Every week I ask artists from across the globe, if they’ve had a chance to read the free weekly guide I sent and what they think of it.

Why? I’m actually interested in what you think and what you have to say.

When I received this reply last week I realized that I’m not doing a very good job teaching artists about making art and making money.

I’ve painted about 25 pieces. I wanted to get the art out of the way first. Now, I’m focused on the business side.

My heart sank. This is in reverse order!

Would you invest time and money in building a product line and then go to business school to learn how to sell it?

I don’t think so.

I’m hearing from artists who are eager to enroll in The MAKING Art Making MONEY Semester.

But do you know what many of them say when I asked them why they haven’t yet applied?

I first need to complete a body of work.

Oh good God! NO YOU DO NOT!

Now if you want to create a body of work to satisfy your personal creative urges, inspiration, and curiosity, go for it! That’s fantastic.

It’s beautiful creating art as a hobby.

But your tinkering is not going to result in sales.

When an artist’s work is not selling, you’re told by the art establishment,

You need to go and create a new body of work.

That is completely ass backwards advise. Ignore it.

What you need to do is to:

1. know your creative purpose, you why
2. determine a worthy mission, your what
3. offer a unique value proposition, your how
4. serve a target market, your who

Or maybe you have figured out how to market your art but you suck at selling your art?

It’s not uncommon to be great at marketing and suck at sales or vice versa.

How do I know? Marketing is just a fun creative exercise for me.

Sales? Let’s just say this. I’ve had to work on it and I still am.

If you’ve mastered your creative medium, and you should before you call yourself an artist, then completing a new body of work, and just hoping that this “newest series” will sell, is not a good plan.

Your latest series of art won’t sell just because it’s new.

A plan to sell art without a plan, is a plan to sell no art.

What you need to do is create value above and beyond your art so that you can create a prototype series and test it with a target market.

This artist’s reply struck me so hard that I actually changed the first line of the Artists Who THRIVE creed.

Why? I want to make the difference between submitting to the permission and scarcity based art establishment versus joining The New Creative Class abundantly clear.

Let me say this. It’s awesome that she completed 25 paintings. I just want her to sell them.

When you know what value you offer above and beyond your art and precisely who you are serving and how, you are filled with focus and confidence that can’t be beat.

Do you have the cart before the horse? Please tell me why below.

Last week I offered you an analogy to explain the concept of a target market.

Now I want to talk about wanting to sell your art and approaching it as a business, versus a career, which is exactly what most artists do.

Why? Because that’s what they’ve been told to do.

I don’t know about you. But I only do what I’ve been told if it makes sense and it doesn’t conflict with my well-being.

Anyway. Imagine that you’re intrigued by a fine boutique that sells custom black pumps. Andy they are just the style you are looking for.

You have the black dress in hand that you just purchased for New Year Eve. So you’re “in the market” for a new pair of black pumps.

So you enter the fine boutique that offers black pumps, (just pretend that the black pumps are art.)

The proprietress is not that comfortable with you. Why?  She’s an “artist” and she’s not so sure that you “get it.”

And she’s having a bit of an identity crisis so her confidence is not that strong.

Eventually you find the perfect pair of black pumps but there’s no price, just a red dot. Hmmm?

You ask the “artist” about the red dot and she says proudly, “They’re sold. That’s the very last pair. They’re one of a kind.”

All you’re thinking is, why did she tempt me with them then?

So you stroll around hoping that you’ll find another pair that you love as much.

You do. So you walk up to the “proprietress” and ask the price.

Instead of just giving you the price, she becomes a bit awkward.

Unsure of the price, and of herself, she starts reading you her artist statement.

Confused and only mildly interested in her “statement” you just come right out and say “I’d like to buy this pair of black pumps.”

But she says, “Oh I’m sorry I’m interesting in “showing” my art, I’m not selling it. So I don’t even have a cash register. You’ll need to talk to my representative.”

How successful do you think this proprietress is going to be?

But this is exactly same dynamic that an eager collector has to navigate when they’re trying to buy from most artists.

What’s the moral of the story?

If you want to sell your art, you don’t have a career. You have a business.

In fact, you’re in the luxury retail business, a very lucrative market.

How do you approach selling your art? As a “career” or a “business?” Leave a comment below.

 

Recently I re-launched The MAKING Art Making MONEY Semester. P.S. Enrollment is currently closed.

