Self-Publishing Art Books (and print management in general)

Last year I designed and self-published my wife’s art book: ECHO NOUVEAU http://www.echo-nouveau.com.

After careful research, negotiating and comparison shopping I chose to work with Arte Prensa based in Miami and was generally pleased with the results. Arte Prensa is actually a book printer, not a publisher. Printers will print the books and may even help out on design and layout if you need it – but they won’t market it for you. Publishers handle the whole marketing thing and put your book into stores. I don’t have any of those contacts. We self-published and handle the marketing and distribution ourselves. We got her book into Diamond’s Previews to sell it to comic stores and did… okay. If you’re looking for a publisher, I don’t have any personal experience with that yet.

This printer was pretty good considering the price. I live in Florida, so the fact that they printed in Colombia worked out great for us. Some other printers use China. That takes weeks longer to produce, and there are so many copyright thieves in China that we didn’t want to risk it.

We got 1,000 100-page 9×12 hardcover with a spot varnish (cover only) for about $9,000. That’s a good price. We could sell it wholesale for about $16, retail for $40 but give the stores enough room to mark down on sale to $30 and still be happy.

There is one printer who uses China uses numbers are suspect. His pitch was great but he danced around the numbers. This pitch was for us to print 2,500 books plus 250 “special hardcover editions” that we could sell for $250 each and “that alone would cover the printing costs!” So 250x$175 is $44,000… which he would need to be paid up front. I know printing extremely well, and these 250 “special hardcover editions” would alone cost $20,000, so 2,500 for $24,000 is just under $10 each. I paid $9k for 1,000 which is less per book. That threw me for a loop because since MORE books usually means a lower price, 1,000 books from this joker would be more like $16,000, which I couldn’t afford. But he wasn’t happy to lose a $16,000 sale – so he had this great speech to sell me $44,000 up front because he’s such a nice guy. Always use your calculator.

Print Management

Every printer has a person who will work with you to make sure your job gets done correctly. They are your advocate to the pressmen. Their general title is “Account Services” or “Account Managers” and their job is to manage you – not your job. It is YOU who manages your printing job.

Here is a list of standard items you should get when working with a reputable printer. These are NOT exceptional. These are standards. If a printer balks at giving you any one of them don’t give them your business.

• Paper Mock-Up
  This is a simple book put together with blank paper of the EXACT stock you’ve chosen to use. This is something you should get before final decision on papers – not after. IF anyone gives you bulshit about “having to buy the paper just for this book” then ditch them. Reputable printers use the same paper selections over and over again, so they should only be making one out of their stock. This of course, doesn’t apply if you want some really rare custom paper – but if you know that much, you don’t need to read any more of this little blog post.
• Blue Lines or color comp
  If the job will be printed offset (books usually are), then this is a  Cyan-only print of the entire book. This is the final chance you have to proof how the book is printed. Warning: This book was produced from plates, which means any correction you find will often incur a plate correction charge. Makes sense though. You should have proofed better before going to plate.
• Digital Color proof IN PRINT of all pages with art
  Don’t let a printer deny this to you. Many who complain will do so because they lo-balled you on the price and didn’t include the cost of this little number. But really – how else are you going to proof the color calibration of your art? Seriously! Changes here should not incur a plate charge unless you signed something approving them to go to plate first. DON’T DO THAT! Only allow them to go to plate after the blue-line and this Digital Color Proof are approved. If they whine, then it’s their dime. They should know better.
• 5%-10% overrun
  I ran into this problem with Arte Prensa. I purchase 1,000 books and when they arrived I only got 1,000 books. WTF! Why am I pissed? Well, because the printing process is difficult to maintain perfect quality control. While paper in the main cost in printing, 5%-10% of wholesale is piddly. Also, since the book is already on press, it cost nothing to keep the machines running for an extra 5 minutes (they run REALLY FAST) to produce enough extra books to make the client happy. I bought 1,000 books for me to sell. I didn’t buy 950 book to sell and 50 to throw in the trash. Reputable printers will always overprint to make sure you are happy and have the correct number of quality product because the next time you go to press, you’ll shop around to find someone who won’t dick you around. Now, in this case, I brought it to the attention of the owner and after a few days of discussion he finally decided to give me a price break on shipping and ensure I would get my overrun on the next job. That was a nice gesture and I believe he will, but it was ridiculous that I had to argue for it and what I really want is my 50 books that got screwed up reprinted. Shipping was $200. 50 books at $9 each is $450 spent. 50 books at $31 profit is over $1,500 in profit lost. He cost me $2,000 but gave me $200 – not exactly the kind of relationship one wants to have in business.

Special Terms

FOB – This means where is the final product delivered. If the FOB is NOT your studio, then you have to add in the shipping cost to get there to the quote. If FOB has your address, then the quote includes delivery. This is one of those things that printers can futz with to make themselves look cheaper than the other guys.

AQ or Aqueous – This is a brand of chemical coatings. Some printers only use one kind and get confused when you ask “Which Aqueous?” First printer I ever used only had Gloss Aqueos and one of my current printers only uses Satin Aqueous and both account managers weren’t knowledgable enough to know there was the other kind. So when reading a website bragging about AQ and how much extra it is – make sure you find out which. I’ve made the mistake of assuming once and received 5,000 junk business cards with the wrong finish. Ugh.

Fold Direction: Horizontal vs. Vertical – This is another feature every account rep pretends means the same thing everywhere and it doesn’t. At some printers Horizontal means the page is folded horizontally so there are left and a right pages. (meaning the actual ‘fold’ itself is vertical). Other printers say Horizontal is a horizontal fold bisecting the page into top and bottom pages (meaning the document is read vertically).

