Art Money & Success Read online

  Finally Make A Living Doing What You Love

  A complete and easy-to-follow system for the artist who wasn't

  born with a business mind. Learn how to find buyers, get paid

  fairly, negotiate nicely, deal with copycats and sell more art.

  Maria Brophy

  Copyright © 2017 by Maria Brophy.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Publisher: Son of the Sea, Inc.

  Dedication

  To my mother, the first artist I ever met. She taught me that I could do anything I wanted to do, as long as I put my mind to it. For that, I’m grateful.

  And to my soul-mate, Drew, who has believed in me forever. He showed me that you can create your life as you would a painting. Imagine it first, and then allow it to be.

  Introduction

  “Success Loves Speed”

  —Gary Ryan Blair

  Get ready to do everything differently. This book is going to force you to see the art business in a way that no one else ever talks about. It’s going to inspire you to sit down and think, in a way that you have never done before. And it’s going to bring out answers from deep inside that you didn’t know were there.

  One of the reasons my husband Drew and I have had success in the art business is because we rarely do things the way artists have been taught. We don’t focus on getting Drew’s art into galleries, we’ve never applied for a grant and we have never entered an art contest.

  Instead, we’ve invested time into hard-core thinking and strategizing and we have carved out a unique way to sell art. We have done things in a way that many traditional art snobs would snub us for. But secretly, they dream of having the lifestyle that we live.

  WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

  I wrote this book for the artist who wants to learn new strategies to take their art business to the next level, and is willing to implement them. This book is for the artist who wants to earn a good living making and selling their art.

  Throughout the book I use many real-life examples, most of which have come from my own experiences. You’ll notice that many examples are of artists who paint. But please note that the strategies shared could easily apply to any type of artist, medium and style.

  This book will be useful for artists who create graphic design, cartoons, paintings, sculptures, photography, watercolor, chalk, murals, illustrations, jewelry and just about anything else.

  I wrote this book to help artists learn how to increase their income and make money from their talents. If you are interested in generating more money and success from your art, then this book is for you!

  PS… This book is not for artists who want to continue working within the old, outdated system of selling art, or for those who feel that art and money don’t mix.

  SUCCESS LOVES SPEED!

  Do you ever wonder why some artists are wildly successful, while others just barely squeak by? And have you noticed that sometimes, talent seems to have very little to do with success?

  There are specific strategies that successful artists follow, but most won’t talk about them. It may seem like an unfathomable mystery, how some artists are selling their work in high volume while other, more talented artists, are struggling.

  I have dedicated the last 20 years of my life towards solving this mystery, by researching the strategies of successful artists and learning how to apply them.

  I’ve found that implementing even just one new strategy can get huge results. Imagine the impact in sales you’ll see when you implement new strategy after new strategy, year after year.

  Many artists take the time to learn the basics of what they need to do, but very few actually APPLY what they learn. And when you don’t apply new knowledge, you don’t get the results.

  That’s why I designed this book to be an active workbook; that will encourage you to take action, so you can start seeing results quickly.

  As you work through each chapter, you will be guided to take time to THINK, STRATEGIZE and APPLY as you go. If you take the time to implement the strategies in this book, I guarantee you will see results. (And when you do, please email me at [email protected] so we can celebrate together!)

  Throughout the book, I share real life stories about my own experiences, as well as those of other artists that I have helped over the years. Please note that in some of the stories, I have changed personal details to protect their privacy.

  Each chapter contains a number of success strategies that will help you level-up your art business and increase your income. Many of the chapters also contain a worksheet of exercises, which is where the true magic of this book lies. When you complete the worksheets as they are presented, you will gain immediate insights you can apply right away.

  One of the strategies that all successful people use is SPEED. When a successful person gets an idea, they jump to action quickly. Just sitting around and thinking about something gets you nowhere. When an opportunity or idea arises, you have to take action immediately to get results. Good ideas and opportunities fizzle out and die if you don’t act.

  Remember: success loves speed. The quicker you implement the strategies you learn in this book, the greater the results you will witness… and the faster your art business will grow.

  HOW TO USE THIS WORKBOOK -

  TAKING TIME TO THINK

  If you are serious about growing your art business, follow these instructions to the letter. Get yourself a fresh new notebook to write in and a pen that feels great in your hand.

  Carve out consistent time every day to work on just one chapter. Every morning (or evening, if that works best for you), choose a time when you can be alone and undisturbed for at least an hour.

  Have pen and paper in hand. Read one chapter and take time to sit and think about how it applies to you and what you want. Give yourself up to an hour to THINK each day.

