Scorpy's interview on Rivercurrent

Sumit Roy is a popular author on the GraphicRiver market place with a very distinct style. It is no doubt, this style that has made many of his files very popular and very recognizable.

This is my interview with Danny Outlaw of GraphicsRiver.

Sumit Roy

1. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

My name is Sumit Roy. I am 31, my hometown is Basirhat which is a small town on the eastern part of India. There is my mother at home, I am single till now.
By educational-qualification I am a science graduate. Though I have not any art background, I practice drawing from the age of 4. In the field of computer graphics, I am a self taught person. But as I am a good learner and implementer, so I never felt awkward in any software/hardware environment.

Currently I am working for a tea processing and export farm, Premier’s Tea Limited, which is located at Kolkata, capital of our state West Bengal. I work here as a graphic designer.
Update : I have started my own design studio scorpydesign on August of 2009 and from January 2011 I had to leave Premier's so that I could concentrate on my own business
My first job was as a visualizer of overlay and full-screen advertisement for a local cable TV, and after that I had worked for various fields and various industries including teaching, animation etc.

You can find a full bio of me from http://sites.google.com/site/sumitroyshome.
My greatest achievement was that I made a full-length animated film ALONE including pre-production, production and post-production – everything was done by me. For interested people, you can see the trailer at here.

2. What has been your experience with selling files on the GraphicRiver marketplace?

I read an article about freelancing by Collis (you know who he is). From there I got to know about GraphicRiver and joined here on June 09.

As I love vector graphics, earlier I used to upload several vectors here, though my selling experience was not much different rather than that of the sites where they buy and sell vector graphics and illustrations. But on 19th June I found that someone has bought a sales tag collection, which was the first Photoshop graphics I created to sale at GraphicRiver. That day I earned the first $ from here.

Then I had gone for a quick market survey just from the popular files for each category here inside GraphicRiver, and I understood abut the market needs.
Same week I read Collis’ article again for the second time and found what was wrong with me, why my other files were not selling. After that I segmented my creativities and abilities accordingly for the web market.

3. What is your highest selling file? Why do you think it is so popular?

Still now my highest selling file on GraphicRiver is ‘tags stickers and labels’ which, I told you was my first item sold.

I don’t think it is that much popular, basically it has a good sales figure because it is being showcased for a long time compared with other such elements. Apart form that there is some other reasons,There are three different elements for a single subject; buyer can have a choice between them as well as they can put all these three elements together for specific purpose.

There are five different jazzy and eye-catching color-schemes, perfect for attention grabbing.
Every element is simple and communicative. Every element ‘shouts’ that there is something for sale. Language is no barrier.

4. Do you do any sort of marketing for your GraphicRiver files? If yes, what do you do?

Definitely I do marketing for my GraphicRiver Items. You know, if you want to see good sales figures, you must have to ‘shout’ about your products, apart from maintaining the quality or quantity.

I don’t have a site of my own, but I like to thank Google for letting me to create and maintain http://sites.google.com/site/sumitroyshome, which is my ‘home page’ for the time being. I cross link everything from there and to here.

I am member in some artist profile sites; I use those places to link my GraphicRiver portfolio. You will find normal text and graphic links to my GraphicRiver profile there at the ‘profile’ or ‘about me’ sections.

Also I have presence in some Social networking sites like orkut, Myspace, facebook, hi5 etc. just a single line saying that ‘I am selling graphics on GraphicRiver.net’ may not increase my sales figure, but can be informative for some other interested persons.

5. How do you get ideas for new files to sell on GraphicRiver?

Have you seen my ‘glassy-panels’? One day on the way to my home I stopped by a tea-stall to have a cup of tea. On the opposite side of the stall, there was a mobile phone shop, which had a glass door and the shop’s logo was engraved on that. It was really eye-catching. Same night I thought about how to implement that in the Photoshop-way, and next day I uploaded the ‘glassy-panels’ here on GraphicRiver.



This is just a single example :)

Apart from that, inspirations and ideas can come from many sources like.
  • Websites
  • Shops and malls
  • Books and magazines
  • Popular and best selling files in stock and vector exchange sites
  • And of-course my favorite – nature

6. What advice would you give to other authors on the GraphicRiver marketplace?

I am not expert or experienced, so it will be of a matter of audacity to give ‘advice’. But I can share some tips-n-tricks with other authors of GraphicRiver, specifically for the newbie like me:
Update : Tho I can't demand myself an expert graphic designer till now (nobody is perfect) but I am not a nebie now :)
  • Always keep yourself up-to-date according to the market trends, whenever you visit GraphicRiver, take a glance at the popular files. Know what people are buying.
  • Don’t burn yourself out; if you are a creative individual, then you must understand that you have your limits regarding creativity and production. Upload your better item and prepare your good item for the second day to make it best. Remember that ‘slow but steady wins the race’.
  • Check the ‘item discussion’ frequently especially for the least moving items. You may find tips or advice from your well-wishers there so that you can rectify the faults. Secondly you can have more product ideas or suggestions from there.
  • Be communicative; don’t forget to reply to comments. Thus you can grow a long list of contacts.
you can also read the full interview here

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