Artists: Are You F.L.E.X.I.B.L.E.?

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art, art for sale, art marketing, artist's resources, artists, best selling practices, career, earning a living, fine art america, flexibility, how to sell art, how to sell art online, income, make money with art, making a living with art, making money with art, online art sales, pod, print on demand, print on demand sites, prints, Redbubble, sell art, sell art smart, sell artwork, selling art, selling art online, sharon cummings, society 6

There was an article released yesterday that has a lot of artists in a panic. You can read the article here:

http://fineartamerica.com/newsletters/five-percent-commissions.html?fb_action_ids=10201203263082635&fb_action_types=og.comments&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

I will summarize it for you to save you some effort.  Fine Art America is warning artists that all other Print On Demand (POD) sites are moving to a percentage business model.  By in large, the new payment to artists will be a mere 5%. That definitely sucks.  Fine Art America claims to be one of the few remaining POD sites that still allows a “set your own price” model.  Some sites like Society 6 do allow us to put in our desired profit for some of their products.  Others are set for us. The same is true for Redbubble.  I agree that it is not ideal, but I find benefit to those two sites nonetheless.

I like Fine Art America and am currently making an amazing income with them. I am making more selling prints through FAA than I ever have for my entire print career.  But what I have learned with online selling is that all good things can come to an end.

So are you flexible?  One thing is constant in online art sales and that is change.  Things WILL change.  Sites that are booming today may go belly up tomorrow.  But there are always new business models to take their place. Years ago I was on a site called Boundless Gallery.  It was the BEST art site going for years and I made a TON of money with them.  It was perfect and all of the best selling artist were very happy.  Then they changed their business model and I saw the end coming.  Instead of bitching and moaning about the inevitable failure of a terrific site, I made sure I was FLEXIBLE and I branched out into new territory.  I tried different things until I found a few ideas that worked.  And those same ideas that worked back then no longer do.  But new ones have taken their place.

I have NEVER been without steady income in spite of things like eBay changing to a model that completely demoralizes artist.  I got off of that horrible site.  Boundless Gallery died a quick death and I survived.  Other sites have come and gone too.  The housing market crashed and I STILL made a great income every single month.

Why?

I remain flexible.  I do not panic and worry about the future.  I simply keep creating and marketing myself.  I focus on the tools that are available to me today and I use the hell out of them!  If new tools are offered in the future, I will use them too.  I will always find a way to get my work out to the people that desire it.  Always.  The selling platform doesn’t matter to me as long as I am willing to market myself.

If Fine Art America changes their current business model to artists disadvantage, it may be that I set up my own print shop in my garage.  I have enough space and enough money to invest in my career.   I’ve been poised for this for the last 3 years.  I already KNOW how to market myself!  Or another site might come along that is even better.  I am ready to bend and adapt.

For now I believe FAA is the best POD site out there.  I hope it STAYS that way!  If you have not tried them, have a look: http://www.fineartamerica.com

As an artist, I implore you to constantly be willing to change.  Do not stay stuck in “one way” mentality as it will be your downfall.  There is so much out there for us!

3 P’s – The Art Of Selling Art

Tags

art, art career, art selling, Artist, artwork, career, creativity, facebook, google +, google plus, hard work, how to promote your art, how to sell art, how to sell prints, learning, original art, patience, perseverance, photographers, photography, pinterest, practice, print selling, prints, promoting, self promotion, self representing artist, selling art, sharon cummings, skills, social media, strength, stumbleupon, twitter

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/inner-strength-abstract-painting-by-sharon-cummings-sharon-cummings.html

If you are an artist or photographer who has a dream of making a career out of your craft, you will need three things:  practice, promotion and patience.  And you will need them exactly in that order.

Practice means that you will be painting a lot of paintings.  Many will be thrown right in the trash because they just didn’t work out.  Photographers will be taking many photos in a single shoot only to find that none of them work or if you are lucky one is good enough to list for sale.  You will try new things that will either be total flops or lead you to something really cool and interesting.  You will invest money that seemingly never pays off.  These days I sell about 5 prints a day on average from the various POD sites I am on and about 2 originals per week. The majority of what I am selling now is work I have created in the last year.  Since I have been selling my art professionally for over 10 years this means that I am a much better artist today than I was back then.  I have removed 100’s of images from my portfolios because as I practice and improve, I realize they aren’t my best work anymore.  If you have just started creating photography or any kind of artwork within the last 2 years, I guarantee you that you need a lot more practice before your work will sell really well.  If you look at the famous creatives most of them never sold early work while they were producing it and many never made a dime from it at all…money was only made after they were dead.  In the Internet age we have so many opportunities that they never had.  So keep creating regularly.  The more you produce the better you will become and eventually sales will start rolling in.  Babies do not come out walking and neither do artists.  We crawl first.

