How to Get People to Buy Your Stuff

We had up to 300 customers per day, just a fraction of our eBay exposure.

“How do I get people to buy my stuff???” I hear you ask. Actually, that’s almost the whole of the conversation these days, because marketing isn’t like it used to be, and to begin with, that’s the wrong question.

It isn’t “How do I get people to buy my stuff?”, it’s “How do I get people to just L@@K at my stuff???”, and that’s the hardest question to answer, especially when you’re talking about online sales and marketing.

Let’s say that you’ve just invented the greatest tag line ever invented. Let’s say the tag line is “Cut Your Food Budget by 90%!!!”, which is the ultimate Breakfast-Table Subject. Continue reading

It’s Not About the Art

This medium-sized tapestry wholesales for under $80.

It used to be that you’d paint something, put a frame around it and sell it either at a street fair or — if you were lucky and had a following — in a gallery.

The thing is, unless it was a co-op gallery, where the artists take turns running the store and each artist has a small area for display, you only got one show about every three years, so the gallery didn’t burn up its territory, meaning that the sales got fewer and fewer over the months, and then finally dried up altogether.

You have to move to a different town until you wear out your welcome there, too, and that’s why artists don’t stay in one place forever unless they do local landscapes. Continue reading

Latest off the workbench

Hey, here’s the very latest off my workbench — the Otis Exhibition. Hope you like it. If you know anyone at or from Otis Art Institute, they will appreciate the many rare photos I have included in this edition, available from gateway books & tapes.

Well, running short, gotta go to breakfast and then to our zoom morning meeting.

Don’t forget, I still have a few empty classified folders left in my zazzle offerings, so take advantage of the 20% off sale — get them today, on zazzle!

Continue reading

Repent, the End is Near!

This CTF game was written in the Godd™ Engine. It is not currently available, but other equally apocalyptic game layouts are — come to a morning meeting and ask about them.

Luckily, I have a remedy for all this political freakout “civil war” bullshit brought on by the asshole politicians in Washington and elsewhere — I plan to throw my hands into the air, and promptly and unequivocally, give up.

I mean it. Give up. Why struggle against that kind of relentless sandpaper? I have a secret “wonder-weapon”, with which to defeat them all in a single swoop.

It’s when political shit gets flung direcctly into the faces of the public, which you’re seeing now from all sides of the political spectrum — that I lay down my sword and shield right by the river-side, and take up my Ultimate Weapon — humor.

It might be too great a step, definite is cause for alarm, and that’s why I created a set of fun wearable gifts that really says what it’s all about, Alfie.

That’s right. I created a line of gifts and personal wearables featuring a color graphic of an empty Classified Folder”, which is actually the cover of my graphic novel, “SlimeWars”, now available as an e-book and audio book recording.

So I decided to create strange and unusual “Empty Classified Documents” folder wearable and useable products on zazzle — things that would be likely to be wanted by you, and I hope I’m right. If not, it costs me nothing to try, just moving a few electrons around, is all. Continue reading

Works on Paper

Well, I’ve finally gotten up the works on paper gallery, with actual lithos and serigraphs offered for sale, mostly made in 1987, the lithos on one of our antique printing presses, the other created in silkscreen, also known as serigraphs.

The serigraphs used to sell very high, but I reduced the prices so that all the vintage prints would be at the same price, $375.00 retail.

Of course, you get a discount — a very big discount — allowing you to easily resell them at below retail, giving your customers an edge as well. Continue reading

At the End of the Rainbow

You know what’s at the end of the rainbow — a pot of gold. That’s a brutal way of making reference to my somewhat large tummy, but it rivets the point — we’re a long way from marketing high-end fine art.

What we need is a New York Gallery to accept my work, and for a couple dozen museum curators to competitively bid to acquire some of my works for their collections.

Not much to ask. Continue reading

Basics of Online Art Sales

Here’s the very basic basics about art sales — ready?

  • Title — the title is everything, and must contain three root words. Every word counts — put nothing in the title that doesn’t work for you, by which I mean attracts the views.
  • Drive — You can’t depend on casual random browsing to sell your product. You are trying to reach people with means, who can afford what you’re going to have to do to their home, so you need to get out there in social media and drive the customers to your doorstep — actually, right to the object itself. How to reach them is what you’re trying to learn right now.
  • Simplicity — It has to be easy for your customer, which means YOU do all the work, without complaint. Again, you need to train yourself to do ALL the steps to a sale, including follow-up and remarketing.
  • Story — Any and every experienced salesperson will tell you that it’s not the price, not the look — it’s the story. When you first start selling, you won’t get this idea for a while, even though you’ve heard it a million times, but for example, the Jazz Art has a story … I was the ONLY official IAJE artist for 15 years. Over the decades, my jazz backdrops have been used by every jazz great from Oscar Petersen to Wynton Marsalis, and there are equal stories, contained in full-color photo scrapbooks available to the public, about the Museum of Modern Art, Otis Art Institute, the Cedar Bar, and other important historical segments of the art world.
  • Authenticity — Every one of my works comes with complete documentation directly from me in my studio. All of my paintings have been photographed at least once, and many have photo evidence to prove that they are what they say they are.
  • Condition — All my works are stored correctly, and they are as fresh as the day they were painted, some of them as much as 60 years ago.
  • Market — My paintings have been on the secondary market for over 20 years, and the prices are well-supported, with many bonafide sales between $5,000 and $50,000.00.
  • Size — Very few artists paint in architectural sizes like 11 feet tall by 50 feet wide, but I do, and if there are a bunch of wealthy people living in homes with 22 feet of headroom, I have the art.
  • Celebrity — All of my Jazz Art pieces were used in performances behind almost all of the jazz greats of our time.
  • History — Your support makes it possible to give our support to jazz musicians all over the world.
  • Charity — Part of the sale price goes to the community.

The most important point is that you can’t stand on a street corner waiting for those wealthy clients to come along and buy your enormous canvas out there on the sidewalk. It just won’t happen that way. Continue reading

The Downloadables

apocalypse background forms new ZOOM game/activity

Here’s an application for the Godd™ Engine — a complete set of ZOOM backgrounds that can be used to create an atmosphere of commonality, meaning that everyone seems to be in more or less the same space.

This can work with Norton Street, too.

What you do is, when you have a good screenshot on your screen, COMPOSE it first, then when it’s EXACTLY right, press the “F4” button on your keyboard. This will send a screenshot to your screenshot file. Continue reading