Recently at an
SCBWI event, the speaker, Grace Maccarone, executive editor of Holiday House warned never to share ideas as someone else could take it and get it out and in the stores first. To wait until you have it in a tangible form before sharing it. After all ideas can't be copyrighted. Only the specific tangible form inspired by the idea can be copyrighted.
Of course mum's the word when it comes to commissioned art. Unless the client is OK with you sharing. So that leaves sharing sketches and other personal art but not too much of it. Must leave some of it in the bag.
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| Bag Head © Diana Ting Delosh - Biro sketch |
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But... but... but if you don't share you're invisible. Plus sharing on social media is fun and gratifying. I'm a twitter girl myself so I know participating in one of the many art challenges and getting all those faves and Retweets is very, very nice. Addictive even. And you never know whose looking. It seems like every other day you hear of someone getting discovered/published/agented due to their Twitter, Instagram, blog, whatever activities.
To share or not to share could be the digital era's equivalent of to be
or not to be. There is no question that you should share your art
despite fears of
copyright infringement. The question really is how much, what and when?
Quite a few of my illustrator colleagues share some piece of art daily
via Twitter or whatever. In fact that's how I discovered a lot of them
via their daily art practice of creating and sharing.
So I am
wondering if I should make this one of my daily art biz habits. I'm also in the throes of prepping for the NJ SCBWI June Conference - which means hyper focusing to make lots of art. Yes, currently creating lots just not sharing yet. Guess I'll be working on my "sharing" after the conference.
