Some time ago, we did this survey thing. The results are in, professionally analyzed, and, well…fascinating. Here’s what we learned about what artists are doing in their business and online.

Lesson #1: Ya’all really care about what’s going on in the art world right now.

This is actually tremendously heartening. We had an astonishingly high 900+ artists take this survey. That’s very impressive. There are lots and lots of artists looking for ways to build their own careers. It tells me the art market is changing and that soon we’ll see lots and lots of artists making a living on their own, instead of it being the exception that it is now.

Lesson #2: You’re Mostly Mature, Smart Women

Either there are far more artists who are women, or men just don’t like taking surveys. The point is, most of the survey respondents are college educated, female, and more than half are 45 – 64 years old.

Lesson #3: There’s A Lot of Fear

The most often cited fears about being an artist are 1) not making enough money to support your self or 2) your art won’t make a difference.

Lesson #4: There’s a lot of Internet usage

Granted, this was a web based survey, but 82% of you said that you use the Internet for art-related activities. Astonishingly, fully 23% of you said that you spent 11  – 20 hours per week on art-related activities. More on why that’s astonishing to me soon.

Lesson #5: Self-delusion.

This might sound harsh, but I think a lot of artists are deluding themselves when it comes to their art business. Fully 32% of artists made less than 10% of their income from their art in 2011, yet more than 27% of artists expect that art will be more than 90% of their income in 2012. Combine that with the fact that 40% of artist websites are irrelevant or out of date, and that 55% of artists say that understanding and choosing the best forms of marketing for themselves is their top challenge as an artist.

Ineffectual Internet Marketing

There were a lot of interesting statistics in the artist survey, but considering the nature of TAA, I’m going to focus on this one.

Last week, I mentioned that some artists get distracted by social media. I’m not wrong. The biggest source that artists cite for online sales is social media. Yet 80% of artists don’t make a living from their art. On top of that, my experience tells me that social media is not a primary sales driver. It works for driving attention and building an audience – but sales requires other/additional tools and activities.

Here are a few things that work in addition to/instead of social media that you might try:

1. Pick up the phone. I know. Scary stuff. But here’s the thing – a few weeks ago, over on the ArtEmpowers forums, one of our members posted that she finally mustered up the courage to call a local store and offer her work wholesale. The store gladly accepted. She’s now working on fulfilling orders for her third store.

2. Build & use an email list. If you are going to continue to operate as an independent artist who sells their own art directly to collectors, you need an email list. I end up coaching a lot of artists who are struggling financially. If there’s one thing that nearly every one of these struggling artists has in common, it’s that they don’t have an email list, or they don’t use it for sales. This might be the single biggest factor in your long term marketing success. If you need help in this area, check out this post on artist newsletters.

3. Improve your website. 40% of artist websites are out of date or irrelevant. This is an easy fix. Put aside some time each week or at least twice a month to update your site with current offerings, shows, and events. If you have an active art business, you will probably have things going on frequently – make sure your website reflects this. This is the starting point. You can then do lots of other things, like making it easier to complete a purchase or navigate through your collections. If you need help with your artist website, I can help.

4. Learn to tell your story. I know many of you are uncomfortable talking about your own work. You might feel sheepish or insecure. Here’s the thing – artists are inherently interesting. Just by the simple act of creating new work and claiming the title, most people will at least be mildly interested in what you do. Learn to talk about your inspiration, why you do what you do, and even how you do it, and you will draw people to you. Use these stories as fodder for blog posts, newsletters, and other marketing materials.

5. Form more business relationships. There are a lot of problems with the contemporary gallery system, but you can learn a lot just by getting to know the local gallery owners in your town, as well as the regular collectors, dealers, and other art world folks. Take them to lunch. Get to know them without trying to sell them on you or your work, and you will learn a lot about how to navigate the art world and what motivates collectors.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be covering more of the interesting tidbits that came from the artist survey. There’s lots there to mine.

In addition, I’d like to hear from you. What has worked for you? What do you do that actually gets you a sale of your art?

image by olaerik

For the last few weeks I have been in creative hibernation mode. I didn’t blog. I was hardly on social media. Some of you may have wondered what I have been up to – and for those of you who care, I’m about to share.

