What's the single most important thing that determines whether an art business succeeds or stays a hobby?

Learning how to market yourself as an artist. None of you like it, none of you do it consistently, none of you want to do it. Every artist just wants to create and have someone else handle the selling. But that doesn’t exist in the real world. Marketing is the hard thing that gets you noticed, gets you engagement, gets you commissions, gets you sales, builds your email list, turns buyers into collectors, and ultimately gives you a business. It’s worth learning how to do this now rather than waiting, because you’re going to be creating and selling for the rest of your life. It only gets harder as you age. The amount of short-sighted, stupid decisions artists make based on non-existent timetables is enormous. Do the hard thing now. Stop kicking the can down the road. Marketing yourself is how you make it as a successful artist today.

---

Asked by general audience · Answered by Patrick · Art Business Webinar · 2026-09-02