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.

More Lessons From the Land of Kickstarter

Well, if you haven’t heard already, I am just over 48 hours into my third Kickstarter project. I’m ready to publish my Pandum-Opus, Pandamorphosis at long last.  This is a project I’ve been working on, off and on, for over four years, several of those years quite intensely.  At last I think it’s ready, and apparently other people do too.

I decided to take a gamble this time, after listening to webinars, reading articles, and masterminding several other projects for some of the other Whidbey Island creatives, and only run my campaign for 16 days. (Cutting out the deadly second/third week lull.)

Pandas are yearning to spring forth!

Here’s some of what I learned from all these experiences, especially regarding the “crowd” from whom you are trying to get funding:

1. Be prepared. And by that I mean, don’t just start trying to make new friends in the week before your project launches.  (This probably doesn’t apply if you have designed a seriously cool gizmo that everyone is going to want or are an experienced game designer. Your audience will find you and throw large bags of money in your path.)

2. Thank everyone…the same day that they pledged, if you are awake in your time zone. No matter how tiny their pledge is.  Someone who doesn’t know you personally, and pledges just $1, is saying that your project is so cool, that they just wanted their name attached to it.  And if you do know them and they pledge that same $1, maybe that came out of their grocery money for the week. A pledge is a pledge. Say thank you.

3. Let your friends and supporters know about it, without running them down with your cart in the supermarket. (OK, sorry, Diane…it was a blind corner, hope your foot is okay.)  Ask your good friends for their opinion on your project before it launches.

4. Blog and tweet about it without being a jerk.  Give them something fun, informative or entertaining in the post as well.

5. While I think it’s fair to contact other project creators if you have supported their past projects, to ask for a shout out, you should only do that if you had some back and forth conversations with them and they have some chance of remembering who you are, OR some affinity for the type of project you are doing.  Don’t expect it though.  And don’t be this person who sent me a message through the Kickstarter message system:
“Because you have been funded, I was wondering if you could help me fund my project on kickstarter. By sending the url to your funders.”

( I removed any identifying information about their project.  really, I should report him to Kickstarter for spamming me and probably other successful projects, but he has enough trouble already.  His project description was  full of typos and grammatical errors.)

6. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  If your video is just you talking, no matter how cool your idea is, the video should be 2 minutes max,  unless you’re George Clooney.

Pandamorphosis: at 116% in less than 48 hours. Go team.

Letting Loose the Bears…

 

I’ve been trying to come to terms with the knowledge that I have shamefully neglected this blog, and you, my 3 1/2 readers who haven’t completely given up on me.  Whenever I resist doing something, there is always some logical, if not good reason that I am resistant. I’ve been thinking about what that reason could possibly be and after some discussion with one of my friends, I think the reason is something like this:

Pandas are way more fun than a “serious” blog about fine art.

Am I right, or am I right?

The last four years have been the embodiment of that curse: May you live in interesting times. And the times I have been living in for the last four years have been interesting, to say the least. “These interesting times”  include the  collapse of the housing market, (which affects art sales) the stock market, (which affects art sales) and the job markets, (which affects art sales.)  Did I mention that the art market, at least for us non-deceased blue chip artists, was severely affected?

But a bright spot appeared in my peripheral vision, while I was contemplating my crumbling art career.

Pandas.

They came sneaking in the back door, giggling and rolling around and breaking things, eating cuppycakes and running for president.  I won’t tell the story here, but if you want to know more about the pandas, they have their own blog, The Panda Chronicles which you can read and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.

Back when I was in art school (and never mind how long ago that was,) I got it in my head that if you were to be considered a “serious artist” who did “serious art,”  you must never stray from the path of seriousness.  I tried to be good, I really did.  I didn’t even indulge in printmaking, for goodness sake, let alone illustration or …gasp…cartooning.

On Pins and Needles // Egg Tempera // Anne Belov // 2012 all rights reserved

But just as I have no intention of giving up painting to draw cartoons all the time, (I am kind of good at it, after all, and it has supported me for the last 25 years) I also don’t want to give up this blog, which has mostly been about my art career, at least until now.  But I am too old and too cranky to follow the rules any longer. I am letting loose the bears.