Spot Varnish – Spot means “any custom shape” and Varnish is a glossy coating. You cannot mix Spot Varnishes and glossy coatings (such as an Aqueous Gloss). The point of a spot varnish is to use a satin finish for some of the page and then use glossy parts for the rest. This can be used for patterns, highlighting details, or many many kinds of artistic effects. It always costs more – but when done right, it’s always appreciated. You can see my Spot Varnish on Echo’s book: ECHO NOUVEAU http://www.echo-nouveau.com.

Price per Quantity – Seems pretty straight forward – and it is IF you know what you’re reading. Printing 1,000 is NOT half the cost of printing 2,000. The printer has something called setup costs. Those cover everything from the account manager’s salary, the pressman’s salary, and general overhead to place costs, warehouse costs and cleaning costs (offset printers need costly maintenance to ensure each job is clean and clear). It doesn’t matter if it’s 1,000 or 100,000, those costs are pretty much the same (well, okay, maybe some costs on 100,000 units will be more). So when you see number that say $450 for 1,000 and $575 for 2,000 – you can see that they are only charging $125 for the second 1,000 pieces. You will NOT be able to negotiate the price down on the minimum cost. Just can’t. You CAN however negotiate the cost on greater quantities. After setup, you’re just paying for paper. Some printers may have larger setup fees but lower deals on quantities. Printer A may be lower on quantities up to 5,000, but Printer B might be lower on quantities OVER 5,000. Make sure you understand what you’re asking for. If you are selling the product, the CPU (cost per unit) is a critical to your bottom-line – but so is up front cost. It’s great to bring your book price down to $6 per book – but if you don’t have the $72,000 to put down and could never actually sell 12,000 books then you’ve ruined your business.

I’ll post more when I think of them or when someone asks.

A little about Channukah. No I’m not Jewish.

According to Google, the standard spelling of the holiday in standard Hebrew Square is:

חנוכה (read RtL)

Which would transliterate to:

ḩnnḩh (read LtR)

or more correctly

ḩ(1) n(1) n(2) ḩ(2) h

The numbers in parentheses indicate different Hebrew characters that stand for the same sound (like C and K or C and S can in English).

One standard rule of transliteration is avoid using International Phonetic Alphabetic (IPA) characters, and use common characters. THis causes issue when phonemes (mouth sounds) aren’t used in a language. In this case, many choose to use “ch” in place of “ḩ” because of the German name “Bach” is familiar with enough English speakers to make the association. However, that phoneme placed at the front of a word is counter-intuitive to English. The correct choice should be “q” (or “kh”) – but neither are common enough for public use. The difference would then show as

chnnchh
or
qnnqh

You can clearly see the legibility difference – but English speakers aren’t used to seeing “q” without a “u” following it.
Additionally, double letters are used in many languages for different reasons. Sometimes they are hold-overs from ancient pronunciations, sometimes they are scribal inflections meant to enforce the phoneme by the reader (e.g., Ancient Egyptian scribes wrote the name of the Goddess “BAS-T” as “BAS-T-T” to remind the reader that they MUST pronounce the name with the final-T because Greek linguistic influenced caused the population to start to slur or omit the final-T, which did not exist in Greek. Later transliterators mistakenly renamed her “Bastet”.) In this example, the double Ns are unnecessary. So:

chnchh

As for vowel additions, that is mostly colloquial. Placement becomes an issue, because Hebrew Square is Alphabetic and not Syllabic. In Syllabic scripts, every consonant may be followed by a vowel. (Katakana in Japenese is like this – with an odd cultural acceptance that the “-u” ending sound may be voiceless and therefore omitted entirely.) The next issue is which vowels are placed where? Traditionally, the letter “a” stands for generic vowels. This is not to be confused with the Hebrew letter א which not a vowel but actually a glottal-stop consonant that is ALWAYS followed by a vowel-sound. Sometimes it’s “a” and sometimes it’s “e”. So the generic spelling might be:

chanachaha

While this looks a little weird, it is almost perfect. To the English ear, the final-H appears out of place because we don’t hear the vowel. In truth, the final vowel is voiceless and to Hebrew speakers with pronounced linguistic influence it is not even pronounced at all (i.e., dropped). Therefore, they usually drop the vowel, but keep the “h” for accuracy and tradition-sake.

chanachah

Now it’s time to make it easy for foreigners to pronounce, so let’s do away with the second “ch” and make it a “k”. That’s fine because in common speech it’s spoken so quickly that’s almost correct. The first “ch” is a different problem. English speakers want to pronounce it with the front their mouths and the tongue pressed in the middle. The actual phoneme is pronounced from the back of the mouth with the tongue pressed nearly closed (but not close) in the back of the mouth. The closest English phoneme is “k” but that’s too far from the original. So the choice is either “ch” or “h”. Hard choice. The “h” is easier for English speakers to get right, but “ch” can be used to teach people (“ch” as in “Bach”, understand?).

chanakah

Now to finish up. One weird problem is that there are dialects in English that will always screw up a foreign letter “a”. We’re the only ones who pronounce “a” as in “hay” or “way”. Everyone else pronounces it “a” as in “father” or “wash”. The rules of English reflect this, so to use the rules of English against the reader, we’ll reapply the second “n” and replace the second “a” with a “u” to make it harder for them to say “Hay-nah-kay”. Oh, and it’s a religious festival, so it get’s capitalized (There is no majuscule script in Hebrew). So:

Channukah

There you go.

How to Design an Artist’s Portfolio Website

I’ve been building websites since 1995, and since 1999 I’ve been an Internet Creative Director 6 times over and owned my own Advertising Firm. My clients have included everyone from tiny NFP organizations to personally producing for an annual internet budget exceeding $30 million (out of a total $100 million). I’ve managed several art departments and even staffed 5 art departments from scratch. I have hired well over 100 artists (thus visited over 10,000 portfolio sites to hire them) to fill both full-time and freelance positions. So when I offer advice about how to best design a website to showcase their product or service to get hired, it’s not coming from ‘some web designer guy’. It’s coming from a lot more experience and professional accuity than even most professionals in the field today.

