Book: TET' Art Business Advice Blog Book

Buy my Book!

Some of my regular readers may know that I used to post regularly to a blog called TET's Art Business Advice. The blog began because, when I was painting and selling art on Ebay on a weekly basis, I used to get asked a lot of questions ranging from how to price your art through to how to sell on Ebay and more.

Some questions came up again and again so, when I gave a complete answer to that person, I would then edit my response to a more general audience and post it in my Art Business Advice Blog. That way I could refer people to posts where I'd already answered their question before, and people looking for information online could access my experience as an actual artist selling online.

In July of 2012 I made my final post to that blog, explaining that I'd moved on from selling my art online and feeling that I was speaking less and less from current experience. I now earn far more from freelancing in business animation than I ever did selling my paintings.

Don't get me wrong though, for a while there my painting sales were the most profitable part of my freelancing business over everything else I was doing including web design (I hadn't re-discovered animation at that point).

I've since deleted my Art Business Advice Blog, having not posted anything to it in over a year, however before I did that, I compiled the best articles into a book.

Some of the articles will date, particularly some of the links and references to websites but the majority of it will hold true as worthwhile information to know if you're planning to sell your own art online.

Although much of what I've learnt you can find from other sources the book differs in that you get my own personal experience of each issue. I'm not some academic, professional art dealer or gallery owner. I'm a real, largely unknown artist, who has successfully and consistently sold art online for a two year period... no gallery representation, just me selling my art.

The book answers that age old question all new artists face - How do I price my Art? It does this by showing you a number of options and even includes a section just for digital artists.

Other subjects include, how to promote your art, finding a market, creating a regular income with 'bread and butter' art, ways to sell your art online, photographing your art and more.

There's also an entire series of articles outlining my personal experience with selling art on Ebay including a 'what not to do' case study of Ebay artist Marina Orlova - better known as YouTube celebrity, HotForWords - and why she can get away with doing all the things you shouldn't.

Ultimately, the book reveals my business model and everything I've tried, to sell my art online. If it's in there I've probably tried it and you can get my personal opinion of the experience.

The book is available as a 107 page, full color, soft cover edition. The cost of this version is unfortunately quite expensive (but the quality is great) so I've also made it available at a great price as a downloadable PDF book.

For a preview of some of the content head over to the book section of this site.

Man of Steel 2 - Justice League Origin Story?

Gal Gadot

With the recent announcement that Gal Godot will be Wonder Woman in Superman's follow up film and rumors that everyone from Dick Grayson to the Flash may also make appearances alongside the confirmed Ben Affleck Batman, I'm calling it... Man of Steel 2 will be a Justice League Origin story.

It has to be doesn't it? If you've got the three key members of the Justice League in your film and you're flat out saying Gal Gadot WILL be Wonder Woman, rather than saying she isn't for a secret reveal plot twist in the film, then, by the end of this movie we have to be seeing the beginnings of the Justice League?

That said, I don't know anything about the script other than Superman's in the movie and an older, more experienced and battle weary Batman will show up at some point. There's a football match. There may be a fight between Bats and Supes and, I'm guessing, Wonder Woman may be the peacemaker... so Batman and Superman can maintain a healthy dislike but mutual respect for each other.

I'm not going into detail with what I think the story will be beyond what I've said. I've had people write whole essays in my comments on what they think the plot to an upcoming film will be only to be totally wrong. I don't want to be like that. I'm just throwing the idea out there. Man of Steel 2 is most likely a Justice League origin story (call it a 'World's Finest' origin if you like).

Having written my thoughts on why Wonder Woman doesn't need an origin movie and my thoughts on Ben's casting as Batman, here are my thoughts on Gal being cast as Wonder Woman...

Meh... and I mean that as positively as I can.

Honestly, I've never seen her act in anything. Her most high profile work seems to be the Fast and the Furious Franchise, none of which I've seen beyond trailers.

She looks the part and her real life background in the Israeli Military will no doubt be an asset to the role. Some people say she's too skinny but it's really not about that. It's all about whether she can project confidence and an attitude that says 'I'm very approachable but don't mess with me.'

From the few clips of Gal in Fast and the Furious trailers I've seen she seems like she'll have the 'don't mess with me' part down. Whether she can do 'classy and approachable' as well will be the challenge.

I have no preference for any of the names put forward for the Wonder Woman role so I'm not disappointed by Gal's casting.

Perhaps the only observation that's keeping me interested in Man of Steel 2 at the moment is that the general mood by fans following the film's development is one of increasing doubt that they're not watching a train wreck happening before their eyes in slow motion.

I'm still optimistic though. Almost everyone had their doubts about Marvel's strategy for building to an Avengers movie. I remember when the idea of a Thor solo movie sounded like the most ridiculous idea ever to a lot of people - even I had my doubts on that one - yet Thor's doing better than both Hulk solo films which you would think would have been box office gold.

Maybe WB, DC and Zack Snyder have a different strategy that will equally pay off in the end?

People have been shouting out for WB to 'just do a Wonder Woman film already!' after so many years of false starts and fumbling around.

Now you've got a movie with a fairly successful Superman, the new Batman and Wonder Woman in it... tell me, if you're a fan of Superhero movies, that you're not at least interested in going to see it.

I'll be seeing it.