Solicitation: How to Get What You Want from Women in Their Underwear Without Pissing Them Off

Late last year, I was approached by the editor of a magazine and asked if I would consider submitting some photos.  This editor and I have a number of mutual acquaintances, one of whom is a good friend of mine so, on the strength of that, I happily agreed.

Thus began an ongoing communication, during which I shot not one but two sets for the magazine, both of which I agreed to keep exclusive until after they had been published, and made sure I kept the editor apprised of the progress of both shoots as progress was made.  No specifics beyond general themes were ever discussed, but since this editor came to me based on the work in my portfolio that he had already seen, he knew my style.  The photos were submitted well before the deadline for the issue, and when emails were sent out to let contributors know which high-resolution images needed to be sent, I found out that one image from one set would be published, and the submission of the second set was not even acknowledged.

Flash forward a few months, and a dear friend of mine finds herself in an almost identical situation, with a different magazine; approached by the editor, asked to submit a photo set based on the strength of her portfolio with only a very general description of what they’d like to see, time and money spent on the shoot, photos kept exclusive and submitted well within the required timeframe and, after several attempts to find out the status of publication, finally given only a lukewarm “maybe” as to whether they’ll ever be used.

I’m not going to say, now or ever, that any editor is obligated under any circumstances to guarantee publication of unseen work, regardless of who initiated the contact.  The editor’s job is to make sure all work published is in keeping with the quality and overall image of the magazine and, until you’ve seen the pictures, you can’t know they meet the criteria.  So my issue with the above mentioned situations is not that the photos asked for weren’t used.  My issue is with the communication, or rather lack thereof, from the editors’ sides.

In both of the above situations, the burden was on those editors to let me and my friend know as soon as possible that the work submitted was not what the magazine was hoping for.  A simple “you know, I appreciate you taking the time to do this, but it isn’t quite what we’re looking for” would have been fine.  A simple “you know, we’d love to see a set from you in a bar-type setting with mood lighting and a sheer black robe” prior to the shoot actually taking place would have been even better.  What is not at all even a little bit okay is “just send something Christmas-y” or “we’d like photos of you wearing red lipstick” and then leaving the model hanging for an answer, or ignoring the submission altogether.

I do not consider myself the be-all and end-all of magazine editors, far from it.  But I know what I want and I know the only way I’m ever going to get it is to ask for it, clearly and concisely, from the people I think are most likely to be able to provide it.  Case in point: I received a cover art submission for an upcoming issue that was almost what we want.  I emailed both the model and photographer and said “can you redo this same concept, making these changes and adding this?”  They said “hell yes we can!” and I have no doubt that we’re going to have an amazing cover that is exactly what we want.

Communication.  Is.  Key.

And it’s not actually all that painful.  Editors don’t like sending out rejection emails any more than contributors like receiving them, but you know something weird?  I’ve lost count of how many emails I’ve received over the past year from people who have sent work that is not in keeping with what we publish, thanking me for taking the time to let them know we wouldn’t be using their submissions.  They’re not thanking me for turning them down, because that would be silly and masochistic, but they are thanking me for not just letting their hard work vanish into a black hole of sent-and-never-answered emails.

To anyone who takes the bullshit line of not having time to reply to all submissions, no.  Just... no.  If you have time to ask for submissions, and time to profit from other people’s work, you have time to create a form letter that you can cut and paste as a reply to work that you don’t want to use.

Rejections are like band-aids.  A quick and clean rip that stings for a second is far better for everyone than ignoring it until the adhesive rots and it falls off on its own and lands you don’t even know where until it gets caught in the vacuum cleaner belt and starts to smoke and stinks up the entire room.

Unsolicited submissions to open calls deserve at least the token formality of a standardized rejection notice.  Solicited submissions?  Yes, those deserve considerably more.  If you ask someone for something, you are placing two burdens of responsibility on yourself.  First, that you communicate your requirements clearly.  Second, if you do not communicate your requirements clearly, and leave the details up to someone else, that if the end result is not what you had in mind, you at least have a big enough pair to let the person who did the work know you won’t be using it.

