The monthly Ask Call is TONIGHT with me – Tara Reed – are you dialing in?
Tonight is the night! The March Ask Call will be with me – Tara Reed. Since my sister is traveling and can’t ask me the questions, I’ve invited Maria Brophy to play “Barbara Walters” on the call and not only ask the questions you submitted, but put in her 2¢ when she’d like as well. This will be our first duo but we expect it will go well – join us and find out!
If you’ve signed up for a call before, you should have received the dial-in details by email yesterday.
If you’ve never participated, head over to www.AskTaraReed.com and sign up. Since we have already organized the questions, you can just put “no question” in the box then fill in your name and email and you will get the dial-in details.
The call is at 5:30 pm Pacific / 8:30 pm Eastern and will last for an hour. It’s free to listen live – the replay will also be free since this is her first call – we’ll email you when it’s ready!
We look forward to chatting with you tonight!
– Tara Reed & Maria Brophy
P.S. Don’t forget! Let’s get social on Twitter (use #ask when tweeting so we can find you!) and Facebook during the call. CLICK HERE to download all the details.
P.P.S. I have a new plan to out smart Facebook who now jumbles up the order of posts! We will have one post for the call and if you have something to say, just add it to the comments. That way we can all see what is going on and there is no limit so chat away! I’ll get it started at www.Facebook.com/ArtLicensingInfo before we begin
Continuing the Flickr / copyright issue discussion…
The video I posted on the blog yesterday – The Stolen Scream – has created quite a bit of buzz and discussion, both in the comments to the post as well as on Facebook, Twitter and who knows where else.
When I got up this morning I found this comment from @DaveStolte in my Twitter stream:
@ArtistTaraReed Interesting they didn’t mention the easy @creativecommons usage licenses built into @Flickr. Did he protect his work?
Not being a Flickr user myself, I hadn’t thought of that so I headed over to the site to do some investigating. Flickr is meant to be a way for people to save, search and share photographs in a way that is comfortable to them. You can have them hidden from the world and only visible to those you give permission to or you can post and give permission to anyone to do anything with you photos – both ends of the spectrum.
So it does make you wonder if Naom Gali took the time to say what was and wasn’t acceptable use of his photographs. While I don’t have the answer to that question, I do have a link for you to learn more about how to tag your photos to prevent this from happening to you – unless of course, you don’t care. (And that’s ok too – the goal is to not default to no protection of your art or photographs without thinking, right?)
Understand what usuage you are agreeing to when posting things online – http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
I certainly don’t have all the answers but have been finding some great food for thought lately. Thank you Dave, for this latest morsel… Sometimes we are so busy and moving so fast that we don’t stop to read and understand the options or the default settings of websites we use. If your art or photography is involved, I urge you to slow down and understand what posting a photo or image actually means in regards to your future rights to the image.
Here’s to your creative success!
– Tara Reed
Debbie Mumm shares her art licensing journey on tonight’s Ask Call
Tonight night I will have the pleasure of talking with Debbie Mumm about her art licensing business.
This is another testament to the power of persistence as I’ve been trying to get Debbie on the line for 2 years! She will be answering the questions submitted by artists like you tonight – I hope you join us!
If you’ve signed up for a call before, you should have received the dial-in details by email yesterday.
If you’ve never participated, head over to www.DebbieMumm.com/askDebbie/ and sign up. Since we have already organized the questions, you can just put “no question” in the box then fill in your name and email and you will get the dial-in details.
The call is at 5:30 pm Pacific / 8:30 pm Eastern and will last for an hour. It’s free to listen live – the replay will also be free since this is her first call – we’ll email you when it’s ready!
We look forward to chatting with you tonight!
– Tara Reed & Debbie Mumm
P.S. Don’t forget! Let’s get social on Twitter (use #ask when tweeting so we can find you!) and Facebook during the call. CLICK HERE to download all the details.
Where in the world would your muse go, if they left you high-and-dry?
I was tweeting with Alyson B. Stanfield on Twitter the other day and thought it would be a fun blog post if people would play along in the comments – are you game?
