Crafting Your Business--Making $$ as an Artist

You get to spend time creating beautiful work, then someone else sells it for you... Sounds just perfect, doesn't it? :) If only..... :) I sell my books in a local art gallery store, online at Etsy, and at really nice arts & crafts shows. I spend time creating books, but also a lot of time marketing them, too.

I've collected several books that have helped me with the marketing part, so thought I'd share some that might be useful for you, if you are looking for ways to find a wider audience for your work.

My first recommended book is called How to Make Money as an Artist: The 7 Winning Strategies of Successful Fine Artists, by Sean Moore. Whether you are working in fine arts, or some other creative field, this book has lots of useful advice. There are chapters on the basics of marketing (including business cards, news releases, slides and photos, etc.), how to get a gallery, marketing yourself locally, getting into juried shows, cheap or free advertising, and how to make and sell prints of your work.

One thing that's good about this book is that Sean Moore is an artist himself, so he focuses on how to market creatively without spending a bunch of money. I followed some of his advice on crafting press releases, and got two interviews with a local newspaper. That was about a year ago, and I still get calls now and then from people who saved the articles. One of them was from a bookbinder who was retiring. I went to visit him (as I mentioned in an earlier post), and he sold me some georgous leather at a discount. So, marketing does pay off, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly.

This is a good book to have on the shelf--I find myself dipping into it as I have questions, or when I'm trying to find a new angle for marketing my work.

I'll be reviewing more useful books in upcoming posts....