That's exactly what happens. And very often, when you see me selling s/n prints from some bands, I have purchased those back from the band at wholesale costs, not our cost to them, so I have prints to sell while vending and in our online store.piemel wrote:Yamar,Yamar wrote:I'd agree that it's a "rule of thumb" and that on some smaller runs it can make sense. But my question would be when I see a run of say 30 prints, what's the point in having an A/P run of 10 to go with that?
I'd personally rather see a run of 40 with no A/Ps or 40 with 4 additional A/Ps.
It seems to me that advertising a smaller s/# print run but then an A/P run of more than 10% is just trying to use that small run as a selling point. Used to be (to me, IMHO) that A/Ps were a rarity. I'm thinking of how many Pollock Power A/Ps there are (2-3 for a run of 250, I think?) or things like that. Then think of the possibilities that a 30% A/P run would look like -- 3 A/Ps for every 10 s/# prints? Guess I'd have to ask "What's the point?"
Guess it comes down to answering why even have A/Ps? Why doesn't the artist just make a s/# run and hold on to how ever many would have been A/Ps to begin with?
In some cases:
A band contracts a poster artist for a poster with edition of 500. The artist might get paid and likely will also get the right to sell some AP's... What I am saying is that not always does a poster artist sell all the posters for a band... Look at Drowningcreek, they probably have a lot of big bands that ask them to desgign and print a poster but then the band takes care of selling it.
Almost all of our work is commissioned directly by the bands we work with, and the ones that are done for promoters are sent to the bands for their approval. No one likes to talk about it, but creating a poster for a promoter or venue to advertise is OK, but an edition to sell beyond that is viewed by most bands, their management, and their merch people as bootleg merchandise. Creating other merchandise from the poster image, like t-shirts, is also a big no-no. Don't get me wrong, we've done posters that were not approved by the band, simply because we didn't know another way to do it. Not any more.
These are all things "newbie" artists should be aware of. Kudos to DougR for going to the band for approval.
When we print a run of posters, Jeff prints 10-20 sheets of paper beyond what is required to fill the order to allow room for the misprints. We have a stack of misprints that get used to run test strokes for other jobs. After they are too messed up to be of any more use, they get destroyed. We do not sell those as art prints.
I am working on an "artist statement" for our web site right now & an FAQ that will address most of the issues being discussed here, but we have ALWAYS had an open door policy with our customers. If anyone ever has a question about any aspect of our work (other than how I get clients to the table!), Jeff or myself have always been more than happy to respond with the answers.
Do NOT sell posters before the show. Unwritten rule.
A paper trail with written permission from someone inside the band's org is always good, but even then is not reliable if they fire the person you got it from. (ICP)
Only sell a poster for a cancelled show if the band gives yo permission.
Now, if we could only get people not to load up posters on poster sites that were never used, printed, or approved.
When I get the artist statement completed, I plan to load it up to EB & to PP.