Every so often my creative muse strikes me exceptionally hard and I’m compelled to listen to its call. I was recently given an opportunity to direct a musical here in Portland, Oregon. We’re doing Seussical, which I love. On top of that, I recently premiered my one-man show, Mormon Redneck Thespian. It received a couple of good reviews, and mostly sold out, which I’m thrilled about. So, you see, things are going rather well for me from a creative perspective.

But why should you care? Good question. Let me tell you.

Follow Your Instincts

The Gurus and Experts will all tell you that you should blog regularly. You should email often. You should even Tweet daily and Facebook all of the time. But sometimes, that’s just not true. Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all. There is all sorts of interesting research that shows that creativity sometimes needs room to breathe. It needs silence and a dark place to ruminate. Sometimes the collector or the audience just doesn’t get to see the finished product until it’s actually done – and it’s better that way.

When I was in college I learned that Greek priests used to come on stage before a play and bless the stage, invoking the Gods’ blessing. The Greeks believed (or, at least Plato did) that there was an invisible form that corresponded to the physical; that priests and artists had the ability to make that invisible form manifest.

This ability to make the invisible manifest is what I think of as creativity in its purest form. What some people see as an act of conjuration is simply the artist having the ability to see the invisible object or hear the silent word.

If an artist is constantly distracted and annoyed by social media, or email, or the need to answer phone calls, what happens? Many artists continue to function on a superficial level. They create things because their technique is good. They have a style. They’re working on a series. It’s become rote and easy.

But what about when you’re creating something truly new to yourself? What is that masterpiece that has been sitting inside of you for years? That thing that you occasionally get a glimpse of, but which you never quite make manifest? Perhaps you think, “Oh, I have no idea how I would even do that” or “that’s too expensive to do” or “nobody will like that.”

If you have that thing inside of you, perhaps you need to take the time to unplug, power down, and go off grid for a while. Perhaps your creative energy needs to go away from blog posts and tweets, and into making the unseen seen. Someone is probably waiting to see what you create – wouldn’t it be a shame to never bring it out?

Why Listen to Me?

Sometimes I am amazed at the number of artists who read this blog. I don’t consider myself the world’s foremost authority. I know a few things about art and internet marketing, but a number of artists seem to think that what I write here is valuable, and I’m grateful for that. It’s a gratifying experience, and I’m truly humbled by the artists who write me and thank me for the help. It’s fun see artists start to make a real living from their art.

Sometimes I think – hey, don’t listen to me. You know some pretty amazing stuff about your own art, about the people who buy your art, and how to communicate your story. Go listen to yourself! I think the artists who listen to what I, or any of the gurus, say and then go create their own way forward are the ones who seem to succeed the most.

You can learn about websites and about how to sell art online here – but I hope that if you do learn something at The Abundant Artist, I hope you learn that art is your unique selling point, your creativity is your unfair advantage, and that you have the ability to make your passion into something that is more than just a humdrum existence.

You can be successful, powerful, daring, and dangerous. You can be an artist that people RAVE about. You can be an artist that people emulate. But it starts with believing that you have within you the ability to succeed. Once you have that, all of the other stuff falls into place.

So, gratefully, I have my show. It’s one of those pieces that’s been a long time coming. I’m really excited about it. I’ll share more of it in the near future when I get the recording back.

What Is Calling You?

So, in the mean time, what is your muse calling you to do? What is the thing that keeps pressing on you? How are you going to make it happen?

I met Eugen Oprea inside of the Third Tribe Marketing forum. He’s a sharp guy, and I enrolled in his Web Analytics Blueprint class. I’ve been consulting on websites and search engine marketing for some time, and I learned a bunch from his course. I asked Eugen to write a guest post about this topic because I always have artists asking me how they can stop people from downloading their images illegally. The short answer is that you can’t do it totally, and you certainly can’t do it without crippling peoples’ ability to share your work across the web – but Eugen’s post here can show you exactly how big of a problem it is on your site.

Today’s featured artist is Shannon Henry from Portland, OR. If you know and like Cthulhu, this is hysterical. Otherwise…well, it’s my blog and I can feature what I like.

Having a website is not enough to make money with your business.

I agree that you’ve put some work into building it, but that is just the start of your way to achieving success online.

Once you have an website you need to help people find you, you need to optimize your website and track it’s success.

I am not going to dive into optimizing your articles for search engines right now, but I will tell you more about tracking your success.

The most used tool for tracking success is Google Analytics, which is free and I am sure that you are already using it.

