When Selling Your Artwork Feels Yucky

Most artists I know feel that selling your artwork feels yucky. The idea of being a professional artist has long been romanticized. The image of the lone artist tucked away in the basement creating brilliant artworks couldn’t be farther from the truth…as far as successful artists go anyway.

Why not?

Many artists find the issue of selling your artwork as sleazy. (Photo Credit: 123RF.com Image ID: 106194127 Copyright: carlosdavidorg)

Well, being a successful artist requires that you wear a number of different hats. These are hats we as artists don’t like to wear. Marketer, manager, accountant, shipping clerk, and these days…social media guru.

There are two main reasons why we dread putting ourselves in those positions.

First of all, nearly all the artists that I know feel completely uncomfortable when selling their work. Selling your artwork feels yucky and has been likened to everything sleazy, from used car salesman to prostitution. I’ve heard some say they’d feel like a sellout. I never understood that last one. Personally, I didn’t mind if someone saw my work and wanted to pay for it. I just didn’t like putting a price on the work. But the active role of marketing? No thank you.

Secondly, every single one of those hats mentioned above requires time. Actually selling your artwork requires time away from the easel, drawing board, computer, etc. Even so, each one of those things is absolutely essential to your art business.

Think about it.

Imagine hiding away in your studio space creating hundreds of masterpieces, but that’s all you do. If all you do is paint, how are you going to show people (potential buyers and collectors) these masterpieces you’re creating? If all you’re doing is drawing, who’s going to put images of your work out there to attract a following? Who will price your work and market it for you? Who’s going to pack up and ship the work you sell?

Hire an agent?

You don’t really want to part with your money, do you? Most artists I know don’t just have extra money lying around…especially if all they’re doing is painting and not handling any of the other stuff. No marketing, no sales, right? No sales, no money to hire anyone.

Look, I get it…this is the part that feels yucky and sleazy. For years I thought parting with my money to have someone else handle the yucky part was worth it. Artists by nature hate sales. Unfortunately, that mentality is what leads to the “starving artist” stereotype. It’s yucky, but it’s necessary if you want to succeed. Otherwise, any chance of selling your artwork takes a serious hit.

So, what’s an artist to do? Are you supposed to do everything yourself?

In most cases, the simple answer is…yes. You do all the things because it’s your business. That’s part of being an entrepreneur just starting off. These days technology offers some avenues that can take some of the pressure off.

Let’s start with an easy one…social media.

Social media make things much simpler when it comes to sharing and selling your artwork. (Photo Credit: 123RF.com Image ID: 36459761 Copyright: tashka2000)

You don’t necessarily have to be on social media 24/7 yourself. Friends, siblings, nieces or nephews. Make them an admin on your page. Kids these days somehow manage to gain thousands of followers overnight. Finish a piece, take a well-lit, focused picture with your phone and send it to them. Have them do the upload, caption, hashtags, etc. Followers also love progress pics, pics of you at work, studio pics, pics of new supplies, etc. The only thing you would have to do is answer comments or private messages. This is important. Some of them might be requesting work. Plus, you never know. With the right hashtags and number of followers, you might have some art supply companies contacting you to do reviews for them, which generally means they’re sending you sets of supplies and new products in exchange for the review and exposure.

Or, if you don’t have a recruit to handle your social media, you can always use a scheduling app. This allows you to schedule your posts ahead of time. Some are limited to a couple weeks ahead, but some like Hootsuite allow you to go farther out. The free version limits you to 30 scheduled posts per month.

Another avenue is Patreon. It’s not really social media, but I mention it here because it’s only ever really successful for you if you already have a substantial social media, in particular, YouTube following. This is a nifty site where you gather patrons as followers. In other words, these are people who pay you to create art. In exchange, you give them things depending on how big of a patron they are (they can sign up for different tiers). You can give them things like access to how-to videos, prints of your work, downloadable stuff, etc. This may be an avenue you work towards a little at a time.

What about pricing your work?