So here is my goal for this blog: I will try to post once a week on Tuesdays.  They may be very short posts, maybe just a new painting I’ve been working on, or an observation about the process of trying to get my first children’s book published.  Or it may be a story that I have written. I am not going to restrict myself, or hide my pandas under a basket. (As if they’d stay there!) It’s time to give unrestricted free reign to my creative process and outpourings.

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

After all, when I named this blog after one of my favorite paintings, I named it: Nothing Overlooked.

Anne Belov paints, writes, makes prints, and is the founder of The Institute for Contemporary Panda Satire. You can find her paintings at the Rob Schouten Gallery, her cartoons on The Panda Chronicles, and her new book here. She will be teaching beginning egg tempera at the Whidbey Island Fine Art Studio in April. for more information: contact WIFAS  She also writes regularly for The Whidbey Life Magazine, a free journal of art and culture on Whidbey island.

Learning New Tricks

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about following one’s dreams and living an unconventional life.  It’s partly because the economic climate of the U.S. (and indeed, much of the western world) has been in such a kerfuffle for the last 4 years.  For 10 or 12 of the 24 (almost 25!) years I have been supporting myself through my work as an artist, I have done reasonably well.  By that I mean, I could pay my rent, keep a car running, feed myself and my cat at a level greater than if I still worked in a coffee shop.  For the rest of those years, with the exception of the last 4, I could rely on my skills to live frugally and still live very well by much of the world’s standards, although not necessarily by the standards of upper middle class America.  No complaints here.  I live a wonderful life, rich with friends, beautiful surroundings, in a kick ass community where people celebrate each others triumphs and pitch in through the hard times.

40 Shades of Blue// Oil on Panel//Anne Belov //all rights reserved

So, I’m not trying to figure out how to quit my corporate, soul-sucking job so that I can go off and live on an island and paint full time, because I’ve already done that.  Huzzah! The question for me now is how do I continue to do the work I love, and still keep food on the table and a roof over that table.

Following the River// Oil on Panel//Anne Belov//all rights reserved

There are several avenues that I have been exploring, taking the slowdown in sales (and therefore the need to produce quite so much work)as an opportunity to push the boundaries of my creativity into new directions.  I like to say that I am artistically promiscuous (I said, artistically, smarty-pants!) in that I refuse to be limited to one subject matter or even one medium. In my over 35 years as an artist, I have worked in watercolor, oils, printmaking (etching, lithography, and monoprint), egg tempera, and drawing.  I recently went to Italy, which was partially funded by a Kickstarter campaign (and partially by an anonymous donor) in order to gain greater understanding and skills in the ancient medium of egg tempera.  (Not to be confused with shrimp tempura.)  I’ve also been working on a wordless children’s picture book, Pandamorphosis, which was fueled by my obsession with pandas, which has manifested itself in my cartoon series, Your Brain On Pandas.

I’ve also been reading a lot: books about children’s writing and illustrating, cartooning, publishing, business philosophy, blogs about creating your own self employed life, etc.  Somehow (maybe Alyson B. Stanfield’s Art Biz Blog) I stumbled onto The Traveling Writer, blog and newsletter of Alexis Grant.  That in turn led me to Chris Guillebeau’s  blog and book of the same name, The Art of Non-Conformity and his now annual Portland event, the World Domination Summit.  Is that cool or what?  OK, it’s cool because he’s using the term “world domination” at least a little ironically and he is definitely on the side of the angels, putting his money and time where his mouth is.  You really must read his blog and book for yourself, but his book boiled down to this for me: Find what you love; find a way to do what you love; the connections you make along the way are important – no, make that vital; and give back what you can, when you can, to make the world a better place.

Pretty simple, huh?  Definitely on the side of the angels.

More on this tomorrow (or the next day!)

