In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares how to use marketing to make your art stand out from the rest, and ways to protect your art when it’s being sold through a gallery.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 34

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk6AYd7q3mY&feature=youtu.be

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Here’s a question from Justin and Eclair Wisconsin who says how do I stand out? Other than with the quality of my art? How do I get folks excited and enticed to buy my work when there are so many others to choose from? Clearly art marketing success goes away. Beyond the art itself. I’ve sent out announcements to past collectors and their response is non existent?

Well, Justin, there’s a you know, there’s a lot to all of these things. But first off, there’s lots of lots of lots of questions in what you’re saying, I’ll drill down here first, I’m a big quality guy, quality should matter. But sometimes quality is a matter of opinion, right? We’ve all seen paintings that we never understand why they sell or why they get a recognition or why they’re, they’re famous. I won’t mention any names, but I saw a painting by a famous artist the other day, and I thought this is like third grade work, but that’s their thing anyway, so we can’t necessarily understand it. But we do want to do the best quality we know how to do and try to always elevate our quality and try to always learn and get better painting sell because they create emotional responses. Sometimes they stimulate a memory of a childhood or a thought or a place of just fond memories, creating emotional sponses about having an emotional response when you paint it, paint the emotion that you feel and that will help people connect with you. So if you love it, somebody else probably will too. And of course, in my first art marketing video, I talked about the importance of telling stories, and how to tell them stories will help sell paintings. I’ve often attach stories to the backs of my paintings. Give them to the galleries so the galleries can tell the stories, and it helps people connect. There’s four different personality types and some types can see things and will buy immediately. Others need to be nudged. They need a little reassurance or they need stories to help them connect. That’s why salespeople train salespeople are really important because salespeople know how to read customers, get them engaged, ask them questions, talk to them about things without being pushy, you want to be ethical and not pushy. And and they oftentimes will tell stories, but there is a crafting of stories that takes place part reality part fantasy, which I go into in that video, but you start with stories And people will help connect. It’s also true people have lots to choose from. But there could be 1000 paintings in a gallery you could walk in and one will stand out and you are emotionally stuck on it. Now the key then is getting that person who’s emotionally stuck on it to buy it. That’s where some sales training comes in. But quite frankly, it’s just a matter of engaging people getting them to talk about it. Don’t talk to them so much don’t give them a bunch of spiel that makes them want to walk away ask him questions, ask him whether you seem to be interested in that painting. Tell me about it. What what are you seeing in there? Is it stimulating a memory or a thought and get them talking about it that can help and then also good salespeople can direct people to buy our PR marketing success does go beyond art itself. The key to marketing is to create desire is to create exposure sometimes need people need to see things time and time and time again. They need to know you they need to know your brand. They have to feel comfortable with you. All of that ties into it. You’ve got to draw attention to your art to yourself, marketing can be about making it feel important or special or exclusive to. So, announcements oftentimes fall flat, you mentioned announcements, they fall flat, they usually don’t work because usually they’re dull and they’re boring. And they’re all about you. They’re not about the reader. But also you got to keep in mind that you got to find different ways to get these announcements in people’s heads so they can see them, you know, frequency sells things. Repetition sells things. And you want to have the ability to remind people you know, if you send something out a month in advance, and then you know, you get no response, you send it out again and again. I developed a program that I call art marketing in a box, and it’s designed for artists who want to want to become kind of like local superstars and to sell locally, and it has a lot of repetition instruments in it to give you opportunities to be in front of people on a regular basis. Hope that helps.

The next question is from an anonymous reader, understanding why here the person says I’m going through a crazy stressful situation with a gallery not sending my art back to me. They’ve represented me for 19 months without a sale, not come through on their promises and have not sent my art to me when I’ve asked them over a month ago, they have over $20,000 worth of art.

