Shortly after we launched ArtEmpowers.Me, there were a few standout students who immediately went to work overhauling their web presence. Michael Whitlark was one of them. We recently sat down for an extended Skype interview to talk about how Michael has gone from selling 1 piece of art every other month, to now having to raise his prices because he can’t keep up with the demand. Pretty amazing place to be in, right?

Here’s the edited clip of our extended interview.

Here’s his website when he started:

Here’s what it looks like now:

It’s a pretty dramatic difference, but that’s just where the story starts. Below, I’ve outlined what I think are the most important points of Michael’s interview.

Recognize That You Need Help

When he started his website, Michael mentioned that he thought if he just put up a website that people would suddenly start buying his art. We both had a good laugh about that.

So after flailing about for a year, Michael went online and searched for the right resources about selling art online. He found TheAbundantArtist.com and began following the lessons here, and then signed up for ArtEmpowers.Me, where he was immediately able to get instant feedback on his site and his marketing efforts.

Do The Work

Many artists whine about wanting to just spend all of their time in the studio. If you’re going to make a living, it’s just going to require more than that. Period. You’re creating something that people want to buy, but so are hundreds of others. Michael mentioned that he did a lot of homework, looking at other people’s websites and using the ArtEmpowers.Me lessons to turn what he observed into what is not a stunning website.

It has been really fun seeing Michael go out, do some work on his site, then come back and report what he did for more feedback. He iterated quickly, and it paid off in droves.

Offline to Online

Michael not only redesigned his website, but also started hitting art shows hard and putting his work in coffee shops and restaurants. He went to the ArtEmpowers.Me forums and asked other artists for advice on how they approach live events. He got lots of good advice and then went and implemented it.

One of the biggest reasons Michael has gotten to $1,000 in monthly profit so quickly is that he got everyone at the live events to sign up for his email newsletter. From there, he was able to remind them of who he was and where they saw him.

Become an Email Ninja

I was a little bit stunned when Michael told me how he approaches his email newsletters. Not only does he regularly email everybody on his list, but he uses segmentation and A/B testing with Mailchimp.com.

This means that when he puts people into his mailing list, he breaks them up into groups like “people I met at such and such art fair” or “people who saw my stuff at X restaurant.” Then, when he has new work at that restaurant, or he’s going to be at an art fair again, he’ll hit those same people up. He uses Mailchimp’s A/B testing feature to send a small set of emails with one subject line, and then another set of emails with a different one, to see which one gets people opening more. Once he knows that, he can then send the rest of the emails. It’s an advanced strategy that pays off in incremental improvements.

Michael recently got his first direct sale from his mailing list when a previous collector purchased a piece as soon as Michael announced it. Good times.

The Game Changer Calls

Michael is very talented, as you can see from his work. But there are a lot of talented people out there. What has set Michael up for success is his hard work and his desire to get better at what he’s doing.

Part of what got Michael started down this path are the free Game Changer Calls that Melissa Dinwiddie and I put together. In those three calls, Melissa and I talked about what it means to build fulfilling career as an artist, how the Internet has changed the fine art world, and how artists can take advantage of this brave new world.

You can listen to the Game Changer Calls for free here – http://artempowers.me/

So…questions for Michael? Leave them in the comments!

No. Not this guy. He’s way too cute to fight.

But, seriously. There’s still two days to enter the weekend to enter the Fight the Monsters contest! I’m extending the deadline.

Draw, paint, or sculpt your fear. Give it a name and then…watch its power over you disappear.

Two artists, chosen mostly by me, will get prizes!

What Do I Get if I Enter?

First of all, you get the opportunity to define your fears and make them manageable. This is hugely important.

But wouldn’t it be more fun if we did something else too? I’m going to give away a couple of really fun prizes to the best monsters (as totally and completely and arbitrarily defined by me).

• A copy of Havi’s Monster Coloring book. One artist will win a Monster Coloring Book for submitting his/her drawing, gratis. Thanks Havi, for the inspiration!
• 3 Month Membership in ArtEmpowers.Me. The best resource on the Internet for selling art online, Art Empowers is chock full of course materials on selling art online and getting past the starving artist mindset. Plus there’s a super awesome forum for artists to ask questions – and that’s where the extra goodness lies.
• A Special Surprise that I’m not going to tell you about just yet.

So…get crackin! Go introduce us to your monster by posting the image and leaving a comment with a link to your image!

Best Entries so Far

From: The Rogue Toad, the Time Suck Monster

From: Daniel Olivier Argyle, Canvas Clingons

Where’s yours?

