Jon Burgerman 2017 Year End Update and Wrap Up

Jon Burgerman just emailed a year-end update and it's fairly epic and worth republishing.

Follow Jon here, buy his stickers here, and buy his book here.

Hello and happy holidays! how are you? Did you have a nice holiday time? I hope you did. I didn't really get up to too much here in New York. I nurtured a seasonal cold for a week or two, taking care to bathe it in hot whiskey from time to time. I think it's just about left me now, ready to find a willing new host to incubate it's grotty germs. Normally I'd avoid New Years Eve in a similar way to how I'd avoid going to the dentist or visiting my relatives but this year I'm hosting a party at the swanky Roxy Hotel in the city. I'm not really hosting of course, I just made some cardboard props for the photobooth but that's enough to get my name featured on the flyer and a free overnight stay. Though trudging around the icy streets and stinky subways with a huge grinning rainbow, lobster telephone, 2d champagne bottle and jubilant pizza slice more than qualifies for a little end of the year pampering I think. I'll be honest, I'm most excited about the complimentary brunch in the morning. I hope there's one of those bespoke omelette stations you sometimes see in hotels where you get to tailor your own omelette order to the on hand chef. I'll go for spinach, mushrooms and cheese I think. This being America there will probably be 'home fries' which I've learnt are actually sad little lost roast potatoes. I'd imagine they're potatoes who have been partying since dinner the night before and who've stumbled back to the hotel kitchen too late and have accidentally wound up on the breakfast service. We don't belong at breakfast, they're probably thinking, we're roast potatoes! Too bad guys, you're fried and home now... we'll call you 'home fries'! Anyway, 2017, what a year eh? There were several times I didn't think the world would make it to the end of December so in one way we've all been spared / achieved something miraculous. I'm a bit concerned about 2018, I mean, it's just another day right? Just another Sunday turning into another Monday but perhaps the calendar change will enforce a sense of purpose to improve on the last 12 months, that might last until February. Either way I suppose we all need to keep on being vigilant to the more obnoxious political deviants out there. And be positive. A good mental attitude goes a long way (I'm increasingly reminded)! So what did I do in 2017? Scroll down and relieve a few of my highlights below...

The short version of this is probably scroll through my Instagram and see what I've posted. I started the year in February 2017 (there's no rush when you have a full 12 months ahead of you) by doing a little mural in New York. I've forgotten how many murals I've made for Xian's, they're dotted all over Manhattan (and one in Brooklyn). It's nice that unlike street murals, no-one buffs over them and I get delicious noodles as part of the payment. I then had some work installed in the new Children's Hospital in Sheffield. The idea was to distract the poor kids undergoing operations with goofy, colourful characters. I can't think of anything much sadder than children having to spend prolonged periods in hospitals, so it was a pleasure to be able to help out in a small way. I also donated work to Refuge to help with the domestic violence charity. My debut picture book Splat! was released in March and I did a tiny tour of the UK to promote it. I've failed to add any of the images from that tour to my website but here's a series of Splat! inspired art activities I wrote for the Design Museum. You and or your kids might enjoy doing them together! Whilst in the UK I gave a talk about my social media work for It's Nice That. The talk has proved quite popular and you can watch it for free here. If I give a similar talk again in the future please pretend you've not seen this one and still laugh in all the right places. I'm still not too sure if I should be trying to do more public talks and lectures. I really enjoy doing them but they take a lot of time to prepare and rehearse. I guess I like being invited to festivals at least because it makes me feel a little bit important. Around the same time I completed a commission for Apple which you can see in all their fancy big stores. It was really easy to do and I think people would be surprised, thinking that working for such a large company would be a big pain in the bottom. Actually it was the opposite (not literally, no-one at Apple touched me in a would-be appreciated but inappropriate way). They just let me do my thing (drawing colourful doodles) and didn't micro manage. Later in May I appeared in an Apple advert for a couple of seconds. This was even easier than doing the digital mural, as I just stood around flapping my arms for 30 mins or so. Oh and the food table they had set out for the film crew really great and kept me full for the day. OK this is getting a little tedious to write (and no-doubt read) so speeding things up... I customised a chair for Natuzzi and did a mural for them at a party in SoHo. Live painting is fun! The New York Times invited me to do a Facebook live doodling for them. You can watch it here, it's had over 245k views and The New York Times featured it in their best illustration things of 2017. Unrelated to that but I suppose sort of connected, theNew York Times also wrote a super nice article about me and my practice. This connects to the talk I gave in the UK earlier in the year (linked up there) and my books.. Books - This year I had 4 books published. Four! Almost all at the same time, which i think was a bit of a marketing faux pas. The book are - Splat! Jon Burgerman's Daily Doodle It's Great To Create Rhyme Crime (which will come out in the US in the Spring) Anyway they are ALL excellent books. They really are. Sometimes I do make crappy things and hope no-one will notice but with these guys I actually think they're good. Please check them out if you like to be entertained in some way. If you do like the books please tell a friend! Then refused to speak to them until they get a copy for themselves. It's the only way I'll have a writing career, so, erm...please and thanks in advance! You might be thinking 'Jon, who the hell are you and what is this email?' and you'dl be right to ask that. Why not watch this cool video documentary film maker Bas Berkhout made about my family history. In September I went back to Europe for some work related things. I can't really remember what exactly but one important thing I did, and something that was difficult but super rewarding was a workshop at the West London school primary school affected by the Grenfell tower fire tragedy. See what we made together here. In October I made my own conference in New York and invited some brilliant people to speak at it. It seems like, (with a bunch of help from ustwo), that making your own conference isn't that difficult. The ticket prices were super low and everyone got free drinks and pizza and art supplies! I'd love to tour this event, maybe internationally, so if you are a big important company please get in touch to sponsor us and fly us all over to you! Then I went to Minneapolis. I took a tour of Prince's Paisley Park, which was both amazing and cool and sad and weird. I wasn't allowed to take photos but I did meet his doves (!) Highly recommended. I also spoke at the AIGA Eye on Design conference and they filmed it and put it online here. During the rest of the conference I customised people's bags. And so hence forth I now refuse to draw people's pets (all anyone wanted me to draw was their pets). I have nothing against pets but I don't want to draw them anymore. I can't explain why, it just feels like something I don't want to do anymore, unless the pet is with the person in front of me. November... I know something must of happened in November but what...?! I finally gave in and signed up to Spotify - find me on there and let's be music buddies; JonburgermanUS And December... well my year ends in November, ten or so months is quite enough, thank you. So there you go - has anyone read all the way to the bottom? Anyone? Send me a message if you have, I'd be super impressed / surprised / suspicious. And what does 2018 hold for me?! I have no idea but I'd guess, if I'm lucky, maybe an omelette and some lukewarm home fries. See you in the future - Happy New Year! love Jon x