Well, to anonymous, I’d say I’m sorry. I’ve had it happen. I once had my photography in a gallery in Seattle. And the gallery disappeared. I didn’t live in town. I didn’t even know it for a long time. And I lost all my artwork. Interestingly, I was at a cocktail party somewhere, not even in Seattle, and the guy said, you know your name sounds familiar. Were you in a gallery in Seattle? I said, Yeah, a lot years ago, 20 years ago, he said all my brother on that gallery he was looking for you. He said, Give me your address. I’ll get all your artwork back and I got it all back, surprisingly. So sometimes things are misunderstandings. But anyway, to this particular question, there’s a lot to it. But first, I always recommend you have to have a gallery agreement, which states things like what happens if they go back to What happens if you want your artwork back? Who pays for shipping? Who does what? And how is it framed? My gallery has, you know, it has to have, it has to have hooks on the back, it has to be ready, you know that kind of a thing? Secondly, you say you’ve been 19 months without a sale, but do you really know that maybe they sold some and they kept the money and haven’t paid you. Oftentimes galleries will get into the situation where they don’t really know how to manage their money. And so they get some money in they pay their light bill and then they realize, Oh, I can’t pay you and they’re intending to pay you, they get some other money. And then they’ve got their advertising bill. So reputable. reputable. Experienced galleries typically don’t do that. But sometimes new galleries do and they’re well meaning they just get themselves in trouble. They don’t know how to handle their money. So you got to work with them. But you could have somebody Secret Shop to see if your work is hanging. Or you can go on the website and find out that you know, maybe, maybe you can find out if it’s sold, but most importantly is don’t be sneaky, I don’t think you have to be sneaky. there probably was not a sale, but maybe they’re just ignoring you. It’s hard to know. The best is not to sneak around just give it some more time call him a few more times, don’t be angry just mentioned that you feel like things aren’t working out and you’d like to pull out how can we arrange that Don’t be a jerk. Because if you’re a jerk, they won’t want to talk to you. And they might, you might even say, look, if you’ve sold my work and you’re just weren’t able to pay me for whatever reason, we can work something out. But let’s just get this worked out. I want to get the rest of my work out of there. And maybe they’ll talk to you, maybe they don’t. If that doesn’t work, if you’ve gone to the website, your stuffs still up there. They’re still in business. you’ve verified that. You can send a registered letter, maybe having an attorney politely ask them to respond within so many days and don’t make threats. It’s not necessary, but they’ll get the point. And then if that doesn’t work, you can you can go in and make a threat I suppose. That’s why contracts matter. You want to have something in writing You know, if you sue for your work, if you don’t have a contract, you’re not likely to get it. Especially if there’s a bankruptcy. So, got to have a contract. I think that’s the best thing. There’s no reason to be nasty or unbusinesslike you have a reputation to uphold, even if they don’t. So be nice, be civilized. Also, you could drop in and simply say, I’m here to pick up my work. I had a client who owed me $18,000 one time, they wouldn’t pay me they wouldn’t take my calls. I try it and try it and try it. So I got on an airplane, I flew to them. And I went in at eight o’clock in the morning, I said, Hey, I’m here to pick up my $18,000. They said, Well, we don’t have it. I said, Well, I’ve been calling it’s past due. You’ve been, you know, I’m not a bank. I’ve got my payroll, I can’t make and, and I need you to pay me. They said, Well, we can’t. I said, Well, I’m gonna just sit here quietly, and I’ll just wait till you bring me a check. And they said, we’re not bringing you a check. I said, Well, I’ll I’ll sit here all day if I need to. So I sat there all day, till five or six o’clock at night. They’re closing up the office. They said, Sir, you need to leave? I said, I’m sorry. I can’t. They said, well, we’re closing the office. I said, that’s fine. I’ll sleep here. And they said, No, you can’t. I said, Well, why don’t you call the police. And then you can have me removed. And so they got angry, and they went in, they cut the check. And they said, we’ll never do business with you. Again, I said, I understand that. But quite frankly, I don’t want to do business with people who do business this way and don’t pay me. So I got my money. And sometimes that’s what it takes. I’m not suggesting that but sometimes you have to be firm. But be professional where you can be nice, be civilized, you don’t want to do something you’ll later regret. Anyway, that’s the marketing minute. I hope you enjoyed it.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected] And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares advice for making prints of your artwork, and how licensing works to help you make more money from your art.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 31 >>>

