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Artists - creating a fair and level playing field Addendum.
12 years ago
For starters, I recommend that you read 
Cyrin 's journal detailing this thing. http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3922694/
So here is my addendum to this, apart from proper stream etiquette. (eg don't let people feel like they don't belong simply because they are not a close friend of the artist or the people in here.)
"How to contact customers."
It is important to note that I will not be giving any names of bad examples to protect the irresponsible. Anyways, here are a few examples of what NOT to do, and WHY you should NOT do them.
I've seen several people who only communicate to certain users that they're open for commissions. I understand not wanting to take business from certain people who have a proven history of scamming others (Such as Andrew Rinaldi - the only person I will refer to by name here.) but I have seen a lot of people who use multiple galleries flat out not communicate to the people on them that they are open for commissions. I actually didn't know that one artist I watched on deviantART took commissions for average every day people until one of my friends said the only way to contact him was via a note... on FurAffinity
...which he had under a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT USERNAME.
Note that neither his deviantART, SheezyArt, or InkBunny page included this information. And this wasn't something similar like how a user may be "TyeMyShoe" on deviantART but "TyeMyAShoe" on InkBunny. This would be like if I registered an account on Weasyl as "Wolfmoonfourtyseven." You'd probably think "...who ARE you?!?"
I encourage people to use multiple sites - Look on SoFurry sometime, will you?
You'll notice there are people using this site that aren't on this site right now. In fact, there are a good number of people who use SoFurry and ONLY SoFurry. (And in fact, I and my friend Tera have been attacked verbally for not only using SoFurry.) Some of these guys may actually respect your artistic, musical, or literary talent. Using multiple sites is simply called "Getting your name out". You don't go to just one publisher with a novel to publish. You don't submit your pictures to just one gallery. You don't run advertisements in only one magazine and hope to sell your product. GET YOUR NAME OUT THERE!!
So I encourage you to say, open up an account on sites like InkBunny, SoFurry, or whatever. And at least try and communicate that you are open for commissions or not - you might lose a lot of potential customers simply because they do not even know you exist, or that you actually do take commissions to average every day people and not a close circle of friends.
One of my suggestions? Use a system that can allow everyone from every site (because they may only use one site, like the aformentioned SoFurry-only clique, the InkBunny-only clique.). One way to do that?
Emails.
This is one reason why I have commissioned
Jakkal and 
Virmir, as they make it very easy to contact them. Virmir doesn't say "Comissions open" on one site and not the gallery on Weasyl he forgot to update - Virmir redirects you to his site with a way to contact him. Similarly, Jakkal tells all potential commissioners that if you want a slot, email them since that's what they check first.
They likewise also include detailed instructions on what to put in the header, so you don't get lost in a bunch of spam messages or automated "You have received a tweet from blablabla", etc.
When I heard people say "rawr rawr rawr, FA's down and I have every right to bitch because I rely on the site to make a living"... I simply ask myself "Why on earth don't you use email and other sites to get your name out?"
Another way that I have found that works to get commissions out? Google Docs forms.
This is one reason why I have commissioned from
AggroBadger and 
Sonsasu , and intend to do so again in the future or direct others.
Aggro Badger has this down to a tee. Similar to virmir, he has a system in place - he created a docs form wherein you include information such as when you are available, whether or not you "need" to be in the stream, and how to contact you. He then will have himself or Talosar contact you after reading it to tell you whether or not it's accepted.
Similarly, Sonsasu requests an email in which he can send you the files as well as the paypal invoice.
It's simply more reliable than asking people to only contact you on one site. Especially if you are limited with the slots you have available.
"Whoops - I completely forgot to check my deviantART so I guess those guys will just have to wait a week even though they sent their information before I read all the notes on my SoFurry!"
So yes, it can help to send notes on sites... but really, if you have an email, then you don't have to check every single site for a person asking if you are open for commissions. It's simply a lot more efficient that way - and I wonder why more artists don't do it.
-Keep your information on all sites current.
I found one artist advertising on SoFurry, and they simply said "Email me at Blablabla@gmail dot com." I emailed them...
...and got a very rude email in response saying "CAN'T YOU READ? I AM NOT OPEN FOR COMMISSIONS!" (Language toned down.)
They may ahve been frustrated due to people on SoFurry contacting them, but given that their SoFurry page had been updated with new art, they completely forgot to take down their little advertisement on the SoFurry marketplace, and their Weasyl had "Commissions: open". Really, can you blame people for thinking you're open for commissions when you didn't update your site?
