The Artist Friendly Partner: What to Look for and Where to Find One
It is extremely rare that an independent artist can create and earn passive revenue or, in some cases, live entirely off the content they produce by doing what they love. Finding a partner that can facilitate your needs and help you reach the independence you seek can take quite a bit of exploration.
To put it another way, an artist friendly marketplace is a platform designed for content creators to shine. Partnering with a company that understands your needs will inspire your creativity, elevate your art to a new level and offer fair compensation for the content that you create.
Finding the Perfect Fit
I can assure you that discovering an artist friendly company that has a genuine concern for your best interests is easier said than done. Sadly, artist friendly partners are few and far between compared to just a few years ago.
As a content creator myself and as a senior art director for some of the most prominent visual communication companies, I can confidently speak to my experiences and offer up a few key insights and features that you should be aware of when searching for a content provider to represent your work.
Cultivating Trust
Other than the satisfaction that you experience when you capture the perfect scene or snap the perfect image, receiving a royalty payment for the media that you produce is another equally important validation for your art.
A content provider that has your best interest at heart will inform you as soon as your media is licensed or give you a breakdown of your sales in a timely manner. Knowing that you belong to a provider that you can trust provides peace of mind and allows you to focus on what you love.
Together is Better
It’s important to establish a rapport with an individual that works at the company. This will allow you to have a better understanding of the culture but more importantly give you invaluable insights into the companys’ content needs and possibly enhance collaboration within the content and research teams.
For content creators, understanding what clients are buying and the creative trends driving those purchases are essential. Obtaining intelligent hindsight from the in-house experts helps to ensure that your efforts are never wasted.
Strength in Unity
Don’t be fooled into thinking that, as an independent content creator, it's nearly impossible to get noticed among all the AI imagery out there. A good creative partner will navigate the media marketplace for you and ensure your content reaches the right creative audience.
As a creator, understanding the opportunity to contribute a photo or a video clip or a photo that can potentially be part of something greater shouldn’t be overlooked. A creative partner that follows this belief is less likely to treat your content like another commodity.
Artist First
A company that’s willing to take on a large part of your workflow should immediately inform you that you’re working with an “artist first” provider, which should be a huge incentive as a creator to join their community.
The biggest buzz kill to any video or photo shoot is spending hours and sometimes even days tagging your content with the appropriate keywords and captions. The pressure to handle everything on your own, can eventually lead to burnout. A provider that can assist you in taking on more of the tedious work associated with your craft will make your life and your process much easier.
Joining Forces
Without a doubt, it’s a creator economy and there has never been a better time to seek out an artist friendly partner.As a creator your work is an extension of yourself, so you should have a say in how your images are used and licensed. A company that can negotiate a better deal for you and ensure that you receive fair compensation for your efforts should be your top priority.
With that said, Catch+Release provides a unique market defining approach in supporting their creators with the latest tech workflows and updates, exceptional earning potential and an accounts team that share a synergistic relationship with their clients that I haven’t seen from another company in years.
Clearly opportunities exist for content creators due to a need for a diverse cross section of contemporary content yet choosing and establishing a relationship with an artist friendly provider is merely the first step on your journey to creative independence.
This article was written by our friend, Robert Pascale. Check out his Creator Community profile here.