My Resume in 2001-2003

I prefaced my advice like this because an artist recently ignored my offer of assistance for improving their website – even though they claim to be desperately in need of more work. I was and am still shocked. You see, if you don’t know – the entire art and advertising world lives on the Internet now. It’s not good enough to have the same black book as everyone else – just better art. It’s about several dozen other things now that are critical to your success as an an artist. Coming from an advertising background, my resume and portfolio were ALWAYS carefully packaged to showcase my talent at selling myself. My portfolio case was green suede, while everyone else’s was black. I once bought 2 dozen action figures that looked like me and repackaged them AS me, and published by resume on the back of the cardboard. So when it comes to selling, I’ve been pretty creative.

But how do you sell yourself? There are two parts to selling yourself – creatively and technically. If you call yourself an artist, you’ll have no problem coming up with creative ways to sell – but almost every artist I know doesn’t correctly apply the technical aspects of selling. I’m not talking about programming, I’m talking about communication. It’s too easy to get caught in the mindset of “I have to show my STYLE” when designing a website and forget that someone else has to actually navigate it, digest it and eventually purchase your services from it. Here is how to do that.

Information

In the biz of web design, we call this “Information Architecture” and that’s a fancy phrase encompassing the type of content and it’s order of importance. This is before the ‘Site Map’ which is another fancy term web designer throw around, often without understanding it. Artist’s require four critical groups of content: Their Name/Contact Information, their Portfolio, their Resume and a Blog (or Newsfeed). That’s it. You don’t need anything else – but if you want to add more you can. Just make sure you understand the next part of this aspect of information design. The Order of information is also critical, but it is also reflects what type of professional you are. For example, a website that leads with your Name immediately infers that your name is a brand and requires memorization. On the positive side, visitors will often remember your name. On the negative side, if the rest of your site is weak (e.g., your resume is light or your portfolio is inexperienced), the visitor will remember to associate your name with poor quality – and that’s not the impression you ever want to give a potential client. Leading with your name should be reserved for established professionals who’ve already built a long-standing career and when visitors are driven your site they will say “YES! I finally found it.” Most artists should probably lead with their portfolio first. That doesn’t mean throw every single portfolio image on a single page neither does it mean to throw one great big single image as a “splash page” for people to remember you by. Always remember that clients are looking for something specific for their project and will only hire someone who has created something similar in the past. Why risk hiring someone to draw a horse if they never drawn a horse before? By pushing single image, you limit your clients knowledge of your full capabilities. It’s best to have a groups of thumbnails or close-ups which can be activated to reveal the complete project. No one should lead off their web site with their resume – it’s nowhere near as important as their portfolio – but why would anyone ever lead with their blog? Search Engines. The blog doesn’t have to actually be a full blog – but it should be constantly updated with new and relevant content, such as new project publications, new project hires, awards… things make will make clients go “Wow. If they can do that kind of work for that client – they’ll do wonders for my project.” What order should YOURS be in? Make a choice. There is no correct answer – but there are definitely wrong ones. Being indecisive is and trying to mix them all is one of the wrong ones. Beginning a site with a content that doesn’t sell to a client is a really wrong answer. Content like: autobiographies, political rants, poetry, vacation photos, etc. … Content like those fall under the category of mastubutorial crap. It’s stuff that talk about you – but that no one cares about. A client really doesn’t care if you come from New Jersey or Prince Edward Island. They don’t care how many kids you have. They don’t care if you like The Doors or work part-time at the animal rescue shelter. What they care about is simple: Can you complete their project? Will it look good? Will it be done on time? Will you be easy to work with? Will you make them look good for hiring you? That’s it. Answer those questions on your site and you’ll be working.

Navigation

Once you have chosen an order for your information, use that for your navigation. One good example is: “Home” (Blog), “Portfolio”, “Resume, “Contact Me”. Another good example is “Portfolio”, “Resume”, “News” (Blog), “Contact Me”. This is the information your client wants and how she wants it. Don’t get fancy. The more complicated you make it, the more likely they are to miss your message. That message should always be “Hire Me” – but don’t be literal.

“Home”

The “Home” page will answer her big questions of “Who are you?” It should include your art and a clean introduction immediately highlighting why she should hire you. It doesn’t have to be literal. You could begin with an announcement of a recent award you might have won. You could lead with a gallery of your best pieces (I’ll go over “Portfolio” later). Just remember that your name will always be associated with your art – but unless you’ve built up an enormous reputation already clients won’t hire a name – only a portfolio. On my wife’s website, http://www.echo-x.com, she focuses on introducing herself through announcements of her success. It’s one thing to say “I’ve been working for 15 years” and another thing to say “Look at what I did for Celestial Seasonings”. If a client sees you have had another client, even a competitor,  use you with success they will get an extremely favorable opinion of you. Additionally, since Echo updates her home page pretty regularly, it is easily picked by search engines, which is definitely valuable for people accidentally coming across her site using related keywords to her page. This isn’t as important for artist’s with huge marketing machines behind them directing people there from published books, advertising or Art Reps – but it is very useful for those who need to get extra attention. Echo actually also has books and advertising and art reps promoting her site – she just wants the extra attention.

