Should I be Merchandising my Artwork?

Tags

Artwork, book fair, books, creativity, Merchandising

Merchandising. It’s one of those unattractive, commercial words that can make a writer shudder. Most writers have enough to cope with in dealing with the basic promotional work needed to sell their books. But if, like me, you create artwork for your books as well as writing them, there’s a whole extra dimension lurking in that word merchandising. Artwork can be reproduced on all sorts of objects, from bookmarks, to notebooks, to greetings cards, to mugs and calendars, and many other possibilities. As an artist, it makes the best use of your work, providing a bit of income while also acting as promotional material for your books. If you have a suitable outlet for it, what’s not to like?

Well now, I have produced a lot of artwork – and I mean a lot – for the two books I have currently in publication, for the third one that will be published later in the year, and for a fourth one recently completed. It comes in a variety of shapes and sizes and I could probably find something for almost any sort of promotional merchandise. I have asked my publisher if they would be interested in investing in some of this and they are considering it. If the answer is yes, I’m quite happy for them to go ahead with it. If the answer is no, well, I could do it myself.

Now here’s the tricky question: would this be a good use of my time? Or would I be better off using that time to write and illustrate more books? I’ve thought about this a lot, and I’m inclined to think I’d be better off sticking to the creative side rather than fretting about merchandising. To be honest, I don’t need the stress. The one decision I have made is that I’m willing to create some original artwork specifically to sell. That is actually an enjoyable thing to do, will look attractive on a stand at a book fair, and could be sold over the internet, too, without undue hassle. So, I sent off for a set of artists’ mounts and cellophane packaging. I’ll create artwork to fit them and dip a toe in the water that way. Not quite ‘merchandising’, exactly, but a step in that direction that sits comfortably with my creativity. I’ll let you know how I get along.

The Herbarium and The Chesil Apothecary are available from www.veneficiapublications.com  

Advertisement

Return of the Book Fair

Tags

book fair, Book launches, illustration, writing, writing groups

The wait for a return to normal life has seemed interminable. What I’ve missed most, family apart, is the opportunity to make future plans. To have something to look forward to, in short. I was at a pretty low ebb this week, so it was a particular delight when not one but TWO future opportunities appeared on my screen.

Good grief! Things being planned! It gave me such a boost, I can tell you. Two book fairs! The first is not just a book fair, it’s a book and art fair, planned for July here in Weymouth. As an illustrator of my own books, that caught my attention straight away. It’s a fairly specialised event for children’s and adolescents’ books, but exciting anyway. And then, in making enquiries about the first event, I discovered there is another event, a more general book fair, being planned for later in the year.

All this certainly caused a buzz of good cheer among the Weymouth Writing Matters writers’ group, when I told them about it over zoom the other day. Most of us have books to sell – and books in various stages of completion that could be finished in time to launch at the second event. After a full year of no-plans-at-all, we suddenly had a deadline, something to aim for, something to plan for and look ahead to. There was quite a gabble while each of us considered the current state of our editing, and what needed to be done. We’re all a bit out of practice at this sort of scheduling. It won’t be long before we start wondering if we can improve our stand, find better ways to present our books at an event, seek out new ways to promote them in advance. There is much to think about. How lovely is that, after so long?

Of course, we can’t predict the future, and there are no guarantees in these unpredictable times, but oh, how good it is to look ahead again, to feel the thought muscles of the brain rustily grinding back into action. How good it is for a writer to contemplate the return of the book fair!

What are the arts for?

Tags

Artwork, the arts, writing, writing groups

What are the arts for? That is a very big question, and there are potentially some very big answers. But ask it as more of a personal question and it becomes more manageable. We were talking about this at our writing group’s Zoom meeting the other day.

What is our writing for? Well, there seems to be a spectrum stretching from ‘an enjoyable means of self-expression’ at one end, to ‘an absolute compulsion necessary to maintain good mental health’ at the other. Most of us fall around the centre point – some individuals are a bit more driven than others, as you’d expect. I think we all agreed, though, that whatever we create is primarily for ourselves – that is, that writing what you want to, what you love, comes before any commercial considerations. Some of us are involved in other artistic pursuits – drawing and painting, ceramics – and we feel much the same about them, too. Indeed, we went further, feeling that accepting commissions, paid-for orders, for any sort of art changes the nature of it, and the good feeling of producing it.

Obviously, artists of all kinds do accept commissions, seeing it as a means of funding themselves to do the work they love. And many amateur artists offer the work they produce for sale. There is a key difference between these too, and we identified it immediately: commissions tend to restrict your choices, selling finished works, take-it-or-leave-it, does not. The latter is fine with us, the former isn’t. Other people may enjoy our work, whatever form it takes, and they may buy it, but they may not call the shots. That’s not what art is for, as we see it. What we do is essentially the opposite of what a more commercial artist or writer does.

So, for this small group at least, the answer to the question ‘what are the arts for?’ is simple: they are ‘for’ the artists, for their physical and mental well-being and private self-expression. Is that selfish? Perhaps – but I think it’s probably a better answer than the rather wide-open and sloppy ‘art is for everyone’ type of response. For me, anyway, the art I produce is a private matter, a sort of quiet word with myself; anything else it becomes, should I choose to make it public, is just a happy accident. No more, no less.

When your writing becomes a book

Tags

books, illustration, writing

There is a wonderful moment that most writers will recognise – the moment your bits of writing gel together and become A Book. For some this will happen at an early stage, but I imagine for most of us it takes longer. It may be when you write the words The End; it may be when you finally think of a good title; it may not be until you see the completed cover. But it is the moment when the whole thing takes on a life of its own, becomes an entity.

For me, this time at least, it happened when I chose a typeface for a title and stood it beside the artwork I’d created. Ancient Wisdom, it said, A January Tale. Bingo! The whole book took shape before my eyes, began to make sense at last. The meanings of the stories it contains, and their relationship to the illustrations all fell into place. There is still much to do, of course; editing, rewriting, reorganising of all sorts; titles and content may all be subject to change, be honed into a slightly different shape. There may be some small extra bits of artwork to add. It doesn’t matter. I’m seeing Spell Stories as a single item instead of a collection of bits and pieces. It makes sense now, and I can move on to the purely crafting stage. For me, it’s the best moment of all.