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads

In the marketing minute I try to answer your art marketing questions to give me a question or two, Tell me who you are your name and your town and email me [email protected] Today, two questions come from the same person Brent in northern Utah. He says I paint really, really small, often five by seven or less with watercolor pencils. I also have painted a lot of digital paintings using art rage, which is a an app. Because of the nature of my original pieces. I believe the best way to monetize these would be to sell prints in this way. I could even be scaled up if I desire. So my main question for you is, what’s your best advice on selling prints? Well, Brent, it’s an interesting question. It’s one that comes up a lot. A lot of artists talk about selling prints. Selling your originals is an option of course. But In most cases, the smaller you paint, the smaller the price, you may or may not get a lot of money for smaller paintings, it’s hard to know I haven’t seen your work. But exceptional work will sell no matter what the question is always the price point. The nice thing about your medium of pencils and painting small as you can scale it up. Or if you’re painting and art rage an app, you can scale it up to almost any size print. The print market can be tricky. And prints are oftentimes a question for artists But usually, because they don’t want to devalue their originals by making prints some fear that it’s going to make the buyer feel like it’s less of a painting if there are more prints out there. But I quite frankly think it’s the opposite. I think if you have a couple of really good paintings, I wouldn’t do it with every one. They have a couple of really good paintings, you make prints of those. You’re ahead of the game. If you’re the buyer, because you have the original and of course others can have a print but it’s not the original and of course it can be signed and numbered if you want to do that. So I don’t think it hurts you. And of course, the question becomes where do you distribute and sell these prints, you do it online, you do it in a gallery. There are lots of online sites willing to carry your images and, and print on demand. And you want to vet out their quality before picking them, because you want to see if they’re going to get your colors right, they’re going to do nice paper and so on. And dig around till you find somebody to do that. Now, you can also work with a print distributor. Some of these companies sell to galleries or hotels, or even places like Target, they mass produce them. So they’re not necessarily printing them out as you play prints, but they’re mass producing, printing them. And then they pay you a per print fee or royalty of some kind. It’s not a lot of money, but it can add up if you get a lot of volume. And of course, if you’re at a place like Target, they may sell thousands or maybe 10s of thousands. So lots of these companies can also do licensing your work.

I see your second question. Here is the licensing the images, but you have no idea how that works. Well licensing is a big industry for those who don’t understand it. Let’s start by saying that if you have a brand name, let’s say it’s Coca Cola, coke will license their image. And you’ll see it on products. You know, if you walk into any gift shop, you might see nostalgic Coca Cola posters with Santa Claus. Or you might see the polar bear is a stuffed toy. They don’t make all those products, they licensed them. And people who make products go around and find people who have interesting names that they can logo put their their logos on their products. So a friend of mine does this with prints or not prints but with paintings. So he has a deal with a major licensing firm who sells his license of his images. And they represent him at the big annual licensing conference where people shop for brands for their products. In his case, his paintings go on calendars and mouse pads and coffee mugs and you name it t shirts. He gets a percentage of everything sold. It’s negotiated for him by the firm, and they keep a percentage for doing it for him. And he’s making a few extra thousand dollars a month, which is not so bad. Some years are good. Some years are not good depends on how things do you know, and art styles can be cyclical. But he’s been consistent for about 20 years, getting money every single month from paintings that he could have only sold one time and so this way he gets more money out of his paintings. So I think it’s a good thing but you want to find a professional licensing firm that’s going to be trustworthy. Do it all for you because trying to do this on your own is not a good use of your time these people know their market. Well, I hope this has been helpful. This has been the art marketing minute.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected] And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads explains how “building celebrity” can propel your art career, and how to get better results from your mailing list.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 30 >>>

