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Twenty sum years ago when I was going to school the illustration students had an ongoing debate with the fine art students about money and art. The illustrator's argued that illustration was art in spite of the commission and art direction. The fine artists said by nature an assignment takes the artist out if their vision - so it's not art that's being created. I think both sides were right and wrong depending on the individual project but I think it sets up an interesting way for artists to evaluate the value of their work.This is the blog post where I reveal my sales for my Gary's Place children's story app. Even though we have gotten a handful of 4-5 star reviews - we've only sold a few hundred apps at $2.99 each in the past two months. This is no doubt disappointing for many of you and I won't pretend it's not a little disappointing for me too but it's only part of the story.
If you've been reading my blog you will remember that I sold tens of thousands (60k to be exact) of my ebooks starting back in 2010 and that I concluded that it was mostly due to market timing - aka “luck”. Now that we’ve had about 4 good years of story app and ebook creation the marketplace has obviously gotten a little noisey. But, most of the noise is coming from ebooks and story apps of low quality.
I still believe that an audience can be cultivated over time with a great story and good art. My long term game plan is to keep working on the series of Gary apps and Rick and Aaron are equally committed. Each new app released points back to the earlier ones and thus each new app becomes a marketing piece. The total project should gain traction over time.
Over the past 6 months I've received questions such as: Will you be able to make enough money? Aren't you worried that your self publishing will be looked at as a downgrade in the publishing world? Seems like a tough road are you sure this is a good decision? Many people aren’t recouping their time and costs what will you do differently? The marketing seems like the hardest part - are you ready to spend twice as much time marketing your apps?
These are all good questions but none of them address the most important aspect of creating art such as: Are you having fun with it? Are you creating the art you want to make? Do you think children and parents will respond to what you’re doing? Are you committed to doing this for years? If it doesn’t make any money will the enjoyment be enough compensation? ...Yes.
I don’t think most people ask the right questions of themselves in regard to their art. They’ll question my decision to venture down this road while they themselves have been working for years trying to get picked by a publisher - sounds like a tough road. They’ll question how much money I’m making with my apps while they aren’t making much or any money with their artistic ventures. One question I'm never asked is: What are you doing different to engage parents and children? I think people don't ask this one because they are afraid that they can't create something remarkable. I'm affraid of that too and we do spend a lot of time discussing it and working on it!
I can’t think of many successful companies or products that came from following a proven method. Most success stories share a lot of peronal struggle and negative criticism. Apple came from a couple of guys following their dreams of tinkering with computers and listening to professionals that thought nobody would want a personal computer. Stan Lee kept Marvel comics going when everyone told him there was no market for comics. If U2 hadn’t won a $500 contest they wouldn’t have had enough money to record their first demo tape. The stories of artists working on their dream projects and finding success with them years down the road is endless. Yes I hope to be one of them. I’m a dreamer. I work to be able to afford to work on speculative projects.
But what am I talking about money for? I'm in this for the sheer joy it is to find time to tinker with a new medium that allows me to express creative ideas in so many new ways! That's the gold!
But perhaps this kind of speculative project is in my comfort zone because I've had a few successes with my own projects in the past. Starting a freelance illustration business was supposed to be nearly impossible. Making my ebooks was a total unknown in 2010 but has generated a tidy profit. Making and selling illustration video tutorials on my willterry.com site lead to starting Folio Academy which has been a wonderful addition to my income. That has lead to starting SVS online teaching with Jake Parker which is also been an amazing project.
Each one of these projects has been born out of a labor of love. I love creating art and teaching.
So can money corrupt your art? I think so - if you base your artistic decisions on money you may never explore the projects that your audience will love the most. If you play it safe your art will be more predictable. If you follow the “proven” method you’ll find yourself competing with many who can do what you can...that seems risky to me. You are unique. You have an artistic fingerprint that nobody else can generate. I’m not willing to make all of my artistic decisions based on financial compensation.
If this thing we call art was easy it wouldn't be of much value. If it were easy to make lots of money as an author or illustrator it wouldn't be special. Trust me - you don't want it to be easy.
We should be releasing Gary’s Worms sometime towards the end of March! I’ll continue to give updates on sales throughout the year because I do think that it’s valuable information if not to understand the potential both for risk and reward. I'm a realist. I know you have to eat to live but artists also need to create to live. The trick is to make sacrifices to afford the time to create in your down time.
Make no mistake - Gary’s Place has cost me much more than time. I’ve turned down numerous freelance projects to afford the time to work on Gary...and now that my weekly blog post is finished I'm going to dig in!
Bravo! Artist need to create to live! That says it all. And from that passion, love and need to create we find a way to make a living at doing it while truly LIVING. Thank you for a great article.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome Jodi!