Another time, I saw the opposite - I saw one person wonder why nobody commissioned them. A few clicks later, I noticed that their "Commissions: Open" page that they used to keep track of their commissioners had still said "Commissions Closed" on it, since they had closed commissions to keep themselves from amassing a huge backlog. Oops. Not only that, it was buried under a pile of their personal art and commissions. So... how were were supposed to know they were open?
Some artists put a link to the "how to commission" or their docs in their profile. Some sticky the art in question (usually a price sheet). Some link to a google doc where they have a table with all the current in-progress commissions, like my good friend
KitsuneKit
You seriously need to keep track of your work. Which leads to the next point:
-Keep track of your work
One of my friends decided to write off an artist since they had literally forgot their work. One time I saw an artist open up for commissions on a slot basis, take slots, finish three of them, vanish off the web for a few weeks (or less), then open up again with the other two people who had gotten their slots confirmed left behind. :/ This happens a LOT with Livestream commissions - seriously, one rason it took so long to commisson one artist was you had to be online in their stream, and the streams were SO active I saw someone trying to contact them get drowned out. Similarly, one person was simply asking for a "Do you have a commissions sheet?" only to be drowned out by random RPing and people having full-blown cybersex inside. :|
This relates to one of Cyrin's points that was made in the article - Limit how much work you can do. Seriously. I was actually told (by Inflatophin, no doubt) that a certain artist I wanted to commission had art that was commissioned in 2008 still owed and was incredibly disorganized. They would take commissions with payment up front, spend the money, then open up for more commissions before they were finished. They were also so disorganized they needed a poke to know who needed what, and some people who made their commissions AFTER certain people got their stuff BEFORE others.
This has happened with so many artists. :V I know not all of oyu guys are doing this for a living, but really, that's no excuse to be so ungodly disorganized.
-Don't engage in "Microsofting"
You know who you are. ;) I'm not naming anyone... but trying to steer people to certain sites by only offering commissions over those or only posting sketches and thumbnails isn't advertising the site - it's just being a douchebag. :) And in fact... I feel less inclined to commission you.
If you attack people for their choice on where to hang out... then you're just being a douchebag. :) Using multiple sites with a certain preference (eg, where your most active commissioners hang out, or your own) is advertising. Cockblocking and frustrating people into going to another site is just being a douchebag. ;) So is attacking others for not using one site.
In other words... don't be a dick.
Cyrin 's journal detailing this thing. http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3922694/So here is my addendum to this, apart from proper stream etiquette. (eg don't let people feel like they don't belong simply because they are not a close friend of the artist or the people in here.)
"How to contact customers."
It is important to note that I will not be giving any names of bad examples to protect the irresponsible. Anyways, here are a few examples of what NOT to do, and WHY you should NOT do them.
I've seen several people who only communicate to certain users that they're open for commissions. I understand not wanting to take business from certain people who have a proven history of scamming others (Such as Andrew Rinaldi - the only person I will refer to by name here.) but I have seen a lot of people who use multiple galleries flat out not communicate to the people on them that they are open for commissions. I actually didn't know that one artist I watched on deviantART took commissions for average every day people until one of my friends said the only way to contact him was via a note... on FurAffinity
...which he had under a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT USERNAME.
Note that neither his deviantART, SheezyArt, or InkBunny page included this information. And this wasn't something similar like how a user may be "TyeMyShoe" on deviantART but "TyeMyAShoe" on InkBunny. This would be like if I registered an account on Weasyl as "Wolfmoonfourtyseven." You'd probably think "...who ARE you?!?"
I encourage people to use multiple sites - Look on SoFurry sometime, will you?
You'll notice there are people using this site that aren't on this site right now. In fact, there are a good number of people who use SoFurry and ONLY SoFurry. (And in fact, I and my friend Tera have been attacked verbally for not only using SoFurry.) Some of these guys may actually respect your artistic, musical, or literary talent. Using multiple sites is simply called "Getting your name out". You don't go to just one publisher with a novel to publish. You don't submit your pictures to just one gallery. You don't run advertisements in only one magazine and hope to sell your product. GET YOUR NAME OUT THERE!!
So I encourage you to say, open up an account on sites like InkBunny, SoFurry, or whatever. And at least try and communicate that you are open for commissions or not - you might lose a lot of potential customers simply because they do not even know you exist, or that you actually do take commissions to average every day people and not a close circle of friends.
One of my suggestions? Use a system that can allow everyone from every site (because they may only use one site, like the aformentioned SoFurry-only clique, the InkBunny-only clique.). One way to do that?
Emails.