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads 0:35
Here’s a question from Francis in Dallas. Eric in your book you talk a lot about building celebrity. Isn’t that a bit much I mean, artists are not really celebrities. Well Francis gets your point and I respect it. But consider this a lot of artists become celebrities Some are even national celebrities are gonna think about Norman Rockwell or and Andrew Wyeth are possible Or Salvador Dali. You know, and there are times a lot of people became very famous. I mean even Thomas Kincade became very famous, right? but many are celebrities of sorts just in the art world like there there are a lot of people in the art world who know who Richard Schmidt is, or CW Mundi, or Katherine Stats or Casey Baugh, or Jeremy Lipkin. You know, those people are stars in our world in the world of collectors. So they’re kind of celebrities, right? I think so. People love to associate with celebrities or what they consider to be the best of the best. And when you’re well known, you’re kind of considered the best of the best and that can help your career because you don’t have to explain who you are, or tell your story. It makes everything so much easier. It eliminates friction at the gallery, eliminates friction at sales. I mean, you know, in the art world and you say, Richard Smith, everybody’s going I really know who he is right? I’d love to own one of his paintings. That’s the effect that you want and galleries know it. And people, as a result will pay better prices. Typically, they’ll want to own something of yours because it makes them feel connected to you. And of course, because you’re well known, they respect that even more. And though Yeah, it shouldn’t really be that way. Because we should be known for just the quality of our paintings, but the quality of our paintings helps make us more well known and celebrity, right. So that’s kind of how it works. Anyway, maybe the word celebrities a little too strong, but you could even become a local celebrity or local recognized artist anyway in your community. And you can really build that to your advantage. I know lots and lots of artists who are really well known in their community or their region or their state. And like Rick Wilson, a friend of mine in Indiana, I mean, he he had CW Mundi, really well known around Indiana, Rick’s becoming more and more known CW has been known for a long time. And so in Indiana, they’re even more famous than, than most and yet. courses, some of them are becoming famous or have been famous in the national scene as well. So that’s pretty cool. Anyway, that stuff all helps your career paves an easier path for you to sell more paintings, and get more invitations to events over time get invited into galleries. And it’s worth considering. Now that celebrity is built through a number of ways. And that can be built through marketing, public relations, advertising, in our marketing in a box product, we have a system that kind of teaches people how to do that kind of stuff and how to you know, just get out there and get known, get in front of the right charities and get invited to those things and get highlighted at those things. So that’s anyway, a little touch on Celebrity.

Eric Rhoads 3:39
The next question is from Kimberly, in Chico, California. Kimberly says, I have a mailing list and I’m pretty good about sending things to my list. And I have been for about 10 years. But I’m not getting the kind of response and results that I used to get and I’m not really sure why do you have any ideas? Well, Kimberly first I’ve been to Chico, California. In fact, there’s an old department store, downtown Chico that is now an antique store. At least it was when I was there. And I bought a painting in there for about 20 bucks. Maybe it was even I think it was 10 bucks. It was a kind of an old frame. It’s very dark and had a big tear in it. And of course, everybody just ignored it. And I could kind of see through it and it ended up when I cleaned it up and fixed it. It turned out to be a really beautiful Hudson River school painting. I’m not sure who did it. It’s not signed, it’s probably not worth a lot of money, but it’s worth more than 20 bucks and it’s beautiful. So to get to your question, a couple of things come to mind. The first thing is messaging. Whatever you are sending, has to be wanted or has to be entertaining. And if it’s male or it’s email, it’s got to cut through the clutter, get them to pay attention and needs to be useful and interesting or helpful. So you got to shake it up once in a while. If you have The same stuff, the same format you’ve been sending all the time, you’re not going to get people paying attention. So shake it up, make a difference, change the logo, change the look, make the content different, do some different things to get attention. And that will help people pay more attention to it. I get emails from, oh, gosh, lots of artists who send me their newsletters, and some of them are really great. And I opened them every time and some of them are really boring. And I delete them without opening them. Why? Because I know which ones are great and which ones are boring. And the same people will know that about you. So don’t be boring. So Kimberly, the problem though, is probably not just being boring or maybe not getting attention. The most likely thing has to do with a management of your mail list. And this could be your direct mail list, or your email list. There’s a concept called attrition. Let’s say you have 1000 names on your mail list. And let’s say that each year 10% of those thousand names, which is 100, people will move, die, drop off your list, or maybe not be in the market anymore. Maybe it’s because they have too many paintings and they’re retiring. That could be an average year. So for every year that you have not replaced those hundred names, you’ve lost names. So for instance, over five years, you would have lost 500 people. And you gotta have at least 500 more people on the list just to make the list right. And it’s, it can’t just be people, it’s got to be people who are likely to be buyers. You don’t want non buyers you don’t want people who aren’t interested in art. Yeah, you might be able to convince a few but you want to look for the people that are the closest person to a sale, which is somebody who loves art buys art. Maybe you met him at an art show, that kind of thing. I don’t know if you ever saw my art marketing bootcamp videos, but one of them I talk about, I show this big picture of an elevator and it’s not an elevator and escalator and it’s an up and down, right? There’s one big row going down, there’s one big row going up. And the point is, is that there are always people in and out of the market and in and out of your list. Let’s say somebody inherit some money, you know, Uncle Charlie dies, and they get a few thousand bucks. And they’ve had their eye on something they love for a long time. They get that thousand bucks burn in a hole in their pocket, guess where they’re going to go? They’re going to go out there. That’s why advertising needs to be continuous, not on and off. Because you want to submit ideas about paintings or your products in the eyes of people who are maybe saving themselves. Well, maybe someday maybe they even know they inherited the money but they can’t buy it yet to lawyers send the check. Or maybe they get a better job or they get a bonus or something like that. So that’s people coming into the market. People going out of the market, they retire, they lose a job. They have Have a financial crisis, the stock market crashes and they don’t have any money anymore. And they may never return. Right? So galleries experienced this all the time and galleries know typically that you have to keep advertising because advertising brings new people into your list. And they’re if you’re advertising in the right places, they’re qualified people, right? So anyway, you always have to be mining for new names, not just names, but names of people who love art. And typically people who have the money to buy it, you know, you don’t want to it’s it’s okay to send your newsletter to somebody who doesn’t have the money, but they’re not going to buy anything. So just keep that in mind. Always be looking for new people. And people ask me, should I buy a list? Now typically, not because typically, you want to build your own list, it’s better that way. And there you know, there’s expenses associated with it. But you can be collecting cards and advertising and collecting leads. You want to make sure that everybody who comes to your website has a chance and an incentive. To sign up for your website, that’s really important. Anyway, hope that helps.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected] And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares advice on how to know when your paintings are “good enough” to sell and when to start marketing your art, and tips for building your first website so you can sell your art online.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 28 >>>