This is also a great example of how you can interact with others and have some fun in your day on Twitter…
It started with her tweet:
@abstanfield: Need an inspiration for making my #Valentine cards.#wheresmymuse
To which I replied:
<< in Cabo w/my muse? slow start today… 
She was surprised by this location saying:
@ArtistTaraReed I had no idea my muse was in Cabo! I was thinking, maybe, Florence
I had to double-tweet back to get my next thought out (remember, you only get 140 characters at a time on Twitter!)
Part 1: I think Cabo since I’m not a huge fan so it’s a good hide-out for mine… rumor has it our muses are friends! 
Part 2: but maybe WE should go to Florence and find NEW muses… would show them, huh? (And be fun!)
Now she’s on the same wave-length with my early-morning logic and replies:
@ArtistTaraReed Got it! So my muse wouldn’t be hiding from me anywhere I’d look. Must be in the Russian Steppe
Getting to know people on Twitter is as simple as that. And if you are an artist on Twitter – you want to follow Alyson – she’s a wealth of great information, advice, and fun. Alyson is the author of “I’d Rather Be in the Studio”* – a great resource I believe should be on every artist’s bookshelf so be sure to check it out if you don’t have a copy yet. Be sure to check out her blog – The Art Biz Blog* – as well – also great information about art, organization, inspiration and more!
Now it’s your turn – if your muse goes missing, where would she hide?
Remember, it’s probably somewhere you’d rather not be… leave your location in the comments – or come tweet me! Twitter tip: If you want to ensure someone sees something that you tweet, you have to put the @ symbol and their twitter name before you tweet – then it comes up in their “mentions” stream. I try to follow everyone who tweets directly at or with me but admit that I’m not the best at keeping up with checking new followers – it takes a bit of time so I follow those that interact.
Here’s to a little fun and interaction while building your business!
– Tara Reed
Paul Brent will be on the Ask Call tonight – will you?
Just a quick reminder that Paul Brent will be talking about getting your art plan together for exhibiting at trade shows answering the questions submitted by artists like you tonight.
If you’ve signed up for a call before, you should have received the dial-in details by email.
If you’ve never participated, head over to www.AskPaulBrent.com and sign up. Since we have already organized the questions, you can just put “no question” in the box then fill in your name and email and you will get the dial-in details.
The call is at 5:30 pm Pacific / 8:30 pm Eastern and will last for an hour. It’s free to listen live – the replay will be $15 through 10/30 and $25 after that.
We look forward to chatting with you tonight!
– Tara Reed
P.S. Don’t forget! Let’s get social on Twitter (use #ask when tweeting so we can find you!) and Facebook during the call. CLICK HERE to download all the details.
What I learned about fishing and art licensing from the movie “The Social Network”
My son and I went to see “The Social Network” – the story of Facebook and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. When I Tweeted that I didn’t know the history of Facebook and found the movie interesting, a follower was quick to point out that this movie was more story than history and not overly accurate.
In an article by The New York Times, entitled No Stopping Movie View of Mark Zuckerberg , they say:
The film’s truthfulness, however, has been strongly questioned in forums like Slate, the online magazine, and The New Republic .
Many of those who know Mr. Zuckerberg argue that it is inaccurate in significant ways. David Kirkpatrick, who wrote a company-authorized history of Facebook titled “The Facebook Effect,” said, “The reality is, it’s a really good movie — however, it’s not a true story.” Mr. Kirkpatrick has written critically about the movie on the Web site The Daily Beast.
The article has an interesting analysis of what legal recourse might be available for the less than documentary portrayal that many people seeing it believe to be “the true story” as well as the potential implications for Facebook if the movie continues to grow in popularity. Interesting - CLICK HERE TO READ IT.
Of course, as I am apt to do, I found something in the movie that reminded me of art licensing and thought I’d share my thoughts. In one scene, Napster founder asks Mark Zuckerberg if he’s ever seen a fisherman with a photo of the 14 trout he caught in a day. No, of course not. Fishermen keep photos of the big Marlins – not the many small fish. So he then asks – do you want Facebook to be a Marlin or trout?
Not being a fisher-woman myself, I still found this to be an interesting analogy.
Who are the artists in licensing catching the Marlins and who are getting trout?
Who are you?
- If you are just getting started, you are basically shopping for gear – the pole, the bait, finding the place to cast your line. You are learning about how to create the art, who to contact, what to create.
