All About Art & Artists by D. L. Keur of zentao.com

The Net.  It’s become a realm prowled and terrorized by shysters, opportunists, and sanctioned thieves…sometimes called “affliate marketeers.”  So it’s time to reevalute. It’s time to pull everything and put it under lock and key.  I’ve had more than my fill when what are supposed to be legitimate companies promote flagrant violation of copyright and intellectual properties ownership, never mind sanctioning violation of personal integrity and identity manipulation.

One of the members of NakedGenius mentioned that he just wasn’t any good at presentation.  And many artists fail right at that point in their self-promotion.  They didn’t study design and presentation.  They aren’t marketers.  They “do art.”  But, as any galleryist can tell you, if the art isn’t lighted right, presented in the right circumstance, and surrounded by a complimentary setting, it ain’t gonna show itself well.

Now collectors can spot a good work, a valuable work, even when it’s stacked in some dark corner somewhere.  Their eye “knows;” their hand reaches, their negotiations in mind, their wallet ready.  But that’s a skilled eye and mind – not your target customer for prints, cards, and t-shirts at RedBubble, not your calendar and cup buyer at Zazzle, not your t-shirt buyer at Spreadshirt, and certainly not your high-priced giclee buyer at ImageKind — no, not, never on this last.

So how to sell to the world? 

Can you do it with a website that may focus on one image on its front page? Not in my opinion.  Can you do it by splattering your efforts across an infinite communication and presentation media like the Internet, from facebook to MySpace to eBay to art.com and more?  Not if you want to keep your sanity, you can’t. 

One way — the hard way – is to get your chosen venues – a handful like RedBubble, ImageKind, Zazzle, Spreadshirt and others which are very good at what they do – ranked on the world stage, the limelight focused on you.  To do that, you have employ the members of the venue to promote that venue  (Notice I said PROMOTE THAT VENUE) worldwide, getting traffic to that venue.  Then, in order to reap some benefit, you have to promote yourself within that venue so you “rank well on the inside” – this last a difficult thing at best.  However, the benefits of getting the VENUE (RedBubble, Zazzle, Spreadshirt, Imagekind.) to become a household word is that people won’t be afraid to shop there.  That’s number one priority if you plan on selling through that venue.

So then what?  If you can’t get yourself “featured” at the venue, how can you reap the benefits of all the traffic being generated by membership advertising the venue itself?   It’s all in the PRESENTATION, and PLANNING, then EXECUTING THE PROLIFERATION of that PRESENTATION.

• Presentation has to be exciting, impeccably presented, well-planned, and stimulate potential buyers to pull out their wallet. 
• Proliferation of that presentation must effectively return a profit on the money you invest, that return immediately reinvested in further effective PROMOTION.

Then, because the VENUE is “trusted” by consumers, the fact that you sell there when they specifically come looking for your work on your website, allows them to feel comfortable pushing the BUY THIS button.

Now, onto some nitty gritty about getting your presentation out there — HOW: Build yourself flyers, business cards, a catalog.  Gather a mailing list of local, regional, national and international shops, gather a mailing list of individuals who might be interested in your work, offer incentives to LOOK — important that — incentives to LOOK, place advertisements in magazines where you’ll gain some following — small and large — get featured in an article, get your art featured, give cards and cheap, small prints away…there are a hoard of methods and mechanisms.  Job number one, though, is make your PRESENTATION effective so that, WHEN it’s seen, it GRABS.  Does yours?

Here are some samples:

What is your goal with your art?  Then, knowing that, are you focused on achieving that?

One of the biggest pitfalls in any artist’s career…in any career…in any life is to not have a solid idea of what you want and where you want to go…if you are goal-seeking.  Not everyone in the world is a goal-seeker, though goal-seekers comprise the great majority.

And the answer?  Success is the answer many give when asked.  My rejoinder is, what’s your yardstick, what’s your measurement and definition of “success?”  To that question, I usually get hedging because many folks are just embarrassed to say “money and fame” when that is exactly what they seek.  If you want money and fame, be honest about it, at least with yourself.

