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The Unthinkable Solution to Overpopulation Soylent Green

January 20th, 2023

The Unthinkable Solution to Overpopulation Soylent Green

Photo credit: Abstract Soylent Green Production Facility 2 by Floyd Snyder

The Unthinkable Solution to Overpopulation: Soylent Green

Soylent Green is a 1973 science fiction thriller film starring Charlton Heston. In the film, a dystopian future, overpopulation has led to a food shortage, and people are desperate for a solution.

Soylent Green is introduced as the perfect food source capable of feeding the masses. It is a mysterious green substance that has become a part of everyday life. It is touted as the perfect food replacement, as it is easy to manufacture, contains all the essential vitamins and minerals, and is highly nutritious. However, its true identity is revealed to be a shocking surprise.

Soylent Green is actually made up of recycled human corpses. It turns out that the government has been secretly feeding the masses their own deceased citizens to combat overpopulation. The company behind Soylent Green, the Soylent Corporation, controls the production and distribution of the product, using its near monopoly on food production to keep the population under control. As such, they can manipulate prices and provide minimal rations at astronomical prices so that only those with money can buy it.

The consequences of this policy is seen in the movie as mass starvation due to the inability to purchase adequate amounts of Soylent Green plagues society. In addition, because recycling human bodies is illegal, those who control Soylent Green face criminal charges if caught. Despite these issues, Soylent Green remains a viable alternative for feeding the masses in an ever-growing population where food supplies dwindle daily.

-20-

Lone Cypress May Be the Most Photographed Site in America

January 20th, 2023

Lone Cypress May Be the Most Photographed Site in America

The Lone Cypress of 17 Mile Drive Monterey California has long been a seascape icon, standing as a symbol of resilience against the harsh elements of the Pacific Ocean for over 250 years. Since its appearance in paintings and photographs in the early 20th century, the Lone Cypress has become one of the most recognizable images in all of California. This blog post will explore the history and lore of this iconic seascape and explain why it has become an important symbol of strength and beauty in Monterey.

The Lone Cypress on 17 Mile Drive Monterey California has become an iconic seascape of the region, with its twisted branches and rugged coastline backdrop. It is believed to have originated sometime in the early 19th century and is one of the oldest living trees in California. In 1925, an enterprising photographer named Edward Weston discovered the tree and captured its beauty through photography. He then went on to produce fine art reproductions of the tree, and it quickly became a popular icon of Monterey. The tree was purchased by Pebble Beach Corporation in 1958 and has been a centerpiece of the renowned golf courses ever since.

The Lone Cypress of 17 Mile Drive in Monterey, California, is an iconic symbol of the rugged beauty of the California coast. It has been photographed by tourists, professionals, and fine art photographers, and its image is reproduced in prints and postcards worldwide.

The Lone Cypress is an enduring symbol of the beauty and strength of nature. It stands alone, perched atop a granite shelf, surrounded by windswept cypress trees and the deep blue waters of the Pacific. It has been standing in its current location since before the turn of the century, making it one of the longest-surviving symbols of the region.

Over the years, the Lone Cypress has become one of the most photographed sites in America, inspiring awe and reverence in both professional and amateur photographers. Its image has been reproduced in fine art prints and reproduced in postcards across the globe. From its humble beginnings, it has become an international symbol of strength, perseverance, and resilience, despite the forces of nature that have buffeted it for over a century. -20-


A Few Reasons Why You May Not Be Selling

December 29th, 2022

These are not in order, but I believe they all play a role in how much you are or are not selling.

The number of images:

As the old saying goes, you simply cannot sell off an empty wagon. Common sense would tell you that. Unless you have some sort of unusual circumstance, you need to have as many images as possible, hundreds or even thousands, not dozens.

If you are a high-profile, well-known, big-name artist, maybe you get away with a small number of images. But if you look at the largest sellers here, most of them have hundreds of images, and some have several thousand.

I built Five Power Stores with over a million dollars in sales on eBay before I ever joined FAA. There was a direct correlation ot the number of sales and the number of listings (uploads) in all five of those stores. I found the same thing to be true when I joined FAA.

I have heard all of the arguments; I only post my best, and different variations just run people off, I am going for quality, not quantity. Okay... if that is your position, then accept that fact of lower sales for what it is and why. If you hope to make money selling artwork, there are certain compromises you HAVE to be willing to make. I am not suggesting anyone upload bad images. I am suggesting that a lot of artists are the worst judge of their own work. I am sure I am not the first person you heard say that. You have to trust the marketplace and the buyers to know for themselves what they want to buy and what they will pass on.