Pricing your artwork is really up to you. Personally, selling your artwork is yucky primarily for this aspect. This is the part that really made me the most uncomfortable. But it’s really not that difficult. Take an hour or two and research other artists who are producing similar work and check out their prices. In my own case, I found six artists who also produced graphite animal portraits and took the average price for each drawing size and bingo! I had my own set of prices. Every once in awhile I check to make sure I’m still in the ballpark and that my rates remain competitive.

Another thought on marketing…

This is the second reason why selling your artwork feels yucky. Most artists hate selling. However, there are a number of gallery sites that allow you the option to post your work for free. They will even handle the print on demand part, offer a number of canvases (posters, t-shirts, tote bags, cell phone cases, etc.). They also handle the shipping and handling. Sounds great, right? Takes all the worry off of your hands.

Not so fast there, partner!

Yes, all of that is great, but you’re back at the marketing part. Those sites only host your work and take orders. They don’t market your work for you. If no one knows your work is there, how will they know where to buy it? You still have to do the marketing to get people over there. Again, social media makes putting the word out much easier than 10 or 20 years ago, but it has to be consistent advertising.

Selling your artwork online or otherwise requires…well, selling! Let people know where to find your work. (Photo Credit: 123RF.com Image ID: 19980961 Copyright: yarruta)

The trick is to consistently (as often as possible) post your work or progress pics on social media. But refrain from posting about sales every day or you’ll lose followers who feel you’re being spammy. Try limiting sales posts to a certain day of the week. If you have a YouTube channel, podcast, blog, etc., you can also advertise there.

A word of caution…do your research with these gallery sites. Check out the reviews in regard to print quality, shipping time, returns, etc. Yes, they’re the ones doing the work but it’s your name on the print, right? And pay attention to whether or not they apply sale prices without your knowledge. Yes, some companies will have holiday sales and such and that means your work goes on sale too whether you like that idea or not. So, make sure to do your homework first.

Accounting

As far as accounting goes, I would hope you’d be on top of this one yourself. It is your money after all, right? Do you buy supplies, sell artwork, and hope and pray it all balances out at the end of the month? Or do you balance it to the penny? Remember, it costs money just to exist. Rent, groceries, utility bills, etc. But then you tack on art supplies…canvases, paper, paints, pens, markers, pencils, or whatever else you use. And let’s face it, a lot of quality art supplies aren’t cheap!

One way to lose customers fast is if word gets around that you’re using substandard art supplies that fade, fall apart, or crumble with age. And if you think you can get someone else to handle this for you, keep in mind the number of people who were ripped off when their “accountant” started embezzling money. Of course, they’re not all crooks, but you take that chance by not handling it yourself. And if you’re just getting started, you probably don’t have enough cash to hire one anyway.

You’ll also want to keep your receipts in a file or shoebox somewhere of the art supplies, shipping materials, etc. that you purchased. If you get to the point where you can claim your art sales as a small business, these receipts can help you to claim tax write-offs. Be organized. Learn how to budget yourself. It’s an invaluable lesson.

In conclusion…

In a previous post, So You Want to Be and Artist?, I basically said, “if you want to be an artist then just be one!” You don’t need a studio full of supplies. Just start with whatever you have, even if it’s a simple pencil or a Bic pen. Being an artist is about creating. But as we’ve just discussed, there’s so much more to being a successful artist than just hiding away from the world creating countless unseen works of art. Yes. Selling your artwork feels yucky. It’s true. But it’s a necessary evil if you want to survive as an artist.

Most artists I know do the majority of all the other things themselves. It might take some effort initially, but once you get a system down, it should run pretty smoothly and only require tweaking occasionally. In most cases, they schedule a day of the week to handle certain tasks and another day of the month to handle bigger things. For example, I use the once a month method for scheduling social media posts, scheduling an entire month at a time. You might come up with something similar. Whatever you choose to do is entirely up to you. But hopefully, this will help alleviate some of the yuckiness when it comes to selling your artwork.

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