But if you haven’t started to use it yet, go and create an account on the Google Analytics website and then get my Google Analytics course to help you get started.

You can use Google Analytics to track your conversion goals, see how many visitors you have, where they come from, how engaged they are and better understand what they want from your website.

One great way of using Google Analytics as an artist is to help you track the downloads of your images.

Depending on what exactly you want to track, there are a couple of ways to do this:

• Using a “Thank you page”
• Using link tagging

1. Using a “Thank you page”

This method works really well if you send everyone after they download your images to the same thank you page or if you have less than 20 images to track.

That is because you will need to setup a goal for this in Google Analytics and you are allowed to setup a maximum of 20 goals for each website.

In order to create a goal in your Google Analytics account, click on the [Admin] link from the top right hand of the account screen.

But before that, make sure that you use the latest version of Google Analytics by clicking “New Version” from the top of the screen.

Then, once you are in the Settings section of your Google Analytics account, click on [Goals] and then [+ Goal].

From this screen you need to add a name for your goal, select [Active] to activate it and [URL Destination] because this is the goal type that you need to use.

Next, add the URL of your thank you page, but just the part of the URL that is after your domain name.

For example, you need to use ì/thankyou.htmlî if your page is: http://www.mywebsite.com/thankyou.html.

Finally, select as a Match Type, [Exact Match] and add a value for your goal so you can track it in the Google Analytics reports.

To make this more easier, here is an example of how the goal setup should look like:

2. Using link tagging

In case you have lots of images for download/sale and you want to track all of them, you can use a simpler method: tagging your download link/buttons.

You will have to dig a little bit into the HTML code, but if you follow the instructions below, you should be just fine doing it.

This method uses Event Tracking from Google Analytics and you can read the basics about it in this Google Analytics Event Tracking article over at EugenOprea.com

Then, once you get familiar with this method apply it to your links.

Say for example that you have an image available for download that can be accessed with a click at the link below:

<a href=”http://www.theabundantartist.com/my-great-image.png”><img src=”http://www.theabundantartist.com/my-great-image.png”/></a>

In this case, you will need to tag your image like in the example below:

<a href=”http://www.theabundantartist.com/my-great-image.png” onclick=”_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Images', 'Download', 'My Image'])”><img src=”http://www.theabundantartist.com/my-great-image.png”/></a>

If you want to track how many people are Right Clicking on your images to download them, try this:

<a href=”http://www.theabundantartist.com/my-great-image.png” onmouseup=”_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Images', 'Download', 'My Image'])”><img src=”http://www.theabundantartist.com/my-great-image.png”/></a>

If you have a download button that looks like this one:

<input id=”button” class=”btn” name=”download” type=”submit” value=”Download Now!” />

… use the following HTML code:

<input id=”button” class=”btn” name=”download” type=”submit” value=”Download Now!” onclick=”_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Images', 'Button', 'My Image']);”/>

Then, once you apply this to your links, you should be able to access the reports from the [Content] section > [Events] > [Overview] in your Google Analytics account.

From here you can see different metrics for your top events.

You are able to see the total number of events by [Event Category], [Event Action] or [Event Label].

Additionally, you can setup an Event Goal just like in this example.

Takeaways

Essentially you can use this to track the total number of downloads for your images.

But if you will also setup goals for your events (the most important ones), you will be able to see exactly who is sending you traffic that converts into subscribers or customers (or downloaders), what are the websites that send you valuable visitors and where to put more efforts to promote your business.

Analyzing your data can give you powerful insights about your visitors and it’s something that you need to start doing RIGHT NOW.

Your Turn

Now that you know how you can implement this, I would love to see it implemented on your website.

Use the comment section below to link to your downloads page or ask questions if you have any.

Eugen is an online entrepreneur who blogs about Web Analytics, SEO and WordPress at EugenOprea.com. You can get his Google Analytics course for free or check his latest product, the Web Analytics Blueprint. He also shares great content on Twitter.

Painting: Taurus by Karen Mckenzie

This week on TAA we’re providing two short, advanced lessons on displaying and tracking your art online. This first post is from the team at Big Stock Photography. If you’re a painter or sculptor, don’t run away! There’s a big bonus in this one for you as well! Today we’re outlining a couple of really neat plugins for WordPress that will show you how to add dimension and scale to your images online. Enjoy!