Watermarks:

The combined artwork sales of Amazon, eBay and FAA probably are higher than the next ten sellers of art on the internet combined. They will all tell you the same thing; watermarks will discourage buyers. That is the bottom line. I don't care about all the arguments that go against that opinion. If the largest sellers of artwork on the internet, people that have spent millions if not billions of dollars to maximize sales, tell you that watermarks will hinder sales, then watermarks will hinder sales!! If you hope to make money selling artwork, there are certain compromises you HAVE to be willing to make. If you want to buck that system, then more power to you. Accept the fact it will mean lower sales for what it is and why.

Search Engine Paranoia

People are paying way to much time over worrying the search engine and keep saying how horribly bad it is and offer up 60,000 ways it can be improved. Get over it!! It is what it is. Only Sean knows exactly how it works and has made it abundantly clear that he will not tell us.

The thing you have to understand, THE SEARCH WORKS FOR FAA!

It works just fine and is selling artwork for Sean. Business is good overall and on the upswing for FAA. Sean is always working on the site, and he has his own priorities as to what he wants the site to be or not be. We are tenants here, we are not partners. We do not get to tell the landlord how to run the everyday business of running the mall.


If all of the suggestions of what the search should be were installed, it is STILL not going to make everyone happy. It is still only going to return so many images. If you are not one of the big sellers, you will still not be found in the search as often as you would like. Amazon and eBay both do the same thing. They want to tilt the scales in their favor to maximize the opportunity for a sale. They don't care who it is. The only favorite sellers they have are those that sell the most images. I would do the same thing. So would you if you were in their position.

You need to do the best you can to maximize your tags and descriptions to be found in the search and then forget about it. Spend more time advertising and marketing direct links to your AW/Premium Site images. Stop living and dying on the search results. Reach out as far away and as far outside of FAA and reach the general art buying market. That is how you are going to improve your sales. Not via a new and better search anywhere near as much as you think you are.

Stop looking at seasonal swings or economic conditions that may or may not affect sales. You can't do anything about it and you don't even know if they are really the problem. Stay positive, and don't let others talk you into a funk by saying things like, "we always see lower sales in the summer" or other such things.

Little Fish In A Big Ocean

The fact is FAA is growing. New images, hundreds if not thousands, are being added every day. Sellers, some with huge portfolios of images, are joining all the time.

This also goes hand in hand with living by the search, both FAA and Google. This is pretty simple stuff. The individual artist is increasingly becoming a little fish in a huge ocean. That ocean has huge sharks and whales consuming sales at a rapid rate.

If you are going to get found, you must go out and drag the buyers into your AW. This is going to continue to be the case.

Most see that as a negative. I don't don't. I see it as competition. If some of the best artists, galleries, and museums see FAA as "the" place to be, then so do I.

I don't care about all the complaints that "stock" is the problem. First, don't underestimate those referred to as the "stock" companies. A lot of their images are very, very good, fine art images. And they sell every day. This tells us all that there ARE buyers out there every day. You just have to figure out how to compete and get your fair share.

You can not depend on "the search" to do that for you. I don't care how much improvement is done. You will still be seen as a very small fish in a huge ocean as far as the search is concerned.


So let's recap:

Load as many images as you can. Consider different variations of existing images such as black and whites, sepia tones, details and other variations. Some people will tell you that that will discourage buyers. I have been selling variations of my photographs successfully for 50 years by doing it. That is exactly what the large sellers that are uploading image every day are doing.

Get rid of the watermarks. They DO discourage buyers. The protection is not as much as you think it is. The low res image loss is not a hard money loss. The lost sale of an image because of it IS a hard money loss.

Stop living and dying by the search. Do what you can to maximize your potential to get found using searchable titles, tags and descriptions. But then more on and stop worrying about it. Do something about it instead.

Expand your reach as far outside FAA as possible. I do not believe that the contests, groups, image dump thread or spending too much time in the threads in general is of much if any, value. Spend that time advertising you work OUTSIDE FAA.

You need to go beyond FAA and reach out and be seen in the greater art-buying community. The marketplace is so much more than FAA.

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and others are a place to start because it is free and easy to do. But they, too, are very limited. You have to consider other means of advertising. Direct email, press releases (with mass circulation, not the FAA-supplied press release system) banner ads, pay for clicks, trading links bounce back pieces and any other way of mass marketing you can think of.

Get Educated

Go to school and learn something about selling and marketing. Take advertising, marketing, and salesmanship classes at your local Community or Junior College. You do not have to be some silver-tongued salesman. Just knowing the basics will help you do marketing.


All that said, you HAVE to keep a positive attitude. Block out the negative Nellies and stay positive. I have never met a successful salesman that spent a lot of times in the "woes me" state of mind. You got to stay positive!!

Be aggressive with your marketing/advertising. Remember the words of Zig Ziglar: "Skinny salesmen have skinny kids."

