are so damn good lookin’! They also work cheap.

Of course I can be swayed by money. If someone offered enough I’d certainly sell…If they are willing to pay high dollar you know that not only will your art hang in a prominent place in the home but obviously the buyer likes you & will tell everyone about you. If you know anyone like that please send them my way.

I do agree that time helps you disconnect with your work. Good wine ages before it sells. I’d like to know more about how Peter moves on so easily…Is it a gender issue? My husband loves what I do but has no problems getting rid of what I create. He looks at it as a sort of ‘pat on the back’ when someone wants to buy my work, as do I.

Emily Clark

I have never had a problem with this, and a lot of that comes out of my reasons for making art. Most of my art is very personal in subject matter- pieces based on old family photographs of my grandparents in the 1940′s and 50′s- but I would happily send every one of them out the door for almost any price (yes, I do need to pay the bills, but if someone really wants one of my pieces, I will do whatever it takes for them to get it.)

I have always seen my ability to make art as a gift, not to me alone, but a gift THROUGH me to others. While I get great personal pleasure out of doing my work, they do me no good once they are finished and are sitting around the studio. Yes, I have favorites, but I have great photos of them. Once the work is finished, the purpose of my work is to bring joy to someone else.

Julia Forsyth

I experience this too! Just today I picked up a painting from a Member’s Show that I promised to someone as a gift. I kept wondering how fast I could paint a similar one but keep the special original I got attached to. Part of mine is that it takes me so long to finish something. So maybe if my production gets much higher, I won’t want to keep it all.

Now it’s your turn. . .

• Do you ever find yourself getting overly attached to your artistic creations?
• Have you ever questioned whether a customer is “worthy” of a particular piece of art?
• Have you ever had second-thoughts after talking with a potential buyer?
• All of us, have our favorite pieces that we have done. Does it make any difference who you are selling one of these favorites too? Does it have to go to someone you know/like or is it simply another transaction?
• Have you ever priced a work too high secretly hoping that it wouldn’t sell?
• Have you ever regretted selling a piece of your work? Have you ever offered to buy one of these back?
• Are there some pieces you would never consider selling for any amount of money? What separates these pieces from the rest?

Let’s hear it!

.

Image courtesy of Stepheye

Here are some other articles you might enjoy:

1. How to Create (and destroy) your Reputation Online as an Artist!

Etsy is a dream come true for Artists (isn’t it?)

Etsy is widely known as one of the premier websites for selling arts & crafts online. They essentially took eBay’s shop concept and focused it squarely on the creative niche so you no longer had to sift through lawnmowers in order to get to beaded lanyards.

According to the site, there are now over 7,000,000 items currently available for sale. These days it seems that every artist and crafter with a bedazzling gun, has opened a shop on Etsy. In fact, as of the middle of October 2010, there were over 249,000 active sellers, and according to our own highly non-scientific poll here on the site, almost 14% of you said that you are currently selling items on Etsy.

According to their own statistics in September 2010, Etsy sold 1,466,039 items for $26.6 million.  Now if my English-major math is correct, this works out to an average selling price of about $18 per item with about a 20% inventory turnover (7 million available items – 1.46 million sold) in the month of September.  In other words, it would appear that the company is doing quite well for itself as a marketplace for low-priced handmade crafts and collectibles.

[Update: Interestingly enough since this article has been published, Etsy has removed their "weather report" page cited above that shows their sales statistics and I have been unable to find this information anywhere else on their website.  I'll let you draw your own conclusions here...]

So what’s the problem?

A friend of mine recently asked me my opinion on whether or not she should open an Etsy shop to try and sell some of her handmade jewelry online.  As a regular on the Art Fair festival circuit, she was looking for an additional sales outlet especially during the slower winter months.  Of course she had heard about Etsy before, but she had always been hesitant to sign-up after hearing more than a few Etsy horror stories about not-so-ethical sellers purchasing items from artists and then turning around and selling copycat designs in their own shop.

Putting aside this issue of unscrupulous copycat designs for the moment, does Etsy still have a viable future as a limited niche marketplace or has the handmade craft craze come and gone?