Many people, however, really don’t realize that what they actually seek is approval, and approval isn’t going to come easily, regardless of how “successful” you are in terms of gaining money and fame for your work.  Approval is something which mother’s hand out to their children, teachers hand out to their good pupils…or used to before it became socially impermissible to praise one child and not another, especially for merit in performance.  It isn’t going to come from anyone who is jealous of your ability, nor from someone who feels as if you are competition to their own achievement potential.  It certainly isn’t going to come if you don’t approve of yourself and your work.

So what’s my definition and yardstick of success?  If my art pleases me, then it is successful.  If it pleases someone else, well and good, but that isn’t part of my own criteria when viewing it.  And when I put my artwork “out there,” I don’t really care if someone doesn’t like it, as long as I think it’s great.  And you know what?  Nine times out of ten, consumers agree with me in my vision.   There’s a lesson there, artists.  Do your art.  If you like it, that’s what matters.  Everything else is simply getting it “out there,” no simple thing itself, but achievable.

Well, second day of being very sick.  But, after checking office, status of various projects, then trying to retire to bed for the rest of the day, I find my brain whirling overtime…as usual.  So, since I haven’t posted to this blog or done any reviews on NakedGenius.com, I figure this “down time” with the brain in a whirl might be a good time to jot down my latest thoughts and experiences.

 I’m still a fan of the ImageKind product.  And, even after all the debacles and the nastiness from Sarah over there…along with her pals and cronies, I’m still happy with IK itself — its product.  I’m still not happy with the web interface, and won’t be

• until customers can find me and my work on IK via direct click and by search, 
• their server stays up and doesn’t bog down under heavy traffic,
• search is fixed,
• delete images is a reality,
• preferential treatment to insiders and clique members ceases,
• upload is better for big images,
• and artists have real control over papers and sizes of artwork sold

…to name but a few of the problems.

On the good side, I spoke to Kevin yesterday, got solid answers about why’s and wherefore’s, found out the man is a lot like me with a lot on his plate and also found out exactly what happened to my sales and my counts over on IK.  So, despite no follow-up from Care at IK, and my emails showing deleted unread, and despite Sarah’s best efforts on the forum to label me a negative female part instead of  what I am – someone tired of getting her “happy puppy run-around” and out-right lies, I’m pleased with what Kevin explained about the problem.  I got real world answers that MADE SENSE.  Yes, their system failed, thanks to Verisign.  So now I’ll just avoid that very irritating young woman whose idea of fair play and honesty is completely counter to the Webster definitions of those words and concepts.   She’s proven herself in my book as not just a completely incompetent airhead, but a nasty one posing as “nice” and “informed,” when, in fact, her modus operendi is to obfuscate truth and turn tables to make everyone else with whom she disagrees or is frightened of — yes, frightened — look like they’re the bad guy for asking a question or posting a difficulty that’s counter to her personally contrived “we’re-having-a-party” line.  Suggestion: try truth instead.  It doesn’t hurt at all.  Honestly.

You might or might not notice, but I’m removing all IK links from zentao.com, nakedgenius.com, zentao7.com, dlkeur.com, jam session, and some fifteen other websites where I have them loaded.   I’ve also pulled all my references to them in my paid advertising.

Why?

Because I can’t sanction them in good conscience until and unless they get their issues resolved.

What issues?  Read on.

Because I got lambasted by their failure, my customers suffered…and me too.  And IK didn’t even bother to offer to help me out of the fix.

Because there is a complete lack of regard for client satisfaction, because their website is broken and remains unfixed, because some very suspicious preferential treatment is going on over there which I’ve known about for some time.  And it is only getting worse.  Added to that, they blame other’s websites for issues that are theirs.  And they have refused to fix their very broken website, offering fluff-bunny excuses and begging for patience.  Well, I’ve been patient since May.  It is now mid-October, and still nothing has been fixed.  In fact, we have LESS usability than we had when I signed up in, what was it, February or April, somewhere like that?  Shareasale, the affiliate program, isn’t reporting hits accurately, ImageKind isn’t reporting hits correctly either.  So…until and unless it gets repaired, I’ll use them for their services, but I cannot recommend them as a valid and viable marketplace for artists. 

ImageKind is superior at printing, matting, framing, shipping, and have an excellent returns policy, but only if your art buyer can get to your art, isn’t diverted, doesn’t have their browser stall by IK’s sluggish server, and they can figure out the shopping cart.  In short, IK’s web application sucks.  And their editorial policies concerning whose art gets good billing is less than optimal — very much an “in-house” clique.  It’s a young company, so…maybe next year I can legitimately say, yes, IK is now a top notch place to have your art on display.  But not yet.