Sugar Fueled's Sweet Success

 As the show comes to an end, the acts retire for the season & the vendors begin to pack up what's left of their delicious treats. Every buttered kernel of popcorn, every salted pretzel, every treat imaginable  gets thrown into the trailer...except for one. Far off into the darkness lies a forgotten spindle of the most delicious, hand spun cotton candy this side of the west coast.

Our confectioner for this evening was none other than the one and only Sugar Fueled." A Little Dirt Never Hurt" came to NYCC as a themed piece for PiQ's " Cirque Du PiQ"

  

This sugary maven used this opportunity to really connect to the audience by giving us a little piece of him. The spindle is a retired paintbrush of the artist; one that was used to create other magnificent pieces such as Spun with Love, Your As Welcome As Can Be, Belle and many many more. Adding this piece to your collection is more than adding just another custom; it's completely engulfing you to a simpler time. One reminiscent of the days of old.

Planning for the New Year: A Basic Guide for Self-Employed Toy Artists & Customizers

Ian Ziobrowksi painting a custom Dunny for the Dopevinyl 
Kickstarter intro video - image credit: Jordan Ahern

Happy New Year everyone! As we all look ahead to this new year, we are filled with hope and excited to build upon the successes of last year.

But what does that mean, particularly for self-employed toy artists?

This post is intended to set a direction for toy artists and customizers and give some guidelines about decision-making in 2015. Some of the points I'm going to make will also be useful for artists of all kinds, and other small business owners in general.

Here's what I think you should do:

1. SELF-ASSESSMENT - Assess your sales from this past year. Do you have a list of the pieces you worked on, with the amount of money you sold them for, and what you profited out of each one? If not, work back through your paypal and try to figure it out. Make a list of pieces you made, both sold and unsold. Create a spreadsheet, do it on a piece of paper. I don't care. Anything to better assess what you did in the last 365 days.

2. WATCHING THE BOTTOM LINE - Which pieces made you the most money? Did you make a series of pieces that were particularly successful? Why were they successful? Did you sell a piece for a higher amount of money? And if so, did you profit MORE off of that piece? What I am trying to have you do is figure out what made you the most money (profit, not just gross sales) with the least amount of time/effort spent. This is the type of project you should focus on in the new year. Not 100% of the time, but you should be aware of the types of projects that are best for your bottom line, and do more of them.

I frequently urge my friends to stop creating giant $1500 OOAK sculptural pieces and to start producing runs of 3" resin figures, for example. Why? Because normal people don't have $1500 to drop on a 3 foot tall sculpture. But 90% of collectors DO have $40 or $50 they can drop on a small pieces that have been hand-detailed by you. It's infinitely easier to create, promote, sell and ship 3" pieces, especially when you have 10 or 20 or 50 to sell. This is my businessman side battling with your artistic urges. I know you all WANT to make those epic pieces... but unless you have a buyer lined up, I'd try to keep the epic pieces to a minimum each year. 2 to 6 maybe, if you can sell them. The rest of the year, make sure you have items in the $20 - $100 range to sell. Remember, the buyer that has a great experience with you buying a $10 sticker pack might be the one that comes back and commissions a $1000 piece later.

3. PROMOTION - Which partners helped you the most? Did you collab with someone with a bigger network? Did you sell via a shop or gallery? Was it easy, or profitable? Did they promote you? Who got your name out there the most this year? If you don't know who provided backlinks to your site, try this: Go to Google, type linkto:http://www.yourwebsitename.com in the search box. Then, click on the Search Tools button, and choose "Past Year."