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads 0:24
Thank you Jim Kipping. And thank you for joining us today. My goal is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists. So let’s get right to today’s questions. Here’s a question from Janet of Queen, New Mexico. How many paintings that are good enough should I have before I start marketing my art? Well, loaded question, Janet. How do you know if it’s good enough right now, you may think it’s good enough, but somebody else may not. If you’re putting your paintings out there and they’re selling, they’re good enough for somebody. So that’s a good start. So let’s get some experience, let’s do a little show set up in a local restaurant, do some things like that to see. And anytime you do a show you want to have, you know, at least eight or 10 paintings and probably twice as many if you possibly can, I would get expert opinions. Try to get some people who know who are expert artists, gallery owners or others to give you some opinions. Are you ready? and be ready because they might not tell you you are. So you’ve just got to keep practicing, get ready if you’re not. If you want to get into a gallery, of course, you got to have a body of work and they want to see consistency across multiple paintings. You know, you don’t want to have one good painting and you certainly don’t want to take a painting that you did in a workshop with an instructor who worked on it and put that out there because that’s considered a no no. Okay? It’s it may be something you did, but if you didn’t do it entirely, or it’s not an original composition, it will get discovered. Anyway. It’s never too early to start marketing yourself. You know, and you know what i what i mean by that is you can be gathering names. You don’t necessarily have to be advertising it putting yourself out there but you can test the market to some shows and start building a list of interested people. Anytime you get anybody interested, ask for a business card or ask them to give you their email address, you’ll put them on your eventual newsletter and that way you could be building names. So that’s part of what you can do. Alright. Anyway, I think you want to have a fair number of paintings before you get rolling. Probably a dozen is a good number. You don’t want to look empty. If you’re doing a website, you want to have some red dots and sold paintings. That would be nice, too.

