This is my 3rd big art project, and I feel like an expert at times and a complete novice at others.
Pretty much what I go through constantly about my art, my projects, my books…everything. At times you feel like you have it totally together and are the best of the best. Other times you feel like a total failure, that everything sucks – your work sucks, marketing skills suck…
You just have to push through the pity parties (which I had the other night when I ran out of wine)…
and get back to work!
For those of you who don’t know, I am coming to the end of my latest art project on kickstarter.com – Sketch The World.
WHAT IS KICKSTARTER? – kickstarter is a website where you can launch creative projects which are funded by a crowd (crowdfunding). It is a good way to reach potential customers and serves as a bit of a resume for us artsy folks. I have used this site to create over 140 paintings and publish two book of my artwork – each with over 70 images of my work.
Here are some things I have learned through the entire process:
1) It is more stressful than watching cards dealt in Vegas when you have $2000 down on the table.
2) Most people don’t watch videos or read information to learn more about things that are unfamiliar. I need to become better at pulling them in and getting people to “click”.
3) Good fans and friends back your projects – GREAT fans and friends create multiple kickstarter accounts and spread there pledge between the accounts to help your backer numbers.
They totally get it.
4) people still, no matter how much I explain it (see #2), don’t understand the terms “backer“, “rewards“, and “pledge“, when it comes to these projects. A “backer” is a supporter. The “pledge” is the $ you are spending to purchase a “reward” (item created) from the project. Simple 🙂
I am not asking for handouts. I am, in fact, giving you HUGE deals on custom art if you become a part of the project and purchase custom paintings. You will be REWARDED.
5) It is difficult to sell yourself and reach people. People who clock in and clock out of a job may not fully grasp the concept of self-marketing and most likely, find it annoying. Again, I gotta come up with fun ways to market myself.
6) It may pay to hire some kind of promotion company for my next project. Maybe. I just don’t know if I can rationalize $200-400 and there is no guarantee it will produce profits.
7) loyal customers are loyal customers – no matter what I am painting or promoting. I love them so much.
8) If I don’t outdo my previous projects, I feel like a total failure. Doesn’t matter the factors.
9) I check in on my project stats (times video has been viewed, backer #’s, etc.) WAY too much. It makes me a little crazy. Staring at the numbers won’t make them go up – just like staring into the fridge won’t make something you want to eat suddenly appear.
10) I tend to worry more than I work when I have a project running – I mean, this is my income for the next few months (at least, 15% is).
11) “strangers” from the kickstarter crowd backing the project are, in a word, unpredictable. They tend to back and then cancel their pledges because they are serial backers (having backed over 100 projects) who change their minds constantly. It is not worth the emotional trauma. My friends and fans never lower or cancel their pledges – only raise them. The fact that half of my backers this go-around are “strangers”, makes me nervous in these last few days.
I feel better writing that stuff out. Maybe now it will get out of my head.
Overall, I have LOVED all of my projects and the books keep getting better and better. SKETCH THE WORLD will be no different. Even if we don’t top the painting numbers from the last two, will be a gorgeous book and I am so excited about the subject matter!
We are up to about 36-37 custom travel sketches for the book and I will most likely throw in about 10 previous paintings that I love. I hope we have some more pledges in the last days.
It ENDS SEPTEMBER, 22 at 11:59 PM, EST! Sketch rewards start at $18!!!
Click HERE to view the entire project! I spent lots of time designing it to make it visually appealing, easy to understand and detailed!
HOW TO BACK THE PROJECT:
1) create a kickstarter account if you don’t have one (email and password)
2) go to my project page
3) choose a reward and click the green, “BACK THIS PROJECT” button at the top (all this info is in the video)
4) type in the total amount of your pledge (add reward amounts together if you need to) and them choose a reward (yes, you can only click one, but just message me or wait for the survey to let me know your rewards if you choose more than one)
5) confirm and DONE!
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT!
I appreciate it, and so does my daughter because my art income is used to put her in classes like gymnastics and martial arts (because girls need to be able to kick ass) 🙂