FAA is the Retailer Not the Individual Sellers

August 25th, 2022

Are we retailers or are we just getting paid for the use of our images? We are not retailers, IMHO.

Art Prints


That I don’t have to find the suppliers, handle the sales and do the fulfillment is the genius of the FAA system and what I love most about it.

I think the more accurate way to look at what we are doing here is we are getting a fee for the use of our images. We are really not selling anything ourselves other than the use of our images. We are giving FAA permission to sell our images on the product we chose to allow them to sell with our images on them and in return, we are getting paid a fee for that use.

We have no say in choosing which specific products we offer the public. We do not actually choose the vendors or the prices so to say we are selling or retailing to me, is a bit of a stretch. Retailing to me means I am buying a product and then turning around and selling it. We are not doing that here.

We are given a choice; do you want to allow us to sell mugs with or images, yes or no? Do you want to allow us to sell pillows, yes or no? But FAA is picking which mugs, which pillows. We have no choice other than yes or no.

We do some advertising that certain products are available but we do not handle any of the purchasing or the actual selling and certainly none of the pricing beyond our own markup, fee or commission or whatever you want to call it.

It bears repeating. Personally that I don’t have to find the suppliers, handle the sales and do the fulfillment is the genius of the FAA system and what I love most about it.

FAA is the Retailer Not the Individual Sellers

August 25th, 2022

Are we retailers or are we just getting paid for the use of our images? We are not retailers, IMHO.

Art Prints


That I don’t have to find the suppliers, handle the sales and do the fulfillment is the genius of the FAA system and what I love most about it.

I think the more accurate way to look at what we are doing here is we are getting a fee for the use of our images. We are really not selling anything ourselves other than the use of our images. We are giving FAA permission to sell our images on the product we chose to allow them to sell with our images on them and in return, we are getting paid a fee for that use.

We have no say in choosing which specific products we offer the public. We do not actually choose the vendors or the prices so to say we are selling or retailing to me, is a bit of a stretch. Retailing to me means I am buying a product and then turning around and selling it. We are not doing that here.

We are given a choice; do you want to allow us to sell mugs with or images, yes or no? Do you want to allow us to sell pillows, yes or no? But FAA is picking which mugs, which pillows. We have no choice other than yes or no.

We do some advertising that certain products are available but we do not handle any of the purchasing or the actual selling and certainly none of the pricing beyond our own markup, fee or commission or whatever you want to call it.

It bears repeating. Personally that I don’t have to find the suppliers, handle the sales and do the fulfillment is the genius of the FAA system and what I love most about it.

Understanding Advertising and Why You Simply Cannot Do It All

January 31st, 2022

Advertising Your FAA Artist Website

This article aims to address the artist's needs on FAA trying to balance their time between creating their art and selling it.

You simply cannot do it all. Not effectively.

When is enough, enough, and maybe too much? One of the biggest mistakes that I see FAA members doing is advertising with no advertising plan whatsoever. They think all they have to do is post a few times to Facebook or Tweet here and there, and that's it. Or they are out there thinking they have to be on everything. Total market saturation. Neither one is the right way to go.

There are a lot of ways of advertising your FAA artwork. But to do that you first have to understand something about essential advertising.

Advertising on the net is no different than advertising mainstream media. The vehicles you use are different, but the basic concepts are the same. You have to reach the marketplace and prospective buyers with your product in a way that will most likely give you results.

Let's look at the different vehicles we see most often used by successful sellers on FAA. When I first wrote this, Facebook was probably the number one, with Twitter number two. Today there are too many to mention as far as choices. Equate those to traditional adverting vehicles like TV, radio, newspaper, billboards, etc. Put these aside for a minute because for the purpose of this discussion, we are not going to use them to promote your AW on FAA, but we are going to learn from them.

To keep this as simple as possible, let's look at two different methods to adverting.

First, there is Direct Advertising, Target Marketing, or Market Specific. Someone reinvents a new name for it every year or so, but it is still the same thing that it has been for 200 years.

Then you have Institutional Advertising, Generic, Top of the Mind Awareness, and again all the new names people have come with.

I am assuming you have at least a basic understanding of the two different approaches above. Here is a very simple example of each.

If I have a photograph of a cowboy on a horse, I would target the western cowboy, horse market using Twitter, FB Groups, or any other vehicle to identify these people. This is pretty simple stuff. On Twitter, you use the right #Hashtags; on Facebook, you join the right groups. I do not recommend using #Hastags on Facebook. That tags are links, and they do the opposite of what you are trying to do by sending people away from your artwork in much greater numbers than they draw.

