ArtWanted.com Staff 07 Sep 2004

Q: If artists are accepted to be in the book, submit all the needed info, files and money on time, then shouldn't they be guaranteed a book?

A: Yes. We will reserve enough copies of the book for the artists that have artwork contained in the book. This is assuming that the artist doesn't wait 6-9 months to order a copy of it.

ArtWanted.com Staff 07 Sep 2004

Q: Why are there no real contracts? The artist needs a contract/release that is signed stating they give permission for their art to be used in publication and they need to be guaranteed that those high quality files they will be sending won't be used again without permission. Besides some Art may later be debated as to weather it is their intellectual property and so on.

A: Electronic contracts are just as enforceable as signed paper contracts these days. We have confirmed this with several attorneys we have talked with. At multiple points of the submission process, the artist is asked to agree to the terms found in the submission guidelines document.

We have added a clause to the book terms page that says we will not use the images for any other reason then to promote the book, without consent from the artist.

The agreement also states that the artist must have 100% ownership and 100% legal rights to the artwork submitted.

ArtWanted.com Staff 07 Sep 2004

Q: I think your deadline is too short. A book of this size and with so many different contributors should not be a rush job.

A: We really don't feel that it's a rush job. It's been in the works for 6 months and we have a committee of over 20 members that are receiving portfolios, proofing text and book layouts. The artist is responsible for his/her own content, but we still go through a proofing process to double & triple check things. Most independent books such as this one, have far less people involved then we do.

We do want to get the book done in time for Christmas, but if the book is not ready, then we will take the time to do it right, rather then meet our deadlines with a sloppy book. We feel that we have more than enough time to meet our deadlines and still have a great book.

ArtWanted.com Staff 07 Sep 2004

I want an agreement that if the book is not published that every cent that members have paid toward pages and books will be promptly refunded.

If we were not going to print the book, we would not have gone down the path as far as we are now. However, for your peace of mind, we have added this statement to the book page that all money would be refunded if the book is not printed.

ArtWanted.com Staff 07 Sep 2004

Q: Will the artists receive royalties from the sales of the book?

A: The main goal of the ArtWanted.com book is to bring exposure to the artist and their work. All money collected from the sales will be used to pay for the expense of printing the book and any additional profit will be used to promote/distribute the book and upgrade the equipment, features and staff of ArtWanted.com to make the website even better.

We did not want to commit to royalties for several reasons. The first is that we have no clue how well the book will sell and we didn't want to promise royalties for a book that may not even bring in enough to cover the cost of printing. The second is that it would be hard to split profits between 200-300 people. Unless the book really took off, we would be cutting commission checks for a $1.53 to 300 people.

If the book really sells a ton, and we get into our third and fourth printings, then we would love to give some money back to the artists that are featured in the book. We just didn't want to commit to this up front, with so many unknowns.

ArtWanted.com Staff 09 Sep 2004

Your are right Juan, this is a new concept. We have never done a book before and there are very few books out there like this one. It could be a huge success or a big flop. However, we are willing to take a gamble and see how it turns out. If nothing else, we will have a very nice book with some talented artists in it.

REALITY CHECK...

We want to keep things realistic for everyone. We are very excited about the book, but don't want to disappoint people that are expecting the world. If you are wanting fortune and fame from this book, you have some unrealistic expectations. This book will be sold through the ArtWanted.com website. It will not be on the top 10 list and will not be in the hands of every art buyer in the country. This type of distribution costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and takes years to build up these type of contacts.

If anyone knows someone that would like to fork over a few hundred thousand dollars to print and distribute the book, we welcome all inquiries.

For those of you looking for wide distribution and exposure, we invite you to submit your artwork to the American Showcase Book (showcase.com). The cost is $2,500 per page ($4,500 for a spread) and you will probably get the exposure you are looking for.

For the rest of us, the ArtWanted.com Portfolio Book is a very inexpensive way to get your work in print, have a nice coffee table book and to get your work infront of people that may not find you otherwise.

We are very excited about the book and it's been something our members have wanted for a long time. We hope that it's a success and that we can have new books each year.

We hope that everyone can support the book concept by purchasing a copy and telling others about it. The book will be a much larger success with thousands of our members promoting it, instead of just us. Thanks for your comments, keep them coming.

ArtWanted.com Staff 09 Sep 2004

Blank canvas, good idea Sarah-Lynn. We were thinking plain white paper, but canvas is an even better idea.

