Have you signed up for my newsletter yet? If not, take the time to subscribe to my newsletter and get free weekly articles on how to use the Internet to promote and sell your artwork. Subscribe now and get a free audio download on "Effective Ways to Market Your Website Offline"

* First Name: * Last Name: * Email address:

I just ran across a new blog called Regretsy this morning that’s dedicated to poking fun at some of the more, er…”non-traditional” listings on the popular online handcraft marketplace, Etsy. Needless to say, this sparked a bit of anger over on the Etsy message boards as many sellers denounced the blog as cruel and mean-spirited.

Regretsy isn’t the only blog out there who’s only purpose is to poke fun at other people’s creations. And blogs and websites like these aren’t the only places online that people can criticize or poke fun at your work. People have been using message boards, email, and blog comments for years as platforms to criticize the works of creative people. The same tools that makes it easy for you to promote your artwork, also makes it easy for people to voice their opinions about your artwork, good, bad, and ugly.

Whether you think that these sites are clever and funny or mean-spirited and nasty, if you’re marketing yourself online, it’s possible that you might find your work or yourself as a subject of criticism or ridicule. What do you do then?

1. Grow a very thick skin- This is a lot easier said than done. You as an artist has probably put a lot of yourself into your work and when someone makes fun of it, it’s pretty much the same as someone making fun of you. The fact of the matter is that if you’re going to put your artwork out there, you also making yourself open to criticism…especially if your work is controversial or unusual in any way. If you want to succeed in selling your art, you’re going to have not let other people’s opinions make you want to run and hide. You’re never going to stop people from being critical or even from making fun of what you do. So it’s best just to let other people’s bad opinions roll off your back.

2. Be true to yourself- Don’t let negative criticism alter how you express yourself in your art. There are plenty of art geniuses out there that has suffered terrible ridicule for the things that they create. Yet, they keep creating because they had to remain true to themselves. And sooner or later, someone came to appreciate what they do. The same goes for you. There will always be someone that hates what you do and there will always be people that love your vision. Those who hate your work aren’t your customers anyway…concentrate on those who “get” you.

3. Resist the urge to attack the critic- While every fiber of your being is screaming for you to go online and berate the jerk that’s using your hard work as a punchline…demanding that they take down their offensive blog post or attacking them for their opinion is going to be counterproductive. Unless they are writing something that is patently untrue about your work, leaving a rant against the critic will only backfire on you. Storming in and calling the critic a jerk for criticizing you will give the other readers who may or may not agree with the critic the impression that you’re an overly sensitive artist who takes themselves too seriously. Unless they are writing something that’s untrue, which in that case you’re perfectly justified in calmly correcting the untruths, take the high road and the let the jerky critic continue to show how jerky they are.

4. Turn lemons into lemonade- The old adage about there being no such thing as bad publicity sometimes appear to be true. Ironically, a lot of the Etsy sellers who found themselves featured on one of these blogs also found that they ended up selling the item that was being ridiculed. Remember, just because one person doesn’t get what you do doesn’t mean that everyone thinks that way.

Now it’s your turn. What do you think about this? How would you react? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.