Institutional advertising would differ in that I would not necessarily even mention a photograph but would instead just be posting to Facebook or Tweeting "Visit FASGallery.com, see the best artwork on the net." I would be promoting the "institution" FASGallery to everyone, not to a specific photograph and not to a particular market. This goes to Top of the Mind Awareness. Still really boring I know, but stay with me.

With institutional advertising, what you are trying to do is the same thing All-State Insurance has done with "The Good Hands People" or McDonald's with the Golden Arches. It is a form of branding.

All of these things have to be taken into consideration of any advertising plan. But now we have to talk about the meat of that plan. How do you reach the market in a meaningful way that will get you the best results?

When you get ready to actually launch your plan, you simple cannot do it all. Everyone has limits. We are talking non-paid advertising but it still cost something. The currency is time. And you simply cannot be on Facebook, Twitter, and every one of the dozens of platforms out. Not effectively. It is just simply not the best use of you time because the frequency is going to be too thin to really make the impact you need to make. You will not reach the market penetration that you will need to be effective.

This is where we start talking about Vertical Reach and Horizontal Reach, the meat of any plan.

Most people are not in a position to where they can go for total market saturation. They need to focus; limit the number of vehicles you chose to use, and then use them wisely.

Here is an example. If you were advertising on radio, and there were ten radio stations in your market, more the likely you would not have enough money to be on all of them. You would have to choose. If your budget is $1000, you would be much better off running $500 dollars on two stations instead of $100 each on all 10. $100 is simply not enough to achieve decent market penetration. It would be a waste of money.

Vertical vs Horizontal. Vertical: $500 on each of two stations. Horizontal: $100 on each of 10 stations. In this case, your $100 on each of 10 stations simple will not give you the market penetration you need to get any decent results.

We now need to talk about one of the biggest reasons, besides the cost why you cannot effectively do all of the Social Media outlets. With social media, unlike radio, TV, newspaper and other traditional adverting vehicles you have to build your own audience. You actually have to advertise you advertising vehicle. You have to build up your own followers and friends and circles; your audience.

For advertising to work, you have to reach some level of market penetration. You have to be in that market, advertising your gallery, your artwork, often enough to make an impact, to penetrate the market.

Think of it the same way all great speech writers do when they write a speech. To make a point stick in the audience's mind they know they have to repeat that point three times. "Tell'em, tell'em what you told'em and then tell'em again".

Applying what we have known about advertising for 200 years and from leaning what we have from radio and television, 50 tweets a day or posts to Facebook, will be more effective then 5 posts a day on ten different Social Media vehicles. It will also give you more time to create your art because you do not have to manage all of those different outlets. You can actually make fewer posts to a smaller market and have better results and at same time because you are getting better market penetration which will give you better results.

In closing, pick one or two, maybe 3 vehicles, build up a targeted market as best you can and do the best you can to penetrate that market.

I chose three platforms when I started, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. With Facebook, it is not about your followers, that is way too small of a market. It is about Joining groups that allow selling and making regular posts to build up a following that will hopefully like and share your posts. Likes and shares give you raking on Facebook. Twitter is about getting Retweets and likes, like give you status and retweets widens your reach way beyond the number of flowers you have.

But the bottom line is you have to have an advertising plan, and you have to be committed to it and stick to it. Plan your work and work your plan as the old saying goes.
Best of luck to you!

February 4, 2021 Regarding Sales

February 4th, 2021

SITEWIDE DISCOUNTS
------------------------------------------

If a discount is active and someone buys one of your products, then your profit is reduced by the discount percentage. If you opt out of the sitewide discounts, then your products won't appear in the search results when a discount is active.

Buyers can still buy your products if they come to your profile page directly and buy them, but the products won't be discounted, and your profit will not be reduced.

Right now, the sitewide discounts that we're running are only running on the main sites (i.e. FAA and Pixels). They don't affect the white-label websites. As we get closer to the holiday season in 2021, we'll start running discounts that do apply to the white-label websites just like we did in 2020. If you opt out of this discount program, then you're opting out of all discounts on the main sites and the white-label sites.

ADVERTISING DISCOUNTS
------------------------------------------

If the buyer arrives on FAA or Pixels after clicking on an paid ad that we ran, then the next order that the buyers places within the next 30 days will be attributed to that ad. For all of the products on the order, the artists' profits will be reduced by 50% assuming the artist is participating in this program. If an artist on the order has opted out, then their profit won't be reduced, but we'll also stop running ads on their behalf, as well.

Currently, we're running ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Google Shopping.

If someone clicks on an ad for product from Artist A but ends up buying a product from Artist B, that still counts as an ad sale, and Artist B's profit will be reduced assuming Artist B is opted in.