Loving what you do for a living is the best way to turn work into fun. Whether you are thinking about selling your art for a full-time living or just to supplement your current work, you should be compensated for your hard work. If you have a passion for art and don’t know where to get started with selling and marketing your artwork, here are some tips and suggestions to get you started:

General tips

Know your market: Most artists would rather just focus on what makes them happy, creating the artwork. However, having a basic business sense will help you connect with the customers that would be interested in your art. Think about the type of people that your art would appeal to and try to promote your work on those markets. If you can, find other artists locally or online that have similar work to yours and see how they are promoting their work.

Create replicas for less: If you are taking photos, painting, sketching, or any other kind of two dimensional art, replicas are a great way to make money off of your art. Invest in some high quality replicas of your art and sell them cheaper than the originals. This will allow you to continue making money off of one piece where as an original by itself is only one sale. I have noticed in the online market, prints tend to sell quickly as opposed to original pieces which can take longer as some people are still uncomfortable with the idea of buying original art online.

Network with local art vendors: While the internet is a great place to market artwork, there are many local coffee shops and art shops that love to carry local artists work. Many small business owners know other entrepreneurs in the area and can be useful connections for future distribution. Include a link to your website on your title cards below your piece directing those interested to more of your work online.

Use email and social media: Social media is a great way for creative people to connect and share their work online. These websites provide a platform to leverage all of your personal and professional relationships to connect with potential buyers. Finding art communities online and staying active among these crowds is a great way to market your brand as well as meet some great friends and contacts in the same industry.

Making it Bigger!

For talented photographers, stock photography is a great way to make money off of your passion. Photography is a unique type of art because you can store the picture digitally and resell it for virtually no extra variable cost per download. Stock photography websites provide a convenient way to connect with customers and set up a stream of residual income since high quality stock photos are in high demand. For those wanting to see the fine details, adding a zoom feature with high resolution photos will do wonders for the presentation of your art online (The DynamicWP team has created a WordPress plugin for just that functionality, which can be downloaded here).

Make it 3-Dimensional!

Since you can’t really download a three dimensional sculpture (yet! I’ve got my eyes on 3d printing), it is important to take high quality photographs with enticing perspectives and lighting to make the viewer feel like they are right in front of the artwork. Retail art shops have the advantage of being able to see and touch three dimensional sculptures. Selling your 3d art online requires that you recreate the experience of seeing the object in real life as much as possible. There are many plugins for your website that will allow you to put a full 360 degree view of your artwork online (One I have used personally as a WordPress plugin was WP Works 360 Degrees Viewer — cost $10).

Have you used zoom and 360 view features like this on your website before? What do you think? Does it enhance and make you more likely to buy?

Adding video and audio content to your artist website is a great way attract new collectors, and to get existing collectors excited about your work. In today’s video, I show you some cheap, easy, and free ways to get multimedia content onto your site.

Why Add Video & Audio?

Several years ago, Google decided that sites that have audio and video content will show up better in search results. What’s more, in some cases, your video might show up as a separate search result, which essentially means you’ll get listed on Google twice! Awesome! In addition to the search results, video content is highly engaging. Websites that have video are more likely to keep people on the page longer and also more likely to convert sales.

What Kind of Audio & Video?

Why, videos about your art of course! Not only about your art, but where it comes from, your inspiration, how to buy the work, and where to find it.

Val from Val’s Art Diary makes some very high quality professional videos of her work and her journey as an artist.

You don’t have to be as professional as Val. Eleatta Diver does a great job of walking through her artist’s journey and explaining her individual pieces here:

Resources

Here is a list of some of the resources that I mention in today’s video.

Recording & Editing Tools:

Audacity – a free tool for recording and editing audio. Exports wav & mp3 files. To export mp3 files you’ll need the lame library.

iMovie – an easy to use video editing tool, you just drag and drop the pieces you want in your movie. Also available for iPad!

Windows Movie Maker – like iMovie, but for Windows.

Website Hosting & Plugins:

Bluehost – Web hosting for your website and audio files (affiliate link). It’s what I use!

WPaudio – great flash-based audio player for WordPress. Easy to use and easy to install – it’s just a plugin!

Youtube.com – the largest video hosting site on the planet.

Vimeo.com – great for hosting long videos with HD quality. They also do a great job with access control, allowing you to specify where videos can be embedded and/or downloaded.

