No, I Don’t Like Cafe Press.

Like many artists, I was excited when I found Cafe Press. About ten years ago, I was looking for a way to print and resell my art on products, and Cafe Press seemed like a dream come true. I was able to simply upload my image, have them print it on products, fulfill the order, and I would just sit back and collect the commission checks. I wouldn’t have to worry about building a website; I wouldn’t have to deal with stuff like inventory, production, shipping, customer service, credit card processing. Not only that, I was able to preview what my product would look like before I created it, and I could do that right online with their nifty software. Wow, such a deal! Who can resist that?

My first red flag came after my computer crashed and I lost a goodly amount of original art. As a digital artist, my life is literally residing on my computer. Although I have huge eight external drives today, in those days I was working off one shaky hard drive, and when it finally exploded I knew I was in deep trouble. I had to beg Cafe Press–and I mean beg, and even cry hysterically on the phone—to talk them into sending me a disc with my own artwork on it.  After many phone calls and emails during which my sanity hung on a thread, they finally did, but grudgingly.  I found myself thanking them with embarassing, sniveling, tearful humility even though in actuality what I was asking for was not unreasonable–access to my own art. As I look back on that episode, it’s really no surprise that this arrogance manifested in many other, more sinister areas.

As many artists do, the first order of business when signing up with Cafe Press is creating products and ordering stuff for themselves, as well as for friends and family as gifts. I was no different. When my delivery came, the excitement with which I tore into the box subsided quickly once I saw what was inside. Crap. And no, I don’t think I am being harsh here. The wall calendar and greeting cards were printed on crummy, low quality paper stock and the colors were as washed out as if the pages been tossed in a washing machine; the tile coasters were not terrible, but the colors were way off–blues were too green and reds were more orange than red, and the tiles had none of the subtle gradations in hue and levels present in the originals; the clock was made from the crappiest, shoddiest plastic and I immediately dumped it in the trash–it was more suitable for a political slogan than for a piece of art. Okay, I thought: I’ll stick to the tiles and mugs and maybe my customers will like it.

But the real surprise came when I received my first order. I was told a “Mary” from “Oregon” had bought some mugs. I was very pleased about the sale and I couldn’t wait to thank her personally. I looked at my customer information, but couldn’t find any way to contact “Mary.” No address, no phone, no email. Nothing. Not even a last name. Confused, I emailed Cafe Press and asked them to send the my customer information. “We don’t do that,” I was told. Company policy. Were they kidding? Evidently not, as they didn’t consider Mary my customer, but theirs–even though it was my artwork she purchased. This was simply outrageous. I couldn’t believe they were actually getting away with this incredibly unfair policy, but, seemingly they were. Let’s get this straight: the artist is Cafe Press’ customer, the only one. The end buyer is the artist’s customer. Period. This glaring, unethical lack of transparency is terribly unfair to artists, not to mention exploitative. But there was nowhere else to go, so I continued promoting and adding to my store, but with markedly less enthusiasm than before.

And then I received an email from a lady in Colorado. She absolutely loved the multiple sets of “Black Cats” coasters she had purchased six months before; could I possibly make them for her in another color? I started to write back–of course I can change the color–but then I realized I never received any notification (or commission) from Cafe Press regarding this order. I logged in, checked my stats to make sure. Nothing. I emailed the customer, asking her if she was certain she had purchased from my store. “Oh yes,” she replied, and attached her invoice. There it was, in black and white. I wrote to Cafe Press, armed with proof of their error, but did not receive a response.

After another customer thanked me for the “pretty mug” she bought, another order I was first hearing about, I logged into my Cafe Press account, and angrily deleted my store. I called Cafe Press to complain about what happened and to tell them why I shut my store down and what I thought of the way they ran their business. They apologized, insisted it was an honest oversight, and though I asked for a full accounting of my orders and due commissions, I never received it. However, I did receive a check in the mail about four months later–without any corresponding accounting.