This is one reason why I have commissioned
Jakkal and 
Virmir, as they make it very easy to contact them. Virmir doesn't say "Comissions open" on one site and not the gallery on Weasyl he forgot to update - Virmir redirects you to his site with a way to contact him. Similarly, Jakkal tells all potential commissioners that if you want a slot, email them since that's what they check first.They likewise also include detailed instructions on what to put in the header, so you don't get lost in a bunch of spam messages or automated "You have received a tweet from blablabla", etc.
When I heard people say "rawr rawr rawr, FA's down and I have every right to bitch because I rely on the site to make a living"... I simply ask myself "Why on earth don't you use email and other sites to get your name out?"
Another way that I have found that works to get commissions out? Google Docs forms.
This is one reason why I have commissioned from
AggroBadger and 
Sonsasu , and intend to do so again in the future or direct others. Aggro Badger has this down to a tee. Similar to virmir, he has a system in place - he created a docs form wherein you include information such as when you are available, whether or not you "need" to be in the stream, and how to contact you. He then will have himself or Talosar contact you after reading it to tell you whether or not it's accepted.
Similarly, Sonsasu requests an email in which he can send you the files as well as the paypal invoice.
It's simply more reliable than asking people to only contact you on one site. Especially if you are limited with the slots you have available.
"Whoops - I completely forgot to check my deviantART so I guess those guys will just have to wait a week even though they sent their information before I read all the notes on my SoFurry!"
So yes, it can help to send notes on sites... but really, if you have an email, then you don't have to check every single site for a person asking if you are open for commissions. It's simply a lot more efficient that way - and I wonder why more artists don't do it.
-Keep your information on all sites current.
I found one artist advertising on SoFurry, and they simply said "Email me at Blablabla@gmail dot com." I emailed them...
...and got a very rude email in response saying "CAN'T YOU READ? I AM NOT OPEN FOR COMMISSIONS!" (Language toned down.)
They may ahve been frustrated due to people on SoFurry contacting them, but given that their SoFurry page had been updated with new art, they completely forgot to take down their little advertisement on the SoFurry marketplace, and their Weasyl had "Commissions: open". Really, can you blame people for thinking you're open for commissions when you didn't update your site?
Another time, I saw the opposite - I saw one person wonder why nobody commissioned them. A few clicks later, I noticed that their "Commissions: Open" page that they used to keep track of their commissioners had still said "Commissions Closed" on it, since they had closed commissions to keep themselves from amassing a huge backlog. Oops. Not only that, it was buried under a pile of their personal art and commissions. So... how were were supposed to know they were open?
Some artists put a link to the "how to commission" or their docs in their profile. Some sticky the art in question (usually a price sheet). Some link to a google doc where they have a table with all the current in-progress commissions, like my good friend
KitsuneKitYou seriously need to keep track of your work. Which leads to the next point:
-Keep track of your work
One of my friends decided to write off an artist since they had literally forgot their work. One time I saw an artist open up for commissions on a slot basis, take slots, finish three of them, vanish off the web for a few weeks (or less), then open up again with the other two people who had gotten their slots confirmed left behind. :/ This happens a LOT with Livestream commissions - seriously, one rason it took so long to commisson one artist was you had to be online in their stream, and the streams were SO active I saw someone trying to contact them get drowned out. Similarly, one person was simply asking for a "Do you have a commissions sheet?" only to be drowned out by random RPing and people having full-blown cybersex inside. :|
This relates to one of Cyrin's points that was made in the article - Limit how much work you can do. Seriously. I was actually told (by Inflatophin, no doubt) that a certain artist I wanted to commission had art that was commissioned in 2008 still owed and was incredibly disorganized. They would take commissions with payment up front, spend the money, then open up for more commissions before they were finished. They were also so disorganized they needed a poke to know who needed what, and some people who made their commissions AFTER certain people got their stuff BEFORE others.
This has happened with so many artists. :V I know not all of oyu guys are doing this for a living, but really, that's no excuse to be so ungodly disorganized.
-Don't engage in "Microsofting"
You know who you are. ;) I'm not naming anyone... but trying to steer people to certain sites by only offering commissions over those or only posting sketches and thumbnails isn't advertising the site - it's just being a douchebag. :) And in fact... I feel less inclined to commission you.
If you attack people for their choice on where to hang out... then you're just being a douchebag. :) Using multiple sites with a certain preference (eg, where your most active commissioners hang out, or your own) is advertising. Cockblocking and frustrating people into going to another site is just being a douchebag. ;) So is attacking others for not using one site.
In other words... don't be a dick.
