Artists Alley Information Thread

Selling at Cons is best during the...

Spring	11.6%	[ 83 ]
Summer	30.3%	[ 217 ]
Fall	7.0%	[ 50 ]
Winter	5.3%	[ 38 ]
Any time!	45.7%	[ 327 ]
Total Votes:			[ 715 ]

[Skye River]

Are buttons a really good item to sell ? I rarely see big sized buttons these days.

[Vicemage]

I see a lot of the small ones selling well, particularly with either popular fan characters or (moreso) cute or witty original designs.

[Skye River]

Vicemage

I see a lot of the small ones selling well, particularly with either popular fan characters or (moreso) cute or witty original designs.

I think the smallest design I've ever done was fora business card. Never tried buttons before. The thing I hate is cutting out anything from paper. Too tedious for me.

Maybe one of those printing shops can do that for me *thinks*

[Vicemage]

What one of the local Usual Suspects does is to create all her button designs in whatever medium she chooses, then use Photoshop/InDesign (she tends to use both in combination) to lay them out at the appropriate size to print. She's got her own 1" button maker, and an appropriately sized punch, so all she needs to do at that point is cut the printed sheet into strips and feed it into the punch.

I've used her punch and button maker in the past... and I have to admit, it's sort of addictively fun... >.>

[ThatCrazyDork]

woah this helped me alot

[Seijaku_Ishida]

Skye River

Are buttons a really good item to sell ? I rarely see big sized buttons these days.

I see small size buttons mostly and they seem to do pretty well.

I haven't done buttons before so when Ohayocon comes and goes I'll let you know how I do.

[Jayde Panda]

I'm taking a set of 1" original design buttons to Anime Weekend Atlanta in about 2 weeks. I'll let you guys know how they do. This will be my first time selling buttons.

[CuteyHoneyChan]

I make at least half my profit from buttons...as long as you have a good variety of designs and they're well priced, you should sell them...XD

[Frosted Muffin Cakes]

Yeah, we sold out of a lot of our button designs last year.

I'm so nervous--Anime Detour opened up their tables, but they're doing it differently than last year. They have an application, and then you have to email the head of the AA with some samples of your work. I'm worried we won't get picked for a table. sad
Does anyone know why they changed it?

[Seijaku_Ishida]

Frosted Muffin Cakes

Yeah, we sold out of a lot of our button designs last year.

I'm so nervous--Anime Detour opened up their tables, but they're doing it differently than last year. They have an application, and then you have to email the head of the AA with some samples of your work. I'm worried we won't get picked for a table. sad
Does anyone know why they changed it?

There've been instances at some conventions where artists get around the table limit by having friends/family register tables and then sell the artist's work, thus saturating the market and limiting competition. And if they don't allow fanart...yet another reason for a portfolio review.

At least, this is why some cons took these steps. Anime Detour might have other reasons as well.

[Vicemage]

Oh s**t, it's OPEN? I guess I"m not going to bed yet... sweatdrop

EDIT: Okay, got my reg in. Phew. Though... I wish they would have designed the page a little better, I couldn't horizontally scroll it to read everything.

Regarding the application process, it seems a lot of cons are doing this; Ohayocon has a more formalized version of it (that's pretty much a full portfolio review). It seems like it's a combination of keeping down problems of over-registering, problems of cheapskate-dealers*, and problems of copyright infringement. I'm okay with it, though, though I wish I'd known about this sooner. And that the page had been laid out properly for a 1024 x 768** display... not everyone uses widescreen, guys.


*"Cheapskate Dealers" are those people that everyone's seen in the Alley. They're the ones who really should be in the Dealer's room, and everyone KNOWS they should really be in the dealer's room, but they don't want to pay the (much higher) Dealer's room rate, so they register as Artists instead to rake in the profits on their cheap space.

**My display is actually 2048 x 768, technically, but I can only display Firefox at the 1024 x 768 size, which remains a common size in spite of the fact that widescreen displays are all you can buy now. And in spite of the fact that one of the two screens is a widescreen tweaked to display at 4:3.

[Frosted Muffin Cakes]

Aha, I already got approved. razz
That made me feel kind of silly.

I did realize last night that I might have a... "fun time" preparing for Detour this year. My computer crashed, seemingly beyond repair last week. I backed it up a couple months ago, but I'd been doing a lot of work for Detour recently. So I might have to start all over in a month or so when I get a new laptop. Arrrgh.

I know this has been brought up a couple times, but with my lack of computer, I only get a very limited time on the internet. Where is a good place to have buttons made online? I have realized the error of my ways and am not planning on using my Badge-a-Minit machine anymore, but I don't have 500$ to drop on a good one. >.<
What would you guys reccomend? Machine-wise and website-wise?

[Seijaku_Ishida]

http://purebuttons.com/ is where I got my buttons. Good price, and they're having a promo code PBFALLSEPT09 that gives you 10 percent off your orders for this month.