Let’s Make Acquiring Art Marketing Skills Affordable. I’ve been active in the art business since 1988. In 2005, I published my first book, How to Profit from the Art Print Market, and five more came in subsequent years. That same year I launched this free weekly Art Marketing News blog. I’ve also created more than a dozen courses on art marketing and dozens more hour-long YouTube art marketing training videos.
I am also the founder and creator of the Art Marketing Toolkit Project (AMTP) and OlderArtists.com, a fast-growing Facebook group that celebrates artists of a certain age and their art. There’s more I’ve done, but I trust it’s enough to give you the drift that my interest in helping artists is genuine.
There’s More to Success than Money
If you were to call me a content creation machine, I would agree. Coming up with valuable concepts to help artists learn the business and sell art and cranking out the content to support those ideas is what I do. And I’ve gotten pretty good at it, by my estimation.
While accomplishments such as those mentioned are apparent to anyone who researches me, a less well-known factor makes me proud. All the hard work and devotion to creating projects, writing blog posts and books have never been about the money. That is, profiteering off artists is not now and never was my motivation.
Giving Art Marketing Skills Away with Joy and Pleasure
I’ve written several million words with advice on selling art and conducting a successful art business. More than 90% of my content is free, and the paid parts are always affordable.
I do create to earn an income, of course. But that’s different than creating content to sell to artists at the highest prices I could charge. It’s not how I roll, and the older I get, the more I feel this way.
Cost Is Relative and You Are the Judge
I know there are expensive courses out there and don’t know enough about any of them to make a value judgment on whether they represent a fair deal or an overpriced money grab. Your peers can help you make that distinction far better than me.
Pricing my art marketing services and information to be affordable was not a particularly conscious decision. It was more instinctive. That is, I priced according to what felt right to me. I think many artists do the same. They can see other artists pricing similar works at much higher prices, so they know it is possible, but they choose to keep their costs lower.
Some would call such decision-making a folly—throwing good money away for bad reasons. I don’t see it this way. Sometimes artists hold prices down because they are insecure about themselves as artists or in the actual value of their work. However, I think artists’ prices are lower just as often because that’s how they feel they should be.
Trust Your Gut Is Often the Best Decision
There is nothing wrong with following your gut instincts. When you get down to it, being instinctual is what making art is about. It follows that using intuition and innate smarts to price art accordingly is usually a good thing. Could you make more money with higher prices? Sure you could. But if that were the case, that’s what you would be doing already.
I’ve been fortunate since the outset to have an international following of artists. The global village concept is in full bloom in the area of learning art marketing skills. Firsthand experience with artists from other nations humbles me in many ways. That’s because the struggles of international artists are nearly always greater than their North American counterparts. Everything is harder and, by comparison, more expensive.
It Must Be Simple or Find Another Way
I’ve come to the point where I want things to be as simple as possible in my life and business. That’s why I shuttered all but two courses, Personal Storytelling for Artists and How to Price Art, to concentrate on the Art Marketing Toolkit Project (AMTP).
My goal with the AMTP was to consolidate all the knowledge from my books, courses, and blog posts into a single ongoing course. That would make things simple for artists and me.
No Artists Should Be Left Behind
And I decided to simplify pricing AMTP membership at $4.99 per month with no contract because I believe no artists should be left behind, especially for international artists dealing with lower incomes and often unfavorable currency exchanges.
When I think about how I came to that price, I realized there is a correlation with how artists choose to price their work. They want and should be paid fairly for what they make, but most are not interested in pushing the highest prices possible because it cuts against their humanity. They will take a little less and make their work affordable to more as a result.
Although that is not what I thought when I priced the AMTP, my sentiments and gut feelings aligned with how I see many artists pricing their work, I don’t want to work for free, and like most of you, I never would. But knowing my pricing makes AMTP membership attainable for virtually all artists is worth more than money.
Price and Quality Are Not Always Equal
We all like a bargain and feel good when we get them. Most who sell things like it when we please a customer with a price that shocks them in a good way. We can feel and share their joy. The boost is not in the bank account; it’s in the spirit and psyche. The money will deplete, but the joyous sensation of helping another human never goes away.
The AMTP Provides Exhaustive Art Marketing Skills Training
This list of workbooks available to all AMTP members is an example that shows the comprehensiveness of the content they receive.
Chapter One: What Is Art Marketing? Chapter Two: Goals, Dreams & Vision Chapter Three: Assessing Your Resources Chapter Four: Making Art That Sells Chapter Five: Truth about When Most People Buy ArtMarketing Tools How Art Marketing Tools Help to Sell Art 7 Essential Art Marketing Tools How to Use a Lead Magnet to Grow Your Email List Chapter Six: Why You Need a Customer Avatar and How to Create OneChapter Seven: The Power of Local Marketing Chapter Eight: Networking Through Your Warm Market Chapter Nine: How to Develop an Ongoing Referral Program Chapter Ten: Personal Branding and Self-Promotion Chapter Eleven: Self-Confidence & Self-Promotion Email Marketing Tips, Tricks, and Techniques Artists.Life Manifesto. What Is Art? Who Is an Artist?Chapter Twelve: Traditional Art Marketing Tools and Techniques Chapter Thirteen: Websites for Artists – Part One Chapter Fourteen: Warm Marketing through Instagram
There’s more in the archives and more coming. Despite the in-depth nature of the content, we’ll be reworking everything as we go along. Constant improvement in knowledge, innovation, and processes keeps us sharp and makes us better humans and marketers.
If You Want to Boost Your Art Marketing Skills Affordably, You Have a Solution
If you are like me and believe that learning art marketing skills should not be expensive, I cordially invite you to join hundreds of other artists and me in the Art Marketing Toolkit Project. I’m biased, but still, I believe you have everything to gain and virtually nothing to lose by joining us.
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