Now I’m not about to suggest that people are going to suddenly stop making felt hats for cats or crochet tea cozies, but I do think that the days of anyone setting up an Etsy shop and consistently making money with it may be over. . . that is if those days were actually ever here at all.

Taking a closer look at the numbers

Before we dive into the numbers here, let me preface all of this by reminding you that Etsy is a privately-held company and is therefore not required or very likely to publish any numbers that could potentially reflect negatively on their business.  In other words, we can safely assume that they only release the “good” numbers and very few of them at that.

So we take what little they give us and begin to make some assumptions about their business from there.  Please keep in mind that if you are expecting some well-researched and statistic driven journalism here–this ain’t it!  This is little more than the imaginative ramblings of a math-averse English major so take from it what you will.

Here’s the numbers according to Etsy’s own website for 2010.

• January 2010: 242,028 new members signed up – 20.1 million dollars of goods were sold in January; roughly 21% lower than December
• February 2010: 236,034 new members signed up – $20.2 million of goods were sold in February; roughly 1% higher than January
• March 2010: 246,834 new members signed up – $22.4 million of goods were sold in March, roughly 11% higher than February
• April 2010: 236,040 new members signed up – $22.4 million of goods were sold in April; (0%) roughly the same amount from March
• May 2010: 239,340 new members signed up – $22.9 million of goods were sold in May, 2.2% higher than April
• June 2010: 233,167 new members signed up – $22.1 million of goods were sold in June, 3.5% lower than May
• July 2010: 260,267 new members signed up – $23.8 million of goods were sold in July, 7.7% higher than June
• August 2010: 278,208 new members signed up – $25.5 million of goods were sold in August, 7.1% higher than July
• September 2010: 280,538 new members signed up -$26.6 million of goods were sold in September, 4.3% higher than August

The biggest question that comes to mind after reading through all of these numbers is:

What exactly are all of these new members doing once they sign-up?!

Are they buying? Are they selling? Are they doing anything?

Think about this for a moment.  According to their statistics here, they are averaging almost 250,000 new members a month but it would appear that very few of these new members are actually buying anything.  I mean why exactly would you sign up to become an Etsy member unless you had already picked something out that you wanted to buy?

Since they don’t seem to be buying, does this mean that the majority of these new members are planning on opening up their own shop to sell their own creations?

Etsy (perhaps wisely) doesn’t divide up their new member numbers between buyers and seller accounts.  I would have to guess that the official line would be that since every new account is technically a “buyer” account, reporting this kind of distinction would be impractical.  While this may be true, because there is an additional seller account “sign-up” (aka give-me-your-credit-card-number), it would be fairly easy to report how many new seller accounts had been created each month.  Now since they’re not telling us what’s really going on, deranged Liberal Arts majors with overactive imaginations like myself, begin to create these half-baked scenarios about what might actually be going on behind the scenes. . .

Wildly Speculative Scenario #1 – 90% Buyers  10% Sellers

Let’s assume for a moment that almost everyone who signs up for a new account on Etsy is planning on buying something.  As I mentioned previously, why would someone go through the trouble of signing-up for a new account unless they had already picked out something they wanted to buy?

The only problem here, is that if you look at the actual sales growth numbers, it seems a little hard to believe.

According to their own statistics, over the first ten months of 2010, sales have increased roughly about 5% a month on average.  This seems okay until you realize that the company has been adding almost a quarter-of-a-million new members/buyers each month.  In fact, Etsy has signed up over 2.2 million new members so far in 2010 and had an increase of $6.5 million in sales, which may sound like a lot of cabbage until you actually do the math and realize that works out to about $3 a person.  Since we already know that the average selling price of an item is about $18, we can assume that a lot of these new members aren’t making any purchases at all and that doesn’t even take into account the thousands (millions?) of members Etsy had already signed up before 2010.

Wildly Speculative Scenario #2 – 50% Buyers  50% Sellers

Okay, let’s say that maybe half of these new members aren’t planning on buying anything at all. Maybe they just want to open their own shop and sell their arts and crafts. On the surface, this theory would appear to better explain the company’s so-so sales increase.

