Motivation and marketing

People don't like to admit it, but it does motivate you to make work if you're selling it.

There is a drive in that. (Zoe Benbow)

Chanson d'Amour

http://www.lianneschneiderart.com/DigitalPainting/Florals-and-Macros/i-LHQ6vXX/2/L/chansondamourdesatcl-L.jpg

Continuing the discussion from the other day about different kinds of art sites and the potential for burn out from having to keep up our presence and participation in various online art venues, I thought I’d tackle the other half of the equation – the reason we do all this! As I mentioned, our first priority may not be sales, but I think it’s a bit ludicrous to say, “I’m only in it for the art” when we’re working our rear-ends off trying to market ourselves every which way to Sunday. There probably isn’t one of us who wouldn’t celebrate a sale even if just as an affirmation that what we create appeals to someone besides ourselves.

And we’ve probably all bitten off more than we can chew when it comes to self-promotion. We read blog after blog about how to market ourselves online, how to be more visible to potential buyers. Maybe we even buy packages that promise to show us how to get 10,000 Facebook fans in just weeks. Then…the next blog you read says, “Don’t count on Facebook to sell your art.” More successful friends recommend Google+ or Pinterest and so you do that too.

As artist Dan Turner says, “Too often, artists start down the online art marketing path and quickly find themselves bogged down in “how-to” details. They reach burn-out before they ever get a fundamental marketing plan in place. Trying to connect the dots in a half-baked, half-finished marketing plan is disheartening and counter-productive.” Dan’s written a simple, easy to follow art-marketing primer called, “7 Keys to Selling Art Online.” Best of all – it’s a free e-book download. Remember though, just because Dan makes it look simple with his clear, step-by-step advice, doesn’t mean it isn’t going to take work…lots of work…but at least the end result might be those sales we keep pretending aren’t important. That doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind about why I create in the first place or how I measure my success as an artist…it just means that it would be less than honest of me to suggest I wouldn’t like to sell a few pieces now and then too!

You can get Dan’s free art marketing guide here: http://danturnerfineart.com/dan-turners-7-keys-selling-art-online-free-ebook-artists/  But don’t stop there…he’s got lots of worthwhile advice in his blog too!

Perhaps it's true that as Abigail Brown says, "We cannot judge our art because it does or does not sell." In the ideal world, that's the way it should be. But the real world is more likely to be like this:

A Singular Creation – a different kind of art community

If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist will answer you:

I am here to live out loud.

Emile Zola

Avec Tout Mon Couer

 http://fineartamerica.com/featured/avec-tout-mon-coeur-lianne-schneider.html

Most of my readers probably belong to a number of various art sites they use as a jumping off point for marketing their artwork through social media like Facebook or Google+. There are literally hundreds of such sites though we'd probably agree that only a relative few have the kind of following and membership that make them worth our investment of the time it takes to maintain a presence on any such site. Probably among the best known are Fine Art America, Red Bubble, Saatchi, Imagekind, Society 6, and Blue Canvas as well as multi-purpose sites like Zazzle and Etsy. In every venue, there are expectations of some form of reciprocity for comments or promotion of our work. Most sites have groups or communities to which you can belong but you are probably also expected to participate in group forums, promotions or discussions. In truth, it's easy to get so caught up and then overwhelmed by the rules and expectations that participation in the site becomes burdensome rather than joyful and at the same time, that need to stay caught up on return comments or promotions can rob a person of both the time and the inspiration to create new work with anything meaningful to say.

There's also the reality that if you seriously want to make your artwork a commercially successful venture - that isn't everyone's goal, I know - you have to blog regularly (about which I'm notoriously bad) and participate consistently in following other blogs and in developing a following on Facebook, Twitter, Google + and Pinterest among other social media sites. The "workload" is staggering if you belong to several art sites and all the prominent social media sites. So it is with some hesitation that I'm going to mention one more site to add to the list of places to belong. But let me be totally above board here - I have only just joined myself and the reason I did so was because of this article in ArtProMotivate, a blog I follow that deals with many different topics of concern to today's artists. You'll find the original blog that caught my eye here:
Artpromotivate: ASC – A Singular Creation – Free Online Art Commun...: A Singular Creation (ASC) is a free online art community devoted to providing resources and promotion opportunities for all artists and photographers. (Read the rest of this interview with the founder of A Singular Creation).

But I don't think the interview alone would have gotten me to add one more site to my already long list of often neglected art sites. A look at the home page of this site, however, did convince me that here was something different. Even their terminology is different. The site's creator, Joe Barrouk, says this about his unique site - "A free membership gets them access to our contest and opportunities calendar, forums, ability to enter our monthly showdown competitions, a gallery with unlimited albums and unlimited images, a community profile page and blog. The profile page could act as a website of sorts. It has room for bio, website links, contact info, gallery images, etc. All of the artists forum posts, blog posts and gallery images can be shared on Face Book, Twitter, LinkedIn, Stumble Upon, and many other social networking avenues. My site is definitely evolving into a community of artists that share, learn, teach, promote, critique and discuss." More importantly the site offers monthly contests and showdowns that not only get your work out there but pay money. And there is a quarterly contest with $1000 grand prize. Take a look at the main page and see for yourself where the focus is - on giving the artist opportunities. You can read more about A Singular Creation here:
http://www.asingularcreation.com/

For those of us increasingly frustrated by the expectations of our home art sites/groups and ill at ease with self-promotion on social media sites, A Singular Creation offers not only opportunities for exposure but perhaps more importantly, a chance to grow as artists. The forums are not like those on many sites and there are no "groups" to which one must belong to get seen. But if you have courage, you can submit your work for critique and learn from others with more experience or mastery. Truth is...belonging to all the best art sites in the world means nothing if you allow your creativity to suffocate under the weight of expectations and do not give it room to breathe.