PSA For Other Artists…

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abstract art, art, art selling, art success, Artist, artists tips, best selling practices, Colorful Art, how to sell art, how to sell art online, how to sell prints, modern art, print selling, selling art, selling art online, selling prints, sharon cummings, sharon cummings art, successful art business, successful art career, successful artist, successful artists

PSA for this blog means Promoting Sells Art. I am focusing on ONLINE PROMOTION.

Everyday someone says to me, “How do you sell so much art?”….”You sure are lucky!” or “I wish I could (fill in the blank) like you.”

The answer isn’t luck, magic or talent beyond compare. No no no. What you have to do is promote yourself. A LOT. This means being on various social media platforms actually interacting with other human beings. Liking their posts, commenting in a meaningful and sincere way and getting your work out there regularly. In means being grateful and saying “thank you” all day long. It means TIME.

“But I don’t want to waste all of that time on promoting. I just want to create. That’s what makes me happy.”

In a perfect World we would spend all of our extra time slinging paint, clicking that mouse or snapping that picture. But we don’t live in that World. The one we inhabit doesn’t work that way if you want to SELL YOUR ART. If you just want to have fun and don’t care if you ever make a single sale, then you are already set. Read no further.

All others:

Understand that I am a CAREER artist…Not a hobbyist. I don’t look down on people that dabble, do this for fun or just have a side hustle. I don’t look down on anyone. Selling my art is my ENTIRE source of income. So the stakes are high for me. I am willing to sacrifice more of my time than others. But I still manage to have a happy healthy life! I maintain a strong marriage, spend time with my daughter, (with Hubby) take care of a 10 acre homestead with 32 animals, exercise daily, go to church several times a week, read and go to my bookclub, hang out with my friends regularly, travel and visit family, travel for leisure a few times a year, AND create for 4 or 5 hours a day and I also do other things not listed. And I do it ALL without griping about the things that aren’t awesome. My life is REALLY HARD sometimes, but REALLY GOOD too. I am genuinely thankful for every day!!!

There are 24 hours in each day and I sleep for a solid 8. I spend about 3 hours TOTAL per day on Social Media…That leaves me 13 hours to do everything else. Yes 3 hours seems like a lot and I would much rather be CREATING during that time. But the REALITY of actually making SALES dictates more interaction on Social Media….Not just DUMPING posts and running away….But actually communicating with other human beings and cross promoting other artists. That is making me sales, growing my audience and getting me to where I need to be to make consistent sales.

EVERY real job I have ever had since the age of 13 required me to do things I did NOT enjoy doing. EVERY SINGLE ONE! Some required discomfort for many hours a day. Some ALL day long. 3 hours of Social Media time not only seems reasonable to me in light of my previous jobs, but I have found that my ATTITUDE has shifted. I decided to make Social Media enjoyable and that has made ALL the DIFFERENCE! Most of the things we complain about come down to our thoughts and beliefs about them. And thoughts can be changed. Try purposely changing your feelings about something. Force it until it becomes real. Most things are not near as awful as you’ve made them out to be and some can be quite lovely if you let them. Sure, there are days I am pressed for time and have to rush through cross promoting and doing any Social Media work, but overall, I am feeling enriched by the INTERACTIONS. I am making friends and learning more about my collectors. I no longer dread it, but look forward to it!

If you want to learn from an amazing group of artists who actively support each other, you are welcome to visit at the following link.

Learn How To Sell Your Art!

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!