That looks familiar, but there is something different about it…

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

 

One of my skills that I developed a bit in art school, and have since honed my skills further, both by  “copying” my own work, and then copying paintings by some of my favorite (long dead) painters.  The first one I did was kind of on a dare from a friend, after seeing the John Singer Sargent show that was at the Seattle Art Museum about 12 years ago.  Looking at A Street Scene in Venice, I said, Damn, I wish I’d painted that!  And my friend said, Why don’t you?  So I did and made him buy it.  We had just been in Amsterdam for a few weeks, and he had bought a painting that seemed to be a genuine forgery (if that’s not a contradiction in terms) of a Dutch painter that is well represented in the Rijksmuseum.  That painting was the beginning of a small, but growing, collection of forgeries painted by several of our other artist friends.  I have painted at least 4 Sargent’s, several Vermeer’s, a Whistler, and now a parody of a Whistler, Arrangement in Black, White, and Gray.  This is what I hope will be a series of panda parody paintings that is a study of unknown paintings by well known painters, which will be collected in a tongue and cheek art history picture book.

With a little help from my friends…

Sottovoce - Lombardia - Oil on Linen - Anne Belov - all rights reserved

 

I’m still trying to catch my breath and get back to life as normal (aka working way too much).  I did get a little paint on a canvas today, which is a step in the right direction.

I know my Kickstarter project would not have been successfully funded without the help of my many friends and supporters, some of whom have been collecting my work over the years, and some, for whom this will be the first of my work in their collection.  I am grateful to you all.

Here are some things that I have learned in the process, what worked, what could have worked better if I had thought it through completely in advance:

1. Because I have been showing my art work oh these many years, I have a pretty good mailing list for snail mail, not so much for email, as I have only recently embraced (um…that may be too strong a word) the technology.  So did I have a postcard prepared to send out to 400 or so people? No.  Big oops.  Next time, I will definitely either get my email list up to snuff in advance, or send actual postcards to those of whom that is my only contact information.

2.  Have a regular schedule for sending out emails.  Did I do this? Well no.  I was a little concerned that I would over do the emails, causing people to automatically delete everything from me.  I think that once a week for the first two weeks would be fine, and then step it up a little for the last two weeks, only going into hyper drive at the last few days.  Keeping it fun and respectful, of course.  I forgot that even when something is of interest to me, if I don’t keep that email somewhere I will see it, I lose. them.

3.  Because this was a fine art project, rather than a “Panda Project,” I did not ask the panda’s help until almost the last week.  Then of course, the panda kindergarten went way too far,  with regrettable results.  Mehitabel is now fine, thanks for asking.  I have way more panda fans here in internet land (mostly because I put more effort into that blog than my fine art one…go figure.) and I wasn’t sure they would be interested in this fine art project.  The lesson here? You never know till you ask.  Turns out more than a few of my friends in pandyland think my fine art is worth supporting too.  Thank you all!

4.  Kickstarter is a funny little universe.  For your project to get a lot of help and extra notice from the KS staff, it has to grab the fancy of the staff, whom I’m sure are all amazingly brilliant, insightful, and astute observers of cultural trends.  ( a little sucking up for next time never hurts)  Otherwise, it’s really up to you to make sure your support base knows about your project.  I got a few supporters directly from Kickstarter, but most of my support came from people I actually know, either in person, with a strong showing from my panda fan base on facebook.

5.  Unless your project is one of those that leaps into the +100% support in the first 2 days, you should plan on monitoring it regularly, at least daily in the beginning, and then more often as the time period progresses.  For the last 24 hours, I was on there almost constantly, and doing a lot of electronic jumping up and down on facebook to make sure I didn’t run out of time before being funded.  You also shouldn’t obsessively watch to see if anyone is signing up.  That will definitely make you crazy, and you won’t get any work done.

6.  Remember to thank everyone.  Yup, I did that.  But, just in case you missed it, thank you again.  I’m working on my thank you notes, even as I speak!