Now, I doubt very much if Cafe Press needs to steal commissions from a couple of mug and tile sales to make a profit. It probably was an oversight, and an honest  mistake. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. However, this is the kind of thing that happens when you have zero transparency and refuse to give a vendor artist access to their own customer information–information they most certainly have a right to access. It’s also dumb business practice–nobody will promote their art the way the artist will, and to deny personal interaction between the artist and the customer—with the accompanying personal touch, news, sales, promos, works in progress, answers to questions–is undoubtedly costing them revenue. But hey, secrecy works for them, the artists don’t question/fight it, so it doesn’t seem to be hurting them.

When Glen and I opened Color Bakery in 2004, our goal was not only to custom print/manufacture my own work on quality products, but give other artists the opportunity to do the same. Cafe Press is the largest of an array of companies who offer custom printing and fulfillment services for gift and apparel items, but the fact remains that artists have precious few avenues to produce and resell their art on high quality items, items like glass and tumbled marble and fancy wood or metal serving trays, as well as items with lower price points.

It is a little frustrating when I hear from artists who are inquiring about the possibility of Color Bakery custom-printing their art on their products for resale, and they initially compare us to Cafe Press. If I say that comparison is akin to comparing a stick figure to a Renoir, people will call me arrogant. I’m really not being arrogant, I’m merely telling the truth: the breadth of our services, intensive personalization, customization capabilities, product diversity and quality is a million universes away from what Cafe Press does. I make it a point to work with the artists with issues such as color management, cropping, and product mix. I guarantee you nobody at Cafe Press sits at their desk fretting over a low resolution image (I’ll enlarge it); or taking a washed out scan and correcting the levels/removing the moire pattern; or making sure a rectangle crops into a square without compromising the artwork. In fact, I defy anyone to do those things

Bottom line? If someone is making and selling Obama tee shirts, Cafe Press is probably a great way to make some supplemental income. But artists who care about quality and the integrity of their work need to look around for other options.

Should artists use reps to sell their work?

Should artists use reps to sell their work? Only if they like the idea of watching their money swirl and disappear down the commode.

When my husband and I opened Color Bakery almost six years ago, one of our main concerns was getting our products (custom decorative tiles, home decor accents, art gifts, art wearables) into stores–i.e., wholesaling. Yes, we had a website, but was it enough? It was a new site, we hadn’t been online long enough to properly promote it, so we worried that not very many people would find us. At the time, we assumed that most of our sales would ultimately come from bulk purchases from resellers–not consumers. We envisioned all different kinds of stores buying from us: art stores, art galleries, gift shops, flower shops, home decor furnishings, etc. Reselling to these stores, we reasoned, was where we would make the bulk of our income. Not from the end buyer/consumer. So we proceeded with those priorities in mind.

We did our homework, and researched our options carefully before diving in to the rep world.  We had a plan. First, we created two pricing tiers: one for retail, one for wholesale. We joined a large rep member organization that specialized in matching rep organizations with manufacturers (artists can be included with the manufacturer category). This organization required a hefty annual fee, but in return, they provided us with a huge list of possible rep matches for our product line. Some listings they provided were individual reps (what they call “road reps”), but most were corporate entities with large staffs and fancy showrooms in all major US cities. Since we had a relatively large and diverse product line, and was able to customize over fifty art images with over one hundred products, we were confident that our line was deep and versatile enough to attract these “creme de la creme” rep firms. Most of these firms, we heard, were very judicious about who they took on. The product line, we were told, had to be exceptional for the best of these companies to even consider representing us. A little nervous about how we would rate with these big firms, we were nonetheless confident because the website was already beginning to generate some very nice sales, and word was rapidly spreading about us. The feedback we were getting online was wonderful, and we had great hopes for the reps.