 So who will I recommend?  I recommend lulu.com for books and zazzle.com for calendars and redbubble for prints, t-shirts, and cards.  And if you want an excellent, excellent interface and wonderful interaction between artists world-wide, RedBubble.com is The Place.  Oh, yes, there’s still some politics, but not the extreme politicizing of who gets promoted you find on IK.  And as far as I can see, there aren’t a whole bunch of DMC brown-nosers and clappy-hand fluff-bunnies handing out rah-rah BS.  So, come on over to redbubble.  It’s FREE and has UNLIMITED UPLOADS.

There are some days that ought to be wiped from existence.  The 15th of the month following a Quarter is one of those, especially if it falls on a Monday, and especially when what you find waiting for you on top of your dayplan are, not angry clients, not distressed customers, but somebody else’s customers all calling you for solutions to their wants and desires. 

I’ve been pushing a certain service that’s young, but “under development.”  I’ve been exceedingly patient.  I’ve spent a good deal of time trying very hard to keep a positive attitude toward their repeated failures to “fix what’s broke.”

Well, it ain’t bein’ fixed, and the more tech savvy of us know clouds of billowing smoke being blown up our portals when we see, feel, and hear it.  And where there’s smoke, you can bet there’s a fire, right?  …Ah, yeah.  Too true.  And in this case, it’s getting a bit out of control.  …And then there’s this smell.

I’m not the nicest person in the world when, my cup of work overflowing, someone then dumps a new load onto me, especially when that load is rancid-smelling.  I’m not particularly pleasant when, having begged, pleaded, worked very hard to help, and gone out of my way to promote someone, what I find is that, for all my efforts, I receive nothing but stink in return…and having to pick up somebody else’s pieces — broken pieces. (Pass me the superglue, would you?)  And then it gets even worse.

So, first off, what about this other guy’s customers who came to my door instead?  Yeah, well that’s taken care of with a lot of effort and scramble, and help from some friends of a friend.  But there’s this odd aftertaste I’ve woken up with when all is finally said and done.  It’s the realization that, if you want something done, you do it yourself, no matter what, because you cannot depend on anyone else to do what they’ve promised.

For six solid months and more, I and others who have half a clue, have been mentioning issues over at this seemingly pretty, but actually smoky, smelly startup.  And we’ve heard promises…and platitudes…and excuses, as one very canny artist named revad so succinctly put it.   The bottom line?  It doesn’t serve them to fix it.  And the truth?  There’s more cooking under the lid that stands out as REAL stinky — rigged search results, priority placement slanted toward those who make deals with management, cliques who get special privileges, and a lot of greasy palms that deliver special handling to those who make it onto their “preferred artist” list. 

And everyone else? 

‘Can pay the bills, thank you.  But we won’t sell your art, so, if somebody wants it, you can do it yourself, from your own desk, shipping it out yourself to your customers’

…which means I must have it printed, then inspect it to make sure it is up to snuff, before it ever gets shipped out the door.  After all, it’s my name on the line here.  They are now buying from me direct, not a shop I engaged to provide me that service!

Well I never wanted to wind up being a print shop to sell my digital art to people who want it.  That’s why I use a service, right?  And I thought that I chose a really good one that offers what I consider to be the very best printing service on the Net.  What I’ve found though, is that they do not have, nor do they plan to make is an equitable and benevolent Internet model for both artists and art consumers to use, and, when the results of this problem lands square in my lap, I’m not happy, especially when I’m told,

‘it’s your website that’s the problem.  It’s too esoteric.  You need to make your website like everyone else’s so they can see those nice tabs and buttons’

 – this coming from a woman who claims she’s made a study of usability on the Net but who couldn’t code her way out of a broken link if her life depended on it and the usability of her own website sucks.

Well, thank you, but zentao.com is designed the way I want to to be — without a bunch of irritating junk cluttering its home page.  zentao.com is NOT a commercial website that screams “Clearance sale, buy it here!” Nor is it intended to be any kind of sales venue.  You won’t find “Buy It Here” buttons.   You won’t find easy ways to spend your money.  That’s because zentao.com is the website of an artist and designer, a guitar player, a martial artist, and someone who places value on caring, sharing, and, mostly, self-integrity and honor.  That’s more than I can say for the stink under their rugs.

