How does the business of selling art actually work?

Selling art is a constant game of validation. You create work, then it’s your job to get it in front of enough eyeballs to find out if it will sell. If not, no problem—move on to something new. But if yes, you can potentially keep selling that work for years. The vicious cycle many artists fall into is: create art, never promote it enough because they dislike marketing or aren’t consistent, move on to new work, promote only the new stuff, and never look back at the old. They never validate anything because they never get enough eyes on it. Break this cycle by consistently marketing both new and existing work, especially during high-traffic seasons like the holidays.

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Asked by synthesized from teaching · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2023-11-10