Philthy Conversations with Artists

How Do You Overcome Fear?
Fear, in the human development movement, has been dubbed as an acronym:

False
Evidence
Appearing
Real

There’s truth in that clever little statement. And though there are things in life that it’s reasonable to be wary of (pick-pockets, pyramid schemes, and IPOs) sharing your work online is not one of them.

Now your brain might be saying: “Yes, I understand, but tell that to my nerves.”

We all have our reasons for keeping our light under a bushel. The key may making a closer analysis of some common fears:

Fear One: How Do I Promote My Work Without Looking Foolish/Boastful?

Back in 2005, when I put my first poems online, my hands shook every time I visited my blog. I expected to see a series of “get off the internet” jeers…or worse: a 20-line critique explaining why I was a hack poet.

But it never came. And a couple months later I started running a small press, which meant I had to learn to promote online so we could sell our book. The urgency to make sales coupled with a healthy emotional distance from the item sold allowed me to really break through that fear of actually having an audience. Then, I was able to turn that back around to the promotion of my own work.

So, the key may be to think of selling your art as a job. This is a small business: not you, not your soul being held up naked to the cold world. You are a merchant among merchants and you want to offer your wares to those who may be interested. Then, when you are in the studio, go back to being an artist.

Fear Two: What if I’m Terrible with the Online Business Stuff?

Uploading photos, tagging, linking to URLs, making tables, writing good online descriptions, answering emails, sending out newsletters, starting a blog, setting up a shopping cart, confirming a sale, even figuring out the appropriate shipping costs: it can be daunting.

Many artists don’t get into the business end of their art because they’ve been brought up to think that is someone else’s job. But what’s happening is these artists are accumulated interesting art in their basements and it’s not seeing the light of day. Not everyone can make a spreadsheet, massage a sale out of an email conversation, or spout off the diferences between browsers, beta, and Bebo.

But every artist CAN get help. They can get an easy-to-use template website, they can read blogs like this one, they can ask friends to help them take great photos of their art. If you are motivated enough to sell your work online, and if you are willing to set up a couple of things, like an email account and a website, then you are well on your way. The rest will come with time. And once you begin to make sales, I think you’ll find that the fear of ‘being bad at business’ will fade quickly.

Fear Three: What if I Put a Lot Into This and No One Buys My Work?

First thing: You will put a lot into this. You will put thought and time and effort to create your online presence and then maintaining and growing it. You may find that the 10 free hours you had over the weekend for your art are now cut down to 5 for art, 5 for art marketing. The successful art sellers say they spend half their time doing the business stuff and I believe them.

But the beauty is that every little drop of effort you make ripples out. The blog that you write today may not have more than 20 readers this week, but in 3 months it could have 100. Every ounce of effort is an investment and investments require patience. But the good news is that unlike economic investments that can tank, you will only gain from what you put in. You will learn skills that last for the rest of your art career. And you’ll learn the by DOING: the best way to learn.

If no one buys your work, talk to them. Find out what is holding them back. If you’ve put a lot into this, that means you are prepared to listen, to change, and to grow. Most likely, through understanding your potential buyer, your sales will pick up.

And all this leads to next week’s question: “When Do You Know When You Shouldn’t Give 100%?”

Talk to you then!

-Nina