How to unmask a scammer & plagiarist:

(Definitions of Plagiarist, attributed:  1. someone who uses another person’s words or ideas as if they were his own dnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn; 2. Plagiarism is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work. Wikipedia)

Mention the rules, the laws, the standards, and, suddenly, they disappear in a flurry of indignation, as if even suggesting such a thing was some insult to their integrity.

Well, here’s a clue. If they weren’t aware, they should thank you; if they were aware and were planning on following the rules, they’d say, “Yes, I know. It’s a big job to get all those permissions for this book.” If, instead, they get hostile or flustered, guess what? They were up to no good at everyone else’s expense!

BINGO!

I’m always a little bit wary when I meet someone who is full of some hot new enterprise where they stand to gain, while asking you to contribute without recompense.  This is especially so when the individual has a rather peculiar twinge of a smile – sort of like a crocodile wears when he’s contemplating some lunch – and is always seen wearing dark glasses — goggles dark enough to completely hide their eyes.

What are they hiding?

Self-styled Internet Entrepreneurs are in “biz” for one reason…usually.  They wanna get rich quick and own all the bells and whistles that go along with those quick riches — hot babes draped on their arms, hot wheels…as in expensive cars, opulent houses, and the lifestyle that befits those of the “rich and famous.”  In fact, that’s who they want to be.  But they are usually slime-balls.

Fair warning.  Do NOT release right to publish (copyright) of your images or words to someone who stands to gain while you get “a mention,” a small spot on some obscure part of the project’s final public offering, a reference in some footnote printed in 8 point type.  If they want your work or to quote you.  In other words, they must get express permission,  and if they want to use your artwork, you should require that they pay for that right.  Remember that, because, much as it might flatter you to be asked, they are only asking so they can use you to make them money, honey.

Your loss, their gain.  And, even if you strike a deal for royalties, remember that very few of these entrepreneurs make it, so any percentage of zero is zero.

Be wary, especially when opportunity wears extremely dark glasses and a crocodile’s smile.

There is, as usual, a discussion going on somewhere that catalyzes me to speak out.  But I can’t speak out, because to speak out would, in fact, be off-topic to the post, a big no-no on this particular forum.  A question was raised, and, despite what I consider the obvious, the go-rah-go team and hungry entrepreneur are, of course, pitching it. 

Artists:  who is your buyer?  An art aficionado, right?  That would be:

• a collector
• an investor
• a spontaneous purchaser
• someone decorating
• someone looking for a gift
• …and so on.

Who is NOT your customer?

Other artists on the Net, especially those who are selling artwork themselves.

So why are you signing up for all these various art communities who aren’t really anything more than artists sharing online gallery space?  For ranking?  Okay.  Good reason…within reason, but paying for space that isn’t geared (PAY ATTENTION TO THAT WORD: GEARED)…ahem….so paying for space on a website that is geared toward attracting ARTISTS and ISN’T GEARED toward drawing ART CONSUMERS is wasting your money. 

Now, I am both an artist and a collector, so I’m an exception to the rule, but, be honest with yourself, are most? 

No. 

Take a clue, then.   (…And, no, I won’t fill in the blanks with names.  Just use the measure and rule when analyzing a website, and you’ll be 100 meters ahead in the game right out the start gate.)

Thanks to artist Stacy Lee, I have a new “art place” that’s gotta be the slickest thing going on the Net.  It’s called RedBubble.com  I’m just poking around there, but, A, it’s one of the slickest pieces of coding I’ve seen, it allows the artist choices on what to sell, and it has a great interactive interface that’s completely user intuitive and easy to navigate no matter where you are.  This is good for the artist and the consumer, because easy and fast means less hassle.  I haven’t tried their shopping cart, yet, but I’m betting it’s just as slick. 

 I know a few sites that could take lessons by studying it.  I don’t know about the quality of their products, but I hear that they are above average, maybe not up to IK’s level, but, for a middle-ground alternative, and for a WONDERFUL community experience and ease, this one is super.  Now if we could get FTP upload, some paper choices, some more framing and matting options, and calendars….

Despite those lacks, though, RedBubble looks to be one of my happier hang-outs.