DISCOUNTS, IN GENERAL
------------------------------------------

We finally rolled these out on January 1st. Etsy did something similar last year (https://www.etsy.com/seller-handbook/article/introducing-etsys-risk-free-advertising/729663416588).

It's really this simple. If you're opted in to sitewide discounts, then we'll show your products in our search results when a discount is active, and your profits will be discounted on any sales that occur when the discount is active. If you opt out, then your products won't appear in the search results while a discount is active, and your products won't be discounted on any orders while a discount is active.

The same thing goes for the advertising discounts. If you opt out, then we'll stop running ads on your behalf, and your profits will not longer we discounted when a buyer orders one of your products after clicking on an ad.

Simply opt out if you are confused or do not want to be a part of them. It really is as easy as that and there is nothing else to explain.

------------------
Abbie Shores
Community Mgr, Technical Support Mgr, Fine Art America | Pixels.com

Post Your Work On Facebook

January 3rd, 2021

I have several Facebook groups that I own where everyone is welcome to join and post your images with links to where they can be bought.

Some of them have specific themes like Western (and wildlife), Seascape (and nautical), Vintage Cars, etc, etc. Please adhere to the themes but post your imates in all of the groups that are appropriate.

The two largess, FineArtInAmerica and Buy & Sell Art Any Art Any Artist and/or Buyers are open to any theme. You can post in the Western group and in both of these or any other group the image fits in. The combined membership of these two groups is 20,000 members.

Western Art Buyers & Sellers https://www.facebook.com/groups/1403150156590398/?ref=group_browse

FineArtInAmerica https://www.facebook.com/groups/521753177970410/?ref=group_browse Any kind of image is okay here as long as you are a member of FAA.

Seascape Art Buyers & Sellers https://www.facebook.com/groups/1473698576246013/?ref=group_browse

Buy & Sell Art Any Art Any Artist and/or Buyers https://www.facebook.com/groups/213947672404317/?ref=group_browse

Digital & Abstract Creations https://www.facebook.com/groups/1664007437146334/?ref=group_browse

Handmade Arts & Crafts https://www.facebook.com/groups/1836089343289694/?ref=group_browse
This group is open to all art images and craft items and it is also the place to post the products from FAA or where else you sell.

Vintage Cars & All Other Vehicle Art for Buyers & Sellers https://www.facebook.com/groups/3790171380999786/

I also have an eBay group that only allows eBay listings. eBay Buyers & Sellers https://www.facebook.com/groups/741852785862849/
The is not junk like you see in some of the other eBay groups. No solicitation, no circumventing eBay through the group. No other selling platform.

I see literally hundreds of post in these groups every day. I also the "Insights" that tell me what kind of action each post is receiving in the way of engagements, likes, comments, photo views, clicks and other reactions.

I have been doing this 6-7 years and I can tell you the post that get the best results as far as total engagements are the simples, cleaning posts. The one that just the image, a short description and link to where it can be bought. The post that are full of #Hastags (*which we no longer allow) videos, more than 3-4 pics and a description that reads like a novel are not getting the action people think they are.

For that reason we have strict rules about what will be approved and what will be declined. Please read the About page and/or the rules before you post.

*About #HashtagsIn my experience with 14 groups and viewing tens of thousands of posts they do not do what people think they do. They are not attracting the numbers of people that people think they are. What they are doing is supplying a link that takes people away for the art and away from the group to God only know where. I have clicked on hundreds of these things in people's post. The do send people to some places I don't think people that post them really intended. I have clicked on #Hastags that have taken me hate groups, political ads, and all kinds of scams and other nonsense.

Looking at FAA from the right perspective

November 5th, 2020

I think the average seller, or at least the average selling that is posting in the threads is looking at FAA from the wrong perspective.

I don’t see myself as a retailer. I see myself as having licensed FAA to use my image on whatever products I authorized them to sell.

I don’t feel I am in anyway responsible for anything that goes wrong no matter what the problem is. I am not responsible if the product does not arrive, or the wrong one is shipped or if the stitching is poorly done or any other problems. That is FAA’s problem.

FAA has a 100%, no questions, asked money back guarantee. To my knowledge they honor that guarantee just as it is stated. And yes, even that process can have glitches and errors but it seems that an awful lot of the problems that are brought to the threads in a big panic are not near as bad as stated. Just look at how often we find out that customer service did respond when we are told there was no response.

The thing to remember here is FAA sells thousands and thousands of items including prints and all sorts of consumer items. They are buying these items from many different vendors around the world. There is going to be problems. No one is perfect. That is why FAA has the guaranteed they have.

My own return rate on several thousand items sold is insignificant. Other sellers much larger than me have reported the same thing.

