Art Print Issues

Street Smart Stealth Marketing Pays Off

Recently, I received an email from Joy Butler. She is the author of a new book, The Permission Seeker's Guide Through the Legal Jungle: Clearing Copyrights, Trademarks and Other Rights for Entertainment and Media Productions (Guide Through the Legal Jungle) 

It covers much more than most visual artists need to know, but the parts that relate to the business of being a visual artist are invaluable. Butler provides easy-to-follow directions on how to go about getting proper permission to properly clear the rights to copyrights, trademarks and other rights for entertainment and media productions.

If you have need to know how to legally incorporate a quote, music, artwork, flim clips, people's names, faces, brand names, life stories or other sorts of protected materials into your work, you need this book. Conversely, if you want to know the best way to properly allow use for your own copyrighted images, it will help you there as well. It includes more than fifty pages of resources and forms for you to use. This could easily be well worth the $13.57 Amazon price many times over for visual artists.

I'm impressed enough by the book to recommend it to you. However, if Butler had not contacted me with an offer I couldn't refuse, I would not know about it. She found me because I have published an Amazon Listmania list, Business & Marketing Books for Visual Artists. Her simple offer was to send me a free autographed copy of her book with the condition I add it to my Listmania if I found it appropriate. No strings attached. Upon review, I was happy to oblige.

My brother is a leading legal authority on franchising which makes heavy use of trademarks and copyrights. I showed him the book and he was quite impressed. That's a high compliment because he is rarely easily impressed by such things. Joy Butler publishes a useful book and uses street smart savvy and a little elbow grease to ferret out prospects to help her market it. I'm sure she will be successful with her efforts.

If you are a reader of Clint Watson's Fine Art Views blog. You recently read a post of his about artist Hazel Dooney giving away copies of her latest print free. I commented on it because it fits with my views that there are new and unique ways artists like Dooney are using to gain publicity. She's getting another bump from me right here. Her free prints have multiplied and amplified her marketing in ways no other marketing can reach.

How many ways can you think of using unique marketing promotions to help you get notoriety otherwise unavailable? If you start thinking creatively about it, you will be surprised at what you can do to help yourself. Butler's book is a worthy addition to any serious artist's bookshelf. For the price of a few minutes of her time to write me and a few bucks to send me a copy, she's gained more exposure to a targeted audience than she could get anywhere using mainstream media. Learning how to use guerrilla tactics like this in your own business will take you a long way towards gaining the success you want.

Here is another great example of how stealth marketing can work for you. Because I am a marketing geek at heart, I subscribe to Michele Miller's superb Wonderbranding, Marketing to Women blog. In timely fashion, just a few weeks before my wife's birthday, she posted about jewelry designer, Nicole Kidd. Turns out Nicole has been sending Michele useful tidbits of information for a long time without ever asking for anything, not even a reply. Just a simple friendly gesture. Michele's blog is one of the most successful and highly read marketing blogs and as such she gets voluminous email. She also has a huge list of potential topics to write about, so for her to mention Nicole, it had to be something special.

Turns out Nicole is something special. When I saw the link and read the post, I knew I would find something on her Web site that would be a perfect gift for my wife. I emailed Nicole and we had some very nice communication, including a phone conversation. She is a dynamo with passion and energy and just plain fun to talk with.

I placed an order and it was filled and delivered on time as promised. My wife loves the unique necklace and earrings and I'm proud every time I see her wear them because she looks great and I know she is wearing something not store bought and because stealth marketing really really works. Some of her favorite stones are turquoise and peridot, her birthstone. Look what I found for her on Nicole's site.

These are but two examples of how using inexpensive creative marketing paid off for the marketer. Like Woody Allen says, "90% of success is showing up." How soon you get your marketing efforts to show up in the right places is up to you. Get started now.   

Banksy Gives Prints Away and Fakes Still Get Sold on Ebay

The anonymous (well almost) British graffiti artist, Banksy, who has made a career of setting the art market on its ear hit the news again with this article in The Art Newspaper: Revealed: the eBay Banksy print fraud. The paper claims to have been tipped off by insiders into a scheme to sell fraudulent limited edition copies of Banksy's work on eBay using shills to up the bidding in the process. Read the story, these fakes were selling for thousands of dollars.

Spray Can Rodeo Girl - Banksy

This guy is fascinating. Callen Bair, who blogs about art for the Conde Nast publication Portfolio has written about him. Here's a quote from her initial Banksy post:

It seems ludicrous, then, that collectors are shelling out tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars for Banksy's works at auction, even if they are painted versions of his designs as opposed to prints. (Pie face done in oil on canvas got $379,446 at Sotheby's London in June.) Of course, Banksy agrees: After Sotheby's made a (relative) killing off seven Banksys it put in a February auction of contemporary art, the artist made a new work that shows an auctioneer directing a lively salesroom accompanied by the caption "I can't believe you morons actually buy this shit."

The Secondary Art Market - Bev Doolittle's Beyond Negotiations Sold Out & The Lunacy of Limited Edition Giclees

Brad Greek, a longtime supporter of my book, consulting and blog recently notified me Bev Doolittle's latest limited edition piece, Beyond Negotiations, was sold out at Greenwich Workshop, her publisher of many years. No surprise in that news really. When I blogged about the work last month, the larger canvas giclee 350 piece edition was already taken. It was only a matter of time before the smaller canvas edition of 3,750 would also be no longer available at the publisher level. Together, the two editions represent $4 million in retail sales for unframed work. (Erratum, the edition of 3,750 was identified on my previous post as being on paper. That is incorrect, it is also a giclee on canvas.)