Would I recommend that you use Kickstarter to get a project you have been working on off the ground?  Absolutely!  I’ve applied for many grants through arts and governmental commission competitions, and have gotten very few of them.  The cool thing about Kickstarter is that your funding comes from real people who want to make a difference for you, and maybe don’t have a couple thousand dollars to buy a painting.  But, for $25 or $50 or more, they can contribute in a way that, if a lot of people do it, is really beneficial and meaningful.  Your stake isn’t determined by a very small group of people who may (and probably do) have their own agenda.  Will I do another Kickstarter project?  Well, yes, but I have a lot of work to do on this one, and even though I have started the thinking and planning process, it will be a while, since I have this one to complete. (Oh yeah, and go to Italy as well.  Look at the time!)  I will tell you this: my next project will involve pandas.

So stay tuned!

27 Hours to go on My Kickstarter Project

I hate to be whiney in my posts here at Nothing Overlooked, but unless 101 more people pledge $25 (or more!) my kickstarter campaign will leave me kicked in the butt.  (and there is no telling what the panda kindergarten will do to Mehitabel!)  So, if you are at all inclined to do so, check out my project at:

 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arttraveler/painting-from-the-source-the-inspiration-of-italy

Bob, Babette and all the other pandas thank you!  No matter what, you all are da bears!

Bob T. Panda

Pandas, where did all these pandas come from…?  Isn’t that the OTHER blog? Well, to fill you in on whats been going on with the pandas, here are a few cartoons that have put Mehitabel on the horns of a dilemma:

   Well, all painting and no pandas makes Anne a dull girl.  Hope you check out my Kickstarter project!  Thank you all so much for the support you have shown.

 

Don’t mean to nag, but

As I move into the final chores in tidying my studio for this Anne-ual event, I reflect on the year past, and think about the New Year looming on the horizon.  I think I need to pause and thank all of my friends and supporters.  The older we get, the more our friends fall prey to those things we would rather not think about.  I am thankful for the healing that is taking place in some of my friends, say farewell to others, and send out hope into the universe for the friends with new diagnoses of life threatening illnesses.  Our lives are so busy, and if we don’t take the initiative to keep those connections, it is so easy to lose track of those we care about, so easy to lose hope. I would so like to see those of you who are within shouting distance of Whidbey Island during this Anne-ual celebration of Art, Friends, and Community here.  We would so much like to see you this season.  Come by and tell us how you are.

If you need directions, send them through the comment feature here, or through my email address.

She Who Hesitates…..

from 30 Days - 30 Pandas by Anne Belov

 

While the pandas do not usually appear on this blog, (Note from Mehitabel:  Those pandas are so darn pushy!) I’ve invited them here to make a point.  I’ve been reading some books  about cartooning, most notably a series of 3 books by cartoonist Scott McCloud.  These are Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics, and Making Comics.  I think they could be best described as textbooks that investigate both the philosophy and thought processes that go into visual storytelling.  In addition to being of benefit to the people who are interested in comics and graphic novels, they contain much that is useful to those who are interested and engaged in children’s picture books.  Since I am engaged both in making cartoons and writing/illustrating picture books, I felt they had much to teach me.  In fact, I felt so strongly about this connection, that I thought I should write a reveiw of these books, as they relate to children’s literature and submit it for publication in the SCBWI journal. (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators)  However, this month someone already beat me to it.  Oh well. It just proves my point, doesn’t it?

Embracing the process…

From my wordless picture book, Pandamorphosis by Anne Belov

After all the initial sketches and forming my ideas, plotting the rise of the action, and many, many revisions, down to doing the finished (I hope) drawings, it has been quite a ride.  But it’s not nearly over yet.  When I finished the last drawing, there was a feeling of “now what?”  I thought I had done the hardest part, but it turns out I was wrong.  You would think that after almost 3 decades of being an exhibiting painter, that the process of putting my work out there for consideration would be no big deal.  But this children’s book arena is a new field of endeavor with its own process and protocols.  I am completely wet behind the ears, and trying to do it all right.  I’ve queried a half dozen or so agents, with a few rejections so far, and a nibble or two, so I guess I am stepping into the fray.  I don’t know where I’m going, and I really don’t know how I’m going to get there, but I think I’ll know it when I do.  In any case, I’m pleased with and proud of the work I’ve done so far, (and I think that the pandas are happy with my depiction of them) and I’m looking forward to the rest of it.

I just don’t know what the rest is. (I’ll let you know when I know!)