Do you use video to sell your art? Tell us about it in the comments.

Can you believe that I haven’t posted something on Pinterest yet?

Well… Pinterest is new. I’ve been a little bit amused to see guides for selling stuff on Pinterest, since so few people are actually doing it (though it seems like everyone is on Pinterest, with the press they’re getting).

Here’s the thing, there are no best practices for selling art on Pinterest right now. Everyone’s doing their own thing. Pinterest is still figuring out a business model – and they are also dealing with some very real challenges in regards to copyright.

That said, I’ve spent some significant time looking at how artists are driving traffic and interest with Pinterest. In this post, I’ll lay out:

• how I’m seeing artists doing well with Pinterest
• what’s hype and what’s not
• my take on the Pinterest Copyright issues
• who to follow on Pinterest

This will be a living document. I’ll make changes and updates as things progress, so be sure to check back here.

How to Sell Your Art on Pinterest

One of the savviest art marketers on the Internet is Natasha Wescoat. I dig Natasha’s work and her marketing acumen. Natasha recently wrote about Pinterest and here’s how she’s using it to promote her work:

• Use as a digital portfolio of your work. This is head-slappingly obvious, but Pinterest does a great job of showing off our work in a visually appealing way. They beat other social networks on displaying art, hands down.
• Reference Pinboards. I think this is wonderfully savvy. Not only can you keep your inspiration in one place, but collectors can get an idea of what inspires you and make a personal connection.
• Show the progress of your work. Believe it or not, some people are keenly interested in the creative process. They like to see how the sausage is made, so to speak.
• Storyboard ideas. If you like to sketch ideas out before hand and see how they’ll progress, this is great use and allows others to see how things are going to progress.

I’ve seen a number of artists who are doing all of these things and more. Here are my suggestions for additional items to be aware of when using Pinterest:

• Complete your profile. People are going to want to know more about you. Add a link to your artist website as well!
• Pin regularly. Like other social media, it’s best to pin steadily over time, instead of in huge spurts with big gaps in between.
• Add prices! If you sell prints online or other low-price items, then adding a price to your pins will display a banner on the item, letting people know your work is for sale.
• Share other people’s pins as well as your own images. This will bring more attention and help you build community.
• check out http://pinterest.com/source/yoursitehere – this will show you who is pinning your images, and give you a good idea of the kind of work that people are interested in.

Advanced Moves for Pinterest art vets:

• Highlight your collectors. Many artists get pictures of art hung in their collector’s home. Create a board to highlight your collectors – this shows that people are buying your work!
• By the same token, post a board with testimonials from your collectors.
• Create boards for the classes you teach, and use them as supplemental material for your students. Highlight their work as well.
• Offer Pinterest exclusives. Each of your marketing channels should have a reason to connect there. Perhaps a limited print run that’s only displayed on Pinterest.

Want more? Check out Copyblogger’s 56 Ways to Market on Pinterest.

Don’t Buy the Hype

Keep in mind that even though Pinterest has had a meteoric rise to prominence, it’s still a new site and they don’t have a business model. They could go away tomorrow. Don’t invest all of your hope in Pinterest. The smart play is to use Pinterest as a way to drive people to your site and get them on your mailing list or purchasing your art.

Remember that if it’s free, you are the product, and you are building someone else’s business. Your own site is the best place for long term marketing growth.

Copyright Issues

Oh, no! Pinterest might steal my images and make millions of dollars off of them! Artists around the Internet are freaking out over Pinterest potentially stealing their work.

I’m well aware that Pinterest’s terms and conditions state that they can reuse your images for anything that they want. Let’s just assume that they are going to change those soon. Facebook was in the same position a year ago and they changed. Any company that truly tried to make money off of other people’s images like some people think Pinterest is going to would get buried in lawsuits.

Of course there are also issues with the way that Pinterest shares work. If someone re-pins an image, there’s no link back to the original site. This is, of course, a problem. If it’s a big deal for you, watermark your images. If you want to opt-out of Pinterest altogether, then go ahead and implement this code and nobody will be able to pin your images…well sort of. They could still download and upload your images, or just take a screen shot.

Let’s not lose the forest for the trees folks.

Pinterest will get their copyright issues sorted out, or they will go away. It’s that simple. Business just works that way. If you want to wait until Pinterest figures out their new terms and conditions, go ahead, but you’re missing out on the land grab. I have every confidence that Pinterest will do the right thing by their users.