FAA has been steadily growing its business and has been able to attract some very high-profile names in the art business, people that have been licensing their images as both wall art and consumer products for years. Getty Images, Norman Rockwell (Curtis Publishing), Sports Illustrated, Conde Nast, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and many other iconic brands would not be choosing FAA if the problem was systemic.

As sellers here we can choose what products we what to sell but we really have no say so as to where those products are coming from, at what price they are purchased or what the quality control is. For that we have to trust that FAA is doing the job of choosing wisely when the decide on a vendor.

I can’t help but believe that some of the above-mentioned iconic brands would be here if they were not. I look at my own return rate, the growth of FAA other factors mentioned here and I have that trust or I wouldn’t be here.

I think if sellers would change their perspective and start looking at selling on FAA for what is really happening. Sellers only taking a fee, in effect licensing the use of their images to FAA. Sellers have to realize that they are not personally responsible for ever little (or even major) thing that goes wrong. I think this perspective it would make life a lot easier.

I fully understand the idea that the sellers name is on the art, but that does not make you responsible for the products. I also understand that some do not want their name on a shabby product. No one does. Unfortunately, that comes with the territory once you get into a licensing agreement where you have no control over the products.

The fact is, we are not the retailers. We are not the ones selling the products. We are merely getting a fee for the use of our images. FAA is responsible for everything else.

Sean McDunn FAA owner Transparency In Discussions posted originally in Sep or Oct of 2018

July 11th, 2020

Pull Quote:

"My biggest advice is to spend more time focusing on what you can control (e.g. creating incredible artwork, building your online following, building your e-mail list, developing a marketing strategy, collaborating with other artists and brands, building relationships with local art galleries, paying for online ads, etc.) and less time on what you can't (e.g. the FAA search engine, the FAA homepage, the FAA collections, the FAA newsletters, etc.)"Sean McDunn, owner of FineArtAmerica

The Full Article

I haven't been in the discussions in a very long time, but Abbie keeps me up-to-date each week regarding important questions that get posted, bugs that get identified, etc.

Last week, we made a small change to our search engine, and like clockwork, the inevitable "sky is falling" post got started about how FAA is terrible... the change to the search engine is killing sales... FAA only cares about big sellers... FAA is lying to everyone... FAA is on the decline... FAA is turning in Walmart... etc.

https://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=4278552

Those sort of posts have occurred after every single website change going all the way back to 2006.

In the past, I used to come in and explain why we're doing what we're doing, but as you all know (as active forum participants), it's almost impossible to change anyone's opinion via a back-and-forth on the internet. The discussions always go nowhere. If you think that a change is bad for you for some reason, no amount of explaining will change your mind. Sales might go up by 20% this year on FAA, but if your sales go down by 10%, then FAA is terrible in your mind.

So - for years, instead of engaging in all sorts of discussions that went nowhere, I just let people continue to post inaccurate statements and wild theories that would go unchallenged. This weekend, however, as I read through some of the advice that was being dispensed here in the forum by certain artists and the statements that were being treated as fact, I started to feel bad for the artists who are here to learn.

When a "sky is falling" post gets started, there is a lot of bad information that gets thrown around as if it's fact, and that's got to be very discouraging and confusing to the artists who are here to learn.

So - we're going to do something about it.

In this post, I'm going to correct some of the wildly inaccurate statements that have been posted in the forum over the past few years and also discuss a new feature that we're releasing which will help you distinguish fact from fiction.

I've written every single line of code that runs this business... have access to every data point regarding every single sale... and am the person making every major decision from high-level strategic partnerships all the way done to graphic design changes on the homepage. After reading through everything below, if your reaction is to say that I don't know what I'm talking about, then there's nothing that I can do to convince you otherwise. That's just the nature of the internet. No one wants to change their mind.

So - here we go.

Transparency When Discussing Sales
--------------------------------------------------------------
There are 500,000+ artists on FAA, but only about 250 participate in the discussions. That is a very small subset of the overall artist population. Unfortunately, none of our Top 50 sellers participate here. That's unfortunate because many of the artists who are here in the forums each day are here seeking sales advice, and ideally, you want to seek advice from someone who is selling successfully on a regular basis.

In my opinion, one of the biggest problems with our discussion forum, in particular, occurs whenever discussions turn to the topic of "sales", and artists start giving advice to other artists.

There is no nice way to put this. There are a lot of artists in the discussion forum who don't make any sales on FAA. In the following discussion about the search engine, for example, there are a total of 20 artists currently participating:

https://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=4278552

Of those 20 artists, there are four who haven't made a single sale in 2018. That means that 20% of the participants who are expressing outrage that a minor change to the search engine has negatively affected their sales actually have no sales, at all, to affect.

Half of the 20 artists have made less than 10 sales, total, in 2018.