The cover will have to stay a mystery for now, you will just have to wait until it comes out. ;-)

ArtWanted.com Staff 13 Sep 2004

Q: Once an artist's portfolio is approved and they pay for it, is the artist guaranteed a spot in the book?

A: Once payment is made, we do reserve a page in the book for you. However, we still would need to get all of your images & text/copy before the deadline to be guaranteed a page. If you pay, but don't meet the book deadlines for content, your money will be refunded and you will not be in the book.

ArtWanted.com Staff 13 Sep 2004

Q: Why doesn't the $39 reservation fee include a free copy of the book?

A: There are actually multiple answers for this:

1. The $39 goes to pay a graphic designer to layout & design your page. ArtWanted makes little or no money from this and in some cases we are losing money. There is nothing left over to cover the cost of a book.

2. Some people want the hard-cover and others want the soft-cover book. Some people want multiple copies as well. We felt it was better to keep them separate and let the artist decide what they wanted as the keepsake.

3. Some people only want the $15 submission and others want the $78 submission for two sections. There is not a set pricing for this, so we would lose money on some options. We could have raised the price of the 'reservation fee' to include a book, but it's better to keep them separate to give our members the option of what they want to buy.

ArtWanted.com Staff 14 Sep 2004

We have just posted a very detailed article about image file types, resolution, quality and DPI that should be helpful to most everyone. You can read it here:

http://www.artwanted.com/mb.cfm?Task=Topic&Topic=60697&Cat=10

ArtWanted.com Staff 16 Sep 2004

Leigh -

It's your choice to jump on board or not, but if you still have unanswered queustions, then maybe others do to so we would like to get them out in the open and post answers for you and everyone else.

What is unclear about the process?

What terms are sketchy?

What is giving you the impression of artist reservations, when we have had tons of artists interested and preordering the book?

As far as the cost goes, we don't know if this book will have 200 pages or 600 pages, so it would be impossible to set a price on it at this time.

Curious minds want to know what is on your mind. However, if you simply don't want to, that's cool too. Your call.

ArtWanted.com Staff 20 Sep 2004

How many words can I submit for my artist bio and image descriptions?

A: The total word count of your bio and every image description can not be larger than 160 words (or about 1200 characters).

On the final approval page, we will could this up for you automatically and let you know if you need to cut down your descriptions at all.

ArtWanted.com Staff 25 Sep 2004

ArtWanted.com Book Update...

We wanted to give everyone an update on the upcoming ArtWanted.com book. If you want to know more about it, just go to: www.ArtWanted.com/Book

BOOK TITLE

Our book committee has voted on 12 possible titles for the book that were compiled from the suggestions we received. The name that has been chosen for the book is "ArtWanted.com Creative Minds". We will be registering for ISBN numbers and copyright information, so that we can distribute the book to additional sales channels.

BOOK ARTISTS

To date, we have had over 400 artists that have submitted requests to be in the book. Unfortunately, we can only have about 200-250, so there have been some great artists that have been turned down for the book. We feel bad about this and hope that in the future, we can find a way for everyone to be in print that wants to be. If you wish to be considered for the book, you only have one week left to submit your request for a portfolio review, so don't delay. A final list of names of those appearing in the book will be released at print date.

BOOK COVER

The book cover design will be a collage of multiple images found throughout the book. These images will represent a wide variety of artwork styles and media. The hard-cover book will have a printed protective sleeve which wraps around the cover of the book.

BOOK DEADLINES

Sept. 30th - Last day to request a portfolio review.

Oct. 15th - Last day for us to receive submission payment, images & bio for inclusion in the book.

Dec 1st - Last day to pre-order the book at a 20% discount.

The book is on schedule and planned for a release date at the first of December. All pre-ordered books will be shipped out the first week of December, via priority mail.

Continue to post any unanswered questions here and we will get you the answers. Thanks.

ArtWanted.com Staff 07 Oct 2004

Q: Can i just mail you photographs of my paintings, or does it have to be a cd?

A: Unfortunately we don't have the proper equipment for high-end scanning or photography of original artwork. We suggest taking it to a friend or a service company that can do this for you and put it on a CD that you can mail to us.

ArtWanted.com Staff 08 Dec 2004

Here is an update on the book that we posted on Dec. 2nd...

http://www.artwanted.com/mb.cfm?Task=Topic&Topic=85375&Cat=2

Reply