“Portfolio”

Access to the portfolio should be instantaneous. Every page should have the ability to start flipping through thumbnails or close-ups (or both) of critical portfolio pieces. The rule is: One-Click to view to the art. The only way you can get away with Two Clicks to get to the art is if you have multiple “Galleries” grouping by styles or projects or clients. NEVER group by year because visitors will then be able to critique whether you are getting better or degrading. If your best piece was 5 years ago and your more recent pieces are less impressive – it can give a negative impression. If your site requires more than Two Clicks from Home to reach ANY portfolio page, you have a serious problem. Recently, I visited an artist’s page that requires FIVE clicks to reach art. They have a click to the list of galleries. Then they have two groups of galleries divided by industry to choose from. Then they have a list of project types within each industry. Then they have a list of groups by client. Then they have the list of work done for each client. Then finally a list of art to choose from for each project – sometimes only 1 or 2 works of art appear. It’s awful. What this does is force the potential client to work for their information. Maybe I’m not publishing a Role-Playing game, but I am looking for an illustration of a dragon for “Red Dragon Beer”. Now instead of just scrolling through thumbnail and thumbnail looking for dragons, I have to hunt down which categories and sub-categories MIGHT have dragons in them and THEN have to guess which client might have commissioned a dragon. And after finding one, I’d have to start over from scratch to find another. Too much work and their are plenty of other artists out there to choose from so why waste my time? They obviously aren’t careful with their own portfolio presentation, so they probably won’t be very careful with my own project.

Another important point to know is to only showcase the best of your work and the work you want to do in the future. Showing less than stellar work reduces your overall (median) level of quality. Also, if you show a subject or style in your portfolio, you WILL be hired to do it again. An old professor of mine once said that he was hired to do a beach illustration for Red Lobster and it came out so well he published an advertisement for himself with it (in a directory). For the next year and a half, he was inundated with beach and shellfish illustrations. It paid the bills but he hated it. Something similar happened to Echo once. She wasn’t fond of her final result for her first Art Nouveau illustration for an advertising client (long story) but she loved the style and the client was a name brand, so she put it live on her web site. She’s been considered an Art Nouveau Illustrator ever since.

Promote your pieces with brief but well written descriptions of the projects for each. No one reviews art to read – but the information is critical. The client’s name, the project, the year, your role and any relevant success the client or had from the project. Sometimes projects win awards. Sometime you win awards for projects. Those are nice – but what client’s REALLY want to know is how well it sold the product. “Sold 1 million copies the first month” or “Project did so well that client turned into a campaign and commissioned 3 more in the same style.” That’s why it is so important to follow up with your clients. Besides making them feel like you are eager to do business with them again, you get to learn critical information about your project’s success to promote yourself in the future. Clients rarely follow up with you to offer that kind of information. They HIRED you and they feel like THEIR success is THEIRS. Sometimes they will win awards and not ever tell you. Sometimes they won’t even give you credit (remember “Work for Hire”). Sometimes they won’t even send you product samples of your final work even when it’s specified in the contract to do so. (Any of Echo’s clients reading this should look to see if they owe her anything. I can think of three right now.)

You will have both experienced professionals and rank amateurs reviewing your portfolio. Amateurs won’t be able to tell anything about your portfolio that you don’t tell them (even if they like it). Professionals will be able to tell if your work is traditional or digital, raster or vector or both. They’ll be able to tell if you created a new font or if you manipulated an existing one. Those are all obvious. Both kinds of clients, however, will still ask you questions about your work as if they don’t know. Why? Because they are interviewing you to see how well you communicate. If you stutter and stammer and skip important pieces of information or are generally unable to express yourself clearly, they have learned that you can’t be brought into a meeting and certainly can’t ever be expected to meet their boss or their client. Worse, they also have learned that if you have a problem with the project at any stage in the future, you won’t be able to communicate the problem and it will be difficult working with you to resolve the problem. Clients have enough of their own problems – they have zero interest in hiring more problems. The less they know themselves, the more they want YOU to be able to communicate for them. The more they know, the more they want to be able to talk to a peer to get the project moving smoothly. If you don’t know what A7 is or the difference between the margin, the slug and the bleed – you’re going to have trouble earning those top-level clients.

Be prepared to go over your portfolio pages while on the phone with a client. They love doing that, especially when asking you to bid on things. Think about that while designing your page. Every time you have difficulty talking a client through your own site, you are undermining your credibility. Every typo, every broken link, every extra step going from one piece to the next is your nightmare. Make sure it’s perfect.

“Resume”

This should really be titled “Client List” because that’s almost all that matters. But NEVER LIE on that list, because if you get found out – your bad name will spread faster than it ever did before. You see, clients want to know if you can meet their business criteria. Can you make a deadline? Can you take art direction? Can you be trusted with legally sensitive material? Can you be an effective listener and communicator at meetings with their boss or even THEIR client? In essence – can you make them look good? A resume usually says who you worked for as a staff member. Clients don’t care about that – but potential employers do. More important than who you worked for is who published your work. You could have worked for a tiny agency working on impressive brand name clients or worked for a large advertising firm doing layouts of internal business cards. Ultimately, your client list will be a complete list of who used your art, while your portfolio is the list of the pieces you feel best reflect your capabilities for future projects. This page is also great for highlighting awards and mentions in publications. Any and all information that says “I am a professional and if you hire me, I will make you look good.” is appropriate. For everything else, your portfolio will tell them what you can do.

It’s amazing how far a client list will go. When Echo tells potential clients she is an advertising illustrator, they smile and nod. When the tells them she’s worked for Celestial Seasonings, Miller, Coors, Sears, NASCAR, and the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas – she gets treated with a completely new level of respect.

“Blog” (or News)

As said previously, you could have your blog or news on your “Home” page, but it’s not necessary. What you really want is a page that keeps the potential client engaged – making them say “WOW!” as many times as possible. Don’t just blog away your thoughts and NEVER EVER COMPLAIN on your blog. Just make sure you use it to offer contast updates on your portfolio and career. It’s this information that can be easily spun into a email update to past and future clients. If you develop a list of satisfied clients and keep them updated, they will always keep you in mind for future projects. It may take years for any individual to call you again, but it will be great to hear from them when they do.

