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

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:

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 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.

Artists and writers tend to think with the seasons and the holidays.  It’s natural.  We certainly don’t feel like Christmas in May. Well, that’s great if you are planning a year ahead.  It isn’t so good if you are trying to produce something for this year.   Lists and catalogs go out six months to a year ahead to the buyers who are going to look at your product.  Only on the Internet do we have “instantaneous.”  Artists, work one year ahead on your projects unless they are not seasonal, not going to be distributed nationally and/or internationally.  Panicked?  Don’t be.  Simply jump ahead to stay ahead.

I just started “yet another art group,” this one for IK artists who want to collaborate in order to promote themselves and their art in a cost effective way until they get the basis they need to go it alone.  But, even as we design calendars, I realize that we really can’t effectively market them through the distributors. Not for 2008.  We can for 2009.  Of course, we can do this calendar for local distribution and Internet sales, including Amazon, this year, but, to hit Ingrams and Barnes and Nobles, we’ll have to make it a 2009 calendar.  That’s all well and good.  The project doesn’t have to stall just because of that.  Images for a calendar are images for a calendar, regardless of year.   The work is good, as is the collaboration. 

But I just had an artist come in my door in a dither because she needs to have her real world art scanned to make Christmas cards to sell, hoping to get into, of all places, Hallmark. Um…no.  And you have to follow a process to get art noticed by Hallmark.  But she isn’t listening. I send her away, giving her the names of several of the pro shops who are cheaper, shops who will scan her pictures in and give her a reasonable product.  I won’t do it for her, not at the prices I charge.  I won’t take her money — can’t in good conscience — knowing she doesn’t have much to begin with.

Periodically there comes a stirring and a swell around the Internet where artists on art forums, blogs, and web networks begin to fuss, nudge, and niggle about promotional activities.  This stirring and swell reminds me of the BUY NOW, BUY HERE ad blasts that happen when sales are down or a company is losing margin.  On the forums, blogs, and websites, though, this happens when the economy starts taking a dive.  It happens amongst those who are desperate to make it on their own because they are fed up with the BS they have to put up with at their day jobs.  Likewise, though, it comes when they, worried that they aren’t making sales, start to foment inside because they equate sales with approval, never mind success.  

Good artists don’t need to run right out and sign up for every promotional venture out around the Internet.  To do so only steals their time and money.  Oh, I know, most are free, and those which aren’et, well, $10 bucks here, $20 there, isn’t a lot…but time is money, folks.  And there is little enough time to spare.  So I have this to say:

Have you, the artist who is really interested in promoting your career, built a portfolio, then sent or walked it around to art reps, art agents, art dealers, and galleries, large and small?  Have you answered a “call for artwork,” entered contests, donated your works to worthwhile charity auctions…which details, of course, go in your portfolio.  If you really want to “self-promote,” have you bought advertising promoting your name and your artwork, carefully planning your ad campaign?  Or, if you really want to drive your career, have you thought of hiring a publicist, a promoter — good ones, not the “entrepreneurs” who are only doing what you are trying to do– trying to make it on their own?

Spend your time wisely.  Do your art.  Judiciously work on your real world presence and on your own websites using only a good escrow service and one, maybe two, of the best print and drop ship services on the Internet.  Don’t go running around the Web trying to pump up sales, especially penny sales, by signing up for every marketing strategy and networking “opportunity” out there.  What you think you are signing up for isn’t what you’re getting.  You are simply signing up for yet another dot-com that wants lots of people to use and promote their website into the top 1000. 

Work on your art and on your art careers instead of making yourselves into small time Internet self-advertising agents.

Depending on somebody else to provide you exposure…unless they have some formalized interest in your work is rather like wishing on stars.

All over the Web, we have artists whining and moaning about their placement on a website’s members list, their exposure, how they come up in search results, and whether or not they are being treated fairly or given their just due.  And all this whining and moaning is for what?  For pennies?  That’s a lot of time wasted whining for very little reward, isn’t it?

I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it again.  Do your own marketing.  Everything else you get will be icing on the cake, reinforcing the work you do for yourself.

Want some ideas on promoting yourself as an artist and a specific piece of artwork?  A few places to start:

1. Do have your own website devoted to your artwork.
2. Do keep a blog.
3. Do become an active member of online communities and real world organizations whose members are the kind of potential customers and clients who would be interested in your artwork. (NOTICE I DID NOT SAY ARTIST COMMUNITIES. YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE NOT OTHER ARTISTS.)
4. Submit your artwork to magazines, book publishers, and organizations when you see “a call for art,” but only submit artwork to them which you really think suits their needs.  Do your research, in other words.
5. If you want to try for national and international recognition, but don’t have a “name” to promote your interests yet, enter recognized contests and art shows. (See my post on that on this blog or on the main website under Commentary.)
6. Get an agent…which means build a portfolio, add to it all the time, and get some contest wins and awards as well as some substantial sales as proof of your art’s value as a commercial commodity.

Remember on point #5: If you have already undersold your work, an agent is going to be skeptical of signing you.  Do NOT sell your artwork on places like EBay if you want to be taken seriously.

Time to debunk some fallacies.

Heard in passing: I am guessing… that dealers are amongst those checking out my site.

Umm…nope.  Guess again. Art dealers and art agents are not actively seeking your work.  Honest.

