Today's Post is by Lori Woodward, Regular contributing writer for FineArtViews. She is also a contributing editor for American Artist's Watercolor and Workshop magazines and she writes "The Artist's Life" blog on American Artists' Forum. Lori is a member of The Putney Painters, an invitational group that paints under the direction of Richard Schmid and Nancy Guzik.  Find out how you can be a guest author. 

Make Art and Sell It - The Artist's Biz Plan in a Nutshell

In an earlier blog post concerning artists' business plans, I talked about projecting the costs of supplies, travel, and typical expenses for professional artists. Today, I'd like to delve into the heart of writing up a plan that's specific to artists. This is easy because artists' plans are not terribly complicated. For most of us, we have little in the way of overhead expenses, and we usually don't hire employees. We are sole proprietors with two goals: Make Art, Sell Art.

For most of us, the "Make Art" part is easier to figure out. It's the "Sell Art" that usually requires planning. If you're already selling 75% of the art that you produce, then you might not even need a business plan this year. Just go with what you're already doing. However, if you're wanting to sell more art or you're just getting started, you'd do well to take a good look at how to increase your income.

The Essential Items:

#1: Get as good as you can get while developing your own style. We've talked about this in previous blogs, so no need to go into that here. Paint often, use the best supplies, and constantly strive to bring your work to the next level.

#2: More artwork means more work to sell. Last week, I was talking to a former student who just had a feature article in a major art collecting magazine. He relayed that in order to double his income in the next year, he needs to increase his production (while maintaining and increasing quality). His price range is pretty well set for now, so the only way to "give himself a raise" is to increase the number of paintings he has for sale.

#3: This leads me to the next major issue when making a plan. Accurate pricing. Earlier this year, I blogged about how to price artwork, so go back and read those posts for more information.

#4: Getting the Attention of Collectors. Working with a gallery that has a great roster of loyal collectors is perhaps still one of the best ways to get your work seen and sold. If you can get into a gallery that has great art sales, then that will leave you more time to paint -- letting the gallery do some of the marketing.

The least expensive way to get the attention of collectors is to win or place in national art competitions. Some artists have invested in major art advertising campaigns - this is perhaps the most expensive way to get noticed, but it's risky - A big ad for mediocre art can backfire. It happened to me. I took on expensive ads 10 years ago, and my work wasn't ready. Again, better to test your work in a few competitions. If you place repeatedly, then ads make sense. Also, if you're selling well regionally, but want to get into the national market, advertising can take you to those collectors. I've known of 2 artists who were selling very well locally, and when they advertised for a year repeatedly in one publication, the galleries came calling.

A side note here: I don't often place as a finalist in national competitions, but my work has regularly gotten into shows I've entered. I've had no trouble finding collectors for my work, and have been represented through a number of galleries. So, even if you continually make the top 15% of the Fine Art Views' competition, that may be proof enough that your work is sufficiently good to attract collectors.

#5: Non gallery sales: One does not have to work with a top gallery to make a good living with art. There are "daily painters" online venues, outdoors shows, studio shows, selling from your website via email newsletter, etc. Try to stay away from online venues that show thousands of artists' works - especially those who just require you to pay a fee. These use artists to make money but give nothing in return other than showing your work online (without any marketing effort). Collectors don't want to dig through thousands of images in order to find art they like.

The smaller the group and harder it is to get in, the better your sales will be. One group that sells in Peterborough NH, The Left Bank Artist Group holds shows annually. No one needed to give them permission to set themselves up as a group - they just did it, but it's a small group of locally established artists, and their small size and regular shows attract the attention of local collectors.

#6: A Website: Last but not least, professional artists need to have websites that are updated often with fresh images. Today, collectors expect artists to have websites. In fact, if you don't have one, you won't look professional. Yep, a few artists who work exclusively with galleries choose to skip this step, but I still think that artists do best to have their own site where they can maintain their interested clients. Who knows whether the galleries they're working with will be there in 10 years. Collectors want a way to correspond with the artists they collect, and see what's new without having to visit several gallery sites.

So there ya have it. But remember, your dynamite body of work proceeds sales, so get busy - get good and get sales!