“Contact Me”

NEVER USE A CONTACT FORM!!! Really. You see, contact forms are promoted by programming ‘gurus’ who talk about ‘security’ and ignore ‘usability’. There are many potential clients and employers who see a contact form and simply close the browser. Your client is a professional who has a deadline and probably a meeting with their boss in five minutes. They want to reach you NOW and get their answers NOW so when they go into that meeting they can say “I’ve found at least one illustrator who can do the job. They charge $X and are available to start the project tomorrow. Here are print outs of relevant pages from their portfolio web site. Should I sen them a contract?” If they have to fill out a form and wait to be contacted back, that meeting will go as follows “I found one illustrator but I have to wait for them to get back to me. I know the client wants an answer today and for us to start tomorrow but they didn’t have any direct contact information. The portfolio looks okay, but I don’t know how long it took them to do or how much they cost.” If you think they or their boss will EVER say “let’s wait until we hear back from that illustrator” you are in serious need of reality adjustment. Echo has earned more work from answering her phone when others didn’t than we can count. It’s laughable. Now email addresses are fine professionally. You see, when a client sends you an email, they can CC it to their boss or other relevant parties to prove that they did contact you. And if you ever fail to respond, everyone will know that you’re untrustworthy. A contact form just BEGS for you to use it as an excuse: “Sorry, I didn’t respond in a timely manner, but I’m having problems with my contact form.” I’ve heard it myself several times and chalk them up to being unprofessional and unreliable. ALWAYS give a useful email address and a working telephone number. Don’t give your full mailing address and I’d hesitate to even give a city and state. It really doesn’t matter anymore – but there are still clients who have unfounded opinions that will affect their choice to contact you. Of course, give as many ways of contacting you as possible, including Facebook, Twitter, Art Reps, etc. Don’t give the client ANY excuse that they couldn’t reach you in time to meet their deadline.

DON’TS and NEVERS

No complaints or negativity at all. Clients have enough problems of their own. No self-effacement either. ESPECIALLY begging for work. It’s a strain on the client they don’t want or need. They’re not your friend and so have no interest in helping. They may be in financial problems themselves and it will just remind them of that, so you’ve stressed them out. While some may see it as an opportunity to take advantage of you (and don’t think it won’t), most will see it as a sign that you aren’t good enough at your job to be a working professional and you might very well quit your studio for a job in retail in the middle of their deadline. Too much risk. Moving on.

No illegible type. I know it’s fun and funky, but seriously you want people to see your art and understand that you can communicate their product to their customers clearly. If you can’t communicate yourself clearly, they’ll squint, shrug or even guffaw and move on.

No narcissism. No over-the-top pat-on-the-back mastubatory preening saying how great you are. That might work for amateur clients who don’t know who you are or how to judge your worth – but it will ban you from top-level clients who have seen a thousand portfolios better than you TODAY. Corporations want results from their contractors, not bullshit. They have Vice Presidents for that.

No poetry. Seriously. I cannot stress this enough. Unless your clients are looking to hire a poet (and they’re not) leave it off. Make a new web site dedicated to that and promote that accordingly.

NO PIRATED WORK. When you get found out, you will be sued and you will lose and you will never work freelance again. I myself once had my entire portfolio website stolen. A former employee of mine called me up to tell me that after googling himself he found my portfolio promoted by a design firm in Iowa. They didn’t even take my name off the thing – they just downloaded my website and posted pages as their own. I called them and spoke with the owner and calmly explained who I was, where my name was listed on their website and the exact URL of my own website. Her explained that he had just hired a new Creative Director and they published HIS portfolio as theirs to make things easy. Within 5 minutes the website came down and I received polite apology from the owner claiming that he fired the person on the spot and filed a lawsuit against him for fraud to recover all of the wages he earned. Sucks to be him.

No religious, political or controversial opinions or links to like-minded websites. You automatically limit yourself to like-minded clients, and while that may sound great at first, you will then have to face the harsh reality that those clients affected by that motivation are both poor and cheap. Harper-Collins doesn’t care if your Christian, Wiccan or a cannibal. What they do care about is that your goal is to finish their project on time – even when there is a holy day or mass or even The Rapture itself. It’s unprofessional to mention it at all mostly because corporations are Athiests – and view religions as counter-productive to their profit margins. Keep it close to your heart – but off the web site. Same with politics. Corporations have their own motivations and any anti-corporate scent from you will get you shunned faster than you can blink. Even promoting Corporate agendas can get you banned. Why? Because the people hiring within corporations may have a very specific opinion that contradicts yours and so they’ll block your emails. Remember, clients who hire artists are often artists themselves – and so are equally as opinionated. Stay away from it. It might sound great to advertise yourself as being vegetarian or vegan to win over grocery clients – but larger clients have larger interests making money from a larger customer-base, and if they know they won’t be able to call on you for their entire product selection you won’t even be in the running. Lastly, NEVER NEVER NEVER promote drugs on your website (e.g., show cannabis leaves in your logo, etc.). There is a common misperception among idiots – I mean among young artists – that everyone creative smokes marijuana or uses cocaine and that the cultures are synonymous. Wrong. Drug use gives the clients the pre-conception that they are unreliable in both quality and timeliness, have real difficulties communicating, have no understanding of the realities of business, and will spend their earnings on cost-of-living PLUS drugs (meaning they are over-charging to feed their habit). If you are one of those idiots – I mean young artists – then remove every drug reference from your portfolio and let them find out for themselves whether their preconceptions are correct or not. Don’t let them call you a loser before finding out for themselves.

In summation, your website is your #1 tool for getting work and earning money. Don’t ignore it and don’t let someone else influence how it *should* be because *web design is their business*. Unless they are hugely more successful than you, they are talking out of their ass. Understand the ideas and the explanations I have offered here and make the best choices for yourself. If you disagree or feel you are an exception – go ahead and try it. Just allow for the possibility that you are not an exception and be able to revert back to something else without too much trouble or expense.