I’ve said it before, and it bears repeating, there are a million-million artists out there — a dime a dozen.  If you’re going to make a career out of art, you need:

• a plan,
• to work that plan,
• luck,
• talent,
• charisma.

Built in leverage helps, too. 

Art agents and dealers “find” artists in several ways:

• art majors from prestigious schools who get spot-lighted as having ”the right stuff”
• the sons and daughters of celebrity and wealth
• prestigious art shows
• prestigious art contest winners
• the choices promoted by art organizations (organizations sometimes funded by NEA grants)
• submissions of art portfolios by artists soliciting them by appointment and by snail mail

The best, most prestigious dealers and agents go after the cream of the crop as measured by themselves and others they trust to judge the trends and mark who’s exceptional.

Fallacy Two: In my experience there are always those folks monitoring new trends and looking to make money on the back of it.

Well, yeah. …If you’re a budding entrepreneur.  But if you’re a “mover and shaker,” you SET the trends…or try to.  Occasionally, some maverick artist will shove him or herself into the limelight from nowhere, upsetting the well-laid plans of everyone, but not very often.  When that happens, that’s when the dealers and agents get to work, dropping their business cards.  Once the maverick is rolled into the system, order returns.

What’s that you say? You want to be that maverick?  How’s your luck quotient?  Because the dice are loaded against you.  Odds are perhaps similar, maybe worse, than winning the New York Lottery.

There are some artists stirring the waters on various forums I keep an eye on.  Their pointed and caustic pursuits in these conversations are narrowly focused on…

“what YOU [insert various dot com names] should be doing for ME.”

What they want is that dot com to give them a formula and function that will allow them to reach the top of the heap of artists seeking recognition.  They specifically want the dot com to provide them the means to make a lot of money and get name recognition, all on the company’s dime, not theirs.

I keep pointing out that, no, X dot com is doing what they say they will do.  Your irritability and persistent pesky communication at and to them is not going to get them to do what you desire — to, on their own and on their dime, make you a “name” artist.  In fact, what you are doing could very well spell an end to everyone’s ability to use their services. 

And what I get via email or forum private messaging from several of these agitators is a scalding accusation that I don’t want them to “win,” or that I’m undermining their efforts to sway X dot com.  When I reply, I then receive remarks back similar to…

“I’m not going to speak with you in private by email because it is obvious that you’re working for [insert dot com name].” 

Excuse me?  I don’t work for anyone except myself, thank you, and, like I said, I don’t need more business…as I told yet another would-be client this morning.  What I am doing is pursuing a dialogue about something which I feel they…and you, as artists, are misconstruing and pursuing to your (and every other serious artist’s) detriment.

A business only maintains a client, a customer, a service or a product which is profitable for them.  Once overhead and/or effort overtake profitability, then the service, product, and/or customer/client is divested.  Effort in the form of greasing that squeaky wheel – the agitating artist — requires man-hours — paid man-hours — where busy employees must take the time to respond and sooth that artist, simultaneously doing damage control so other artists don’t jump on the bandwagon.  These “soothsayers” have to come up with just the right platitudes verses information.  They have to run their replies past management who makes very sure that they use double-speak to avoid compromising the business plan and its proprietary methods developed and instituted to achieve company success.  (Don’t want everybody’s dot com or brick and mortar store owning their ways and means if they want to get somewhere, you know.)

Artists, remember, please: If it pays a company to make you, the artist, believe they will “make your career,” they’ll infer it…lead you to believe it (but not say it outright).  In actuality, they will only do what is in their terms of service, and they can change those terms of service at any time.  (Yes, it’s legal for them to do so.  It’s their company, remember?  Not yours.)   Don’t irritate that company because they aren’t providing you with every other thing you think they should be doing to give you the “edge.”  You’ll just shoot yourself and everybody else in the head by chasing the company into closing its doors on you and others similar to you — in this  case, the self-representing artist.  Remember, artists like writers are a dime a dozen.  You’re worth less than a U.S. penny to them until and unless your work proves valuable enough or potentially valuable enough to make somebody else some serious money.

If you want a chance at a “name,” at money and fame, there are services and art agents out there who can “make” you.  Don’t bludgeon the dot com whose service provides you the means to help yourself, but refrains from promoting you to your satisfaction.  Stop trying to mold their business decisions based upon your persistent demands for them to provide you your desired service and result.  All you are doing is driving them closer to divesting you and other artists like you.  If it’s not specifically outlined in their terms of service, then it’s not their job.  Seek elsewhere.

BTW, for those seeking a promo venue, as of August 1st, 2007, I’ll be reopening http://www.zentao7.com as an art showcase and artist showcase, with free accounts as well as paid accounts.   

Think about this before setting your prices to compete with every publisher dump of “fine art prints,” or painting canvasses in assembly-line fashion and auctioning your work at EBay. 

If you are a graphic artist or poster artist, you price your masters according to the income they potentially will prove to produce as net profit, but set your print prices comparable to the competition…and you’d better be good, because you’ve got a LOT of competition.

If you are a fine artist, however, you price yourself INTO the market, not OUT of it. You do this by pricing high, not low. There isn’t a legitimate gallery, collector, investor, or art agent out there interested in someone who gives their work away for pennies, yes, even their prints/reproductions of the originals.

Enough said.