We contacted the reps we felt were the best match for us, and spent hundreds–probably, more likely, thousands–of dollars in the manufacture of product samples they demanded. I designed a beautiful catalog and we had it professionally printed. Any kind of collateral promo material I was able to think of—sales sheets, price list, order form, business card, POP displays, etc–I designed and redesigned until I was satisfied they employed a mix of easy utility and eye candy. I even made a video slideshow of our products. Along with expensive samples–like glass tiles–we sent some pretty impressive packages out to these rep groups, so they would agree to take us on. And it paid off. They responded with great enthusiasm and complimented us on our artwork, unusual product line and customization capabilities. We were going to do great things, they assured us, because the product line was as beautiful as it was unusual.

We were quickly signed up by the top gift reps in the country. They demanded twenty percent off the wholesale (which left very little profit for us, but we hoped to make it up in bulk sales as well as name recognition potential), as well as huge showroom and show fees. Talking about show fees: having a rep group represent us at gift show at the Javits Center in New York City–along with all their other principals’ products–was over a thousand dollars, for example. And that didn’t include the cost of manufacturing and shipping product both ways, nor did it include breakage. It was worth the huge expense, my husband and I reasoned, so we wrote the checks and made sure they had everything they asked for.

Months went by. They sold next to nothing.

My husband and I scratched our heads. Were we doing something wrong? Or worse, was our line substandard? Was my art lousy? We talked about it candidly. If the internet sales was any indication, the answer to those questions was a resounding “no.” Our retail sales were booming. And growing. So what went wrong?

The reps took very little to no time to learn the line, and the many possibilities that go hand-in-hand with our kind of unprecedented (and singular) customization. The abysmal sales from the reps confounded us, and not just because our website was bringing in a substantial amount of orders from enthused customers around the globe. It was the downright lazy mentality of the many reps. Please let me explain: there’s pretty much nothing we can’t print on our products–whether it’s my own original art or that of the masters like Van Gogh or Klimt. Further, we can even customize an exclusive product line for any given store. For example, we can custom manufacture a beautiful photo of a Martha’s Vineyard scene, do a lovely font treatment and print it on any of our products.  Tourist gift shops in Cape Cod, for example, would actually be able to design their own product line to their own personal specifications. To our utter amazement, the possibilities—a color-soaked dreamscape on ceramic tile, a Klimt on a glass cutting board, a vintage art pastiche on a keyhook, an Alphonse Mucha jewelry box–eluded them. Instead, the sales reps wanted two things: a very low price point (no more than ten or fifteen dollars wholesale, even if the store they called on sold Faberge Eggs) and they wanted to plop the product down on the counter without any explanations or discussion of possibilities or options. We wondered if they even took the time to look at what we did or visit our website. They certainly never asked us meaningful questions about our capabilities or special services. All they cared about was low price points and paper sales sheets for each item so they wouldn’t have to explain anything to the store owner. In time, we began to understand that these were signs of a much bigger problem.

The reps themselves seemed to live in an altogether different time, a time before the internet existed. For example, the idea of showing a video slideshow to a customer instead of the paper brochures to which they were married terrifed them. Carrying a laptop instead of a brochure was just as alien to them as emailing, instead of faxing, their orders. It was like Maxwell Smart showing up on the set of Seinfeld.  In time, I learned the internet was an anathema to them; they hated it, feared it, and avoided it with universal vigilance.

Long gone are the days when artists, small manufacturers and crafters badly needed reps to get their name out to a large-scale audience. In their glory days, reps alone held the keys to big visibility and the potential for lucrative sales because there was no other way for the artist to garner recognition on their own. The internet has changed all that by handing the back the power where it belongs–to the artists themselves. Because this power dynamic has changed, today’s reps are like Steve McQueen in “The Blob”, frantically running from an unstoppable force which very few try to harness. Trade show attendance shrinks dramatically every year; store owners can find new products by Googling; artists can reach millions with their website. Who, then, needs reps? Theirs is an industry whose time has come and gone. They are dinosaurs sucking in their last gasp of oxygen; they are standing in front of a tidal wave with three big W’s emblazoned on its crest. Few of the rep groups we dealt with had their own ‘net presence; and, instead of using our own web site as a the sales tool it might have been, they avoided it like a rabbi at a luau.