Apologies for the Socially Challenged

For some reason it turns out that this is necessary:

When you make a mistake, you might have learned as a child that you avoid punishment by lying. This will not work as an adult – because the one who will be able to notice that a mistake was made in the first place will also be qualified to smell bullshit when it’s offered to them.

So here is the correct way to handle making a mistake – ANY MISTAKE – to remain professionally reputable:

Step 0: Keep records of the entire situation for your benefit.

Step 1. If possible, point out the mistake before someone else sees it.

Step 2. Apologize. Yes – that’s pretty simple, but it’s something missed by most people. Of course, an apology is meaningless without the other steps.

Step 3. Vow to resolve the mistake or to find someone who can. Saying “Sorry” but dumping the problem back into their lap unresolved is the equivalent of saying “Fuck you.” If you do this – people will go out of their way to hurt you.

Step 4. Actually resolve the problem or find someone who can. If you can’t resolve it for any reason then present the records showing how you tried to resolve it and why you were unable to do so.

Step 5. Apologize for the inconvenience. I’d recommend vowing to ensure perfection the next time around, but that can bite you hard if it wasn’t completely under your control. If you relied on vendors or contractors who failed, fire them.

It’s that simple. Do this, and your reputation will stand as someone who accomplishes missions… No one is perfect – and those who claim to be will lose the most when they do.

I’ve made mistakes and have failed both minorly and majorly. It’s amazing how positive the response can be if you can take the time to show concern over your fail. It’s becoming a rare thing.

As both an employer and a manager of a host of vendors, I will not tolerate bullshit. Lie to me, and your life will be a nightmare. My reputation for honest and honorable relationships is pretty solid because I resolve any and every issue that arises, and when I say someone is unprofessional – that holds weight.

The Freudian Artist – On Creativity

Visual creativity can sometimes be overwhelmed by surface thinking ergo Freud’s “Ego” – and almost anything that increases adrenaline can suppress “Ego” and lead one to run more purely on Super-Ego – the subconscious direction that athletes term “The Zone” and Samurai Warriors called “Emptiness” but are essentially letting the brain direct the body without interference from second-guessing. Caffeine, oxygen, exercise, sex, and rage are all really good means of directing oneself to that goal. Less so are both fear and meditation. Oddly meditation is usually focusing on relaxing – which heightens ones Ego. Fear is used by most motivators because the motivators themselves are usually motivated by fear. Fear works best when it translates directly to and through rage – but it can work by itself. The problem is that fear actually increases the Egos desire to remain in control because it decreases trust in the Super-Ego. Fear of the Super-Ego is the main obstacle is using fear. Once someone has been trained to work with that technique, however, it can be more predictable than some of the other techniques – which is why the military uses it. They aren’t trying to increases creativity – they’re increasing rote mechanical productivity. Artists who’ve had military service can often translate pretty well. Those without will rarely put up with it because of the easier and frankly better ways of becoming “creative” and “productive”.

How to be a Successful Artist – Part 1

Every artist must wear two hats – that of the artist or craftsman and that of the businessman (please consider my use of the masculine to be gender neutral – it’s just easier to type). The one thing they did NOT teach me or Echo in art school was business – they only taught art. Of course, it was a monumental curriculum in learning art, so no complaints really. It would’ve taken nearly 40 more credits to learn about business, and so we did it the hard way. Learn from our hard fought experiences.

About the art:

1. Be focused. You’re vision may be represented in theme, narrative, context or technique. Whatever it is, master it. This will take about 5-10 years. Then master the other four to round yourself out. This will take another 20.

2. Be unique – be yourself. “Cultivate Your Own Half-Acre” – Norman Rockwell. What he meant was that every artist has an intrinsic style or vision almost preternaturally disposed to and fighting that will delay success. Mucha wanted to be a painter – but got stuck being famous for High Art Nouveau (Jugenstihl).

3. Be strong. Develop enough of an ego to accept that your vision can always be improved, even with the help of outsiders and even the untrained. (See #5)

4. Be aware. NEVER edit yourself. Get someone else to do that for you. See #3.

5. Be open. Learn to edit yourself. See your art the way others do and make the changes they would offer to it before they do.

6. Don’t be a douche. A douche sells himself as himself and doesn’t sell the art. A douche constantly confuses the value of themselves with the value of their art – thereby initiating conflict and creating ‘rivals’ where were none before. I’ve known many a douche in the art world and some of them are successful… but none of the ones I know have friends. If the art is good, then sell it. If the art isn’t good, then get better. If you can’t wait to get better because you want to succeed, then alienating your peers and critics alike to grab the fastest dollar is definitely a plan to consider, but you will be a lonely laughing stock. Some artists can live with that.

7. Don’t be a dick (yes, women can be dicks). A dick buys his own press and thinks that if 100 people thinks they’re the greatest, then it’s just a matter of time before the rest of the world gets with the program. Dicks don’t improve their art – they find all they require in the rehashing of whatever worked the first time. The reality is that in the art world, their are COUNTLESS MILLIONS of people and dollars that will support crap – and a dick won’t recognize that their career is propped up crap. It may have even been pretty good at one time – but time moves on and if the artist doesn’t the fans will. Then they turn can descend into a douche.

About the business. Remember: You are creating a product to be sold.

1. Be decisive. How do you want to sell it? As a published work (e.g., commercial commissions?), as a one-of-a-kind fine art piece? As a licensable theme/design/character for millions of products world-wide? Each CHANNEL is distribution is unique – decide how you want to attack any and all CHANNELS you choose (yes CHANNEL is a new vocabulary word, folks).