Abbie and I are the only two people who know that information because we can see the sales numbers. For everyone else participating in the discussion, it's very difficult to know what to think and whom to listen to.

To compound the issue, there are other artists who routinely dispense sales advice, advertise their own "how to sell art online" books, etc... and never generate any sales, at all, on FAA. I've mentioned this several times over the years. One artist who routinely dispenses advice has only made one sale since 2015.

There is nothing wrong with not selling. After all - many artists are here to learn how to sell. The big issue is when someone who isn't selling is telling you how to sell... or is getting you all worked up by telling you that his/her sales are plummeting when the sales were non-existent to begin with.

In order to address this issue - I've given Abbie the ability to flag certain discussions as "sales discussions". When she flags a discussion as a "sales discussion", our code is going to automatically show the "average monthly sales volume" beneath the headshot for every participant in the discussion.

Here's how the average monthly sales volume is calculated. Our code adds up the total number of items that you've sold in the past twelve months and then divides it by 12. The average will look something like this:

"8 Sales / Month"

It's not a financial disclosure (i.e. a dollar amount). It's just a count of how many products you sell, on average, in a given month. Note - it does not count products that you purchase for yourself.

If Abbie flags a discussion as a "sales discussion", the sales numbers will only be displayed for posts that occur after Abbie changes it to a sales discussion. Also - before you post, you'll see a big warning telling you that you're about to disclose your sales numbers so that you don't disclose the number by accident.

If you have any questions, let me or Abbie know.


Myths 2018
--------------------------------------------------------------

Now, I'm going to address a few of the statements that seem to get tossed around as facts in all of these "sky is falling" posts each year.


Myth #1: FAA doesn't promote our artists.
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If you're reading this, you're probably an artist. As a result, you're on our artist e-mail list, and you get artist-related e-mails.

You don't get the buyer e-mails.

If you're on our buyer e-mail list, then you'll see that we're promoting individual artists, groups of artists, and themed collections all the time. Take a look at some of these buyer e-mails:

https://fineartamerica.com/newsletters/soosh-2018.html
https://fineartamerica.com/newsletters/curated-collections.html
https://fineartamerica.com/newsletters/maps-2018.html
https://fineartamerica.com/newsletters/modern-master-christian-jackson-2018.html
https://fineartamerica.com/newsletters/modern-master-aaron-blaise-2018.html
https://fineartamerica.com/newsletters/artist-profile-don-mennig.html
etc...

A new e-mail goes out to the buyers on our e-mail list two times every single week.

We pay to run ads for our featured artists on Facebook, Instagram, and Google.

We pay to load our products onto Amazon and get them featured there.

We hand-select artists to appear on our homepage:
https://fineartamerica.com/

We hand-select artists to appear in our curated collections:
https://fineartamerica.com/collectiongroups

We hand-select artists to appear on our Featured Artist pages:
https://fineartamerica.com/overview/artists

We publish comprehensive success stories about our featured artists:
https://fineartamerica.com/landing/soosh.html

We feature new artists on our social media accounts each day.

etc...

I've always let the myth that we "don't promote our artists" exist because it stops artists from constantly asking us to promote them. With 500,000+ artists, that's impossible. That's why we always tell you that you have to promote yourself - which is definitely true. However, if you think that we don't promote our best-sellers and heavily feature artists that we think are up-and-coming, that's crazy.

We're the largest art site in the world, and we advertise and promote like crazy.

You have to leave the confines of the discussion forum, contests, and groups, and when you do, you'll see that certain artists are heavily featured throughout the site. We're constantly adding new artists to the mix, as well.

If you want to become a featured artist, the easiest way to get on our radar is to A) generate some sales on your own... B) drive a lot of traffic to your images via your own newsletters and social media... C) get yourself mentioned in an art-related publication / blog... or D) be nice and helpful to other artists on the site.

A and B are self-explantory. If you generate some sales or traffic on FAA, we have algorithms in place that will immediately bring you to the attention of someone on our staff. Also - think of it this way. Every time you make a sale, someone at FAA has to, at the very least, review your images for quality, cropping, etc. You've immediately brought your image and your entire portfolio to our attention, and the person reviewing your image has the ability and the authority to promote your images throughout the site.

I wrote a very lengthy article about kickstarting your sales many, many, many years ago. Here it is:

https://fineartamerica.com/why-every-artist-and-photographer-in-the-world-should-be-selling-on-fineartamerica.html

I'm sure that a lot of links in the article are out-dated, but you get the idea.

The one thing that I can guarantee doesn't help you become a featured artist is constantly being a thorn in Abbie's side, causing trouble for her in the discussion forum, and complaining endlessly about how terrible and unfair the website is to you.

Every month, our staff works with a select group of new and existing artists to promote them both online and in the real world.