- If you’ve been in licensing a while and have licensed products featuring your art, you are certainly collecting trout. (That’s where I put myself.)
But how do you get the Marlin?? Is there a magic formula, some secret fishing hole that only a select few know about… I don’t think so. I believe the secret to getting the Marlin is consistent and persistent hard work – both on the art and the business. That is what we are striving to do at ArtLicensingInfo.com – provide valuable tools for artists getting started and catching trout – to help you improve your chances of getting that big fish for your business.
If you want to get your mp3 replays of the hour long Ask Call audios from some artists who have caught the proverbial “Big Fish” of art licensing - Paul Brent, Mary Engelbreit and Dena of Dena Designs – click the links below. They are free once you sign up.
www.AskPaulBrent.com
www.MaryEngelbreit.com/askme
www.AskDenaDesigns.com
Paul Brent will be doing the October 20, 2010 call so be sure to submit your questions today and mark your calendar to listen! (details at www.AskPaulBrent.com)
In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the trailer for the movie.
Here’s to your creative success!
– Tara Reed
P.S. Have you bookmarked the Art Licensing Info Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/ArtLicensingInfo ? Head over and say hello!
P.P.S. See all the past call replays that are available for free or for a small fee at www.ArtLicensingInfo.com/audio-archives.html
85 people listened to the “Ask Tara Reed” call live – were you one of them?
My sister, Christine, who many of you have met over the years at SURTEX or who you may have heard on the Trade Show Tactics Teleseminar, helped me on the July Ask Tara Reed call. We always have a lot of fun together – including her pre-call threats to do one of the following:
- forget the call completely and leave me stranded
- be asleep and if she woke up, she’d be groggy and hard to understand
- swear and embarrass me in any way she could come up with
- use different accents for each question
She didn’t forget and behaved very well. The only problem reported was that we sound so similar that sometimes people had a hard time figuring out who was talking. (We get that – especially over the phone. Lots of fun to tell our dad it’s “His favorite daughter” and listen to him pause – trying to figure out who it really is and then say the others name!)
Here is what we covered on the July 21st call:
- What are the first steps you should take before you try to license your art?
- Do you need an agent to license your art?
- Is it better to email or snail mail submissions to agents?
- Is there a “set” advance price for artwork?
- What types and sizes of files should you submit to agents or manufacturers?
- Should you follow online submission guidelines to the letter or make follow-up calls?
- How do I make calls to companies without sounding like a newbie?
- What are the pros & cons of a contract with a “worldwide” territory?
- How can I build marketable character-based art without having a Saturday morning tv show?
- Trade show preparation strategies / tips
- How do you use social media (Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn) in your art licensing business.
Thank you so much to Laura for her fabulous question about cold calling and willingness to let us tease her (we are twitter friends so I knew it would be ok!)… we are now applying peer pressure to get her on the phone and then to report back on how it was, on the blog. Send her a message of encouragement on Twitter – she’s @CreativeGirl – to keep her moving forward.
Facebook was a little quieter than usual but on Twitter it was so cool to see people joining forces to stay accountable! Social media is such a great connector!
If you want a copy of the audio replay, it is $15 through 7/31 and $25 thereafter. We appreciate your support in purchasing these calls – it helps us continue to attract and create the great content artists have come to love and expect each and every month!
What’s coming up next…
Wednesday, August 18, 2010 – Attorney Cheryl Hodgson will be back to answer your legal questions. www.AskCherylHodgson.com
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 – NEW EXPERT Dena Fishbein will be answering your questions. Head to www.AskDenaDesigns.com to learn why I’m so excited to have Dena join the ranks of Ask Call Expert.
Twitter-proof that I can make people run from the idea of art licensing in 45 minutes or less!
You might think that is a bad thing but I’m here to tell you – I’m so proud! One of my goals with my introductory information – be it the Beginner Basics Teleseminar or How to Get Started in Art Licensing eBook or any of the interviews I do with others – is to polarize people.
When you are trying to make a living as an artists, being neutral or unsure about many paths is a dangerous place to be.
To sit and say, “Well… I could do kids books. Or I could create things and sell them on Etsy. Maybe I’ll do website design. Why don’t I license my work. Hey – here’s an art gallery – I should try that.” This type of artist will more than likely be confused and going in too many directions to get anything done well or make any significant progress.