This is not to say that, somewhere, there are rep firms that do well for those they represent. Perhaps there are. This is also not to say that there are zero benefits to hitching one’s wagon to a rep group. There may be exceptions to every rule, and perhaps the home decor/gift industry is unique. However, from my own experience as well as the experience of other artists and small manufacturers who experienced similar experiences we did, reps today will sign you up, tell you how wonderful your product line is, and suck you out of every dollar they can get before you catch on. The truth of it is, they will take their fees and free product without ever intending to take your line around and sell it. Their real goal is to grab as much as they can, hold onto you for six months to a year, at which time they will turn you over when new, unwitting replacements are in place. We know this to be true, we know it wasn’t just us because we’ve spoken to dozens of other artists and manufacturers who had the same exact experience we did. By the time you pay for samples, showroom fees, show fees, marketing materials, etc., you’ll be lucky if you break even and don’t declare bankruptcy. Misrepresentation–rather, let’s call it for what it is–lying– is the only way reps can stay in business in the age of of the internet.

You may wonder if we discontinued wholesaling. Not at all. In fact, we sell to many stores across the country, and some in Europe, too. They find us online. Every day.

High resolution Monet paintings digital downloads

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Freebies: do they work?

One of the ways many businesses create “buzz” and try to get new customers is by doing giveaways or “freebies.”

On the one hand, freebies can introduce your work through word of mouth buzz, thereby introducing it to many people who may never have heard of you before or seen your work. On the other hand, people tend to devalue what they can get for free, (it’s not just men who are guilty of that, it’s a human trait) and they may never have been your customer anyway. So is it in your best interest to give away freebies? You decide.

Let me tell you a story.

My web design site was a freebie site for years. Online since 1999, my website was a banquet for those seeking freebie graphics for their own websites or web projects. I gave away free desktop wallpaper, free web ornaments and jewels, free banners, free linkware web set templates, free BladePro presets. I had a few CDROM’s which I sold online, as well, like my screensavers and special high resolution graphics, better web templates and desktop wallpaper. Needless to say, after I had developed a following, my traffic went through the roof. My server used to crash every other day. I sold some screensavers, but not very many. I sold some high resolution art discs, but not very many. I was content that so many people loved my work that they were downloading in huge numbers, sucking up bandwidth like hungry vampires. The emails poured in like barrels of honey: thank you so much for this wonderful free art! My desktop is now beautiful! I love my new web set! I told all my friends about you! And so on.

Even though the terms were clearly stated—for personal, non-commercial use only, and I begged people not to hotlink–my requests were blatantly ignored, more often than not. I had to password the directories to stop the hotlinking, and chasing down the terms violators was a tiring, depressing business. Then there was theft, where my work was printed and sold…but that’s another post for another time.

Little by little, I started to become sought after for web design and commissioned art pieces. I developed a reputation, and a client base. I sold a couple of screensavers a month, and every once in a while, I was hired to do a website.

One day my husband sat down and said, “we need to have a little talk.” Money was very tight, and we needed to find more ways to bring in income. Our web bills were huge; the bandwidth kept going up and up. The sales weren’t really covering the costs, and the commissioned art pieces and web designs were too spotty to be depended upon. We decided to remove the freebies and let my work stand on its own merit.

I removed all the free wallpapers, ornaments, linkware, banners, etc. I made my art site a professional online portfolio to display my work. And something amazing happened. I started to get hired. A lot. Serious buyers began to write to me for quotes on their websites or to create commissioned art pieces. They started to buy prints. They started to pay for the screensavers. And the hatemail piled up in my Eudora mailbox like black poison. Some people cursed me to hell for removing the freebies. I was threatened. I was told I would never sell anything because they would no longer recommend me or promote my work. Some emails were more plaintive. They begged me to keep the freebies online, or pleaded to make it available just for them because they were such loyal “fans.” The emails continued for about two years, warning me I’d ruined my reputation and that nobody would know about me any more because their co-workers wouldn’t see my beautiful work as they passed by their desktops.

