Artrepreneur; The Intersection of Art and Business

What do you make? How long have you been making it? Have you developed the product so that it is ready for the market? Lots of questions, but here is a few more to help you answer that last question.

1. Is your technique well developed? If you are still learning and refining, it might be better to spend a little more time in the studio before making the leap into selling your work. Once it goes out into the marketplace, many more eyes will be scrutinizing it before they part with their cash.

2. Is your finishing well done? This is so important. It is the first thing a buyer, retail or wholesale, will use to evaluate your work. If not, go back in the studio, and work to make sure your work will make you proud.

3. Have you found your own voice yet? This is the toughest one for many people. There are many people selling their work, well before this point. Frankly, I was one of them. I was being encouraged by those around me to start selling my work. But, if you want to succeed, you need to work towards finding that voice that is distinctly yours. When you do, you will have more fun creating, and have the most success in your business.

Visuals matter in this business. If you don't have great pictures of your work....even if your work is amazing...you will struggle to succeed. Great pictures help create more opportunities for publicity. Great pictures help to create opportunities to sell your work. Great pictures are the best way to advance your career and promote your business.

What does a great picture look like? One place to start, is to look at the images of artists' work at top shows or galleries, online. Notice the lighting, the background for 3D art, how the work is arranged. Look through some books and magazines and notice the photographer's name for work that you think is well photographed. Look for them on the web. Talk to other artists and found out who they use to photograph their work.

You can do photos on your own, but for many artists, they would rather pay someone to do it for them, than invest the time and money. But do your homework. Just because someone is a professional photographer, does not mean that have expertise in photographing artwork. The wrong photographer can be an expensive lesson, and in more ways than the cost of the photos.

Bad photos may mean you don't get into the shows or galleries that are the best for you. It may mean that you don't have the opportunity to have your work appear in magazines or books. It may mean that your postcards do not get the response you desire.

Don't neglect getting great photos of your work. Great photos will open doors. Bad photos will not.

You have a body of work that you are proud of. You have shown it to friends, family, other artists, shop owners, absolute strangers....and they are all telling you that you should sell your work. But how do you do that?

1. Who is the market for your work? By knowing something about who is most likely to buy your work, you will get a better idea of where to sell your work. Sometimes it is a combination of understanding this, and trial and error. But you should always begin by asking, "Who is my customer?" Draw a mental image of that person. Where do they live? What do they do? Why do they buy the type of work you sell?

2. Now that you have an idea of who your customer is, where would they likely shop for work such as yours? There are many, many options today. Online, with eBay, or Etsy. At the local church or school craft show. At the local gift shop on consignment. At a juried show, which has more competition to get a spot in the show. Selling wholesale to gift shops or galleries across the country. You may start out with one, and move to another over time. I have tried nearly every one, and now sell strictly wholesale.

3. Apply, or approach. Find out what the application process is for the show you want to do. Make sure and visit the show at least one time before doing it. It will help you better assess if it is a good fit for your work, and your price point.

If you want to sell through a local shop, visit their website, or call and find out what their policy is for evaluating new work. You don't want to start off on the wrong foot by failing to respect their time and other demands.

4. If you are rejected, try again. Or try a different venue. Not every show or shop is the perfect fit for your work. Or your work may need some more development before it is ready. If this is your dream, it is up to you to do the work to make it happen.

There is nothing that seems to tie an artist up in knots as much as deciding how much to charge for their work. In the end, only you can decide how much to charge. But there are some formulas, guidelines and approaches.

First, get rid of the idea that you charge three times the cost of materials. There is no one-size-fits-all approach that is so simple and easy, and that will actually work. You will likely find yourself wondering why you are not making any money if that is the approach to pricing.

What are the components of your cost to consider in deciding on a price?

1. Materials. This is pretty straight forward in most cases. You can have some control over the costs by trying to find the best source for your materials, and looking for quantity discounts.

2. Labor. Decide how much you will charge per hour. It might be $10, or $50, depending upon your skill, experience, and reputation.

Start by clocking how long it takes you to do a particular task. Not for one piece, but for how ever many you typically make at a time. If it is 8 or 10 or 100. Write down when you start work on a step, and when you finish. Continue to do that until you have done all the steps of making a product. Total up the time, and divide by however many units you are making. Multiply that by the hourly rate and that is your labor component.

3. Overhead. This is the cost of being in business. All the purchases you make at the office supply store. The cost of subscriptions to magazines about your media, or about the business of craft. Utility costs. Studio space costs. Computers. Travel. It is often hard to estimate what these costs will be when you are first starting out. And when you are first starting out there are many expenses.

After being in business for awhile, you can take your annual expenses, and see how they compare to the cost of materials and labor. If you spend $5000 per year in materials, and $1000 per year in overhead related expenses, then you will know that your overhead is about equal to 20% of your material costs. If you use this method to estimate overhead, you need to monitor it annual to see if it is still on track.