There are 1 of 3 reasons why you are not selling your art

1) They do not like you

2) They cannot find you

3) They do not know you exist

Notice that none of the reasons above say: they have no money. If you are an artist and you are struggling to sell your art you may want to really look at some of these reasons above and see if any apply to you.

What if they do not like me?

This is actually the worst reason (it takes courage to admit it), but it can be solved. The fact that your current target audience does not like you is not the end of the world and it does not mean that you have to change who you are completely to get love. But like most relationships in life, you have 2 options:

1) go out and find the people who do like you for you

2) change yourself (re-brand) so that they can identify with you and your work.

Why brand yourself?

Whether or not you go look for a new market, you should still brand yourself. Why should any artist be interested in questions about branding and marketing?
It is a fallacy to believe that a brand is something that only Coca Cola and Pepsi should worry about. As an artist you are your own brand. Whether or not you know it or acknowledge it, you are already a brand.

How many times have you heard people go on and about Picasso only to learn that they have never heard of Cubism? They are clearly not interested in Picasso for his art but they are interested in the air they exude when they talk about Picasso. To talk about Picasso in some circles may give some people an air of intellect or sophistication.

Every brand has a story and you have a choice – let someone write your story for you (because they will eventually) or write your own story. Be sure to tie the story of your brand to your values and ethics.

What if they cannot find me?

Most times we complain that we are not selling anything but the question we should be asking is: can people find what we are selling? Are you underground? Can they find what you are selling really easy or do they really have to search for you?
Does your website tell people in 3 foot letters where and how to find you? Are you posting up posters and handing out flyers when you exhibit or go to a fair? Is your artwork easy to buy online or at fairs? Do you have a way of keeping in touch with customers that bought your most recent work?

What if they do not know I exist?

So maybe your market likes you, some know where to find you but the other half does not know you exist. You need to start thinking about how you reach this half and let them know what makes you unique.
Are you exhibiting at galleries or performing at shows? Have you let gallery owners, performance venues etc know you exist and are looking to exhibit or perform? Do you carry around business cards?

If you are selling your art online is your bio and website easy to find? Are you on twitter or facebook? Is your website the first thing that comes up when someone searches for your name? Are you collaborating with other artists to get your name out there? Are you linking to other artists and doing guest posts?
If you can solve any of the 3 problems, you will have a viable marketing strategy and a plan to sell your art.

Vangile Makwakwa contributed to this post. She is a poet and writer with an MBA and an entrepreneurship certificate from the Simmons School of Management in Boston, MA and a finance honors degree from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Vangile is the founder of Speak 2B Free, a company that promotes poets and storytellers globally by providing them with the tools and resources to market themselves.

So…what is your personal brand?

Note from Cory: I met today’s guest blogger, Laureen Marchand, inside the ArtEmpowers.Me coaching course. Laureen is really taking a leading edge tack to promoting her gallery, and she was proactive enough to suggest this guest post here at TAA. I was excited when she sent this over because … well, it’s really great! There’s a ton of really useful information! If you’ve been wondering how to get into a gallery, this is a really great primer.

You’re an artist. And you know best what should be done with your artwork. You can decide to make it, exhibit it, promote it, reproduce it, sell it if you want to. You’re capable of all this, and all of it is legitimate. No one should tell you otherwise. But knowing you can isn’t the same as having to, or as having to at all times in all circumstances.

I’m an artist. I’ve been making and exhibiting my work for over 25 years.  Since 2009 I’m also a gallery owner. The visitors who come into my Grasslands Gallery are visitors to Grasslands National Park, and they aren’t usually art collectors. Usually they are people who have been happy in this region, for a few days or longer, and they want something to help them remember that feeling. They don’t normally go home and find artists on the Internet; they want to take the immediacy of their experience with them. If you were an artist who met that need, one way you could reach these people is by exhibiting with me. It certainly isn’t the only way. But if you chose this way – the way of showing with a commercial gallery in any specific setting – you might increase your own audience and market. And wouldn’t it be nice if increasing your audience could be satisfactory and rewarding instead of stressful and scary?

The good news is, it can!

“Mom ‘n Me” (pastel on board by Marsha Schuld, gallery artist)

Approaching a Gallery

If you’re looking for a gallery to show your artwork, check out those you are interested in before making an approach.