Eric Rhoads 2:31
Next question from Sandy in Eldorado, Arkansas, Sandy, welcome to the podcast. She says or he says I don’t know if it’s a he or she. It says I’m looking for a website. Should I go with a company that focuses on building websites for artists? should I look for a shopping cart in my artists website? Should I go with one of these sites that they advertise on TV? Well, Sandy, look, there are a lot of people out there that build websites. It’s become kind of commodity with a lot of people, but there are people out there that do websites just for artists and they offer some tools that kind of make it easier for you. Why not consider one of those? That’s what I would say, you know, it’s not always about how much money you’re going to save. It’s about you know, what’s gonna work well for you. But you have to ask yourself why you want a website. I got an email from some lady the other day and she said, You know, I, I spent some money, I got a website, I put the website up, I had it up for a year, I only had like, 30 visitors and I didn’t sell any paintings. Well, what do you expect? Really? I mean, the reality is that a website is kind of like having your name in the phone book, right? There are millions 10s of millions, probably more than 10s of millions of websites out there. How are you going to get discovered? How are they going to find out about you? What are you going to do to drive them there? So you got to ask yourself, why do you want a website you know, because maybe you could do it on a Facebook page, right? What’s your purpose, if you want to be discovered you can drive them to a lot of different places website or Facebook page or otherwise, but you Really want to ask yourself if I’m going to have a website? What’s my strategy? How am I going to drive people to my website, and that’s what you really want to be thinking about. So I don’t know, you’d probably want to start out and experiment a little bit, see what you can learn. Having a shopping cart. If you’re thinking about selling your artwork online, might be a good idea. shopping carts can be a little bit more expensive, but some of the services offer them but you know, don’t necessarily set high expectations. I know a lot of artists who are on a lot of websites and a lot of them are not selling anything on their websites, a few are, but a lot of them are not and they’re selling at other places or they’re driving people to their websites by advertising to places that have known collectors, you know, like Fine Art Connoisseur magazine or Plein Air magazine. So you might want to consider those things. You know, just get out there and try some things. There’s not necessarily always a right or wrong. There’s also platforms like Etsy and eBay, you know, might be a good way to experiment. But anyway, this may be helpful.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected] And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads explains how to manage your time to fit in both marketing and creating art, and whether or not you should donate art for silent auctions (the answer may surprise you!).

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 27 >>>

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads 0:23
Thank you, Jim Kipping. And thank you for joining us today. My goal is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists. So let’s get right to today’s questions. So here’s a question from K.C. in Alaska, Washington. I hope I got that right. She says coming from a life of entrepreneurial marketing efforts, I have found that marketing becomes time consuming and it interferes with me doing my art. Is it possible to do both marketing and art? Well, how do I manage to do both timewise. Well, that’s a lot loaded question. Is it possible? Yes, there are many, many, many hundreds of probably thousands of artists who do it well. And if you look through art history, some of the painters who became known were really good at marketing. Mastering marketing is a really important thing. How do you manage a time wise? Well, we’ll talk about that. First off, you need to consider that as an artist selling your artwork, you’re really self employed, you’re running a small business. There are thousands of one person small businesses out there. For instance, if you owned, let’s say, a yard service, and you were the only person mowing, well, you’d have to find time to get customers and you’d have to find time to mow and to balance your checkbook and where the other hats about, you know, getting your fuel or whatever else happens to be part of it. It’s really no different for an artist you just need to embrace the business side of your art and set aside some time for it. The reality is most of us can’t paint for eight to 10 hours a day. Anyway, we need a diversion we need a break we need to get our mind away from the painting step away is what they say. Right? So you Use some of that time for marketing. I also think the more time you can spend on marketing, the more you’ll sell, and actually, the less you’ll have to pay. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but the best artists, the most successful artists are the ones who paint fewer paintings and get more money for them, because they’re in such high demand. So if you were to take for instance, 20% of your time, or one day a week, out of a five day week, you would crush it, you would just totally change everything about your life in terms of marketing. Now you got to get up to speed you got to learn marketing, you got to understand it a little bit more sounds like you already do. But your life could change and you’d sell a lot more paintings just by taking 20% of your time. Or maybe just take you know two or three hours every day in between painting times around lunchtime or whatever time you know pick out the times you think are best for your painting. When do you do your best painting have the clearest head for that what are the times when you’re painting is it best and you can use that for your marketing, your planning, your shipping, those kinds of things. Just like painting you need to Give yourself permission to know that marketing takes time. It’s not going to be overnight. But it’s going to be a little overwhelming in the beginning, but just pick one or two things to focus on. Don’t get too overwhelmed. I’ve got a blog on marketing. It’s at art marketing, calm, and it’s free. You can get a lot of ideas there.