Many artists like the concept of art licensing – they like the idea of being paid by multiple people for the same art collection. They like that they can get paid over a period of time and share in the success (or less than stellar success) of the product without have to do the production, marketing, etc. If they are left to focus on that, with little or no information about what it takes on a daily basis and from a creative standpoint to get the deals and licenses in the first place, they could waste a lot of time.
That’s where my mission comes in and I’ve had it from day 1: give some real world examples of what it takes so artists will know right away if it isn’t going to be a fit or if licensing deserves more time to investigate.
Some will still think it’s a fit even if it turns out to not be. (Those are the artists who then complain about the type of art manufacturers are looking for and want to educate the masses as to what “real art” is … good luck!) Others won’t be turned off – they may say, “hmmm…. this is interesting, tell me more.” And some will get so excited and just KNOW art licensing is for them.
I was on Twitter last week and got a message from an artist – thanking me for helping her realize art licensing isn’t for her, just by listening to one blog talk radio interview. I was so excited! (She has given me permission to share the tweets…)
SO… if you are new to art licensing, here are a few ways to find out if you feel like @artsong does, or if you want to hang around and learn more.
INTERVIEWS: I’ve done a number of interviews with others in the art field, find free replays at www.ArtLicensingInfo.com/interviews.html
BEGINNER BASICS TELESEMINAR: 45 minute replay of a teleseminar I did that goes into the nitty gritty of what working in art licensing is like. www.ArtLicensingInfo.com/start.html
HOW TO GET STARTED IN ART LICENSING eBook: you can get the first chapter for free at www.ArtLicensingInfo.com/get-started.html
Here’s to your creative success – in whatever area that may be!
–Tara Reed
P.S. Find my new Twitter buddy on twitter – www.Twitter.com/artsong or on her wesite, www.CarleySense.com – thanks again for letting me share!
Artist Interest Groups Using Social Media – #kidlitart
As you know, I’m a big fan of social media. It’s a great way to find people from all over who share common interests, reconnect with people from your past and learn what’s going on. There is a group of artists interested in Children’s Book Illustration who “meet” on Twitter every Thursday for an hour to discuss… whatever. (They start by handing out virtual cupcakes – always a great way to start anything!) Just like we use the hash tag #ask during the monthly ask calls to find each other, they use #kidlitart.
I think I happened to be online during one of their chats a few weeks ago (they aren’t private – just streaming through Twitter) and someone asked something about art licensing and I replied. Then I got a direct message asking me if I wanted to be the first “Special Guest” – someone from another art arena, to answer questions the #kidlitart twitterers had. Why not?
So last night I spent an hour watching and typing and talking about art licensing in 140 characters or less… if you want to see what we talked about, they have the full transcript online at http://kidlitart.blogspot.com/
I got to chat with some new artists and learn that they have similar issues, just in a different arena. We create collections, they have to create books and then figure out how to make the cover art compelling. We discussed how you almost need several art brains – one to think like you license art, one to think like an illustrator, one to figure out how to market yourself so you can keep creating art…
If you have any interest in learning more about Children’s Illustration or want to join in on their discussions – head over to Twitter on Thursdays ( 6 pm Pacific / 9 pm Eastern ) and tweet away!
Thank you to Bonnie and Wendy for inviting me – it was fun!
Here’s to your creative success!
– Tara Reed
Are you ready for the June Art Licensing Monthly Ask Call?
Tomorrow, Wednesday, June 16, 2010, we will be focusing on technology – specifically, how the WordPress platform can offer artists ease and flexibility with their online needs.
Join me at 5:30 pm Pacific / 8:30 pm Eastern as I ask Kim Beasley your questions about how WordPress differs from other blog platforms, how to create password protected areas and more.
The call is free if you listen live and because this is Kim’s first call – it will be free even if you don’t! (The replay will be free when we are done the quick-edit.)
Head to www.AskAboutWordPressForArtists.com to register for the dial-in details if you haven’t registered for a call before.
Hope to talk to you tomorrow!
– Tara Reed
P.S. Don’t forget! Let’s get social on Twitter (use #ask when tweeting so we can find you!) and Facebook during the call. CLICK HERE to download all the details.
P.P.S. Find Kim on Twitter at twitter.com/kimbeasley
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