• Does the gallery exhibit artwork like yours? The chances are pretty good that if a gallery shows work in a particular style or format, that’s its mandate. Check it out. Look at the gallery’s website. Make an appointment to talk to the owner or salesperson and find out what she’s interested in. Or call her or send her an email. If you make miniature portraits in oil and all the artwork on exhibition is large-format abstract acrylics, this gallery may not be the right one for you. I’ve had artists listen apparently carefully to me saying that the art in my gallery in some way must express the Grasslands experience because that is what my customers are looking for, then send me graduation photo portraits or abstractions of florist bouquets. The gallery staff know their market. They are giving you good information. Pay attention to it!
• Does the gallery exhibit artwork by artists at your stage of development? If you are new at your craft and still working out what form you are most interested in, and the gallery you have your heart set on shows senior artists with a pre-existing following, save that gallery for later in your career and look for one that wants to develop new artists.
• Is the gallery actually accepting submissions? Galleries go through different stages just like artists. Sometimes they can take on new people and sometimes they can’t. Find out.
• Do you like this gallery and its staff? If you are lukewarm or unsure, try somewhere else. You have lots of choices. Begin as you mean to go on!
• Does the gallery have a good reputation with other artists? Ask the other artists! Remember though, that personality affects relationship. It’s a good idea to filter what you hear through your knowledge of your own personality and expectations.

“Near 70 Mile” (photograph of Grasslands National Park by Maggi Sliwinski, gallery artist)

Submitting Artwork to a Gallery

Once you’ve established that a gallery is interested in seeing your work, there are a number of ways this can happen. Ask what the gallery prefers. Do the staff want to see your work in person, do they prefer emailed images, do they want you to drop off a disc? Whatever the gallery’s chosen format is, make sure the work you submit shows you off brilliantly.

• Submit your best work. No pieces that didn’t quite turn out or that you’re actually a bit embarrassed about. Sometimes the gallery will see something in an awkward piece that you didn’t, but you can save these for later when the relationship has become one of understanding and trust.
• Show you can develop a theme until it sings. If you demonstrate that you have a real understanding of the way you have chosen to work, you will gain much more respect and attention than if you express more superficial knowledge of several themes and forms.
• How many pieces? Brand new work or some older pieces too? It will vary with the gallery. Do you need to include anything other than artwork, such as a CV or invitations from previous shows? It depends on the gallery. Once again, the best way to find out is to ask.  But if you’re showing artwork to a gallery whose primary purpose is selling, you should show them only pieces for sale now. There isn’t any point in getting the gallery excited about work they can’t have because it belongs to someone else. As far as previous exhibitions go, not every gallery will want to show art that wasn’t saleable somewhere else. Ask them!
• If the gallery prefers you to submit reproductions, make sure these are the best possible. Be fair to your art. No shaky shots taken in bad lighting that you need to explain about. No inaccurate color. No editing to make the art look better than it does in real life. If you aren’t a photographer, hire or find someone who is.

Grasslands Gallery interior

The Business Relationship

The relationship you have with a gallery is like any other relationship. It takes some work to make it grow. If you are going to show with a gallery, there are a few easy steps you can take to make the relationship successful so you can get as much reward from it as possible.

• Discuss everything. Assume nothing. Clarify. Ask questions. This doesn’t need to be done in an aggressive way;  it’s just like finding out if your new friend prefers to go Dutch or wants to take turns picking up the tab – maybe a bit nervous-making, but definitely easier to get right in the first place than fix later.
• If you don’t know what to ask, here are some ideas. Not all of them will fit your particular circumstances. Just pick those that do.

When will the work be shown? Who chooses the work to be shown? Who decides how and where it is to be hung?

Who determines selling price? What is the gallery’s commission on sales? Does the gallery offer discounts, and under what circumstances? How often will you be paid?

Who is responsible for costs associated with framing, shipping, or photography?

How will the gallery promote you and your art? Who is responsible for costs or promotion? Are you expected/allowed to promote yourself also?

• Does the gallery want exclusive rights to your sales? In how big an area? For how long a term? How does any exclusivity agreement apply to artwork for sale by you on your own website?
• Will the gallery provide a contract outlining the answers to these questions? If not, can you write them down and discuss what you’ve written with the gallery, either in person or by email? If not, why not?
• The gallery has responsibilities to you. After all, you produce and provide the artwork that the gallery sells and that allows it to remain in business. The gallery is responsible to make the art available for sale; to promote sales according to its own policies and in your mutual interests; to pay you, in a timely fashion, the portion of selling price the two of you have agreed on; and to follow through on keeping its promises on any other terms you have established together.
• You have responsibilities too. The gallery can help your art reach a larger audience and you a higher income level. If you meet your artistic responsibility in making the business partnership successful it can go on for a long time, benefitting both artist and exhibiting venue. What are your responsibilities? Some ideas:

Honor your commitments.