So if  we imagine for a moment that half of these new members who signed up in September were buyers, that would mean that the other half (~140,000) would become potential sellers.  So then our question becomes, how many new sellers were added between September and October 2010?  Was it anywhere near 140,000 people?

Because Etsy doesn’t officially publish the number of active sellers they have from month to month, I only have the numbers from the last two months to compare.

According to their website they had approximately:

239,000 active sellers in Septemeber 2010

249,ooo active sellers in October 2010

Net increase of 10,000 sellers or roughly about 4%

So even if you factor in those new members who plan to someday open an Etsy store but just haven’t gotten around to it yet, you still have somewhere in the neighborhood of 130,000 new members unaccounted for.  Unless of course, these new members really are opening their new shops, and it’s the current Etsy sellers who are closing down their shops and leaving in droves. . .

If this is the case, what’s driving these previous sellers away?

• Is it the lack of business?
• Is it the problem with copycat sellers?
• Is it the competition or the fact that there are too many sellers?
• Is it the lack of promotion or traffic to their shop?

What should I tell my friend?  What would you tell someone if they asked you about opening a store on Etsy?

What can we take away from all of this speculation? (if anything)

Even though we can’t really know what’s going on behind the scenes, it is fairly obvious that either a lot of people  are signing-up for an Etsy account and then doing absolutely nothing with it, or these new members are simply replacing the current members as they continue to leave en masse for whatever reason.

Either way, I would caution you to be very careful about putting your entire online presence in single marketplace whether it’s Etsy, eBay, DeviantArt, or any other online site.  As technology and the online environment continues to change and evolve, no one knows if today’s Etsy will become tomorrow’s eToys.com.

Even if they do survive, who knows if they are going to want you as a shopkeeper six months from now?  I have heard far too many stories of Etsy shops being shut down literally overnight for one reason or another.  Always remember that when it comes down to it, it’s still their “shop” and they have the power to close you down if they feel like you have somehow violated their “terms of service”.

This is one of the reasons that I always encourage artists to create their own online home first and then branch off into these other social media sites and online marketplaces.  Use these websites like the tools they are, and not as your complete online identity.  Remember to always send your visitors to your own website first and then link out from there to your Etsy shop, Twitter, or Facebook page.

Are you a member of the Etsy community?

Even though Etsy may not be giving us the full picture, I would like to hear from you about your experience with Etsy as either a buyer or seller.  Give us the inside scoop and let us know if you think their current business model is going to be able to survive long-term.  Do you think that it’s still a good place to sell your artistic creations online?

I would also be interested in hearing from those of you who may have once had an Etsy shop and closed it up for whatever reason.

• Are you currently selling (or buying) your art on Etsy?
• What do you think are currently the biggest benefits or challenges to running a successful Etsy store?
• How have things changed since you’ve been there?
• What advice would you give someone who might be interested in opening up their own Etsy shop?

Tell us what you think!

[Don't feel like reading all of this right now?!  Now you can listen or download the entire audio podcast of this post and enjoy the surprisingly irritating sound of my voice anytime!]

Let’s face it, only bad things happen quickly

One of the things that I’ve learned about this whole building your artistic repuatation online process is that it’s going to take a heck of a lot longer than most people think.  In fact, one of the biggest complaints I hear from frustrated artists is that they are doing a lot of the right things when it comes to marketing themselves as artists but sometimes they feel like they’re just not seeing the results.

Myth of the Overnight success

So many times we have seen artists, writers, and musicians seemingly come out of nowhere and become overnight sensations.  The truth, however, is that the vast majority of these people have been working in obscurity for years on their art.  I talked about in an earlier post about how the Beatles played over 1,200 shows before they arrived in the states and became the overnight sensations that most people thought they were.

Many people see Lady Gaga’s sudden success and think that she is simply some sort of novelty act that came out of nowhere.  Now whether you think Lady Gaga is a great artist or not, it doesn’t change the fact that the artist formally known as Stefani Germanotta had been busting her ass for years as a musician and songwriter learning and perfecting her craft.

As a testament to her determination to succeed in her art, Stefani never gave herself an alternative to succeeding as a musical artist. She once said about this period of her life, “I left my entire family, got the cheapest apartment I could find, and ate shit until somebody would listen.” Even when Lady Gaga was signed and then suddenly dropped a few months later from her first recording contract with Def Jam Records, she never gave up. Instead, she kept working and continued to hone her unique theatrical performances in the Lower East Side clubs in New York City.

