So... the economy.

[ellenmillion]

This weekend, I did my twice-yearly task of artist pay. Having 188 artists now, this is usually a bit of a chore. I always read through the complete invoice summary printouts to check for oddball anomalies - and also because I am a geek who likes to watch trends and pick out patterns. This year, despite a record number of artists, I was done with the task in a record amount of time.



Some of this is improved tools - I've only had parts of my pay software for three pay periods, and there are always bugs to work out the first few times you use something. This year, it all played nice and I didn't discover any exciting new ways to break anything.

But most of the ease of the task this year was that there wasn't really that much to go through.

My first inclination was to despair that I'd FAILED my artists and was a worthless merchandiser and should give up the business and sell encyclopedias door to door. But, in talking to other artists and creative types, it isn't just me suffering slow sales. Ysabetwordsmith asked me to cross-post here about how slow I was finding business, as an encouragement to others finding the market pretty brutal right now - it really does help to hear that other folks are facing the same struggles.

Here's what I've personally noticed about the first half of 2008:

Most of the orders were small, even wholesale orders tended to push their limits when it came to hitting their minimums. (Many retailers ordered just less than my $100 limit and used shipping to push it up over the cap. I let them get away with this.) Most orders were just one or two items.

Most of the business I did do was on sale items. So, sales do still help! People always like to feel like they're getting a deal!

Despite not raising my shipping prices (which I would be totally justified in doing), more people are complaining about it this year than previous years.

A higher percentage of sales than usual were the pre-cut artist supplies I offer, not printed goods. Since these are sales TO artists, they are generally business expenses for them, not luxuries like most of my line.

Webpage hits look fine. They've been steady and/or steadily going up for the last several years. People are still finding EMG. (I ran some advertising near the beginning of the year that was pretty fizzle-y stuff; not a lot of traffic gained, and no sales that I can for-sure attribute to them. Word of mouth and artists advertising their own work continue to be my most reliable traffic-drivers.)

For myself, as a consumer, I can understand.

At the very beginning of the year, I was gainfully employed and happy to spend dollars here and dollars there on art and funding cyber-creativity. $10 a week to keep an artist creating seemed like nothing. But gas is nearly $4.50 a gallon here now, my very stable job has dissolved in a drama-storm (the office I worked for closed at the 'end of June'), and while I have some freelance work lined up and some severance pay, freelance work is feast and famine, and severance pay goes away. I have, regretfully, cinched up my own personal pursestrings for a while.


My "professional" prognosis? The first half of 2008 has sucked, economically. People aren't buying what they don't need. And they don't feel like they need art.

x-posted to cyberfund_creat.

Comments

[chamois-shimi.livejournal.com]

It's not just doom and gloom. K and I keep track of every penny we spend every month, precisely what category of purchase it went to, and with every extra penny we're having to spend on gas and food, that's less we have to spend on everything else. Our expenses are going up, but our income isn't - K's job doesn't give cost of living raises. In fact, due to inflation he makes less money in spending power than he did when he started working there 7 years ago. And we're actually doing quite well compared to some folks.

[uminomamori.livejournal.com]

True, a lot of things are getting more expensive. Postage and gas and everything. I sure wish my income went up with inflation but it doesn't either. I might as well get a min wage job. But the economy won't get out of this if everyone lets the constant TV news harping on prices and woes, and how it's only going to get worse get to them. That has a lot of effect of how people feel. It even makes people who are otherwise doing fine think twice about spending and it just gets worse for everyone and more people get laid off if that happens.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

*nods*