And I heard from a number of artists from around the globe who eagerly wanted to enroll but said that they didn’t have enough time or money.

1. Not enough time? That’s no excuse because unlike other courses, The Semester is self-paced and it does not end, it’s on-going. Students receive unlimited access and can participate according to their schedule and commitments.
2. Not enough money? That’s no excuse either because if you actually do the work, The Semester is an investment that could pay for itself many times over.

If you make art, then making money is just as easy. Oh I can hear it now. “No it’s not!”

Yes it is. Stay with me. I’m not just promoting The Semester, which I obviously believe in.

I’m going to teach you how I first made significant money with my art.

I shared with a number of applicants to The Semester, a story about a time when I really wanted to attend an expensive painting workshop with my mentor Gregory Kondos in the south of France.

I was working for a music distribution company, MP3 files and Napster basically annihilated our company almost overnight.

I was left with no job, no prospects, and a sizable 50% non-refundable deposit for this workshop. Did I mention that my seven-year relationship had ended abruptly and that I was emotionally devastated?

Thankfully, my co-workers encouraged me to take the trip and to find the money and make it happen.

I could stay home and cry or I could go make art and make money.

I decided on the later and it was one of the very best decisions I have made in my life.

I put out a box of overpriced chocolate in my office cubicle with a sign that said, “Send a kid to France.”

Even though my co-workers where loosing their jobs, they bought my overpriced chocolate and that paid for all of my art supplies.

I wrote a letter to everyone my in my small network offering them the opportunity to receive a small painting that I would create just for them in the south of France. (See above.)

I included a self-addressed stamped envelope with the payment due date.

The self-addressed stamped envelopes began to arrive, some with requests for paintings, and some with just a few dollars and well wishes.

I basically created a Kick Starter campaign before it existed.

This simple sales and marketing effort not only funded my trip to the south of France, it funded a side trip to England to see my family and I made profit.

It was my first taste of making art and making money.

My patrons were absolutely delighted with the paintings that I created for them and some bought more.

It was so easy to execute because I was going to be painting anyway and I was actually more inspired by thinking of who was going to receive each painting.

What did this marketing effort cost me? Well, I had to buy:

• some paper
• envelopes
• stamps

It helped me tremendously to have the support of a friend who encouraged me and who let me use his fancy color printer.

There’s absolutely nothing stopping you from doing the same thing, today.

1. Determine what amount of money you would like to make.
2. Create a product a.k.a. Art.
3. Make something easy to execute on.
4. Create something that will add value for your customers in some way. You can just personalize it.
5. Choose a price point that your network will easily say yes to.
6. Do the math. I only needed ten people to say yes to fully fund my trip.

I recommend first mailing a letter and following up via email with a PayPal payment link. You now have the advantage of technology, so use both.

Be clear on what you want, when you want it, how they will benefit from what you will be making for them, and why you want it, maybe you want to enroll in The Semester?

Not sure what to write? No need to struggle with copywriting. I have an easy fix.

1. Imagine that you’re sitting across from someone who you think would be receptive.
2. Tell them what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, what you would like to do for them.
3. Record this imaginary conversation, then transcribe, and edit it.

Your message will come across in a way that feels authentic, natural, clear, and concise.

Commit to a date to send the letter and ask a friend to hold you accountable.

Just see what happens. Treat it as an educational experiment.

The worst thing that will happen is that you will learn vital lessons about the selling and marketing your art. You’ll learn about:

• Product Development
• Pricing
• Positioning
• Marketing
• Selling
• Project planning
• Accounting
• Follow through

Essentially what I learned from funding my trip to France were the basic mechanics of making art and making money, which I just repeated until I got to the place where I was a full-time Artist.

You can do this. It’s just about committing and taking planned and scheduled action.

Someday is today. Do it now and tell someone who cares what you are going to do and by when. The only thing stopping you is an excuse and Artists Who THRIVE don’t do excuses 😉

p.s. I would never write this letter today but who cares. It worked!

What will you create and by when? Share below.

Do you have a hard time charging for your art?

Be honest. Even if your prices are outlined clearly do you still get a twinge of guilt when you take money for your art?

It was so damn easy and fun to make your art, how could you possibly charge for it?

I aim to complete a painting in under two hours, with ease and joy, whether it is a $3000 study or a $25,000 commissioned paining.

