What's wrong with relying on revenue sources where I don't keep 100% of the sale and customer data?

The art and photography markets are being fundamentally disrupted, similar to how music, video rental, and transportation were transformed. Artists who remain dependent on revenue sources—offline or online—where they don’t keep all the revenue from their sales and don’t own their customer data are being left behind. The new paradigm is direct-to-collector sales where you control the relationship, keep the full revenue, and build a customer list you own. This shift, accelerated by technology and the pandemic, represents the future of the art business. Artists who adapt to this model have far more control and upside than those stuck in the old gallery-dependent or platform-dependent systems.

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Asked by an artist evaluating sales channels · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2020-09-29