Here are two of the many artists that we worked with just last month, alone:

https://fineartamerica.com/videos.html?videotype=artMyWay

Our staff spent days getting to know both artists... interviewing them... taking them out to lunches... editing videos for Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube... coordinating social media posts... writing press releases... and ultimately paying to drive hundreds of thousands of viewers to the final videos on Facebook and Instagram.

Those sort of personal interactions happen between our staff and our featured artists all the time, and we chose to work with artists who have great artwork and are fun to work with.

Focus on A, B, C, and D, and maybe you'll be featured some day. There are absolutely no guarantees, and that's why we tell everyone that you have to promote yourself in order to be successful. However, if you generate some sales on your own or otherwise bring attention to your artwork through visitors or the media, we'll definitely notice. That's the way all online marketplaces work.


Myth #2: FAA doesn't advertise.
----------------------------------------------------------------
This one is always amusing whenever I see someone write it.

FAA spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising each year. We advertise on Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Amazon. Take a look at Google Shopping, for example, and search for "fineartamerica.com".

There are millions of FAA products loaded in there. Visit FAA in an "incognito mode" in your browser, and once you leave the site, you'll find yourself seeing FAA ads everywhere that you go online (e.g. on your favorite news site, on Facebook, on YouTube, on the blogs that you read, etc.).

What is "incognito mode"? It hides the cookies from your browser and makes you appear to FAA like a first-time visitor. We run re-targeting ads constantly to first-time visitors. Guess who we don't run ads to? Artists. Once you login to FAA as an artist, we drop a cookie in our browser which tells us that you're an artist, and then you'll almost never see an FAA ad anywhere online. It's a waste of money to run ads at artists when we should be spending our money going after buyers.


Myth #3: The sky is falling.
----------------------------------------------------------------
As an individual artist, your sales are going to fluctuate from month-to-month. As the owner of the company, I can see the sales numbers for every single artist on the site, and I have 12 years worth of sales data at my fingertips. Sales go up and down for individual artists. That's just the nature of the business. You might earn $2,500 one month and then $100 the next. It happens to our best sellers, and it happens to our newest, smallest sellers.

If you're actively marketing yourself, the fluctuations will be smaller, but they'll still be there. One month, one of our wholesale buyers might purchase 10 large prints from you for use in a hotel project, and then the next month, they'll buy zero.

That's going to create a big fluctuation in your sales, and that's completely normal.

When your sales fluctuate, the sky isn't falling.

Too often, a few artists will post in the discussion forum that they had a down month, and all of the sudden, the sky is falling for everyone. It's not.

FAA has been growing non-stop for 12 straight years. We're the largest online art site in the world. We're powering the online sales for 500,000+ independent artists and an ever-expanding list of global brands.

If you want to read about the current state of FAA and the print-on-demand industry, in general, take a look at this article:

https://medium.com/@broihier/lessons-from-a-decade-in-e-commerce-bootstrapping-the-worlds-largest-art-site-6c51d42d117d


Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------
My biggest advice is to spend more time focusing on what you can control (e.g. creating incredible artwork, building your online following, building your e-mail list, developing a marketing strategy, collaborating with other artists and brands, building relationships with local art galleries, paying for online ads, etc.) and less time on what you can't (e.g. the FAA search engine, the FAA homepage, the FAA collections, the FAA newsletters, etc.)

If your sales strategy is to upload images to FAA and then sit back and wait for sales to come in, you'll never be happy. I must have written that sentence at least 50 times over the years. If you're in the business of selling art, then you have to treat it like a business and do all of the things that I mentioned, above. You can't just sit back and wait for sales to roll in.

You've probably heard me use the following analogy many times before:

Let's say that you're a musician and that you upload your songs to Apple Music. After a few months with very few sales / streams, you mention to all of your friends that you're not earning any money as a musician, and the reason you're not earning any money is because Apple Music isn't featuring your songs.

Your friends will look at you like you're crazy. They'll ask you if you're playing bars, restaurants, and open mic nights in order to promote yourself and build some buzz. They'll ask you if you're going out on tour to play small festivals. They'll ask you if you've reached out to radio stations and promoters to try to get your songs promoted. They'll ask you if you've reached out to Apple Music, directly, to try to get in touch with their playlist curators.

Everyone knows that music is a business and that musicians need to hustle in order to get their music heard. Musicians know that, and their friends know that. If you just create songs and upload them, it's almost guaranteed that you won't be successful.

It's no different with art. Selling art is a business. You've taken the first step by adding your art to the world's largest marketplace. The next step is to stand out from the crowd, and that takes a lot of hard work. If you do manage to stand out from the crowd... and you're the type of person that people want to work with... then lots of doors will open up for you.

 

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