Deliver artwork and meet deadlines as promised.

If the gallery asks for information or promotional material, such as images for the website, your bio or a story about your artwork or process, provide it, as professionally as you can.

If your concept changes or develops as your career progresses, keep the gallery informed.

If you have new questions or concerns over time, state them. The gallery can’t provide what it doesn’t know you need. Assuming the worst and getting angry, or bad-mouthing the gallery to others, is unprofessional.

• At any juncture you may find out the answers you get aren’t those you were hoping for. This is where you can make discoveries about how much either you or the gallery is able to or wants to compromise.  The decision-making process is called negotiation. Negotiation doesn’t need to be adversarial, and you don’t need to accept or reject every answer you are given. You might be surprised to find out that the gallery is willing to give a little in order to take a little. You might be surprised that you are also.
• However, if you discover that compromise isn’t possible, that the gallery can’t or won’t meet terms very important to you, you can make another decision. You can decide to try another gallery. You don’t need to accept any gallery’s terms if they just don’t work for you. Putting your art in a situation that isn’t appropriate for it or you doesn’t support either the art or your career.  You might feel awkward ending the discussion and walking away, or frustrated that your hopes were encouraged and are now dashed.  It’s still much better to do it now than when you are in a complicated and unproductive relationship you knew from the beginning wasn’t going to work. (Isn’t it funny that relationship advice is the same no matter what the relationship is?)

“Grass Notes: Looking West” (watercolour on paper by Catherine Macaulay, gallery artist)

Persistence and Rejection

All artists experience rejection. Competition for galleries and exhibition spaces is strong, and your first try may not be your first successful one. High-quality artwork may not find its right place immediately, and this may have more to do with circumstance than with the art. If your artwork is rejected, send it out again to a different venue.

However, if you find that your exhibition submissions are rejected repeatedly, it may be time for some reassessment. The following questions may help.

• Are you realistic about what you are looking for?
• Are you approaching galleries that are right for your work?
• Are any images you are submitting to a gallery the best quality possible?
• Is any written work you’re providing clear, concise and understandable?
• Can the galleries or another artistic professional give you some feedback?

Remember that rejection can be very hard to accept, but it is hardly ever meant personally. Some amazing artwork has met with repeated rejection and still become successful – in the artist’s lifetime!

Life Brings Change

There are times when good relationships change, when both parties want something different. It’s no different between galleries and artists. Some changes can be adapted to and some can’t. If the change results from a misunderstanding, then a good first step is to try clearing up the misunderstanding. Ask more questions and try to hear the answers, then decide what you want to do.

But if the change is more permanent – either you or the gallery is going in a direction that means you no longer have the mutual interests you once did, maybe it’s time to move on. When that happens, honor the relationship you’ve had, make your intentions clear, and go where you need to go.

And for all your artistic life, have a wonderful abundant career!

You would never put your art on display somewhere and then never tell anyone it was there right? If you have a website with your art on it, you just might be doing that.

Many artists are under the false assumption that simply by putting their art online that people will see it. Nothing could be further from the truth. You have to let people know about it.

One of the easiest ways to help people find your images is to make sure the search engines pick them up. Google, Yahoo, Bing, and all the others don’t read images very well (though they are getting better). It’s pretty tough for a computer to look at an image and know what it’s about, what kind of emotion it evokes, or even what kind of canvas it’s on. You can make it easier for them, however.

Here are three ways to help your images be found by the search engines, and by extension, the people who might buy your work. The images are all courtesy fans of TheAbundantArtist Facebook page, Facebook.com/TheAbundantArtist.

Better Image Titles

When you take pictures or scan images, digital cameras and scanners default to numbers when saving the images with a title. Then you get file names like Picture 0778698u. When you upload an image to a website that image gets its own digital address (the URL). This one might be http://theabundantartist.com/Picture_0778698u if I left it as the default name.

The problem with this is that search engines read image URLs to get a clue as to what the image is about. So what I did was change the image name to Hand Thrown Porcelain Teapot. Now the Search Engine Sees http://www.theabundantartist.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Hand-Thrown-Porcelain-Teapot.jpg. There is descriptive text in that URL that the search engine can now read. Thanks to Lori Buff for the teapot image.

Alt Attributes

Alt attributes were developed as a way to help web browsers like Firefox or Internet Explorer display text substitutes for images when they couldn’t display the image. Search engines now use Alt Attributes as a another way to find out what the image is about and how relevant the image is to a search.

Your Alt Attributes should be simple and descriptive. For the image to the left here, I labeled the Alt Attributes as “Grateful Oil Painting on Canvas.” You can view Alt Attributes by right clicking on an image and choosing Image Properties.