DeleteFabulous, Will. Love your sense of priority.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to connect with like minded people like you - we need to continue to cultivate a community of artists who want to create great story apps for kids!
Deletenice to hear such a balanced positive look at producing your story apps...and don't forget these will continue to sell month on month, year on year...working for other people doesn't usually net you a constant stream of income from a trickle to a flood...the more apps you make the more chance you have of selling the new app plus the older apps... keep "rockin in the free world"
ReplyDeleteI couldn't have said it any better - the brand building is where it's at - trickle turns to gurgle - which turns to stream and so on.
DeleteWOW!!! A Great inspirational write up as always thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThank you for always being so positive Sabrina! :)
DeleteHi Will,
ReplyDeletethank you so much for sharing this. A real eye-opener and your insights on this field is invaluable. Respect, sir!
Art vs money has always been THE discussion among us artists. For some reason it never gets old, and nowadays there are more and more people debating over this subject than ever.
I always consider myself lucky to be one of those people that can earn money doing what I actually love to do: doing art. I came from a graphic design background. I run my own design studio and I have been doing branding, corporate identities, logos and game arts for the past 10 years or so. I got pretty good at this, my studio flourished, and yes it helps me put plates of food on the table for the whole family.
These past few months though, I feel like I'm missing that little 'spark' in my creative pursuit. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy working on branding and graphic design projects, it's just... stagnant. I feel like I need to start evolving more because I've been inside my comfort zone for too long.
That's why I decided to start branching out, doing the one thing that I've always been passionate about: illustration. I also set a personal goal to keep me on track, which is to break into the children's book illustration market - get a book project, publish my own children's story via iBook or mobile app, or something along those lines.
So for the last few weeks, I've been so busy practicing my drawing skills, experimenting with different styles, building up my kids illustration portfolio. I do this in my 'down time'. This is why I can relate with you. Doing this is definitely NOT easy. I have to juggle between my studio works and this, which doesn't actually generate $$ (yet). Not to mention that you see THOUSANDS of aspiring young artists these days with golden talent in illustration - made me question my art skills and if I really want to pursue this.
That being said, illustration is my passion. When I work on this personal project of mine, doing experiments in digital painting until late at night (sometimes until dawn), I feel happy! It rejuvenates my creative soul. As cliche as it sounds, believe it or not, it also helps me become a better graphic designer for my design studio.
Anyway, thanks again. Your blog has been really motivational for me. Just want you to know I truly appreciate it!
Warmest regards,
= Lou =
I really appreciate you sharing that Lou! - means a lot to me.
DeleteI absolutely agree with everything you say here Will. I think especially in the creative field you cannot phone it in, or commit rote. Even if it's traditional it had better be tied firmly to the brain and the heart strings. I also think the only new real value will come from original content. Someone on your FB page had said something about the value of your branding, and that is also the absolute truth. Even if I didn't know you as the illustrator, teacher and friend, I would buy your brand, trust what it stands for because of the consistency of what you've done and done openly. The $$ is a hard thing, because it's hard to quantify on ANY level (time wise, and thank you your last paragraph answered my question, what was the real cost of Gary. On the face of it it's not a huge outlay of time and money to set up, but compounded by what you could have been doing, that does take a moment of thought. And really makes one think about the best use of what ultimately is our lives). The thing that also will take a long, long while to play out is where you're being savvy and redirecting back to the earlier versions of Gary (as well as your other great stuff, I assume). What is disappointing now, may well prove to be a beauty move five years from now. I tell the story often (and it all starts with having produced a wonderful piece of work, that is the ONLY GIMME), my friend Cynthia Lord wrote a book, sold it to Scholastic and found an agent through a conference at SCBWI. But it kept getting bumped. A book that would normally take about 8 months to bring to market took about two years, as agent and editor got pregnant, a book (Chasing Vermeer) caught the publishers advertizing/PR eye. She couldn't sell any more work, and could have been in a limbo. What she did though was intuitively brilliant. She was a former teacher and she blogged brilliantly with heart felt results. Networked with writers, librarians, bloggers, and a lot of other people who could be interested in her work via listserves and other social media. When her book finally arrived, so many were aware of it, it shot right to the best seller list. It is a WONDERFUL book that hit a lot of nerves at a time it needed attention, and the rest was history (she won the Siebert Award and the Newbery Honor). Having heart, having faith in the work, and just doing what you do because of love and a sense of integrity, I think more often then not it cannot be ignored. Thank you so much for sharing so much of your journey and works with others. I do believe that is what we are all about and why we're here. -Agy Wilson
ReplyDeleteWow! So many great points! And yes - I think artists and developers need to understand that in order to do this right it needs to be treated like a business. Understanding that most businesses don't turn a profit for 3-5 years. If you can go into it with low expectations and high enthusiasm you have a better chance of weathering the long process. - Great story about your friend as well - you never know if all that hard work will pay off but you can bet it won't if you don't do it!