While you are busy perfecting your art, there is a key ingredient to success that cannot be overlooked.  Much like creatives of yesteryear we have to have someone believe in us and “get us out there” in order for our work to sell.  For them it was luck and chance by being discovered by the right person at the right time.  These days that someone is ourselves.  You must believe in your work and be willing to share it with the World.  Social Media provides us with instant access to millions of people from the comfort of our own studio computer, laptop or phone.  We can connect to a mind boggling amount of followers with a few clicks.  As an artist or photographer who lists on online galleries, if you are not using ALL of the FREE social media sites available to us, you are completely missing the boat.  This post would be way too long for me to delve into all of the ins and outs of Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, etc. but there are tons of free resources online to get you started.  Check out the link to my social media in my blog and see what I am doing.

Once you have the discipline to create new work on a regular basis and you are willing to put in some hard work promoting yourself what you are left with is time. It takes time to become successful.  Patience will be your best friend for awhile.  A year ago today I was only selling about 1 print a week and 2 years ago only 1 a month!  Now it is 5 a day!  But that did not happen overnight.  It took about 2 years to get moved up in searches and it took about 6 more months of creating new and better art than I was used to producing and HEAVY social media promoting to see the magic start.  And I am still learning and improving myself.

Not everyone is cut out for the kind of hard work and perseverance that an art career requires. But if you can commit to at least 3 years of constant creativity and as much promotion as time will allow, you can definitely find your market and succeed!

3 P’s – The Art Of Selling Art

Tags

art, art career, art selling, Artist, artwork, career, creativity, facebook, google +, google plus, hard work, how to promote your art, how to sell art, how to sell prints, learning, original art, patience, perseverance, photographers, photography, pinterest, practice, print selling, prints, promoting, self promotion, self representing artist, selling art, sharon cummings, skills, social media, strength, stumbleupon, twitter

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/inner-strength-abstract-painting-by-sharon-cummings-sharon-cummings.html

If you are an artist or photographer who has a dream of making a career out of your craft, you will need three things:  practice, promotion and patience.  And you will need them exactly in that order.

Practice means that you will be painting a lot of paintings.  Many will be thrown right in the trash because they just didn’t work out.  Photographers will be taking many photos in a single shoot only to find that none of them work or if you are lucky one is good enough to list for sale.  You will try new things that will either be total flops or lead you to something really cool and interesting.  You will invest money that seemingly never pays off.  These days I sell about 5 prints a day on average from the various POD sites I am on and about 2 originals per week. The majority of what I am selling now is work I have created in the last year.  Since I have been selling my art professionally for over 10 years this means that I am a much better artist today than I was back then.  I have removed 100’s of images from my portfolios because as I practice and improve, I realize they aren’t my best work anymore.  If you have just started creating photography or any kind of artwork within the last 2 years, I guarantee you that you need a lot more practice before your work will sell really well.  If you look at the famous creatives most of them never sold early work while they were producing it and many never made a dime from it at all…money was only made after they were dead.  In the Internet age we have so many opportunities that they never had.  So keep creating regularly.  The more you produce the better you will become and eventually sales will start rolling in.  Babies do not come out walking and neither do artists.  We crawl first.

While you are busy perfecting your art, there is a key ingredient to success that cannot be overlooked.  Much like creatives of yesteryear we have to have someone believe in us and “get us out there” in order for our work to sell.  For them it was luck and chance by being discovered by the right person at the right time.  These days that someone is ourselves.  You must believe in your work and be willing to share it with the World.  Social Media provides us with instant access to millions of people from the comfort of our own studio computer, laptop or phone.  We can connect to a mind boggling amount of followers with a few clicks.  As an artist or photographer who lists on online galleries, if you are not using ALL of the FREE social media sites available to us, you are completely missing the boat.  This post would be way too long for me to delve into all of the ins and outs of Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, etc. but there are tons of free resources online to get you started.  Check out the link to my social media in my blog and see what I am doing.

Once you have the discipline to create new work on a regular basis and you are willing to put in some hard work promoting yourself what you are left with is time. It takes time to become successful.  Patience will be your best friend for awhile.  A year ago today I was only selling about 1 print a week and 2 years ago only 1 a month!  Now it is 5 a day!  But that did not happen overnight.  It took about 2 years to get moved up in searches and it took about 6 more months of creating new and better art than I was used to producing and HEAVY social media promoting to see the magic start.  And I am still learning and improving myself.

Not everyone is cut out for the kind of hard work and perseverance that an art career requires. But if you can commit to at least 3 years of constant creativity and as much promotion as time will allow, you can definitely find your market and succeed!