Common website systems like WordPress or Blogger allow you edit Alt Attributes easily. If you are using something else, then the html tags are:

<img alt="...">

Thanks to Paula Manning Lewis for sharing her painting titled Grateful.

On Page Descriptions

Search Engines like Google have also indicated that they are using on-page elements to find out what an image is about. This is a bonus to you, because it means that telling the story of your painting, sculpture, or whatever actually helps you sell it.

You can put a paragraph-long story on the page where your art appears, talking about your inspiration for the image, what it means, and how it was made. Michael Cullen’s scary tree might have some text like this (note: I’m totally making this up and Michael should feel free to correct me here):

“Shot into the setting sun, then turned dark and menacing as I worked on it on the computer. The image was shot at Hyde Park in Chicago in Spring. I manipulated the shadows using Photoshop, deepening the blacks and dimming the colors. I wanted to evoke a Sleepy Hollow-esque feel from the tree, and the setting sun brings a strong sense of doom.”

All of the bolded words are things that people might search when looking for a picture of a scary tree (don’t actually bold your paragraphs – it’ll look as dumb as it does here). That first sentence was taken directly from Cullen’s page, and then I expanded on it.

Recap

You can’t just place your images on the web and hope that people will find your work. If you are serious about selling your work online then you have to put some more work into it. There are lots of things you can do in addition to what I’ve talked about here, but this is a good start.

Thoughts, questions, and additional tips welcome in the comments.

In this week’s video, we talk about:

• Selling to Your Target Audience
• The Fight the Monsters contest
• What I’ve learned from setting up other artists’ websites

The Personal Patron Connection

Selling to your target audience is one of those phrases that makes many artists cringe. So let’s think about it another way. All you’re doing is finding the people that like your work and forming a relationship with them over time. You can do that over the web via your site, blog, email, or social media. You can do it face to face. You can do it in other ways too.

The point is to get yourself out there and make connections with people so that they know and like your story.

Fight the Monsters

There’s still time to draw or paint your own monster for the Fight the Monsters contest. Entries are due January 27!

What I’ve Learned From Setting Up Other Artists’ Websites

Unfortunately it seems that setting up a website for effective marketing is a Monster for many artists. If that’s the case, you can defeat the monster by getting someone else to do it for you, hiring someone to help you do it, or taking a class to do it.

Successful artpreneurs do a lot of research to find out where they can best position themselves in a market. In a recent interview with superstar artist Matt Leblanc, he talks about how he spent a fair amount of time researching his market to find out what kind of art was out there, who was doing it, how much they were charging, and how much they were selling.

Using this research, Matt was able to position his art at a certain price point that fell right in the sweet spot between various other artists, and he took over an entire local market. You can do the same, and the research isn’t that hard.

Good Artists Copy…

Research is a good foundation for all marketing campaigns. You want to make sure that you are reaching the right people, at the right time, in the right place, especially if you want your art to stand out online. You need to think about who your ideal collectors are, where they spend their time on the internet, what their hobbies are, and even perhaps what their income is. In addition, you’ll want to know what your competition is doing so that you can find opportunities in the online art marketplace. (on a side note, there are so few artists doing a good job of selling their art on the Internet right now, that there are tons of opportunities – tons)

How to Look

There are lots of interesting tools for doing online research. I’ll give you here a run down of some basic tools to get you started.

Finding other artist websites/blogs

- Use the SEO Book Keyword Tool – Aaron Wall has put out an easy to use tool that will show you how popular some artist sites are. This is a good indicator who you should imitate or learn from.

- Google Blog Search – just type in the style of art that you do (as specifically as possible), and you’ll find a host of blogs and artist sites who are in the same genre. Most of them will be really awful. Use them as an example of what not to do, stealing a few examples of designs you like and marketing tactics you like.

- Artist blogrolls – most bloggers have a list of blogs that they read on their their site. Looks for long lists with titles like “blogroll,” “blogs I read,” or “great people.” You’ll start to notice patterns. Who gets listed a lot? Think about why they get listed.

- Twitter Search – Twitter produces 1 Billion Tweets per week! That’s a LOT of real-time data about what’s happening on the Internet and in the real world. People update Twitter from their smartphones all the time. Spend a little time there to see what artists are tweeting about, and who is responding to them. It could be enlightening.