4. Sales and Marketing expenses. It costs money to sell your work, and to promote your work. If you do not include these costs into your calculations you will soon begin to feel like the hamster on the wheel, running and running and never getting anywhere. These expenses include the cost to apply to a show, booth fees, photography, travel to shows, postcards, mailing costs to promote your work, cost of a website, etc. Any expense related to helping your work get into the hands of the buyer, wholesale or retail, is a sales and marketing expense.
Again, you want to tally up the costs, and determine a rate that applies to a known amount, such as materials and/or labor.

5. Profit. This is not what is left over that you pay yourself. This is the bottom line profit to the business, that allows you to reinvest in the business. To purchase equipment that will make you more efficient. This is about 5 to 10% of the total cost.

6. Wholesale price = Materials + Labor + Overhead + Sales and Marketing Exp + Profit.

This is the wholesale price. What you would charge to a gallery or shop to buy your work. The retail price should be anywhere from 2 to 2.5 times the wholesale price. Sometimes the markup at a gallery is 3x's the wholesale price.

If you are selling your work at retail shows or on-line, and at wholesale shows, you need to be sure that you do not undercut the price that your wholesale customer may charge. And by adding this mark-up, you are recognizing the additional time and expense that goes into selling your work directly to the customer. It is time out of the studio, and you need to calculate that into your price. Adding a mark-up just like a shop or gallery would covers these expenses for you.

Artrepreneur Hooded Sweatshirt
by

JudyDunn





Are You an Artrepreneur?
by

JudyDunn

It pays to think through how you present your work to your customer. Whether it is a catalog for a wholesale account, or the earring cards you are using, each conveys a message about you and your business. Don't completely neglect these things. They are not as critical as the quality of your work, but they do matter.

It is a way for you to reinforce the image of your work, and to remind people of the name of your company, and how to reach you.

Develop a logo for your business, or hire someone to do it for you, and use it often. On postcards, your business card, hang tags, catalogs, earring cards, etc.

Hang tags can be a great way to get your story out to your customers. Our story is important to the buyer of art or craft. They want to connect with who we are as well as the work we produce. On 2-D art, you can add a label on the back that tells about your work in general, or better yet, the inspiration for that specific piece. It will add to the perceived value of your work.

You've worked hard to develop your product. You applied and gotten into the show, or made the appointment with the gallery owner. You've developed the support material for your product. Now, it's time to sell your work, and yourself.

Many artists make it this far, and then want to shrivel up into a little ball and disappear. They could sell someone else's work better than their own.

If you want to succeed as an artist entrepreneur, you need to learn how to sell. You probably already know how to sell, you just may not realize that you are doing it. Many of our day-to-day interactions rely on us selling our ideas to others. The problem is, when it comes to selling our work, we start tangling up our emotions with our work, and we react with our hearts instead of our heads.

1. Don't take anything anyone says personally. Not everyone will love your work. Do you love every other artist's work that you see? Of course not. Don't expend energy on the people who do not connect with you or your work. Let them look and move on.

2. Listen. Listen to the buyer's feedback. What do they like, and what are their objections. This is what you want to talk about with them. Not all the 34 steps it took you to make this item in gross detail....unless that is what they truly want to know! If you listen closely enough, they will tell you what they need to know in order to buy your work.

3. Recognize that not everyone is ready to buy today. At a retail show, or on your website, have a place where people can sign up for your mailing list. Maintain a mailing list of shops or galleries that expressed interest in carrying your work. Have business cards at a show for people to take with them. Don't be penny wise but pound foolish. Yes, the cards cost you money, and some people will bring them home and just throw them away. But, what about the person who remembers your work but not your name. They loved your work, but you didn't have a card for them to take. It is hard to know how many sales may be lost because of a failure to take this simple step.

4. Be ready to share some of your story. Why do you work as an artist, or in the medium you do? What makes your work uniquely yours? What inspires you? Sometimes the story is what will sell someone on the work. The story can create an emotional connection to the work.

5. Say thank you. If you get a sale, or if you don't, be polite. Good manners always make the experience more positive for everyone. It may seem obvious, but it is surprising how many artists forget the basic niceties of life. And it may be the difference between a successful career and one that flounders. It doesn't mean sucking up. It means treating people with respect and kindness.

Publicity is a wonderful opportunity for many artists. Publicity can be thought of as free advertising. Often an artist's budget is tight, and advertising may be limited to postcard mailings, or even getting a business card with an image of our work.

How does publicity happen?? Is it because an editor approaches an artists and asks them for images of their work for their book or magazine? At a certain point in their career, that is the way things will happen. But, you don't have to wait for that to happen. You can work to make it happen for you.

Books and magazines about craft or fine art need images. Without images it would be ineffective. And magazines are published multiple times per year, creating more demand for work to feature in their pages. This is where you can come in. If you have excellent work, and great photos, you have an opportunity to submit your work.

How do you go about doing that? Most publishers of books and magazines have information on their websites about what they are looking for. Visit websites and read up and understand exactly what they are looking for. Determine if your work is a good fit for what they are looking for. Sometimes they will have a call for a specific type or style of work. The better your work fits what they are looking for, the better your chances of being accepted. That, and good photos!!