Eric Rhoads 3:17
The next question comes from Henry in Washington, it doesn’t say which Washington state or city anyway, from time to time I get requests to donate my art for a silent auction. What are your thoughts on participating in silent auctions? You know, I get this question a lot, Henry. And I always give the same answer. artists don’t like them, because they think they’re not going to get paid for their painting and they think getting a tax deduction is impossible. Although tax laws recently changed, you might be able to deduct more than time and materials No, but consider it an advertising expense. Would you pay a lot of money to get in front of a lot of affluent people who could buy your paintings? Of course you would. So consider this that opportunity. Now you don’t necessary Want to do every silent auction you want to do the ones that have rich people or fluid people, you know people who can spend money, people who are going to spend money fighting over those prizes, but you don’t just give up a painting you always want to look for what can I get in return. So in my book, for instance, I talk about preeminence marketing and how to become preeminent. And to be preeminent means that you’re going to be highlighted, you’re going to have something special. So what I would do is I’d say something like this, just say when they ask you so you know, let’s let’s get on the phone, I want to talk about this. You say Listen, I’m going to give you a really expensive painting, you know, a painting worth a couple thousand dollars or maybe more, and it’s probably gonna be one of the best most sought after prices. But in exchange, I need you to do the following number one, I want you to feature my painting on all of your advertising and marketing postcards website etc. as one of the primary items in the silent auction by painting and my photo needs to be the most prominent and needs to have … my name, and maybe the name of the painting and say that it’s one of the top prizes, and it’s valued at whatever the price happens to be we agree on. Secondly, your signage at the event needs to do the same thing. Number three, I need admission to the event number four. And of course, you need admission so you can work the room number four, I need access to the list of everybody who attended, or preferably even everybody who was invited, and I need the ability to contact those people. Now, if they’re not, if you’re not going to let me do that, then I need to be able to put out a business card bowl and we’ll have a separate prize for another painting. And I’ll collect the business cards and I’ll contact them on my own subtly and tastefully, of course, and since I’m giving you this valuable prize, I also need you to recognize me on stage, just a simple introduction. We’d like our special guests, the artists who donated this top prize, your name to stand up and you know, give a round of applause kind of a thing and maybe read a small you know, paragraph about me. So that that makes it makes sense. This is going to help me because if I’m going to spend a couple hundred thousand, I made a couple hundred thousand. Well, it could be I suppose if I’m going to spend a couple thousand dollars for the painting on you and frames and everything else I need to get something in return. Now what you want to think about there’s 500 wealthy people in that room? Would it be worth a $2,000 painting? You bet it would, of course, you need an immediate plan to follow up with that list, you need a way to make sure that they get your marketing materials or get invited to your website or your studio. And you need to understand that one time of anything is at the answer. So you want to do multiple charity events. And if you do that consistently become a local superstar. We have a whole program in our marketing in the box thing where we talk about how to do this. It’s very powerful anyway, it’s gonna be uncomfortable in the beginning to ask because you’re not used to doing that. But if you want you can have somebody else do it for you to have somebody who can represent you in that case so that you don’t cave in. That’s it. possibility away. I hope it helps. And I hope this marketing minute has been valuable.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected] And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads explains what to do if your art is “taboo” for most galleries and collectors, and why galleries might not give you the names of buyers.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 26 >>>