- Google Keyword Tool – Google advertising program, Adwords, provides a free keyword research tool. Use it to see how many people are searching for your style of painting. Be sure to get really specific. “Portrait Art” is way too general. Think “Original Pet Portrait Art,” or “Portrait Artist Portland, Oregon.” The numbers can be enlightening, but don’t let these numbers alone dictate what you do with your work. Even if there’s not a lot of search traffic for it, that doesn’t mean you can’t make a living as an artist doing what you love to do.

- Facebook search – Want to see which artists have large followings online? Look at Facebook Fan Pages. Just do a search on Facebook for the kind of art that you want to do and see who comes up. It might surprise you to see that there are already a bunch of artists who have substantial Facebook followings, and that they are making sales off of those Facebook fans.

Trust Your Muse

Finally, I’ll say that while research is important, the final decision on what to do and how to do it comes down to you as the artist. It’s your work and your life. Artists remake new markets and forge ahead into areas that others can’t see. That’s what makes artists unique and interesting. Once you’ve done your research, set it aside and think about your artistic vision and then do what you know will take you down the right path.

You have the vision.

In this week’s video post, I mentioned that I wanted to change the way that we use words here at The Abundant Artist.

If the words that we used were monsters, what would they look like?

Starving Artist

The world at large continues to talk about Starving Artists. Even close family members of mine ask my wife and I, “How’s the life of the starving artist?” Ahem. We haven’t been starving for years, Aunt Edna. Sorry. You’ll figure it out eventually. This little guy (from MadeByMoxie) is what I think of when you ask me that.

Silly, right? Who would be afraid of this little furry beast? The trick is to substitute words and images for the automatic reactions that we usually have when we hear something.What do YOU think of when you hear the word starving?

The Psychology of Substitution

When I was in acting school, I learned about the concept of Substitution. The basic idea is when you are playing a character who does something that you aren’t familiar with (murder someone, win a Nobel prize, or complete an otherwise extreme action), you can substitute your own profound experiences as a stand in for that emotion, and thus move you to a more convincing performance.

If you are like most of us, the idea of putting your art on display for the world to see can sometimes send you into a terrifying tizzy. You won’t be able to breathe and the though of asking someone to pay for something that you’re unsure of anyway seems like an insurmountable barrier.

If you want to be successful as an artist, then substitute success at something else when you think about your art. Perhaps you won a spelling bee as a child. Perhaps your mother put all of your projects on the fridge at home, no matter what you did. This substitution will pull you out of the paralysis that you’re currently in and allow you to take small steps forward.

Money

It used to be that when I looked at my bank account, I would get a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach. I grew up poor enough that we had ‘adventures’ like living in the car for weeks at a time. I get the scared panicky feeling. The truth is that my experiences growing up created unconscious scripts that I would act from when certain things would happen. It’s easy to make bad decisions when acting from pre-existing scripts that make you more afraid.

The thing about money is that it’s totally neutral. It’s a prop that will do whatever you tell it to do. It took me years to really understand this concept, and I’m still learning how to become more skilled with this prop. Once you understand this concept, you’ll recognize that your financial state is up to you – and that means you can change it and make it work for you, instead of having an adversarial relationship with money.

In other words, money is not this big green monster trying to hurt you or take away your artistic integrity. It’s just a physical (or digital) manifestation of an exchange of value.

Flipping the Script on Money

There are many ways to change your pre-programmed responses. I know because I’ve tried a whole bunch. One of my favorites is Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). My wife and I were introduced to EFT by Carol Tuttle, who you can see in this video.

I practice EFT when I find myself freaking out about money. I also practice before I go on stage to get rid of tension and fear, as well as if I’m having an emotional argument with someone.

Galleries

Quite often I talk to artists who ask me if I can help them get into a gallery. I don’t do that. I help artists build their own businesses and learn how to leverage the power of the Internet. The funny thing is that most of the artists I know who are doing well don’t even have gallery representation. Even if they do, it’s not a significant portion of their income. That’s probably skewed because of the work that I do, but it amuses me nonetheless.

You don’t need a gallery to succeed. Galleries, and gallery owners, are not magical soothsayers with the ability to conjure collectors.

Gallerists = Artistic Partners

When you do place a piece of art in a gallery, you are entering a business relationship with the gallery owner. They become a sales agent on your behalf, and you need to do whatever you can to enable them to make the sale. Deliver on time. Show up for interviews. Offer to do some in-gallery demos, exhibitions, or other public appearances. Write up the story of the work, of your inspiration. Follow up and ask about feedback from gallery visitors. Communicate regularly.

By the same token, be sure to partner with the right people. Do you get along with your gallerist? Does their gallery excite you? Does your art fit there? Do they have good references from other artists? Did you get a contract that stipulates how long they have exclusivity? How will you handle people who visit your website? Will you sell the same pieces in the gallery and on the web? How will the gallery promote you?