2. Be intelligent. Who is your audience? Are they midwestern middle-aged second-homeowners with a recently cashed in 401K or home equity check? Are they uber-wealthy luxury collecters looking for anything to impress their peers where money is no object? Are they fantasy art fans who frequent conventions and will save 12 months to spend on an airline flight and then a hotel room and then spend 4-days looking for the just the right find to bring home and add to their collection? Are they emos or otaku who have $5 in their hand and have trouble deciding between a fashion item or a hot dog? Are they manufacturers or publishers looking to make their products or titles leap of the shelves and drown out the competition? Learn who they are and what they want – and then speak their language. In the case of the latter, you’ll have to learn the language of THEIR customers too.

3. Be serious. How much can you afford to work for? Seriously – the hardest part about being an artist is getting paid what you are worth. Some clients won’t pay enough and other clients might surprise you with paying you more than you think it’s worth – but you have to balance, because lowering yourself will kill you and buying into the ‘new higher rate’ will alienate you. Find a balance.

4. Don’t miss a deadline… ever… Sure, emergencies can crop up and the good ADs and CDs will have built in a cushion to accommodate for that but the reality is you have to earn that trust first AND their really aren’t that many good ADs and CDs. Unless you’re the only one of the world who can do what you do, they’ll never work with you again.

5. Don’t be a starving artist. Parents are terrified that their child is going to live at home and never make a life for themselves just ‘drawing pictures’. More artists are successful than not – they just aren’t going to always be famous. Their are more artists involved in producing the material advertising a football game than there are players on the field from BOTH teams. OH! And just because you produce one kind of art for one channel, doesn’t mean you can’t produce a different kind for a different channel. EXPAND EXPAND EXPAND!!!

6. Don’t give up.

There’s more – but just soak that in for awhile.

Basic Promotion Concepts

This is my side of a Facebook Message conversation I had with an artist asking for tips to bring their business to the next level. Hope it helps you too.

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Laz: You should calculate your hourly rate – what you need to pay bills. Make sure to you also consider all operating and growth costs. Need $2000/mo for bills? Well if you spend $1 on product and sell it for $5 that means you’ll need to sell $2500. But you’ll need to spend more to make more so selling $3000 would give you enough to spend on $1000 of product next time which could fetch $5000. Of course to sell more you’ll have to promote yourself, so that’ll increase operating costs.

Laz: Echo spends about [edit] on self promotion every year for websites and annuals. That doesn’t include cons. General rule is to spend 15% of gross income on promotion [edit]. In retail companys spend as much as 20% and in pharmaceutical it goes over 40%!

Laz: You only need one mailing list site: adbase.com. It’s a list of all the art buyers, art directors, creative directors, senior designers, marketing directors, etc. in the country. Just make sure your email is clean, attractive and enticing because they are mostly artists themselves and know what to judge you by. A good mailing can get a fan base going of peers and potential clients. A bad mailing will be harshly criticized.

Sticks-and-Stones

It’s in human nature to overcome adversity. When we have a weakness – we seek to overcome it or hide it. Many of us strive so hard to overcome it that we dedicate our lives to it (e.g., Chuck Close has a learning disability that makes him forget faces instantly and he is currently the world’s most famous living portrait painter). In that vein, we can also seek out strength in the ways other intend to demean us. Lesbians claim “Dyke”, African-Americans claim “Nigger”, Gays claim “Faggot”, some women claim “Whore”, some teens claim “Emo” (for “Emotionally Overwhelmed”), smart teens claim “Weirdo” “Geek” and “Nerd”. When they claim it – it takes the power away from the derogatory user and lets the offended say “I claim my uniqueness and am proud of it – so there!”.

Fan Sites – How they help the artist publicize.

Below is my side of a Facebook discussion about Fan sites. Someone found a fan site that posted a lot of artist’s works publically BUT ALSO GAVE CREDIT to every artist on every piece. This is different than someone stealing the work and selling copies OR claiming to own the copyright or even take credit for it.

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Laz: I see it as free promotion. It’s not like the site doesn’t give the artist – credit. The only thing I’d do is contact the person and try to get a link to my website attached to every one of my images. It’s not a negative to be appreciated and promoted under your own name.

Laz: If it’s posted on the web it’s published for public use and consumption. If it were published in a magazine and someone cut it out of that magazine and put it on display as your work with your name attached would you still demand they ask permission first? Obviously not.

Laz: If you don’t want CERTAIN works you have done to be public, then you should ask the person nicely to remove it under that explanation… but there isn’t an artist living or dead that was mortified about the popularity of a piece or pieces they despised or thought were junk. Alphonse Mucha hated his opera posters. He thought they were ‘pop art crap’ and wanted the world to remember him for his Czech Epic paintings… and how many people today actually know what those look like let alone how many even know those paintings exist.

Laz: As I said, contact him and politely ask for him to add a link to your site. If he’s a fan, that shouldn’t be a problem. He might be slow – but he’s not profiting from it on that site. Now – if it were an EBAY site, that’s different. The main thing is that people aren’t going to his site and saying “Hey! I can get this for free instead of paying for it!” The reality is (and this has been proven from a decade of market research) that if a web-viewer is a fan, when they see art they like, they’ll find a way to purchase something from you – if not today, then tomorrow. If they aren’t a fan and still download it – guess what, they’ll still share it with other promoting you to people who WILL be fans. The marketing terms are “word of mouth” and “secondary decision makers” and “viral marketing”.

Laz: Actual case: In the 90′s, Mercedes Benz started this massive legal campaign against everyone who used their name and logo and photos of their vehicles on the web… REALLY!!! They attacked AOL, Yahoo (yes they did) and even individual car enthusiasts. My firm even got a cease and desist letter from their legal team because we built a site auctioning used cars and they claimed that advertising that some of their cars up for auction was using their brand without their permission and our client was making money from their reputation… They even refused us linking to their website! Boy they had their head up their ass. 2 years and $millions of market research later, they found out that their brand recognition jumped dramatically amongst web-users who frequented used automobile related web-sites and even when those people bought used Mercedes, they still had to buy Mercedes PARTS and then started buying Mercedes brand merchandise and bragged all over to their friends about how great their Mercedes was which spilled over into MORE sales.