Using multiple websites is also a good idea to reach a larger audience, though there seems to be a greater advantage to do so if you're an artist than if you're a watcher. I've seen some software tools that allow you to post to more than one gallery simultaneously, but none that do the opposite: collect updates from various websites, and display them in a single art feed. For instance, I used to check several art websites until I noticed that FA would have many of the submissions that couldn't be found elsewhere, and the others were reposts of what I could already find on this website. There's also the difference in motive between an artist and an art consumer: artists sell art or offer commissions to make a living, whether it's their main job or a secondary job, whereas watchers just enjoy art but we don't need it to live. So it's in an artist's best interest to have great exposure, to invest time and energy making their name better known in order to get more views and more commissions. Conversely, for an art watcher this is just a hobby, or a luxury, so access to art is nice but out wellbeing doesn't necessarily depend on it so the effort to reward ratio is completely different for us.
That difference in effort:reward is what I think causes SoFurry-only, FA-only, etc groups to appear: artists want to have as many galleries as possible to reach as broad an audience as possible, whereas art consumers want to get as much art as possible while spending as little time and energy as possible checking individual websites. This is why I believe that tools which allow cross-posting and a multi-gallery feed would be so useful: artists would be able to post their art to many websites at the same time, and watchers would be able to see all the art at once instead of visiting multiple websites. Let's remember that most people also visit non-art or non-furry websites for personal or work reasons: email, university/job websites, Youtube, online news, etc.
Keeping all the commission information up to date is essential. So far I've found 3 artists whom I was interested in commissioning but they had no price guide or even information on whether they were open for commissions or not. Forms may seem a bit off-putting to first-time commissioners, at least that's how I originally felt about Aggro's form which caused me to delay commissioning him for a few months, but once I actually did it, it was really quite easy and effective. Forms look like a cold and distant commissioning method but they give you a chance to send all of the information the artist may need (description for the commission, references, contact information) to ensure that you don't forget anything.
It should be pretty easy to keep track of your commissions as long as you have a system. Commissions over IM are not really encouraged because of the poor capacity for organization but anything else, notes, emails, etc can be given some kind of organization to keep track of commissions you owe vs. commissions you've completed. For instance, keep a folder for emails about active commissions you're working on or haven't finished, another for commissions that you've finished and need to send to the commissioner to confirm that they're happy with them, and another for finished commissions (or just delete the emails once you've finished). And that's just the cruder forms of organization for the least tech-savvy people, if you feel comfortable with Excel or at the very least Word (most people should), then it should be easy to have a list of the people who have commissioned you, what they are asking for, whether they've paid or not, progress, and their contact info. Kit definitely has a good system here: http://bit.ly/listofkit and it's also on his profile so anyone can access it. It's useful for him to keep track of commissions and who has paid, it's also good for prospective commissioners to see prices (they are only visible when he's open for commissions), a list to get an idea of how long they'll have to wait, and it's also good for current commissioners to see what the progress is.
I didn't know that the term "microsofting" was a thing until this journal but I have had experience with this and it's just plain rude. Wanting to leave a website is one thing, but posting cropped or incomplete versions of pictures on one website telling people to visit a different website is not the way to go. I will make exceptions for things like subscription websites, online comics/magazines and the like, where the artist gives you ONE full picture (or a few) and then says that to see the full comic you will need to buy the comic. I see that as an alternative strategy to commissions: instead of offering yourself "for hire", you draw something that you think will appeal to a large number of people, then ask people to pay for it if they want the full thing. Not that different from getting some samples and then having to buy the product if you want more.
But saying "I'm leaving website X because I disagree with the people who run X, so you can only find me on website Y, but I'll still be active on X and what I'll do is post cropped versions to direct you to Y" is illogical and rude. This isn't about supporting the artist, this is about hypocrisy: you disagree with something so instead of reducing your contact, you're going to keep up contact, but pressure people to go elsewhere? I'm afraid that's just not a sensible thing to do. I've decided to remove from my watch list any artists who do that because I don't want to be flooded by submissions that I can't really see, particularly when the reason behind them is manipulation. If you're going to go through the trouble of posting to two websites, why not just put the full picture on both? And if you are so against one website, why bother logging in at all?
Though I am aware that that's not available if you're on a phone.
I never use my phone for internet things, seeing as apparently spending £60 on a "smartphone" means that you end up with something that has a slow and unreliable data connection which sometimes decides that it's not going to want to connect even though there is a strong enough signal. It's been particularly problematic since I deleted my Google account so...I think I'll just go back to regular phones that do calls and texts, I can't be bothered with all this internet phone nonsense if it's all just a trap to get you to spend more time and money on unhelpful things.
It's named because that's how Microsoft would try and steer you into buying the 360 version of a multi-platform game: Try and get exclusive DLCs for it. :P