In a previous blog post I mentioned The Long Tail. If you’re not familiar with The Long Tail, it’s Chris Anderson’s way of explaining why Amazon (and other web companies) were able to overtake some of the big retailers and become mega successful off of selling high volumes of little known work. See this image below.
In Tapping the Lower Art Market, Brian Sherwin hits this idea on the head for artists.
- Make affordable art.
- Make lots of it.
- Sell it to as many people as possible.
WHO CARES if you can’t sell at Art Basel or at the Gagosian gallery? Who cares if you can’t sell a piece for $100,000? There are other ways to make money as an artist. TAA blog is full of these stories. Just check out Natasha, or Michael or the half-dozen artists we’ve profiled on the Creative Insurgents Podcast.
An old marketing saying, “Sell to the rich, eat with the masses; sell to the masses, eat with the rich.”
Nice. I’ve never heard that one before.
Ha ha ha @April Sell to the masses indeed. See you at the dinning table @Kasun3i
Thanks for the mention, Cory. 🙂
I like to sell person to person. I do it on purpose. I am protecting my art life history.
Personal contact really matters. If people have personal contact with an artist, they get bragging rights. I have several artist friends , that I brag about and collect any printed data on.
If artists marry digital with analog(USPS MAIL) they will establish personal relationships.
Depending on digital can be a trap. Books get written by people having letters, photos , etc.
Art is a record of how one spends their time.I send career updates by USPS to my art people twice a year. USPS is cheap PR/Branding for an artist.
Wisdom, as always, Cory. Dine with me when I get to eat with the rich.
Works if you 1. Can create a high volume of art 2. Have art with a broad appeal. If you have a piece that only has the potential of selling a few times (appeals to a small group of people) you would be better off pricing high rather than low.
indeed!
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Ah, and what if I don’t want to be an art factory churning out masses of stuff for the masses, then what? I have observed when competing in the race to the bottom, China always wins.