What Do Your Monsters Look Like?

You probably have a different take on what the Starving Artist, Money, and Gallery monsters look like. You might have other monsters that you deal with. I take inspiration from Havi and her Monster Coloring book.

I’d love to see your monsters. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be taking entries for The Abundant Artist Monster Contest.

What is it?

The Abundant Artist Monster Contest is a way of encouraging artists to define their monsters (fears), why they fear them, and what is really behind these monsters. Draw, paint, sculpt, photograph, or otherwise manifest your monster in a visible way and share it with us here. At the close of the contest, I’ll pick a few monsters to permanently display on the site as a way of letting other artists know about monsters, and why they don’t need to be afraid.

How Do I Enter?

Leave a comment below with a link to your monster. You can post it on your own blog, Flickr page, Facebook, or whatever, but I need a list of links in one place so that I can see them all. Don’t wanna miss any, after all. Oh, and it would be extra awesome if you decided to mention this contest on your bloggy thingy. Let’s also do a Twitter hashtag – #ArtMonsters

The Deadline for Submissions is January 27, 2011.

What Do I Get if I Enter?

First of all, you get the opportunity to define your fears and make them manageable. This is hugely important.

But wouldn’t it be more fun if we did something else too? I’m going to give away a couple of really fun prizes to the best monsters (as totally and completely and arbitrarily defined by me).

• A copy of Havi’s Monster Coloring book. One artist will win a Monster Coloring Book for submitting his/her drawing, gratis. Thanks Havi, for the inspiration!
• 3 Month Membership in ArtEmpowers.Me. The best resource on the Internet for selling art online, Art Empowers is chock full of course materials on selling art online and getting past the starving artist mindset. Plus there’s a super awesome forum for artists to ask questions – and that’s where the extra goodness lies.
• A Special Surprise that I’m not going to tell you about just yet.

So…get crackin! Go introduce us to your monster!

New thing on The Abundant Artist!

One of the surprising pieces of information from doing a yearly review is that video content is REALLY POPULAR. The few videos that I’ve done on TAA have been found super-helpful. It’s pretty easy to say yes when so many people like the videos so much.

For at least the first few months of 2012, I’m going to add weekly video updates, including visual how-tos, informational expositions, and other helpful stuff. They’ll be short, so it should be easily digestible info.

I NEED YOUR HELP WITH TWO THINGS!

1. What are your least favorite words? One of the most important things that I’ve done in my business life is recognizing the automatic reactions and scripts that run when I hear certain words. For example, it used to be that whenever I heard the phrase ‘personal finances,’ I would panic a little bit and avoid looking at them. These were automatic reactions that were programmed in while I was growing up. I’ve replaced that script by automating most of my savings and bill-paying.

What are your least favorite words? I list a few in today’s video.

2. What should we name these weekly video updates? I have some ideas, but I’d like to hear your creative suggestions. Give me a title you’d love to tell your friends about!

[Note from Cory] Today is a guest post from Dan Johnson. I talk to a LOT of artists who are over 40, 50, or even 60 years old who are just beginning the transition to making a full-time living as an artist. Some of them came to art late in life. Most of them, however, put an art career on hold for years because of family, health, or (mostly) being afraid of giving up the day job.

Dan Johnson is a painter and graphic designer from Sheffield, UK. I found his site, RightBrainRockstar, on Twitter. I joined his mailing list and when I got his email where he talked about jumping out and making the transition from graphic designer to full time artist, I thought about how many artists I know who are in similar situations. Even though Dan is not very old, I think his situation will be familiar to many of you.

As we approach the end of 2011, I think it’s good to think about where you want to be in 2012. Dan, take it away…[/Note]

Have you always wanted to be an artist, but you’re waiting for the right time? Maybe you intend to become an artist when you feel you are good enough, or when you’re in a better financial position, or when your kids have grown up and left home. When will that be? 5 years? 10 years? 20?

Let me tell you, if you’re waiting for the perfect conditions before you can become an artist, you will be waiting a long time. The right time never comes, and there will always be some condition that is not quite right, and you’ll have to wait a bit longer, then a bit longer, and a bit longer still. Before you know it you’ll be retired. Maybe then you can be an artist.

If you don’t feel like waiting that long, then you need to take action now. That doesn’t mean you should necessarily quit your job today, but you definitely need to start taking steps towards your creative career, or it will never happen. Nobody is going to come to you one day and say “Ok, conditions are perfect now, you may be an artist.” What you need to do is accept that there will be obstacles, and then do the best you can to overcome them.

