Queries about an e-mail

[raygirlrol.livejournal.com]

someone posted here a few days ago asking about the legitimacy of an art website they got invited to. I'm asking for the same advice in regards to this email I recieved today



I have recieved a number of bogus invites in the past, but at the same time I've also been e-mailed by completely legitimate offers that weren't round-robin letters.

This one really interests me, but I need some guidence from you guys :)

The email I recieved:
Hi raygirl , (good start, they use my DA name as opposed to my hotmail address)

We are 3 young French entrepreneurs and we’re interested in your work.
We sell laptop stickers through a website www.laptopcustom.com
Our stickers are high quality laminated vinyl cut to the exact sizes of
each device we have on our database.
So far we have more than 300 laptop sizes and we’re getting more every day.
We print and cut on demand and we do everything by ourselves.
We contacted you because we saw your work on deviant art and we’re really
impressed by what you are able to do.
We want to give our website a design direction by hosting some of the work
of deviant art designers on our website.
So here’s the deal, we want to sell your work through our website, each
time we sell your creations, you earn money, whenever you want to take
your stuff out of our website, a simple email will do.
Your work is not our property and you can make money out of stuff you’ve
already done.
We’re thinking about giving you 5 euros for each of the design we put on
the website and then 20% of what comes in our pocket, so you’ll make
around 2euro on each sale.
5euros to start and then 2 euros on each sale sounds like a pretty good deal.
So the better your designs are the more you sell.
We would love to be able to buy your designs but unfortunately we’re a
young company starting out so we can’t afford it.
As I said earlier, because we sell on demand, that’s the only way we can
do that.
You are not going to get rich in the next few months but you’ll definitely
promote your work both on our website and on the stickers of hundreds of
laptops around the world.
The website is up and running for 6 months now and we already make 10
sales a day with the horrible stuff we have, so you do the math.
If you’re interested just answer that email by saying interested or not in
the subject and we’ll give you further informations.
If you’re not interested feel free to spread the word that will help us out.

Alexandre,
Laptopcustom.com
Ps: sorry for my poor english.


For all those who are tl;dr, this site is basically asking if I want to sell my art as printable covers for games consoles, phones and laptops. I'd get a cut of the profits depending on how much of my designs were sold. The company aren't trying to BUY the rights to my art and i can quit anytime...



This seems like a really good deal but as my old dad would say 'if it looks too good to be true it probably is'. before i commit I wanted to see if anyone else had recieved a similar email from this website, if they're selling any of their work through it, and are these guys kosher?

any guidence or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Comments

[stolenmilkcrate.livejournal.com]

Well, aside from the "too good to be true" thing, I would be concerned about a possible misunderstanding due to different spoken languages. Disregard this if you speak fluent French though!

I would ask them how they heard about you, look through the rest of their stuff, ask for references, ask to speak to other artists who do work for them, etc. before committing to anything.

[stolenmilkcrate.livejournal.com]

Er, sorry, migraine, I missed the line about him saying where he found you. But the other stuff, I'd look into.

[raygirlrol.livejournal.com]

You poor thing, Migranes are horrible

sound advice through, thank you!

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

The tone of his email is a nice change from the typical form letter you might get, that's for sure. My gut instinct would be to trust him, but be cautious -- perhaps only upload one or two of your best designs at first and see how they do before uploading all of them.

I haven't checked out their website yet but the level of professionalism there will tell you a lot. Good luck.

[raygirlrol.livejournal.com]

the website looks pretty swish and proffesional (flash scrolling banners etc), and it seems legit

Thanks for the advice!

[thaily.livejournal.com]

I have heard of the laptop stickers and their popularity is on the rise.
You could try this with a single design and see how it goes, just make your terms very clear and make sure that they say they agree to them in the e-mail.

[raygirlrol.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a plan...i'm curious to know what particular artwork they liked in my gallery considering that most of it is fanart ;D

[thaily.livejournal.com]

You might get into trouble if you try to make a profit off fanart by the way, since characters from books/comics/movies tend to be copyright and trademarked.

[raygirlrol.livejournal.com]

Don't worry I'm well aware of that ;) I wouldn't give them anything where there would be a copyright issue

[iluvhistory.livejournal.com]

make sure to fax a contract to him and have him sign it and fax it back to you.