The publisher of my art-how-to books and videos including The Urban Sketcher has recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
[Here’s some background info on that]. But it boils down to; their hobby-niche-magazine empire is fading into irrelevance in the internet age, and, their efforts to turn art-communities (WetCanvas, ArtistNetwork.tv, etc) into paying ventures haven’t worked out. Not all that surprising, as this stuff competes against Facebook and the other social media.
What does that mean to myself and their other authors?
Most annoyingly – it means a loss of royalty income for a while. Existing stock in the retail channel might sell, but I won’t receive any income until the situation is resolved.
Particularly bad timing for me, as I’ve recently stopped freelance work, in hopes of jumpstarting my gallery painting. But I knew that was an insane gamble when I threw the dice.
I suppose I’ve had a nice run for the last five years. We’ve sold about 35,000 copies of The Urban Sketcher. I think that’s pretty good for a niche topic like travel sketching.
Thanks, everyone! Good work!
The book income was never enough for me to live from, but it was one tent-pole in my hardscrabble artist-income. In the best-case, F+W can sell the book rights onto another publisher and sales can resume – or – perhaps the books go completely out of print. At which time, (after a significant contractual delay) I have the option to re-issue them myself.
Though, I seriously doubt I’ll receive any help in that regard (like, getting the page layouts back from the publisher? hah!).
Luckily, I do have my self-published book Direct Watercolor. Though – this has always been somewhat of a labor-of-love title. And fair enough! As honestly, it’s less of a how-to (and that’s probably why you’re a blog-reader) and more of art-book of beautiful images from my years as a traveling painter – and thus, it’s sold about 1/10th of The Urban Sketcher.
So, that’s just some news from me – mostly to say – if you were looking for a book on watercolor – my own title is currently one of my few income streams, so please buy my self published book! – not the publisher’s titles, which are now only paying back corporate debt :)