So How Do I Do It?

The fact is I can’t give you a step-by-step guide to making the transition to a creative career, because everyone’s situation is different, so everyone will have different obstacles to overcome.

What I can do is tell you about my own creative journey, and give you some guidelines to point you in the right direction.

Disclaimer: My journey towards the Abundant Artist Lifestyle has only recently begun, so some of you may be way ahead of me here. But I know there will be people reading this who are in the same place I was in a few months ago, so if I can help those people to take the first steps on their creative career path, then that’s good enough for me.

So here are the factors I considered when deciding to become an artist.

Recognizing The Need For Change

The first thing that happened for me, was that the dissatisfaction with my current situation began to outweigh the benefits of having a regular job.

I had been employed as a web designer for around four years, but I had never really been passionate about it. Eventually my dissatisfaction grew to a point where a regular monthly income was not enough for me, and I started to think seriously about making a change.

There will always be voices in the back of your mind telling you you’d be crazy to give up a paying job for the uncertainty of an art career. Those voices never really go away (and some of them are actually the voices of real people.)

But when these doubts start to overwhelm me, I can always rely on 3 simple words to get me focused again: “Life’s too short!”

Life is too short to put off doing what you really know you should be doing. It’s a clichÈ, but it’s true. Steve Jobs used to get up every morning, look in the mirror and ask himself “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer had been “No” for too many days in a row, he knew he needed to change something.

So ask yourself the same question. Maybe it’s time for a change.

Assessing Your Financial Needs

Obviously, we all need enough income to buy food to eat and pay the mortgage, rent, bills etc. so you need to think about how you will make money as an artist.

Personally, I was fortunate enough to have saved up some money to ease me through the transitional period, but not everyone will have this luxury, so you may need to do things differently.

Maybe you already have people lined up waiting for you to put your artwork on sale, or to start taking commissions. If so, that’s great, you can start earning money from your art straight away.

But it’s more likely that you’ll have to build up sales gradually, do some self-promotion, and work hard at finding your target audience and getting your work in front of them. So you may need an additional source of income to begin with, until you are more established.

You could potentially keep your current job, but go part-time, or find another part-time job that is in a more creative field. There are plenty of ways to earn money from your artwork too, so with a bit of hard work you should be able to find a way to support yourself.

When I first left my job, I didn’t fully commit to working as an artist at first. I decided I would work as a freelance web designer, but specializing in building websites for artists. That way I figured I could continue to earn a decent income, while starting to work in the artistic community.

I only did this for a few weeks before I decided now was as good a time as any to put all my efforts into my artwork. So I hung up my web designer hat, and officially declared myself an artist.

Now I’m primarily earning money from art commissions, which I get through my art portfolio site. I have had that site online for several years now, so I already have a decent sized audience who I can sell to.

If you don’t already have one, the best thing you can do to start earning money from your art is to get started creating your own art website.

Assessing Your Ability

Another thing you need in order to succeed as an artist is some level of artistic ability.

That’s not to say that you need to be a master painter with a fine art degree. In fact you don’t really need any formal qualifications to make a living as an artist. But you do need enough skill to produce consistently high quality work, and to have the confidence in your own work to be able to sell it.

If you don’t feel like you’re at that level yet, then you may need to get some more training.

This is why I am currently taking an online course in classical drawing and painting. I have a fair amount of experience in both drawing and painting, but I felt like my lack of any proper instruction was holding me back. I didn’t have the confidence I needed to sell my work, particularly with painting, so I decided to improve my skills.

One important thing to note, is that just because you are still learning, that doesn’t mean that you can’t be earning at the same time. An artists never stops learning. You will never reach a point where you have nothing left to learn, so you don’t need to wait until you are an ‘expert’ before you can make money from your art.

I have sold art in the past that wasn’t as good as the art I sell today, and the art I sell today won’t be as good as the art I sell in 5 years time. We are constantly growing as artists, and that growth will be reflected in your work. But as long as there is someone out there who values your current artwork enough to pay for it, then you can start earning money straight away.

The Right Time Is Now

So that was about the extent of the process I went through to get where I am today. To recap:

• Acknowledge the need to make a change in your current situation.
• Figure out how you will make enough money as an artist.
• Determine whether you need any additional training to increase your confidence.
• Take action!

Sounds pretty simple when you break it down like that, doesn’t it? As I mentioned, everyone’s situation will be different, and there may be other obstacles you will encounter, but this is a good starting point for you to consider today.

There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that says “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

So stop waiting for that mythical ‘right time’, and do something today to get your art career started.