So, in the mean time…

Who to Follow on Pinterest

One of the good folks at Pinterest was kind enough to point me to a list of artists and crafters who are ideal members of their community. These are the people who are pinning regularly and have received a lot of attention from other Pinterest users.

Peter Combe – Painter

Mike Mcdowell – Ceramic Artist

DrawDrawDraw – Artist and Art Lecturer

Mr. Tony Beresford – Graphic Designer

I’d also recommend following:

Michael Ann – crafter (and personal friend)

Cory Huff – The Abundant Artist (that’s me!)

Let’s All Do Pinterest Together

Post your Pinterest profile in the comments below, and I’ll be sure to repin some of your images in the Abundant Artist pinboard. Be sure to follow that pin, and me, and also share the work of your fellow artists!

Also, if you’ve had any success with Pinterest, let us know in the comments. We would love to hear some real-world success stories from artists who have grown their business with Pinterest.

Happy pinning!

Look. Over there on the left of this post and at the bottom. You’ve seen buttons like the ones above on websites all over the place. If you don’t use them, you are part of a rapidly shrinking group.

What is Social Bookmarking/Sharing?

In its simplest form, social bookmarking or sharing is the act of taking a link and putting it on another website for your friends to see.

In addition to the big sites that everybody knows like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, and Stumbleupon, there are hundreds of smaller sites that fit specific niches. Some of these may be interesting to you, depending on your style of art. Here’s a handy list of 125 social bookmarking sites.

How to Promote Art with Social Bookmarking

Really any increase in traffic is a good thing, so adding these buttons to your site will give you an opportunity to have people referred to your site. There are a few things you can do, however, to give your work a better shot at getting in front of the right audience.

Don’t Forget Your Art Gallery on Your Site. You do have your own website right? If you do, are you adding Like, +1, and Tweet buttons to each of your individual images? Each of your pieces of art should have its own page with a description and purchase info, along with these social sharing buttons. Check out How to Make Your Images Found Online.

Promote to the Right Audience. While it’s great to share your art on Deviant Art and Flickr, there are other social bookmarking sites that may be more productive for you. Find some sites where your target collector is hanging out. If your ideal client is 35 – 45, high income, and is really into technology, then Twitter or Digg might be good places. If your target audience is mothers over 40 then you might check out CafeMom.com. There are endless sites that you can specialize in. There are social sites for just about any demographic.

Make the sales pitch. Just by putting these buttons on your site you are making that invitation. You can take that one step further however, by asking your readers to bookmark a blog post or a particular piece of art. You can email friends and ask them to bookmark something for you. You can also ask your followers on Twitter, Facebook, or other popular networks to bookmark your stuff.

Monkey See, Monkey Do. If you are an active contributor in a community, people will begin to know, like, and trust you. They’ll be more likely to retweet, bookmark or Pin your stuff if they know you. Comment on other people’s content. Share really good things you find. As you make friends you’ll see more success.

I don’t have time for this!

Believe me, I understand the need to focus on your work. You can be an active social media participant without too much effort. Schedule 15 – 20 minutes in the morning and again in the afternoon. Don’t let anything distract you. As you do this, you’ll eventually build up a respectable following and see some great traffic to your site. Remember what I said about Facebook? They are sending more traffic out than Google! This is the trend of the Web. This is how information gets shared. If you aren’t participating, you’re missing major opportunities.

Protip: Promote your artist newsletter through social media. You need to get people from the social sites to your list so that you can promote to them regularly.

Update: See our in-depth analysis of Pinterest here.

Do you have any favorite niche networking sites where you’ve had success promoting your art? Let us know in the comments.

Dear Creative Entrepreneur,

The state of the Art World is in tremendous upheaval right now. The Internet has disrupted the gallery-artist-collector dynamic and you may be wondering which direction you should go. Every single day I get emails with questions like:

• Can you really sell art online?
• Should I sell through my website if I have gallery representation?
• Should I sell directly to my fans?
• How do I sell art on Facebook?
• If I sell art directly, will I lose legitimacy in the art world?

Some of you may remember Dan Johnson from RightBrainRockstar.com. He wrote a great guest post here about knowing When It’s Time to Become An Artist. Dan is one of a group of ambitious bloggers who have taken it upon themselves to help the current generation of artists take control of their life and master contemporary creative business.