DeleteIt's so funny how everyone has their questions and negativity, as if they had all the answers. I really like what you said here- "Trust me - you don't want it to be easy" Well, amen! I mean I am just as much a dreamer as the next artist and I would love love love to hit the jackpot sometime and make the hit project that takes little effort and brings in tons of money and fame, but you sure hit the nail on the head there, friend. If it were easy it wouldn't be special.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that reminder, thanks for sharing the real facts and I wish you tons of success on this and your many other projects!
I don't think people mean to be negative - I think they're just projecting their own fears and we certainly all have them. I hope it didn't seem like an attack on those who question what I've been doing - questioning is good :) ...thank you for the kind words!
DeleteThis is a wonderful business. I absolutely love what I do and am proud of the projects I've worked on. I was making a decent living illustrating books for a while and had book after book in succession without a break. Then around fall of 2008 the phone stopped ringing and the work stopped coming in no matter what I tried. That's when I noticed that e-books started to rise, the prices that artists were willing to accept spiralled down and the quality in both art and writing for the most part went straight south. I started getting truly rotten, awful offers from presses both small and large, independents and self-publishers.
ReplyDeleteI did my first digital book 2 years ago, after having done 7 others with traditional media and publishers. I did everything from illustrating and editing, to typeface, text setting, was involved in the writing and the marketing campaign. It was released as hardback and paperback but then also done as an i-book. Sales were dismal, the first true non-successful book I’ve worked on; I have others still in print after 13 years. I took a cut from my usual fee and vowed never to do it again. The company changed hands and the new powers that came in could have cared less. They gave away 20K copies of the book; royalties = 0%.
I have worked with computer graphics systems for 30 years. I worked in television where we did commercials, news graphics, animation, and Public Service programs every day. We did a little bit of everything, But everyone who sat down at the computer thought they could become an “instant artist”. There was even a laughable campaign to train one of the engineers to be an artist in 6 weeks.
Here’s what I see as the basic problem with the current climate in the “book” industry. . People play around with Photoshop and believe they are instant experts with graphics, layout and so on. The same notion applies to people who do their own self-published books and e-books. They single-handedly take on the roll of writer, editor, art director, production manager, payroll and marketing director. Some even illustrate it themselves.That’s insane.
Having been a Regional Advisor and Illustrator liaison in the SCBWI for years, I get these cries for help all the time from people who have never done a book before and get stuck. They are looking for that instant success without doing any marketing studies, not doing their homework or learning the basics. And that is my point: the manuscripts that have been handed to me of late are dreadful, underbaked, badly written, rehashed ideas. 90% are unmarketable, not publishing ready.
I have studied storytelling, mythology and folk tales all of my life. I have reviewed and critiqued hundreds of manuscripts at conferences, workshops and on a private basis. I try to be gentle and informative but a lot of these new writers refuse to appreciate and learn storytelling basics and solid character development. I have told people as politely and kindly as possible that they have a project that is indecipherable or not marketable and yet they still manage to find someone to illustrate their amateur piece and then come to me asking for help marketing the thing!! Likewise, the artist newcomers refuse to learn the drawing basics and pay their “apprenticeship” dues on smaller projects. Newcomers to the field call me and e-mail me on a regular basis, seeking advice on how to break in, what to charge, what’s a good deal and THEN "how do I illustrate a book?"!!!! Whenever I say "let's teach basic word pictures 101" I still get a lot of eye-rolling. Whenever I teach graphic storytelling I have my students do their own version of an Aesop’s fable, getting them to appreciate the foundations of storytelling, pacing and layout.
My hope is that this is just an adjustment phase the indsutry is going through as everybody scrambles around tyring to invent a new formula for success.
Totally dig where you're coming from. Although my app was a critical success and continues to be downloaded after 2 1/2 years in the store, it will never give back the financial investment I put into it. Am I sorry I made it? Absolutely not. Wealth can be measured in many, many ways. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteTheirs just so much free apps out there that its difficult for people to even consider paying for them. And going through the itune's store I don't notice if an apps came from a large company or someone created at home in their spare time.
ReplyDeleteyes, but once people discover that there are higher quality options they'll pay for them. down the street from my house a furniture warehouse store regularly gives away FREE hot dogs to people on the street and right next door people pay $20/plate to eat a steak dinner. Quality. If you can't make quality you shouldn't get into the game.
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