  If there’s a worksheet with the day’s chapter, work on that. If there isn’t, use your notebook to take notes and ask yourself how the information can be applied to your situation.

  If you don’t know all the answers to the worksheet questions, don’t worry. Just do your best to come up with any answer, even if it’s not perfect. Over time, I promise, answers will come.

  This process of “taking time to think” is one that is only practiced by the truly successful. When we take time to purposefully THINK each day, we uncover solutions that we didn’t know were there. And from these realizations, we will make corrections to our business practices and ultimately get results.

  This book is designed to be revisited many times over the course of your career. As time goes by, your desires and needs will evolve. I recommend that you go through this workbook every year and do the exercises all over again, with an evolved perspective, as you fine-tune your art business.

  Before you even proceed to the rest of this book, take a minute to think about what you want out of life and how you envision your career as an artist. Write these things down in your notebook. Then continue to the next chapter. Yes, I’m asking you to think before you sit down to think!

  I’m glad you picked up this book, because it’s my life mission to help artists create the lifestyle and business they dream of. If this book helps you to get there, then my life mission is complete!

  HOW I MASTERED THE BUSINESS OF ART

  The insurance industry was my bread and butter, until I met an artist named Drew Brophy. It was 1996, and he was only twenty-five years old. His lifestyle was fascinating; he was painting surf art for a living while traveling to surf spots all over the world. I rememb
er watching this long haired surfer paint surfboards while sitting on the floor of his San Clemente beach apartment. Right away, I saw immense potential in his work and I felt compelled to be a part of it.

  While working my full time job at the insurance company, I helped Drew part time. I started by handling his marketing. I was able to get him many media interviews, which helped with sales of his work. Then I developed a program where we sold his art prints to surf shops. All of this was done on the weekends and evenings, as I had a 9-5 job to go to every day.

  We got married, and a few years later Drew finally convinced me to quit my corporate job to work with him full time. Friends said that it was nuts for me to leave that nice salary, but I did it. And our son was just three years old at the time.

  I’ll admit it, I was afraid to give up my security, benefits and 401K program. But the lure of a life of adventure and doing what I loved was stronger than my practical concerns.

  I called my friend Lauren and asked for advice. She had previously left a high paying job to live her dream of being a writer. She told me what I needed to hear: “Once you leave that job, your new life will begin and you’ll never look back.” And she was right.

  The day I left that corporate job was the day my life truly began. I was free to create my own business, to travel when I wanted, and to be there for my kids. And the best part was that I was doing what I loved.

  However, once I’d left my job, I realized that the art business was tougher than I’d imagined. I had to figure out how to increase Drew’s art sales to cover the income that we’d just lost. I had NO IDEA how to take our sales to a higher level.

  It wasn’t enough that Drew was talented. I quickly learned that there was much more to financial success in art than talent. It became my quest to learn the ins and outs of making a living as an artist. We created a rough business plan and strategy and we figured the rest out as we went.

  As I dug deeper into learning about art sales, I was shocked to find that many artists who were winning prestigious awards and had a big name in the traditional fine art world weren’t even able to support their families with their art.

  I was introduced to one very well-known artist who sells her art in fine New York galleries and has won numerous awards. She was a big deal in her town. I was excited to learn more about her path, until it was revealed to me that she worked as a full time secretary and that her art was not supporting her.

  It became clear to me that awards and accolades alone weren’t the path to a financially successful art business. Then I found other artists who were virtually unknown in the fine art world, but were literally earning hundreds of thousands a year in art sales! I thought to myself “how can this be?”

  There are games being played all around us. There is the game of the poor artist paradigm, the game of the artist seeking to win accolades and then there is the game of the financially successful artist. I discovered that you can choose which game you want to play. I decided to learn the game of the financially successful artist. I continued to study these artists to learn their secrets.

  The financially successful artists were not applying for grants or entering contests. Instead, they were employing the strategies of business owners and putting an artistic spin on it.

  As I learned one new strategy after another, we began to see an increase in Drew’s art sales. We fine-tuned our pricing and marketing and we made deals with larger companies that helped us take his art to the mainstream market.

  We started adding multiple streams of income into the mix. We learned about art licensing and how to generate money over and over again from one single painting.

  Drew’s name became synonymous with surfing and art in the world of action sports. He began getting larger and larger opportunities from companies, licensees and art collectors.

  We stopped doing business with time-wasters and energy suckers. We put an end to giving art away and learned how to generate huge profits just by making a few small changes in the way we worked with clients.