In fact, there are hundreds of stories like these of  artists who worked for years behind the scenes in order to create a name for themselves.  If you get the chance, I would encourage you to spend some time reading up on the early careers of some of your personal mentors and idols in your field — I think you might be surprised what you’ll find.

The Online World is different (and not)

The problem for most of us is not that we necessarily think that we should all become overnight sensations as artists (although that would be nice).  The real problem is that because we are doing most of this marketing stuff online, we think that this process of creating a reputation for ourselves as artists should be happening faster, and it does. . . to an extent.

“Actually, I’m an overnight success, but it took twenty years.”

~Monty Hall

In other words, what might have used to take twenty or thirty years to develop a reputation as a performer or artist outside of your hometown, can now be done in a fraction of that time. Thanks to the internet and social media sites like Twitter , YouTube, and Facebook; we can now literally reach thousands of friends, fans, and potential customers with just a click of a button.

Now having said all that, why doesn’t any of this seem to be working for us?

It’s getting crowded out there

Well part of the reason is the fact that the internet is getting awful crowded these days

According to our good friends at BlogPulse who keep close track of these kind of things. There are now over 145 million blogs out there in cyberspace and roughly 56,000 new blogs are created everyday.  Not only that, but according to BlogPulse there are over one million new blog posts being posted each day.

So the question becomes, how are we as individuals who may have just joined this online mob supposed to compete and get ourselves noticed in this overcrowded environment? The answer it turns out is pretty simple

We can’t.

Wait, let me clarify that. We can’t do it by ourselves.  The internet is no longer the quaint little town where you can simply hang your shingle on your door and expect that sooner or later, somebody’s going to notice that you’re there.  Having great content is not enough to get you noticed by itself because there is simply too much competition for our time and attention, both online and off. The great paradox here of course is that you need great content to show people when they stop by your site, but at the same time, why should you be spending all your time creating great content if no one’s around to read it.

In other words, if a blog post falls in a forest and there is no one around to read it. . .

What’s the point?

Linear and Exponential Growth 101

Let’s go back to our high-school Geometry class for a moment in order to better understand why it takes so long to get noticed and admired in the online world.

You see, unlike many things in life where we gradually improve and see our progress along the way, building your reputation online as an artist has more in common with the swine flu then it does with common sense. The growth of your online identity, similar to viruses and bad movie reviews, does not occur on a linear but on an exponential growth curve.

Say what?!

Wait, before you click back over to Twitter, take a moment and look at the graph below:

On the red line we see what’s called “Linear” growth.  As you can see, linear growth starts off small and then slowly and steadily grows over time.  This type of growth can be found in such things such as our height when we are children (and unfortunately for most of us, our weight as adults).

The green line on the other hand represents “exponential” growth.  Exponential growth as you can see starts off small and doesn’t appear to grow for a very long time, but then all of a sudden the growth appears to suddenly take off out of nowhere. This is the so-called “overnight success” growth curve.

This exponential green line is the way that the internet appears to work as well. For the longest time it seems as if we’re getting absolutely nowhere, then all of a sudden we reach what appears to be a “tipping point” and at that moment everything changes.  Things suddenly begin to fall into place and we begin to pick up momentum rapidly.

So the question is, how long does it take before we begin to hit this up curve?

Obviously this depends on many different factors including your personality, your level of engagement with others, the size of your social network, and of course the quality of your work itself.  The one thing you have to realize is that when you are stuck in the “flat-line” building stage of this curve, you are actually creating the foundation of your future success.  This is when you are busy making the connections and perfecting your craft that will prepare you for when you eventually reach the up curve and your career suddenly takes off. At the same time, it appears that very little is happening.

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

~Thomas Edison

The only real secret then to making this whole thing work  is that you can’t give up before this happens. You simply need time to not only master your craft, but also to build the social connections and realationships that will eventually take your career to the next level.

The moral of the story here is. . .

Just keep going

Although there are very few reliable statistics in this area, I would have to think that at least 80-95% of these blogs started each day are eventually abandoned  by their authors.