My husband encapsulated it very simply: “the complainers were *never* your customers, and were never going to be your customers.” He was right.

That’s the day I started to make a living from my work. And I still get an email once in a while from someone looking for free desktop wallpaper. Some of them are whiny, some of them are nasty. When I do decide to answer them, I blithely tell them that I love my cats, and that I’d rather feed them Fancy Feast than Nine Lives. Or I ask them what they do for a living. When they tell me what they do—”accountant”–I ask them if they give their accounting skills away for free. That usually ends the discussion.

There is a happy medium between offering freebies and paid work. A smart website owner artist will have a little taste of the former to support the latter. It can be argued that I wouldn’t have had the traffic and buzz if I hadn’t offered all that free stuff for so many years. Perhaps that is true, and the free stuff is behind my healthy, sizeable, repeat customer base.

Moral of the story? By all means offer freebies. But make it a little piece of chocolate, not the whole box. When you value your work, you value yourself. And people follow your lead.

Splash pages and Flash-lose ‘em.

I love designing beautiful splash pages. Splash pages are “entry” pages for websites. They are usually very graphic heavy, have no text, and you click a beautiful piece of art to enter the site. Yes, they are beautiful. But they are hell on your search engine rating aspirations. The reason for this is that there is no text on them, and remember, text is “food” for the search engines. With a splash page, you are giving the search engines nothing to spider when they land on your site. Therefore, as beautiful as they are, don’t have a splash page. The first page a search engine should “see” should be rich in meta tags and keywords….lots of information and text to spider.

People who have to wait for a Flash splash page to load, or even a splash navigation system, are hurting themselves in a few ways. First, surfers are impatient creatures and hate waiting unless they have chosen to click on something to view it. If they are forced to wait for a navigation bar to load, or a splash page to run, they will get annoyed and click off. Secondly, the search engines cannot spider Flash code. They can’t read it. They are working on the issue, but it’s not a priority since Flash has lost a goodly part of its appeal since it first appeared. Today, most web designers are staying away from it because it is becoming passe.

I am not against Flash altogether, it has its place if used sparingly and creatively. For example, Flash photo galleries and slideshows can be a beautiful and effective way to display your artwork. However, make sure you *also* have plain text on any page you have Flash for the search engines to read. And keep your Flash OFF your index page. It will hurt you.

SITEMAPS: YES.
A sitemap is a page that has a listing of links that comprise every page of your website. A sitemap is really not for your visitors; it’s mostly for the search engines and specifically Google. Sitemaps are extremely valuable in helping search engines index every page of your site effectively. There are even software programs that can make you a sitemap by clicking a few buttons, one of my favorites is by Coffee Cup Software, and it’s called Sitemapper. Not very expensive, and I highly recommend it. A text link to your sitemap should be on every page ideally, but most importantly on your index.html page.

Once you have your sitemap created, open an account with Google. The easiest way is to open an email account with Gmail, Google’s web-based email. Once you have a Google account, you will see a link for webmaster tools. In this section, you can submit your Google Sitemap so they will validate your site. You can also read tons of cool traffic statistics once Google validates your sitemap. For more information about Google sitemaps, take out a Google account and read up on it or feel free to ask me.

ROBOTS.TXT: YES.
A robots.txt file is a straight text file you upload to your root directory. This is an important file because a search engine will look for this file automatically as soon as they land on your domain. If they find it, the chances are they will spider your site regularly and effectively increases threefold. How do you get a robots.txt file made? Simple. Either Google “robots.txt generator” or you can get one here. Just do the wizard and download your text file, then upload it to your root directory.