  It wasn’t always easy. We learned hard lessons, had some great successes and quite a few failures. Our tenacity resulted in being able to support our family of four, in a Southern California beach town, with the income generated from a mere surf artist.

  Multiple streams of income and being open to learning new strategies is what keeps us in business, even when the economy is bad. We have consistently earned well over six figures every three to six months since 2001.

  The irony is this: Neither Drew nor I have had formal art training. Drew had only one art class in college and then he decided to go right to work as an artist after high school. Instead of academic training, Drew and I have spent many years discovering, testing and applying the strategies of truly successful artists. And now I am passing this information onto you.

  Decide what you want

  Your life is a series of days, leading into months and then into years. How you spend your days is literally what your entire life will look like.

  Think about that for a moment. What you do every day defines your life. Imagine that it’s a decade into the future, and you are looking at the last ten years of your life. What kind of life have you lived? Is this what you wanted? If the answer is yes, then you are on the right track. If the answer is no, then it’s time to make a change.

  So we need to begin this journey by getting to know what you really want, so you can set the right kind of goals—the kind that will motivate you to take action. To get started, all I want you to do right now is answer this question:

  How do you want your daily life to look?

  Your answer will determine everything you do from this point forward. What you choose to do with your time every day is what your life becomes. If you are focusing on doing the things you love on most days, you will have a life without regrets.

  The problem is that life can get complicated. There are many demands tugging on us every day, begging for our attention. Our minds are so scattered that we don’t always take the time to figure out what it is that we want for ourselves, or to recognize that this isn’t it.

  It is said that people spend more time planning their vacations than they do planning their lives. This is sad, because if we don’t take the time to plan out what we want for ourselves, we will end up living a life someone else wanted for us.

  There’s a great book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, written by a caretaker who nursed terminal patients. The author wrote that the number one regret of the dying was this:

  “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

  Too many people are not living the life they want to live. Every week, month and year that goes by without living out your passions, the farther away they get from you.

  The death of a dream happens silently and slowly. When you’re young, you go along with what everyone else is doing and what they expect of you. You fail to take the time to get clarity on what you want. You shove your dreams to the side, as people convince you that they aren’t important. Decades fly by, as you’re too busy taking care of everything else, instead of building the life you really want. One day you wake up, old and tired, and realize you’ve done everything “right”—except you forgot to do the things that you had dreamed of as a kid.

  I don’t want this to happen to you. I don’t want you to have any regrets, or feel frustrated that your art career never took off the way you’d hoped. But I’m confident that it won’t, because if you are the type of person to read books like this, then you are probably a person who takes control of your life (or if you haven’t been in the past, maybe you’re ready to now).

  No matter what your age, whether you’re a budding artist or one with decades of experience, today you will get greater clarity and make a plan to design the life and business you want.

  GETTING CLARITY

  The first time I really understood the importance of getting clarity on what you really want was back in 1996
. Drew and I had only been dating for about a month at the time. I was in his room, and something on top of his desk caught my eye.

  It was a piece of paper, neatly typed up, and the title at the top read “MY LIFE by DREW BROPHY”.

  The paper was separated into five paragraphs, each one representing a segment of his life and a description of what he envisioned.

  He had written under the ART section that he wanted to become the best known surfboard artist in the world. Under the SURFING section he wrote that he wanted to surf the world’s best big wave spots, including those in places like Tahiti, Peru and Indonesia.

  The paragraph that caught my eye was the one titled FAMILY. He described in detail his desired life of traveling the world with his wife and kids, while surfing and making art.

  It was astounding to me that a 25 year old surfer had this much clarity on what he wanted. He had mapped out his entire life on one little piece of paper.

  When I read the words, I felt a great excitement stirring inside me. I knew that this was a life I could see myself living, as I had also dreamed of it as a child. Yet, until that moment, I didn’t know it was possible.

  Not once in high school did any teacher tell me that a business of traveling and art was a possible career choice. If I would have told a counselor at college that this was my plan, they would have advised me to find a real job.

  That very day, in 1996, I decided that I, too, would create a life of travel and adventure, and find a way to be paid while doing it. Ever since then, I have made sure that every decision I made brought me closer to that reality.

  Now, twenty years later, everything that Drew wrote on that piece of paper has come true.

  YOUR ART IS YOUR LIFE

  There’s a plethora of art critics, consultants and gallery owners that will tell you how to run your art business. There are set ways of doing things in the art world, and if you are the maverick that decides to do something different, you may be criticized. There are rules and guidelines and opinions, all meant to control how artists behave.