Why? Because it feels and looks better when I paint quickly and because I can.

However, many artists feel guilty and they are conflicted about charging for something that they enjoy creating.

I don’t. And neither should you.

What’s the answer to “how long did it take you to paint that painting?” All my life.

When a concert pianist climbs on stage to perform a concerto, he or she is not charging by the hour.

Even though the very best source of creative inspiration for an artist is getting paid for their art, emerging artists too often feel conflicted.

Why? Artists see a purchase of their art as an affirmation of themselves.

This is precisely where things get twisted.

When someone buys your art it is an affirmation of the value of your product, your art, not you.

Just so you don’t miss my point, I’ll say it again. Collectors, fans, customers, however you refer to them, are not affirming you as a person. They are affirming the value that they perceive your product is offering them.

It’s not about you, it’s about them.

If you perceive a collector’s purchase of your art as an affirmation of your value as a person, you are naturally going to feel conflicted about charging for your art.

If fact, you going to feel like a bit of a whore.

Our culture offers artists two disrespectful categories that, with your help, I aim to stamp out :

1. “starving artist” or
2. “art whore”

“Art Whore. Noun- someone who specializes in feeling special for maintaining the delusion that art is inherently valuable. This is typically done by selling their artwork, which requires a massively inflated ego and fosters a dependence on the insulated world of art critics. This dependency can be likened to the relationship between a hooker and a pimp.”

“John Doe is an art whore. Before that he, like all other artists, was a wanna-be art whore.”

So the choice is “starving artist” or “art whore,” two universal destructive and conflicting labels that make it so that artists can never win. Each choice is some tired bullshit.

Here’s the truth, as I mentioned in my last post.

“Every artist is an entrepreneur and every entrepreneur is an artist.” Dr. ‘E” Elliot McGucken

Have you had trouble charging for your art? Be honest. The truth will set you free. Share below.

Traditional business plans do not work for artists. Why? Because Artists sell emotions.

Artists are really in the business of selling emotions and that is why traditional business plans do not work for artists and that is also why artists don’t see themselves as entrepreneurs.

We artists actually sell “products” that evoke feeling, products that connect the buyer with their humanity. That’s much more powerful value than a pair of new sneakers or the latest technical gadget.

So a huge amount of money always has and always will change hands in the art market.

According to “The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) estimates, 3.2 percent — or $504 billion — of current-dollar GDP in 2011 was attributable to arts and culture.”

In comparison, “BEA’s estimated value of the U.S. travel and tourism industry was 2.8 percent of GDP.”

What prevents artists from getting their share? Simple. They see themselves just as artists and not as entrepreneurs.

A successful attorney who runs their own practice is an attorney and an entrepreneur. A plumber who sells their services a plumber and an entrepreneur. You get the picture.

“Every artist is an entrepreneur and every entrepreneur is an artist”, so eloquently stated by my friend Dr. ‘E’ (Elliot McGucken) whose “Hero’s Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship, Business, and Technology” Course has been featured by The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Business Week.

So why don’t artists see themselves as entrepreneurs?

The confusion is fueled by the loud and unquestioned “Starving Artist” slur, a disrespectful and destructive belief.

Ironically, this slander is continuously broadcast by the same culture and economy that values art so highly, 3.2 % of the US Gross Domestic Product!

So why else are the “manufactures” of these highly valued “products” so very confused?

Because an artist often can’t see beyond how they feel about their product.

Why?

Because unlike traditional businesses, artists sell products that reflect what is deeply and personally meaningful to them.

Target market? That is not something they even mention in art school.

So artists don’t identify with traditional business and traditional business does not identify with artists. Each party is often outright hostile towards each other.

Artists believe that their values are different from business people and they don’t speak the same language. We often hate what we don’t understand and what intimidates us.

However, successful artistic and conventional entrepreneurs have much more in common that they think.

They each have to effectively answer these questions.

1. Who are you and what do you stand for?
2. What do you stand against?
3. What problem is your product solving that is really worth solving?
4. How do you solve this problem in a way that is unique and effective?
5. Who has this problem? Who is your target market?
6. Where and how can you find your target market?

If you want to make art and make money you must be able to answer these questions in clearly. No B.S. No fluff. Your artist statements won’t help.

Can you answer these questions? If not, start to by giving it a try. We all have to start somewhere. There’s no shame it that.

Please share below.