Poke through them, all of them. You'll see who's talking about you. This works for checking backlinks to your website, shop or blog. Any web address.

Backlinks also help you in terms of Google- Google likes sites with more backlinks. So try to get links back to your site / blog / shop on as many OTHER sites as possible. Do this simply by being nice and asking the owner of the site. Nothing underhanded here. Just ask. Any toy blog works, so don't be shy about emailing Andy, Jack, Spanky & Nick, myself, Gary, Chris, Ben & Travis and all the other people who write about toys. If you don't know who all of those people are, and you create custom toys... stop now. Go back to Google. Search for "toy blog" or "art toy blog" and make a list of which ones pop up. There's a limited number. Find an email for each of those blogs. Put the emails on the list. Create a "group" in your email system, or a mailing list, containing the emails of the toy blogs you wish to connect with. EVERY TIME you have pictures of a new piece to show, email the blogger group email list you just made. Give them: clean pics of your piece, description of piece, size, material, backstory, quantity, price and MOST IMPORTANTLY A LINK TO WHERE READERS CAN BUY THAT ITEM.

I can't believe how many of you don't do this regularly and it drives me batshit crazy. If you want to sell stuff online, you have to tell everyone that you have stuff for sale online. And the best people to tell are the people who post shit online all the time and have a big following. Read: the 10 most active art toy blogs. Email them.

Just so you understand the concept of networks, think about it this way: if you are selling your car, would you reach more people by handing out leaflets at the local CVS, or by placing an ad in a national newspaper? Take advantage of the bloggers' larger networks to help promote your work.

I've heard that some of you don't like self-promotion. REALLY? Do you like selling your art? Which one do you like more, cuz unless you have full-time management, or you're represented by a gallery, your ass better start enjoying, or at least practicing, self-promotion. No one is going to hand you success on a silver platter. You have to fight and claw your way into widespread recognition by yourself. Step one of that process is reaching out.

4. SOCIAL TIME - Do you have a personal Facebook page? Great, so do I. Do you have a business page for your art, or a fan page or whatever? You should.
What's the difference, you ask?
Well, say I'm an art collector. I find out about your art, but the only FB link I can find is to your personal page. You post pics of your artwork, sure, but also pics of you and your friends drinking, some fried chicken, how angry you are at your ex, how no one buys your art, and a picture of the street because it's raining.

WHO. THE. FUCK. CARES.

If I'm a prospective art buyer, I literally give zero fucks about your chicken and rainy days.

Show me the damn art. Gimme a link where I can buy it.

Start a FB business page, keep a FIRM divide between the types of stuff you post on your personal page (all kittens and chicken) and the art you post on your business page. Business page is ALL BUSINESS: new items, promotions, WIP shots, cons you attended (no fried chicken pics please, we all go out to eat after cons, no one cares), etc etc.

Many artists create a reality - an alternate personality or a whole alternate universe - online to support their art. I'm thinking: FriendsWithYou, tokidoki, Vamplets, shawnimals, Suckadelic... there are thousands of others. They do not post about their art products as regular people who eat fried chicken, they post IN CHARACTER as an entity that exists in a world they have created. I'm not saying all of you need to go this far, but I am saying that there can and should be a divide between your own personal life, and the worlds you are creating in your artwork. Unless your artwork is inherently tied to your physical person and your real personality in some way, there' no reason why your art clients need to know about how cute your kitty is and your thoughts on Obama.

On that note, here's one I need to practice as well: seriously stop dicking around on Facebook. Add up all that time, over a year, posting stupid crap to your personal page and surfing your news feed, and you've just clocked in your LEAST productive year ever.

Get on FB for 15 minutes a day: spend 10 uploading pics of your artwork to your business page and captioning/tagging them properly with LOTS of info and links, spend 5 minutes responding to FB messages, then log off. Any more and you are seriously wasting your life away.

See what I'm doing right now? I'm making a valuable blog post. I AM spending my time on this. Guess what? As soon as I hit Publish, it's sent to my FB business page! Automatic update. So easy. It's also sent to my business Twitter, my Tumblr and Google+, and packaged into an email that's sent to my blog email list subscribers. If you don't understand how to have that done automatically, let me know in the comments and maybe I'll make another blog post about just that type of system.

The benefit of making this post on a blog as opposed to on FB is that Google searches my blog for content and does not search Facebook for content (April 2015 edit: Facebook business page info is now searchable on Google). Blogs are inherently more useful than Facebook for that reason. The Facebook search feature (for content associated with keywords) sucks. So no one ever uses it. Everyone searches Google.

TL;DR - 

1. Analyze your sales.
2. Figure out what made the most money with the least effort and do more of that.
3. Figure out who promoted you and court them.
4. Get serious about harnessing social media and web content to steer your business.

I hope that helps you focus a bit in the new year. Sorry I got all ranty. (edit: I am no longer sorry) Please leave a comment and let me know if this was helpful, and if I missed anything you wanted to hear about.