The problem that Dan, myself, and others have run into is that there is a huge amount of disparity between those few artists who have figured out how to operate on the Internet and those who are still Web newbies. It’s tough for us to know what you need.  A new website? Email instruction? Someone to hold your hand?

Well, Dan, along with Helen from Artonomy.co, have put together a survey.

Click here to take the survey

What is the Enterprising Artist Survey?

It’s a set of questions about artists, how they make a living, and what they’re doing with the Internet.

Why Are We Doing This?

Dan, Helen, and more than a dozen other bloggers, are sponsoring this survey to help the artistic community as a whole better understand:

• how to get more from the Web
• what is the current status of the artist community as it relates to the Internet
• what tools and services to focus on
• the current mindset of artists who are doing well in their career vs. those who are still starving

What Do You Get if You Take the Survey?

All participants get a copy of the survey results if they leave their contact information. This could be immensely valuable in helping you see, first hand, what other artists are doing with their careers. How are they finding success, and how can you do the same?

Every artists who leaves their name will get a mention in a follow up blog post by Dan at RightBrainRockstart.com and…

Any artist who takes the survey and then mentions it on Twitter, and also mentions @agoodhusband (that’s my Twitter handle), will be entered in a contest to win a free 30 minute art marketing consulting session (a $50 value).

Click Here to Go Take the Survey!

When I released the Fight the Monsters contest, I was pleasantly surprised to see how many people participated and how good some of the entries were. I was even more surprised when Mira Reisberg wrote me with this guest blog post. Mira has a Ph.D. in Education with an emphasis on the healing power of art! She is an expert on #ArtMonsters! Here she gives a more clinical analysis of the psychology behind the Monsters that stop us from creating our art.

My art or writing sucks, I’m not good enough, I can’t draw or write my way out of a paper bag.

I’m not smart enough, as successful as, not as popular as, didn’t marry as well as, I’m not creative enough, not talented enough, I don’t know enough. No one likes me, I’m hopeless, I’ll never be any good, I’m a fraud, and people will find out my successful projects were lucky flukes. Everybody else is better than me. I hate this, why even bother trying?

Does any of this sound at all familiar?

This is your “Critical Inner Voice Monster.” Someone, somewhere along your journey, said these words or words like them when you were young and tender and vulnerable, and they lied. The Critical Inner Voice lives to hurt, undermine, and paralyze its poor victims – and that’s everyone – including me and you.

This critical inner voice is very different than the Gently Critiquing Voice – who prompts you to look a little deeper, push a little harder, be a smidgen more objective in analyzing your work, so that you can be the best artist or writer you can be.

Some of the words of the Critical Inner Voice came from your parents, some from your teachers, some from your friends and more from your not-friends, all of whom have internalized them, and passed them on after receiving them themselves from a long line of damaged people. These words serve no purpose other than to dis-empower.

So How Do You Tell the Difference Between the Critical Inner Voice (CIV) and the Gently Critiquing Voice?

Strategies for Addressing the CIV.

Listen to the intent behind the voice, not the sound, but where that voice is coming from. Pay attention to how it makes you feel. Is it helpful or hurtful? Does it make you feel bad? If so, you’ve found the Critical Inner Voice Monster.

Fighting, Befriending, or Distracting Monsters and Dragons

In ancient times, knights in armor and other heroes (ancient times were predominantly patriarchal) went in search of monsters to slay. This was part of their “Hero’s Journey” proving their valor and saving “the damsel”, “the village”, “the virgin,” or whatever.

Each of us has our own dragons and monsters to slay, befriend, or distract. Here are some strategies for dealing with the C. I. V. Monster.

1. Slay the Monster! – This involves developing a ton of self-esteem to the point that the artist or writer has no room in their brain or psyche for the C.I.V. Coming from an emotionally healthy, affirming family, a totally positive school, and experiencing a minimum of trauma is very helpful for this. If this isn’t your story, years of therapy and positive affirmations can be very helpful. While many will not be able to completely get rid of the C.I.V., the following strategies may help.

2. Banish that C.I.V. – Here’s where the power of creative ritual comes in handy. Get the drama out of your life and into your art – whatever form it takes. Paint about it, draw about it, make critical inner voice dolls and destroy them, ridicule it, have creative fun with it and minimize its
power.