Laz: My point is that you have to look at the bigger picture of your business. You’re not living hand-to-mouth on every print and reproduction of your hand made art TODAY – you are living off of the art people will buy TOMORROW and the next day and the one after that. These people are art fans and they are helping spread the word about you and your art to potential customers. They are doing nothing but helping your business – and thinking of them as criminals will hurt your reputation among collectors who will start to fear your wrath rather than promote you. That is deliberately restricting your growth – and that doesn’t make sense.

How to be a Great Artist

“Picasso used to be a great painter. Now he is merely a genius.” – Georges Braque, co-inventor of Cubism

What do you want out of the art you create? I’ve heard many answers to these questions – but can boil them down to a few categories to help you sort out who you are and where you are going.

A. “I want to be famous.” Well that’s actually pretty easy. All you have to do is spend enough money and you can have all the fame you want. Work for a couple of years at a day job – save up all your pennies and then buy enough mayonnaise to cover the steps of some government building – secretly and at night. Go to court and proclaim it’s an incomplete interactive piece that was only missing the broken ankles and backs of some local politicians. Go to jail for a few weeks – hire a publicist (only a thousand or two for a month of work) and soon you’ll be the talk of the quarter-hour. Remember what Andy Warhol said, “Everyone gets their 15-minutes of fame”. By the way – I’m serious but I’m not recommending anyone doing that. Find your own theme.

B. “I want to express myself.” You can do that by yourself. Why are you reading this?

C. “I want people to pay me to express myself.” Ah. Much better. First you have to have a point of view. First obstacle – do you HAVE a point of view? Really. An artistic point of view doesn’t have to be intellectual – it can be emotional or even technical. What do you do differently than everyone else? Do you NOT do anything different than everyone else? Either is fine – as long as you do it compulsively. Like any profession requiring practice and skill, OCD for an artist is almost mandatory. In order to get people to pay for your expression, you must tap into something familiar or distinctly UNfamiliar with your audience. This isn’t actually as oddball as it sounds. They are two different markets. Say you are a teenager who is completely emo and can’t think at all beyond the here and now. You’re in good company, so drawing things like skulls, tombstones, roses, teary-eyed dolls, and all in black and red inks can make you a lot of money. You’re not really selling your own expression – you’re tapping into a communal expression of your audience. Good for you. Cry all the way to the bank. On the other hand, say you were an alien from another country (or planet) and you have a particular viewpoint about… oh let’s say the Platipus or the color puce… then launch yourself into introducing this new expression. You WILL find an audience eager to learn more about your culture, and WILL happily pay great sums of money to lord over their friends precisely how more worldly they are for appreciating your culture… Even if you made it up. Have a blast. Seriously.

D. “I don’t know. I just have to draw people or things. I’d like to get paid for it.” FINALLY, a real artist. Art isn’t about any of the things above. An artist MUST express himself through art – even if he/she doesn’t know exactly how or why they are doing it. Consciously and intellectually thinking about the expression is called bull-shitting boys and girls. Artists who start creating from the idea that they are going to create an expression of something rarely succeed. And I don’t mean only the good ones – I mean the good ones rarely succeed. Have you seen most of Picasso’s pieces? Did he ever try to ‘explain’ any of them? Sure, there was Guernica – but really that was something he truly FELT as he painted it. He HAD to paint it. He HAD to express himself in this way and show the world the pain in his heart. That’s hardly the same thing as saying “I want to express the world from a cockroaches point of view” or “I want to illustrate sadness using nothing but yellow and a hammerhead dildo.” Artists find themselves doing artwork for all kinds of jobs and reasons beyond ‘expression’ and it doesn’t hurt their souls or make them cry on the inside. Most artists simply want to reproduce the world around them in their own special way – to communicate how they see things, or how they like to see things. These are called illustrators and graphic designers and really, up until the late 19th century – that’s the only kind of art there really was a market for. The only serious obstacle to this is practice… you HAVE to keep at it and you HAVE to get good at it. Without the skill of bull-shitting, you will have to rely on actually being good enough for someone to pay you. This is one of the main contentions illustrators have against fine artists. They are jealous of the bull-shitting skills.

How does one become a Great Artist? What’s you definition of “Great”? Is is fame? fortune? A place in the history books? Bull-shitting rarely remains in history. Mostly because historians are quite keen on noticing bull-shit and tend to ignore or berate the bull-shitters. The only way to become “Great” is to put your nose to the grindstone and do the art you do to the constant best of your ability every time. Shortcuts will hurt you.

“But Laz! What about talent?” Ptooey… I’ve seen more squandered talent than I can shit on. I’ve seen more talent blossom out of hard work than flowers in a field of poppies (poppies… poppies… poppies)*.

One thing all “Great” Artists have in common is that they LOVE art and really and truly could not live without it. They work constantly at it, and after 60 years of work, they will still say “This piece is coming out like crap. I can’t wait ’til it’s done so I can try again and get it right.” After awhile, you will eventually be able to look at the works of Masters and start noticing the mistakes. I guarantee you, those mistakes drove them insane into the grave. And if you ever hear an Art Historian or Art History Teacher start commenting about a ‘unique perspective’ or ‘uncommon composition’, that’s bull-shit code for “here you are looking at an artist mistake – but the artist is so famous and the piece has so many other redeeming qualities that we don’t dare consider it a mistake out of fear of jeopardizing our careers.” Again, seriously.

If you ever hear someone say “This is exactly as I wanted it” – you are listening to bull-shit, my friend. Strap on the waders and move along smoothly so as not to splash everyone else.

For the record, I am not a “Great” Artist. I am “Great” at a different thing or two and I’m not a bad bull-shitter if I do say so myself.

*Sorry. It’s late and I’m getting loopy.