I have been shut out from further posting at theispot's message boards, pertaining to my previous post about their 38 fake blogs there. Also, my last comment in reply to vice-president Jami Giovanopoulos' accusation that I was a "very angry man" was summarily deleted by her. THIS is what they think of illustrators who ask them hard questions about how they are spending our money.

Here's Jami's comment, followed by my deleted reply:

Luc, you are obviously a very angry man. We won't delete your posts, although they are becoming increasingly personal and offensive. Please don't expect us to spend any more time responding.

My deleted reply:

Oh brother. Don't play that tactic Jami. Don't try to spin this back at me, or passive-aggressively threaten to delete my comments. This is not about me ONE BIT.

• I am not the one writing phony blogs about ispotters without their knowledge, or their editorial approval.
• I am not the one blogging phony posts to news and shopping websites about ispotters.
• I am not the one violating the terms at these sites to my own benefit.
• I am not the one deep-linking images FROM theispot's servers onto these blogs, to make it appear as though those images are getting real hits, when they are not.
• I am not the one spamdexing or SEO'ing or tablering in an attempt to artificially jack theispot's rankings.

But you're right: I am angry about this, because this behavior on your part does NOT help illustrators OR benefit our field; it's shady and you're pretending it's strategic marketing, when it is not.

Good luck folks.

This is the message that greets me there now:



And what do you think deleting my posts and banning me from their forums does? It makes them look like they're avoiding answering questions, which is precisely what my point was above. They could choose to ignore me, but it's better to just shut me up, shut me out, and blame ME for all of this. Lovely. They call themselves the "premiere illustration Internet site," but when they shut out one of the people they claim to be a "premiere" site to, what does that say?

Oh well. I hope they enjoyed the US$1500+ I gave them over the course of the two years advertising with them, long ago. I didn't need that money anyhoo.

And I too am done with this topic, that of the theispot's fake blogs and them "tablering" their site stats. But don't expect me to keep my trap shut the next time something shady like this surfaces. I am "a very angry man" after all.

That's why stuff like this angers up my blood more than some people think it should. Theispot's 38 fake blogs don't affect me directly, of course not. I don't gain or lose anything because of them. But the integrity of what they do -- which claims to be helping us market our work at the very high cost of $650/year -- is severely compromised when they behave this way. So then, yes, we all do suffer from it. Because we're all in this field together.

No, we don't all have to be pals and super best friends, and always agree on everything unanimously. That's impossible and silly. But we don't need to be all alone in this either.

 

lonely loners

Here's the thing: We illustrators are a bunch of nice loners and hermits, working alone all day hunched over our drawing tables and computer monitors. The very nature of our work can make us feel very alone and vulnerable and helpless at times. And when work seems to dry up for weeks, or months, we feel terrified that we'll never work again, that our art is crap, that we're crap. It's scary as hell, especially if you're prone to depression in the first place. And it makes us easy prey.

But we don't have to be that alone. More easily than ever before, we can quickly share information like this when it happens, and not be afraid to ask tough questions and demand frank answers when people do shady stuff like theispot is doing.

And if you're going to spend your very hard-earned money self-promoting, be wise. Ask your peers' advice. Investigate. See what else is out there. Is there something cheaper? Better? Is this as good as it sounds? Is this too good to be true?

 

the Hardly Boys Mysteries

I want to point out that fellow illustrator Scott Thig was the first to discover this shadiness on theispot's part (thank you again Scott!), and together we sleuthed out what was going on. Others joined in at theispot's boards, also insisting on answers. Together we were able to share some important information with hundreds and eventually thousands of fellow illustrators around the world.

Theispot had a great opportunity to come clean, and instead they chose to silence another illustrator by shutting me out of their message boards, accusing me of using up their bandwidth with frivolous accusations. (Considering their fake blogs, accusing ME of using up their bandwidth is freakin' CLASSIC!)

 

best self-promotion tip EVAH

There is no magic solution out there for self-promotion, but there are good ways and bad ways to spend your money doing it. I still maintain that the absolute best method remains the cheapest, most direct, and the one we hate to talk about: cold calling clients.

You'd be surprised at how often they are happy to chat on the phone for 10 or 15 minutes with you. Touch base with an old client. Call up a new one. Then send them a few JPGs, and follow up a few days later. I find the results on cold calling vary between 5%-20%, depending when you do it and how often. Compare that to postcards at around one callback for every 1000 or 2000 cards. And phoning is cheap. Even long distance is dirt cheap now. Use Skype, save even more.

You don't need to make 100s of calls each week either. If you make three or four calls every Monday, that's over 200 calls in a year. At a return of about 10%, that's 20 new clients, and you probably spent less than $20 in long distance charges. Beat that, postcards.

Anyway, I'm getting all misty and editorial now, and I have work to do!

Back to our fake blogs, angry people!