Your friends and family love your work and tell you are truly talented, you feel inspired and love your craft. Your art works are stacked up and taking up space in your garage where nobody can see them.   Do you shrug your shoulders and reassure yourself in the knowledge that Van Gogh only sold one painting during his life time? Stop right there.

How to get your artwork shown.

Traditionally creative minds shyed away from marketing their crafts, waiting to miraculously receive their big break where an art dealer would discover them and shoot their name to fame. The internet changed all that, not just in art but also in publishing. As writers can now self publish their own books, artists are encouraged to do the same. Creatives now have marketing abilities at their fingertips. This is not as daunting as you may think and in fact can be fun.  One thing I have learned is my creativity no longer stops at the end of my paint brush. Good marketing is powerful and will increase your following.

Fame does not necessarily come from the degree of artistic talent you possess.

This is not new. Remember that saying ‘It’s not WHAT you know but WHO you know’ That is still true today.  A recent study from the Columbian business school discovers that fame does not come automatically drawn from the degree of talent you may have. It is about getting known and how big your network grows https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3258318. Studies say that throughout history prior to the internet, artists received fame recognition and had to build networks.  I’m not saying you have to be part of a Bloomsbury set or an Arts and Craft guild and cause scandal. We can now join a different movement, Get out there and show your stuff.

“I am no good at technical stuff”.

I  continuously hear this from artists who want to sell their work. Sorry, you need to stop saying that and start a new belief system.  It is not that difficult. Take one step at a time. It may seem like a minefield at first and it is, however there is no shortage of information and asking google will be a godsend.  Understanding the importance of getting your talent represented on line will drive you forward towards achieving a following. Once you create a following you are in demand and when that happens the value of your paintings will rise.  Learn how to define your market. Stay true to yourself and find the people who appreciate you.

Social Media presence.

Start by using social media. Instagram and Facebook are great platforms for creating pages and shops.  You will need to build friends and followers to get news of your paintings into their newsfeeds. The more you interact the more information about other artist working out there, will hit your newsfeed.  See where you stand in the game. Finding inspiration from other artists will show you how others are doing and will help you to move forward. This ican be time consuming when you market yourself but it is a good start and will build some foundations.

Cutting your ear off to achieve fame.

No please do not do that. Van Gogh had his own story but it was a bit drastic.  Share your story. You are more interesting than you think.  Art lovers love to know the back story to the work they have purchased.  Your social media should encourage interaction from your followers. Let them know about you as an artist.  Avoid making it look like an advertising post, be approachable and try to stand out.  We need to know more about you than how long you have been painting or where your inspiration comes from, however a little bit of mystery can draw your followers closer. Try to be unique. Reading profiles from other artists will give you ideas.

Get represented by putting your work on an art platform.

These platforms will help get your work to a much larger audience and give you the frame work needed to help you sell your paintings. They will add a commission to your selling price and can charge between 30% - 60%  Most do not charge you to join and a large proportion of the commission goes toward the high cost of marketing. Being part of a platform shows you are serious about your work and enables you to share links and be part of a larger community of artists  Checkout www.xaloart.cafe. Not only are they a platform but they also run localised events and help you to showcase your work in live venues.