This is an email I get with increasing regularity:
“I found your work on [INSERT WEBSITE HERE] and love it. You should come sell your stuff on [WEBSITE]!”
I used to just ignore them. But lately, I’ve started replying with words to the effect of “Why should I bother? What will you do to get people looking at and buying my stuff in particular? I need another account on another website to promote about as much as I need a hole in my head.”
I don’t get many replies to that.
You want my art on your site? Lovely, I’m glad you like it. How are you going to promote me? How are you going to make money for me? Why should I bother spending my time rendering and uploading print-res files? I got comics to draw, and those come pretty close to paying my bills these days. I have zero interest in being another anonymous artist on yet another site full of ‘em, or in promoting your site by promoting my gallery on it.
You wanna put my art in your pop-up gallery show? Wonderful! Am I gonna have to wrangle printing it? And front framing it? How much more than “give you some AI files to print, show up at the opening and look pretty, get paid” am I gonna have to do? I got comics to draw.
I really, really like enjoy replying to these things with, essentially, “I ain’t gettin’ off my ass unless you show me the money.” You can work on spec. Not me.
(and that said, if promoting my stuff on spec sounds like a thing you’re interested in, email me – I could use an agent!)