The Best Art Business Books

Book Reviews by Art Bloggers #1

myartspace>blog: Book Review: Jackie Battenfield's The Artist's Guide - How to Make a Living Doing What You Love

Jackie Battenfield's new book, The Artist's Guide - How To Make a Living Doing What You Love, is an excellent resource for visual artists at any stage of their career. Battenfield writes in a professional and yet easy manner and provides invaluable information, inspiration and resources on making a successful career in the art world. Battenfield's words do more than just dictate the "how to" and "why for" of the business end of art.

Get Known Before the Book Deal: Fund Your Writing Projects: Featured Money Magnet Jackie Battenfield

By Gigi Rosenberg
The idea for the book, The Artist's Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love, was born out of the professional development workshops she taught for artists. Her students' enthusiasm for her handouts egged her on. "My students kept telling me they used my handouts over and over again," she said. As she developed her idea for the book, she began to feel a mission to reach a larger audience with information about how to succeed as an artist.

Joanne Mattera Art Blog: Marketing Mondays: "The Artist's Guide" and Other Books

Talk about timely. Just as the art world is shaken to its foundations by the economic downturn, along comes The Artist's Guide: How To Make A Living Doing What You Love by Jackie Battenfield. I'm not being flip. Even though galleries are downsizing or shutting their doors, artists are still making art and still need to find a place for themselves. This book explains the art world (to the extent that something as multifaceted, international, freeform and unencumbered by "rules" can be explained) and offers clear and useful steps to setting goals and achieving them--information that until recently most artists never learned in art school.

CWCA Calls for Entry: Caroll Michels - 6th edition of HOW TO SURVIVE AND PROSPER AS AN ARTIST: Selling Yourself Without Selling Your Soul

Drawing on more than three decades of experience as a career coach and artist-advocate, Michels shares insights for navigating the complicated, often political, art world. In the chapter "Launching or Relaunching Your Career: Overcoming Career Blocks," she pinpoints specific danger zones for artists - including an unwillingness to confront money issues, an awe of New York and self-imposed "regionalism," the quest for external validation, and adolescent career goals.

Josh Grabowski Art: Artist Necessity

Any artist, no matter your craft, should read this book if a career in art is the goal in mind. Personally, coming from the painting side of things, I feel that this book spoke to me directly. An easy read with so much information on what to do and where to do it, and with a price tag that will most certainly not break the bank it is a no brainer... go get your copy now of How to Survive and Prosper As An Artist: Selling Yourself Without Selling Your Soul by Caroll Michels!

how to survive and prosper as an artist | Sofie Dittmann's Photography Blog

The book talks about establishing prices for your work, attracting attention to your work and building immunity to rejection....I was prepared for a book that wouldn't sugar-coat anything. However, not only does it do away with the notion that art is only art when you're starving, it has some REALLY good advice on how to market yourself as an artist.

which craft business book is right for you? craftMBA.com; business thinking for designers & makers

Read it if: you dream of selling in galleries and cultivating collectors across the country. If you're more interested in one of a kind work than production models, then you should definitely check out I'd Rather Be in the Studio. It doesn't cover the nuts and bolts of running a business (you should check out another small biz guidebook for that) but it does teach you how to promote your work and increase your sales so you can spend the maximum amount of time focusing on creating your work.

Review: I'd Rather Be in the Studio | D*I*Y Planner

I'd Rather Be In the Studio is an amazing book that, while targeting artists looking to build their business and promote themselves, I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking to promote their passions....I started this book three times over. Not because it was a bad book but because it was so chock full of good advice that every time I picked it up and read a bit more, my mind would churn and I'd go off to put some of her advice into practice.

BmoreArt: Book Report: 'I'd Rather Be in the Studio!' by Alyson B. Stansfield

This book is structured like a twelve-step program, organized around eight typical excuses that artists use to avoid self promotion or taking a professional risk......Like a caring therapist, Stansfield builds up the reader's confidence, chapter by chapter, and mixes emotional exercises with factual information, like how to write an artist statement and resume........While well-intended, I personally had a hard time getting through this particular text. There was an overall emphasis on self-promotion, instead of a holistic approach to one's career, and I found this a bit one-dimensional.

Suggested Reading - ART/WORK - Heather Darcy Bhandari & Jonathan Melber | Studio Fuse Art Blog

Darcy Bhandari & Melber's comprehensive manual is intended to help artists expand their business practices while encouraging professionalism as it relates to artistic practice. This book serves the dose of practicality needed to aid in dispelling the antiquated over-romanticized notion of the starving artist.
-Dustin Dennis

Amazon.com: GroveCanada "Grove"'s review of ART/WORK: Everything You Need to Know (and...

Please remember WHO is writing the book...by artists? No. By gallery workers, yes..., April 11, 2010
It's all very well to write a book for artists, but if you are working for galleries, you may have a bias.