Not Getting Anywhere with your art submissions?

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-Kate


Not Getting Anywhere with your art submissions?
Author: Lance Klass

I'm always amazed when artists thank me effusively for responding to their art submissions, especially when I turn them down. They seem to be just so very glad that someone actually took the time to respond to them, because with most submissions they never ever hear back. Not a positive, not a negative, not a form letter in the mail and definitely not the return of their artwork that may have been mailed. Not even a simple email rejection. Nothing, nada, zip.

For those artists who are used to hearing nothing back (can you ever actually get used to that?), let me shine some light on that murky area. You see, I have the same thing happen to me when I submit my artists' work. And believe me, I send out a whole lot or artwork to companies that are good active licensees, so-so licensees, or just prospective licensees and most of the time I hear nothing back. If it's a good licensee or if I find myself getting a bit annoyed or am just in a pleasantly feisty mood, I'll email them again and ask "Did you receive those materials from (blank) that I sent you two weeks ago? I wonder if the email went through?"

That's a very legitimate question because we've all had emails not go through, or wind up in a junk mail folder or spam filter and get discarded without ever having been opened. Or I might re-send the original email, as that often helps get a response. What I've discovered over the years is that most often, it isn't about the artist or licensor, and it isn't even about the artwork. Rather, it's something going on, or not going on, on the other end of the conversation that you're trying to move along. You see, the reaction to art of any kind isn't rational and it isn't logical. The fact is, it's totally subjective.

If I showed the same piece of artwork to 100 people, a certain number would like it a whole lot, a certain number would hate it a whole lot, some would be interested, some would be uninterested, and some would be totally out to lunch. The last are the "have no opinion" people you see listed in big surveys. If you think about it, this is what retailers experience every day. Imagine the typical store in a mall or on the street. There are attractive displays of items in the windows, and every day hundreds of people walk by the store, glance at the windows, and never slow down. That's a rejection, as there was nothing in the windows, no product, no piece of art reproduced on a product to make it more attractive, no nothing that so much as slows them down.

continued....To read complete article go to blog post.