Do You Exist?

Last week, as I was putting the finishing touches on the August issue of The Poetic Pinup Revue (which, by the way, is now available for pre-order here), I noticed the continuation of what I consider a rather disturbing trend.  One of the things we list in our index of contributors is the URL of each artist’s website so that our readers, when overwhelmed as they so often are by the magnificence of the talent contained in our humble publication, can find more of each contributor’s work and be even more overwhelmed by their magnificence.

And for the third issue in a row, roughly half of the contributors had either left blank or written “N/A” in the section of the release form where they were to provide a URL.

There’s a saying in the data backup business; “If it isn’t in three places, it doesn’t exist.”  To all artists, the aspiring, the well-established and the everywhere in between, the same applies.  You need to be in three places.  There is you, live and in person, at whatever events you choose to appear.  There is your work, on paper or canvas or in clay or an 8-foot tower of cleverly sculpted dryer lint.  And there is your presence on the Internet.

In this day and age, you can’t NOT have one.  It’s as simple as that.  And your personal social networking profile doesn’t count.  You don’t want people who really liked your last poem stopping by and leaving bizarre comments on photos from your mom’s birthday party.  You need a professional presence solely for your creative endeavors.

So, to everyone who left blank or “N/A”’d the Artist Website field on their release form, I really truly deeply urgently wish you would go establish a professional Internet presence.  A Facebook page is free, and relatively easy to set up.  Same with a Google blog, or a basic Wordpress site.  Even if the content consists of nothing but a stock photo banner and a bunch of links to other places on the Internet where your work can be found, you need at least that.

And to the artists who did complete the website field, but with “www.facebook.com/MyAwesomePage874398572048750824705827458738057”, you really need to go rename your pages.  For online publications where that URL can be embedded, not a problem, but print is not so dead a medium that you can start ignoring it completely, and NO ONE flipping through a magazine is going to type all of that out just for the sake of learning more about you.

People who like your work will want to like more of your work.  You need to make that as easy for them as possible.

Hot Woman with Great Boobs Needs Your Help

Veronica Virgo, contributor to the first issue of The Poetic Pinup Revue and all-around stellar human being, needs our help.  She has a photo entered in a contest to win a shoot with Roy Varga.  The winner of the contest will be determined by the number AND QUALITY of persuasive comments left on each photo.

This is Veronica

This is what she has to say about the contest: 

"I'm BROKE! I'd love to win some free photos! You don't have to vote for me, but please vote for someone! There are LOTS of deserving ladies!"

See, that right there is indicative of why she deserves to win.  Even when she's trying to garner votes for herself, she acknowledges that she is not the only vote-worthy option and is supportive of the entire contest.

Here's what I had to say:

"There is not enough room on FB for all the reasons I think Veronica should win. There may not even be enough room on the Internet. But I will try. Yes, she has beautiful eyes, fantastic boobs, and a smile that could light up a small country, but it's when you look past those things that you really find what makes her as special as she is; the warmth, the humor, the strength, the grace, the very rare and very real human being that she is. If Jane Russell, Grace Kelly, Indira Ghandi and Mae West each threw a dash of DNA in a test tube which was then left in the thick of a wild rose bramble to develop with nothing more than its wits and the occasional spring rainfall to help it along, the end result would be something very like Veronica Virgo. This is a woman who either needs to be cloned numerous times or captured on film as often as possible, it's the only way for there to ever be enough of her to go around."

And I meant every word of it.

Support the arts, the boobs, and the broke pinups.  Please go HERE, like the photo and say something nice about why you think she deserves to win.

Then go HERE and like her page.

Then, while you're clicking links anyway, you may as well go HERE and pick up a copy of that magazine she's in...

The Poetic Pinup Revue - Simply Artful. And Really Frikkin' Exciting

Yes, it's here.  The first issue of The Poetic Pinup Revue is now in our hands, still warm from the printer's warehouse, and ready to ship.

Go here to read all about it, order & subscribe.