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads
Thank you Jim Kipping. And thank you for joining us today. My goal is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists. So let’s get right to today’s questions. Here’s one from Lisa See, and I’m not sure where Lisa is from but it says, Eric, I love listening to your podcast and your book is something I dig into every day. It’s full of great practical information. Thank you for that Lisa. As a pastel artists I strive not only to produce the best work possible, but to educate current and potential collectors about this fabulous medium but There’s always a button right? But pastels are still taboo for most galleries. My work is selling and for that I’m grateful. But I am wondering if I’m spinning my wheels and thinking that I can really make more money with this medium. I make it a goal to always talk about what pastels are when a prospective buyer enters my show booth. And I was flattered to have been the first pastel list in the collection of a recent avid collector. I really don’t want to migrate to oils because I’m so passionate about pastels, but I do want to make a living at it as well. I know it’s hard to give advice, but I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on this subject. Lisa? Well, first off, do what you love, paint what you love, follow the medium you love. If you switch to oils and you’re not into oils, then you’re making a career doing something you don’t love. You might as well get a job driving a bus and you wouldn’t love that either. Probably except I don’t want to offend bus drivers who might be doing that but you You need to be focusing on what you love. That answers the question first and foremost. Secondly, if you look at Richard McKinley, I mean, this is a guy who’s made tremendous success selling pastels through galleries. And so I would suggest maybe a phone call to Richard and say, Hey, Richard, how did you do it? And Richard probably face these issues too. But I think it’s an education issue, right? You need to educate people about pastels, whether it’s galleries, whether it’s collectors or otherwise, when you’re in your own, show your own environment, you have the opportunity to be able to educate when you have your life in the hands of somebody else who’s selling your work. And they don’t necessarily believe in pastels, well, you might have a problem there. So I always talk about mindset, right? So the mindset of the gallery has to do with pricing has to do with everything. So if the gallery that’s representing you isn’t into pastels, and they’re going to push oils first, then you need to work on educating them and helping them under And what’s happened with the pastels and how popular they are and how many galleries are selling them. And if they can’t get it, then maybe you need to find somebody who can get it because there are a lot of people out there who do it. This plenty of pastels selling very, very well and selling at great prices. And if you look historically, there’s great pastels in museums. There’s no reason to think pastel is an inferior medium medium at any stretch. I mean, look at Albert handbell. I mean he does oils and pastels like Richard does. But Albert has made a great living as a pastel s. And so I think those days of those old ideas are gone. And though there may be some people clinging to them, I think you can help them through it. I hope that helps, Lisa. All right.

Eric Rhoads
Now, the next question comes from Cindy in Sedona. She says, I want to know the names of the buyers when my gallery sells a painting, but they won’t give them to me. What should I do? Well, whatever Something like that happens. You want to put yourself in their shoes and you want to ask yourself, why are they being so obstinate? Well, there’s probably a reason. For instance, if you were to ask, they’d probably say, Well, I had somebody who I gave the names to, and then they contacted the collectors directly. And they sold them directly, and I didn’t get the commission. And I fired the artist. That’s probably what it sounds like. So they’re a little bit concerned about you stealing from them. So I think the first thing you do is deal with these things up front, when you sign on with a gallery, because you need a contract Anyway, you need an agreement that states things like you’re going to get your paintings back there on consignment, and if they go bankrupt, you have the right to pull them out of the gallery, which you’re going to need for a judge in the event somebody goes bankrupt. So you might as well put in some other things like this in it and deal with it upfront. And they may or may not do it. The other thing is if you’re not dealing with it upfront, you can have a little agreement that you can put together that just says I promise if I hear direct from people who have been in the gallery or have bought paintings from, from the gallery, I will not sell direct. Secondly, I think it’s important to show the gallery why it’s important for you. First off people buy from people they know and they like and if you can develop a relationship, let them see your newsletters, hear the stories of your adventures, see other paintings. And then you can also say in your newsletter, you know, here are the galleries that represent me, or maybe it’s just that one gallery, then you’re doing a good thing. And so you want to get newsletters and things like that in their hands because it’s going to help sell more stuff. And again, they have to feel confident you’re not going to be traded them. Third, I think you need a backup. Lots of galleries have gone out of business, and you’re never going to get the names after they go out of business. And so I think it’s a good idea to say I want the names that as long as they can trust you, it shouldn’t be a problem. But you also want the bond To feel like you care about them to help get connected to you, my gallery sends me the name and address of buyers and asked me to send them a nice note. Now they don’t send me the email phone number which is okay with me. And you can do something more than a note, you can send them a gift box of the note cards with their painting on it, and on the back can say from the collection of and put their name on it. And then you can put your name on it and the name and title of the painting and your website, which means they’re writing notes to their friends promoting you which isn’t a bad thing either. So and you could even say your website or you could say available from XYZ gallery you know, that might make the gallery happier.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected] And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.