I've been an artist for 20 years but never built anything I own. What should I change?

If you’ve been selling exclusively through galleries, shows, or online marketplaces for years, you’ve been building everyone else’s business but your own. This is the single most important strategic change you need to make: start building a direct business where you own your customer relationships and control your distribution. Set up your own website, build your own email list, and do your own marketing. Treat gallery and third-party sales as supplementary—the gravy—but put 90% of your focus on your direct business. This is the only way to have consistent sales and control your own destiny. No one can take away what you own. Make this change today, and in a year or two you’ll see the transformational difference.

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Asked by an established artist who’s never sold direct · Answered by Nick Friend · art-marketing-podcast · 2020-06-02