I mean let’s face it, blogging, gallery site building, and building your personal brand online is hard and unrewarding work.  The secret weapon we have as creative artists/writers/musicians, however, is that we are already used to doing hard work with little or no expectation of a reward.  We are by our very nature, persistent and stubborn souls who keep going no matter what the results.

Now’s the time to take that same sense of stubbornness that you use everyday in your art and apply it to building your reputation online.

The only way you fail is to stop trying.

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Wait, there’s more!

Right-click to download the  “How long is this going to take?!” audio podcast to your computer

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Photo courtesy of andreyutzu

Here are some other articles you might enjoy:

1. How to Create (and destroy) your Reputation Online as an Artist!

Unlike high school, getting a reputation online as an artist isn’t easy.  We can’t just smile and charm our fans and potential customers with our good looks.  Sure they might stop by and admire your stuff, but chances are they’re not going to be buying anything unless they end up feeling a real connection to you, not as an artist, but as a human being.

People don’t buy art — they buy the artist

Let’s be honest here, people can get good-looking art or decent sounding music virtually anywhere these days, which is why nobody’s really looking to go out and buy another piece of art to hang up on their wall or another book to shove in their bookcase — what they are really wanting to buy is a story.  This might be a real story that you tell them about how a particular piece of art came to be along with the thought process and motivations behind its creation, or it could also be the story of you.

This second type of story, however, is far more important because it’s not a story that you tell directly, but it’s a story that is told about you by other people. This is your reputation as an artist.  It could be good story, it could be not-so-good story, or there could be no story yet to tell (i.e. they’ve never heard of you).  Either way, it’s up to you to create, build, and then maintain this reputation throughout your career. Great artists such from Warhol, Versace, Dali, Picasso, Hemmingway, Twain, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, to Lady Gaga understood the value of  creating a very specific reputation for themselves.  We’ll talk a little bit about how we can create this type of reputation in a minute, but first we need to take a closer look at some of the reasons people would choose to buy something online from one person but not someone else.

What do they want from me?

The internet offers us as some unprecedented opportunities, as well as some unique challenges to selling our creative work online.  Since most of our customers will never meet us face to face, they have to base their decision on what we say or do online.

We buy from people we trust

Think about this for a moment. When you’re looking to buy that new book or DVD online, are you more likely to buy it from a site like Amazon or from a site called MovieTimeRUs.  Chances are you are going to go with Amazon because most of us have not only heard of Amazon, but we also instinctively trust them because we know they’ve already had millions of satisfied customers.  This is called “social proof” which essentially means that if everyone else is doing it, then it must be okay.

Unfortunately, there is no universal e-Bay like feedback rating system for us as creative professionals, people who buy our work rarely write reviews or testimonies about our greatness.  So instead we  have to rely on our word-of-mouth reputation as well as our charming personality.

But what if no one knows who I am?

We buy from people we like

This turns out to be the real secret of online success for the individual artist. When it comes to buying something like art, writing, or music we want to buy from someone we know and like.  Again, we can find good art/music/writing anywhere these days so what often makes the difference between one artist and another is how we feel about them.  [Keep in mind that I'm using the term "Artist" here to describe any kind of creative professional]

Okay Dale Carnegie, so how do I get these people to like me?!

Create – Share – Connect

We do this by first creating an online home where our future friends and fans can stop by and get to know us a little better.  It can’t just be a one-way conversation either, which is why we have to find ways to interact with our visitors and show them what a cool cat we really are.

We also have to share something of value with them.  This could be a story, an idea, a resource, etc.. The point here is that we have to give them something other than our sales pitch when they drop in for a visit because nobody likes to get the Amway ambush when they’re just stopping by for a cup of coffee.

