I joined Art.com's Artist Rising site in January 2007. Artist Rising allows artists to sell reproductions of their artwork. It was the first print on demand site I ever joined. I was so excited about the possibilities of selling prints and posters of my paintings. However, little did I know that they had just made some major changes and it would be months before I would see a single sale.
We were told all along that our art on Artist Rising could also be added to the main sites, Art.com and Allposters. This decision would be based on sales and decorating trends. Eventually, some of my art on Artist Rising was migrated to Art.com and Allposters. I started making a few sales and finally 2011 was my best year. But that's not saying much.
However, recently we learned on the Artist Rising forum that Art.com has started soliciting new artists and placing them on all 3 sales channels without them having to wait. In the meantime, they have pretty much neglected all of our concerns. Kind of a slap in the face. However, it's not the first time we've seen them play favorites with artists.
Art.com has not moved any of my work to the main sites in a couple of years. A lot of the work that was moved was never categorized, so it never sells because it doesn't show up in most searches. The ones that were categorized are the same ones that sell over and over. They also split my work into two galleries. I have 8 images under Gayle Faucette Wisbon and 6 images under Gayle Wisbon. I have asked them several times to consolidate my galleries, with no success. They rarely reply to the artists' emails and if they do, it's usually a generic reply that doesn't really answer the question.
I really do get this feeling that they don't care about their artists. They never answer our questions in the forum - the artists are left to help one another. In other words, we're doing their job for them. The royalties are low and they offer discounts all the time, which cuts into our royalties even more. They discontinued paying us any royalties for framing and matting our work a long time ago. In other words, Art.com makes a lot more money off the artists' work than the artists do. The only artists who are doing well are those who have been with them for years and have lots of artwork available.
So, I'm at a point of should I stay or should I go? I'm thinking I might go and just focus more on my originals, working more with my own collectors and being more selective about where I share my art. Too much time can be lost working with all the print on demand sites and I'm not finding it worth it. I will still sell reproductions of my art, but maybe it's time to narrow my focus and really think about how I want to be represented.