3. Become Buddies! – If exorcising doesn’t work, you may need to befriend the Critical Inner Voice Monster. This involves gently talking back to the C.I.V. Gentleness is key as the C.I.V. formed originally from a lack of kindness. Tell the C.I.V. you understand its concerns but they’re really not rooted in the present. Reassure your monster that you’re an adult now, and you won’t tolerate abusive thoughts. Say a whole bunch of positive affirmations to reprogram your brain. In the long run, this can be a very helpful strategy.

4. Monsters Are Distractable – This is easier for artists than it is for writers, because different parts of the brain are used. Artists tend to work from intuitive unconscious places where the verbal language thinking part of the brain is less critical. So, it’s pretty easy to distract the C.I.V. with books on CD, thoughtful radio like NPR that engages that part of the brain, or mindless movie watching that doesn’t require much looking up. In my Hero’s Art Journey course, awesome artist Hugh D’Andrade shares some of his insights into his process of dealing with the Critical Inner Voice. Hugh’s advice is particularly appropriate because his delightfully devilish artwork often includes dragons and monsters.

For my upcoming online e-course “Hero’s Art Journey”, painting monsters or dragons is one of the projects, tied to techniques on dealing with the C.I.V Monster. I share my unholy trinity monster painting of “Fear, Doubt, and Insecurity” and my process in creating it. Now I’ve come to love it so much that it hangs in my living room. Go figure!

Peace & Love,

Mira

Mira Reisberg has a PhD in Education with focii on the healing power of art, cultural studies, and children’s picture books. She left academia 3 years ago and has not looked back, except with relief. Now she teaches meaningful online courses such as the Hero’s Art Journey starting March 5th 2012. Mira is also a children’s book author and illustrator with over 600,000 copies of her books sold and has mentored many now successful students whose books have sold well over a million copies. Look for the Picture Book Academy coming soon, where she will be teaching her first online picture book courses.

At the beginning of February I announced the Fight the Monsters contest. The idea was to get artists to draw out their deepest fears, manifesting them into something that can be dealt with, instead of allowing it to mentally cripple them. The entries were very telling, and very familiar. Who doesn’t recognize the monsters of criticism, fear, and all of their cousins?

I said that I would give prizes to the winners, and I will, but before I do, I want to say this: I think everybody who entered the contest won the prize of getting real about what fears they face, and how they might confront them.

So, without further ado, the winners:

Critical by Leah Jay

From Leah’s comment on the Fight the Monsters contest entry:

“This guy, that critic that stares over your shoulder, worrying that you’ll make a mistake and – what if nobody likes it? What if it’s garbage? Hmmpf. He’s a big ugly monster and difficult to ignore.”

Indeed.

Check out Leah’s work over at LeahJayArt.com, a beautifully done WordPress site.

Leah is the winner of the Monster Coloring Book from the Fluent Self.

Fear Monster by Marie De Mars

From Marie’s comments:

[It comes from] the strangled feeling that always comes with fear. Drawing it out makes me think all I need is a pair of hedge clippers to deal with it!

Hedge clippers indeed! Congratulations Marie! She wins the 3 month membership in ArtEmpowers.Me. Looking forward to seeing you there!

What I Learned From Fight the Monsters

The most obvious thing that stands out to me is that all of the monsters were cartoons or cartoon-ish. They were in the vein of children’s books. The things that hold us back and manipulate our fears are often preying on the part of us that feels small, vulnerable, and innocent. How we deal with those fears is unique for each of us, but taking care of that scared little one is important.

I also learned that there are a lot of artists out there who have secret fears that they are unable to let out. One of the funnest things about drawing out your monster is that it helps you see that so much of what holds you back comes from within. Face your monster, and then put it down!

“This was an excellent contest! I think everyone should complete this task in life, not only artists.” – Alison Quine

The Monsters Live On

I want everyone to feel great about sharing their monsters. and about the fact that many of the monsters were created by very skilled, experienced artists. I would like to thank for them for sharing their work. To that end, I’m arranging for the pieces to be put into a well-crafted poster with quotes from each of the artists who want to participate.

I’m hoping that this poster will be an inspiration to others out there who are afraid of pursuing their dreams, and that they will be inspired to face their fears and realize that they can overcome them and do what it takes.

Thanks for participating, and let everyone know about the monsters!