Finally, we have to find a way to connect and grow our own circle of friends by going out and visiting our neighbors once in awhile.  After all, it’s kind of hard to meet new people if you never actually leave your virtual house.  Go out there and explore the online world around you.  If you take the time to look around, I think you’ll discover that there really are some cool kids out there to hang with.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps:

Create

• Create a virtual home for yourself where people can easily stop by and visit you.  Be sure that you have complete control over this space because it will be the foundation on which your future reputation will be based.
• Create some content on your site that has nothing to do with the work you are selling. Remember that you have to give your visitors a reason to stop by and visit on a regular basis.  Give them a valuable resource or tool they can use.  Things such as how-to tutorials, interviews, and other website tools and resources.  Also keep in mind that the many of your visitors will find you for the first time through search engines so think about what your visitors will be searching for and what they may want to learn or know.
• Create a space for building community and encouraging interaction.  This could be anything from creating a forum, running a poll, to inviting your readers to comment on your content.

Share

• Share your story. Remember that it’s going to be your personality that will set you apart from all of the other artists in the world. The best advice I can give you here is to not try and be someone you’re not. Most people these days have a pretty keen online bullshit detector and if it starts going off they’ll not only avoid you, but they’re going be telling all their friends to avoid you as well.
• Share your successes but also share your doubts, fears, and vulnerabilities. Nobody likes to hang around with that one kid who never shuts up about how great he is, and whatever you’ve done, he always seems to have done the same thing better — Don’t be that person!  Look, we are all already feeling insecure enough without listening to some jackass telling us how great life/business has been for him.  It’s okay to talk about the good stuff, but don’t forget to include some of the warts and worries as well.
• Share other people’s stuff.  Believe it or not your not the only person who’s out there busting your butt trying to make a name for themselves online.  Remember that we’re not playing a zero-sum game here where if you tell someone about another great artist you know, they’ll end up falling in love with her and you’ll lose a potential customer. Sometimes we just have to take a step back and put our little food-grabbing reptilian brains on hold for a minute in order to understand that this just isn’t the way things work online.  This is an idea that we’ve talked a lot about in our latest Skinny Art School series.

Connect

• Connect with other artists in your field.  When you are first starting out, the vast majority of your visitors are going to be other artists who are trying to find their way through the online jungle just like you.  Some of them may be looking for advice or inspiration, but chances are, most of them are simply looking for a friendly face.  The one thing no one tells you about being a creative professional is that it can often be an isolating and lonely experience.  We live the majority of our lives inside our own heads which means that our social interaction with the outside world can sometimes be lacking.
• Get involved with the community.  Where do artists in your field hang out? Make an effort to find out and then go there on a regular basis. Forums and communities on sites such as Flickr, DeviantART, WetCanvas, and RedBubble were made so artists could have a place to hang out, complain, and put off work for as long as possible.
• If nothing else, get on Twitter and Facebook.  Even if you can’t imagine dragging your introverted little self into the forums, you should at least get on Twitter and Facebook in order to connect with other artists. We’re not trying to make ourselves out to be some kind of experts here, after all it wasn’t that long ago that we became Twidiots ourselves.  And as far as our sad little Facebook page goes, we obviously don’t have a clue what we’re doing, but we’re still out there making it up as we go along.
• Comment and Link to other artists blogs. Everybody wants more comments and links for their own blog or website, but stop and think for a moment about how many links and comments have you given out in the last week? How about in the last month?  Somehow it seems that most of us forget that we have to give in order to receive.  Giving other people comments and links makes them feel appreciated and loved, which is just good karma for everyone.

One last thing. . . .

Your online reputation builds slowly but can fall apart quickly

It takes time and persistance to build your online reputation as an artist.  It’s not a one week, one month, or even a one year kind of deal.  Not only does it take years to build this reputation, you also have to guard it carefully because it often only takes one act of stupidity in order to destroy it.

I was reminded of this fact recently when I read about  Thomas Kinkade the world-famous artist who spent years carefully creating his reputation as this moral and religious “painter of light” only to see it come crashing down around him with a fraud and public bankruptcy hearing and more recently a DUI arrest.

The lesson here may be that in a world where news travels around the world within minutes, we cannot afford to risk our reputation as an artist.  Luckily, it turns out that the easiest way to protect your reputation is simply to . . .

Be Real.

Be Yourself.

Support Others.

Live your Art.

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How are you building your reputation online?

Photo courtesy of

Here are some other articles you might enjoy:

1. 5 Fears that can Destroy an Artist
2. Stop stealing my sh*t!