On Ethics and Elephants

Elephant in the Room? What? Where? Oh, that Elephant

In the interest of full disclosure, I must point out that I never thought about marketing in terms of the ethics involved. When I think about marketing my books to an unsuspecting public, the thing that leaps to the front of my mind is the “ick factor.”

Writing and cartooning are recent additions to my creative work. I’ve been painting more years than I care to remember, and it’s been my “day job” for the last 25 years. Almost seven years ago, pandas knocked on the door, demanded entry, put their feet up on the coffee table, and insisted that I write stories, draw cartoons, and perpetrate blasphemous adaptations of Sargent and Whistler paintings, all starring pandas.

They were really most insistent.

Arrangement in Black, White, and Gray //Anne Belov //all rights reserved

Selling paintings is mostly, although not entirely, different than selling books.  I’d have to sell  hundreds, if not thousands of books to equal the sale of one decent painting. And so marketing raises it’s (often) not so lovely head.

A recent post by Jane Steen got me thinking about the ethics of self publishing in general and about marketing my work in particular. I am, to say the very least, a reluctant marketer. By following a number of blogs about both the art and the business side of writing, it led me to realize that I was going to have to make peace with marketing, like it or not.

My cartoons appeared on my blog, The Panda Chronicles for almost four years before I published The Panda Chronicles Book 1: Your Brain on Pandas. My method for getting the word out was intuitive and organic. When I started my blog, I finally dove in to Facebook, and sought out panda fans, to see if they thought my panda-centric humor was funny, or whether they would chase me through town with pitchforks and burning torches, tar and feathers at the ready. (They liked them! Huzzah!)

I shared my cartoons freely and my fan base grew. I got an unanticipated bonus by reaching out to people on an individual basis because fans became connections and some friendships (real ones) have grown as a result of this, with meetings and gatherings of panda fans in real life.

The panda Faithful at San Diego Zoo in 2013

To be honest, this is a rather time consuming way of selling books. But I am a glutton for connections, maybe because I spend so much of my day holed up in my studio painting and drawing. When I look at the alternatives: auto tweets, constant buy my book/services links, guest posts which are barely disguised infomercials, I realize that the ick-factor detector is a pretty good ethical guide.

I think we must continually ask ourselves how we respond to marketing appeals by others as we try to figure out how to sell our work. Everyone has different threshold levels of what is offensive or annoying, but if it offends me, why would I do it? I’m still trying to figure it all out, and if I listen to my gut and avoid doing things that make me uncomfortable in the marketing of others, I think I am on the right track.

The sands that publishing is built on are shifting. As more people publish their work independently, we have to figure out how to be ethical, not only in the actual writing, but in how we tell the world about it. We are all on our own, trying to figure out just how we going to continue paying the mortgage, but we are also in it together.

My practice of making connections has served me well, in personal satisfaction and real bridges built, if not yet in monetary terms.  My followers number in the hundreds, rather than the tens of thousands, but they are real names, some even come with faces attached. I have decided to trust that what feels like the right path both artistically and ethically.

What do you think?

hey! Buy my book!

You can see more pandas (for free!) at The Panda Chronicles. You can also…um…find out where to buy my books there.

Living Close to Home

In the Kitchen: Monoprint on Paper

There’s a lot of talk these days about the “locavore” movement, mostly dealing with issues of food consumption, and how far our food travels to reach our table.  Because I live on an Island; granted, not a deserted one, or an inaccessible one, but an island never the less, I think about this issue a lot.  We do need a ferry to leave the island, at least at the south end.  A number of my friends wail about the high price of things here on the island, but again, we have to come back to our goals and intentions. (Not to mention time management. THAT again?)  So the questions I pose to myself (and others if they want to hear it) are these:

1. How much time and ferry tolls am I willing to spend to get something cheaper? and just how much cheaper is it really?

2. Do I want this service to continue to exist so that I don’t HAVE to leave the island to fill my car with gas or buy food?

3. If I expect people who live here to buy my work, doesn’t it stand to reason that I should patronize their business?

Now, I’m not saying that if something that I want or need can’t be found here, I won’t go off island or buy it from a catalog or online.  But if I want a particular book, I’ll go to my favorite bookseller on the island and order it from her, and only go to Amazon if she can’t get it for me.  I love the person to person interaction that small town/island life brings. Isn’t it worth a few bucks to keep it vital?  I consider my time a precious resource as well, so for me it’s a no brainer.  ( This still doesn’t mean that I won’t eat asparagus in February, though.  I never claimed to be perfect.)

How to behave…

I’m feeling a little like “Miss Manners” right at the moment, but I heard a story the other day, from someone who owns a gallery, about a recent interaction with an artist.  The long and short of it, without revealing too much personal information about the parties involved, was that the artist pulled out of a scheduled show, 2 weeks before the show was due to open.  It was not done with good grace, or  for a good reason, but with snarky emails and demands befitting a diva, not an emerging artist. ( By the by, this would be considered bad behavior for ANYONE)

There are good reasons both to be represented by a gallery or not to be represented by a gallery.  Artists need to consider all the ramifications of both ways of conducting their art business.  I find that the first step, that of deciding on your goals and direction, is a crucial one, and one that many artists don’t ever consider.  This is not to say that your goals don’t change over time, only that you need to be clear about what it is that you want to do with your art, and make conscious decisions every step of the way.  Once you do decide to show with one or more galleries, there are some do’s and don’t’s that will serve you AND your gallery well.

• Be clear about your goals and abilities.
• Set schedules in writing, as well as housekeeping details, like approximately how many paintings you can have by a certain date.
• Double check within a week of delivering or picking up work, that the agreed upon date still works.
• If you have special needs or concerns, talk about them and strive to reach a compromise, rather than making absolute demands.  (this goes both ways)
• If you can’t do something or make a deadline, let your gallery know as soon as possible.
• Don’t be snarky.
• Ask at the outset, when you schedule a show, what the gallery wants and when do they want it.  Write it down.  Create a calendar for yourself that lets you see well in advance of when things are needed.

Here’s what you get when you sign on with a reputable gallery:

• A full time sales staff.
• A beautiful, well lighted place to show your work.
• Cool color postcards to send to your friends and collectors!
• Someone who doesn’t make money unless you do!!!!!!  And all of this at no charge to you( other than your operating expenses, which granted are big enough already, thank you very much!) UNTIL THEY SELL SOMETHING.!!!!!  If that isn’t motivation for them to sell your work, I don’t know what is.

Selling work through your gallery to your friends and collectors helps keep the doors open.  A well located, well run gallery will also draw a new audience to your work, after all your friends will only buy so many of your paintings, and then what?  I’ve certainly made my share of mistakes over the years when working with galleries. I like to think that I’ve learned from them and am a much better person to work with now.  I’m also sure I will make more mistakes in the future, but that’s life, isn’t it?  Next tme, I’ll talk about life outside the gallery system.

Till then, keep painting.

Anne

Ps new post today on new painting in progress, Exuberance