There may be other artists selling out large editions like Doolittle's, but I doubt any are doing it as quickly as we've seen with Beyond Negotiations, which is her first limited edition published in eight years. Obviously, her fans, collectors and speculators remain enthusiastic about her work. The new piece is already active on the secondary market. The secondary art market and unlimiting giclees are the subject of this post.

Chinese Oil Painting Knockoffs Go Unabated

I ran an article in the newsletter that preceded this blog. It was titled, The China Syndrome - Assembly Oil Line Paintings Come of Age. I also submitted a press release about the article via PRWEB. Both got a very strong response. Nearly two years since it was written, the latter continues to draw traffic to my Web site on a daily basis. The  point was the rather sleepy art industry (by comparison to software, films and music) was being aggressively attacked by Chinese companies that create oil paintings by the pound. Often blatantly knocking off artists from all genres and locations.

From the numbers provided by PRWEB, it's obvious it hit a nerve center. The statistics reported this usage: 26,862 times read/2,165 picked up by news media/8 times forwarded/27 times printed/427 times downloaded as a PDF. If you think the adverse publicity or government action has slowed down activity in this market, you'd be wrong. A syndicated article originated in the Toronto Globe and Mail recently caught my eye in Tucson's AZ Star. Here is the link: http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/relatedstories/184714.php. It's a sickening tale of yet another artist discovering his art being illegally copied and knocked off. 

Around the same time I published my information, Robert Genn of the Painters Keys Twice Weekly Newsletter was also taking up the charge to try and stop knockoffs of his work and other Canadian artists he knew. If you read my story, you'll see it has been the subject of articles in the New York Times and ABC World News. Despite the press, the situation is far from being corrected.

Charley Parker's Excellent Advice on How Not to Display Artwork on the Internet

Some of you may have heard about social networking and Web 2.0. While this blog is not about those things, they do come to mind because I happened to stumble upon Charley Parker's great blog today. It is titled Lines and Colors. He's an artist and Web designer, free thinker and definitely a Web 2.0 type of guy. There happens to be a site called Stumble Upon. It is a great way to find new blogs and all sorts of things on the Internet. I stumbled on Charley's blog in a different way, but it did cause me to think about Web 2.0 and social networking. I will post about those things sometime soon as they are relevant to art print marketing.

Back to the post at hand. Charley provides all the dumb things artists do to make their sites and images less compelling and harder to view for Web surfers. If you read over the list and recognize doing any of the things he talks about, I urge you to admit your guilt and take immediate measures to change your ways.

Think about it, How hard did you work to create the images? How hard did you work to get them properly digitized for the Web? How hard do you work to get traffic to your site? None of this comes easy, it requires your attention. What Charley is pointing out are the things you may inadvertently be doing that are keeping the traffic you have managed to get from having an easy enjoyable time reviewing your work.

There is a discussion in the comments following the post about piracy. The facts are it's here and not soon going away. All the arts are subject to being knocked off or pirated. The Internet just makes it easier for that to happen. It also makes it easier for you to keep ahead of the copycat crooks by continuing to innovate. I suggest doing what is prudent, fighting to stop piracy when possible, but don't let it get you down or eat you up. Instead, focus on being creative and growing your business, it's so much more productive. I have had contact from artists asking about Asian oil painting knockoffs before they have published their first piece.That is irrational fear. It is an admitted drag and time-consuming and spirit killing thing to suffer. But, there are worse things, like no one buying the real art. That's something to seriously worry about.

Keep in mind, that if you are being knocked off or pirated, it is a good indication your art is viable in the marketplace. It's a painful kind of compliment to have this happen, it's also a rite of passage. Go forth and heed Charley's advice and get yourself some sales in the process! It may not help to know this, but even Disneyland is being knocked off in China. Check out the vid here to see what I mean.

Graphics Artists Guild - Great Resources for Artists

Q. What bond do Andy Warhol, Richard Thompson and Arnold Friberg share? 

A. They each began their careers as illustrators, or graphic artists in today's parlance. Each went on to make significant careers as fine artists in the originals market and the print market. Though the latter two did not gain the international superstar status of Warhol, their careers were artistically and profitably rewarding.

If you haven't been to the Graphics Artists Guild site, you owe it to yourself to visit there. It is a wonderful resource with lots of great information. The freely supplied scoop on keeping your work from being orphaned is alone worth the time. Members enjoy a host of other benefits, including access to a health care plan. A list of benefits taken directly from the site include:

• Advocacy
Grievance Committee - Legal Referral Network
Pre-Paid Legal services - Contract Monitor

• Insurance Options
Benefits Plan - Media Alliance - Local Chapter Insurance Brokers

• Professional Development
Artist to Artist Hotline - Job Referral Systems &
Promotional Services - JOBline news - Web Portfolio

• Information Services
Guild News - Local Newsletters - Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidlines 11th Edition

• Professional Discounts
ADBASE - Theispot - Allworth Press
and much more . . .