Artists!

I’m assuming you started with your art first then attempted to make money from it second.

If this is true for you, I’m curious to hear your stories about how you made the transition from solely focusing on your art to learning how to market and sell it.

• Was that transition hard?
• Was it easy?
• What do you wish you’d known when you started the whole “let’s make money from this process”?

If you feel you’ve succeeded in making money directly or indirectly from your art, what is the most important key to your success?

I’d love to hear your stories!

I’m collecting them to use in my talks, blog posts, articles, and a book. Please share so that we may all learn from your success!

Thanks!

PS. Thank you to Lesley Riley for this cute picture of her granddaughter!

Gina Carano, World Class Mixed Martial Arts Fighter and Actress. A Great Example of Persistence.

When one of my business coaches told me that the presupposition of their work, an underlying assumption, was that we all have what we need to succeed.

My first reaction was no effing way! I don’t have this, I don’t know that. Then I thought, “Well, what if what he were saying was true?”

I realized as an artist, as an author, as someone who worked my butt off to learn how to write novels, I had at least one key ingredient to business success. And that was persistence.

But… I knew I didn’t know everything there was to know to succeed in business. There was a bunch of nuts and bolts things that I just didn’t know. I could tell I was missing some mindset pieces that I just wasn’t clear on. I also knew that I didn’t have the huge networks affiliations when I first started my business that other people had. I didn’t even know what kind of networks I needed.

Yet I realized when he said that to us in workshop that I had and have the core ingredients of business success already in me.

It’s important that we all recognize what those core ingredients are that come from being an artist, and in my case, from being a novelist.

So I am just going to list them here the ones that I know that I have, and I’m sure that you have.

Maybe there are some other ingredients that you already have that are not on this list. If so, please leave them in the comments!

Whether you are at the start of your business journey, learning how to have a sustainable, successful career as an author and artist entrepreneur, or deep in the middle, like I am, or an experience horse (I’d love to talk to you!), I hope that you can join me in celebrating our strengths as we forge ahead in the brave new world of being artists and entrepreneurs, but first and foremost, artists!

So here the core ingredients of business success that I think artists already have, in no particular order:

• Persistence. (Mentioned above! And a fav of mine!) If you can write a novel, paint a work, choreograph a piece, you have persistence. Not to mention all the training that got you to your level of expertise.
• Creativity. Hard to describe, but we know it when we see it!
• Good lateral thinking. Another way of saying creativity.
• Discernment. The ability to discern a good sentence, a good paragraph, a good story to the best of your ability.
• Good taste. If you have made it this far as an author and you’re curious about building a business you probably have some good taste, a sense of good taste. What is good work and what isn’t.
• Self-knowledge. You also have your innate ability about what you like and what you don’t like.
• Good communication skills. If you’re a writer you’re going to have good written skills, and some of you will also have good verbal skills. If you are in other kinds of art you are going to understand the main function of communication, which is to take nebulous ephemeral idea and translate them into your art form so other people can see it. That is a really powerful tool in business as I will explain in later posts. It is especially important in marketing and sales.
• Make the imaginary feel real. If you are a fiction writer you’re good at getting to the heart of the matter with your characters. Actually if you’re a non-fiction writer you are good at that, too. My point here though is to emphasize the strength fiction writers have to design characters that feel real, whether we can call that empathy, or insight into the human condition.

This is just a partial list of some of the characteristics and strengths and resources.

I call these resources that we have internally that can help us succeed in creating a sustainable and successful career.

In the next post I will talk about what are some of the elements of designing a sustainable and successful career as artist entrepreneurs.

Until next time.

Signing off.

Beth Barany, Helping Authors and Other Artists Have Successful and Sustainable Careers

PS. What did I leave off the list? What are your strengths as an artists that you can bring to your artist entrepreneur success?!

PPS. I’m launching an Artist Entrepreneur Group Coaching, and am having an Open House Teleseminar for all who are curious and are yearning for support around being an artist at the heart of their service to others.

To sign up, go here: Special teleseminar on “How To Grow Your Business As An Artist Entrepreneur”

Or click here now:  http://community.bethbarany.com/seminars.aspx?Seminar_ID=303

PPS. Yes, the pic is of the awesome Gina Carano, who starred most recently in the 2011 action film, Haywire.

A Free University is happening soon in San Francisco, my neck of the woods. Their focus:

Fix Our Failing Schools
Every 26 seconds, a student drops
out of high school. We must act now

If they really want to help students then we need things that will help us survive AND thrive in the 21st century. things like:

• financial literacy
• what really does it mean to love in democracy?
• diplomacy
• “peace starts with me”
• how to turn ones passions into a business
• the primacy of basic human rights

If I were setting up a school, it’d be a Business School for Artists, and it’d be for all kinds of artists including creative writers, of which I am one.
I’d teach, or have taught, the above subjects and others like:

• what makes for a successful business?
• how can you be successful?
• how your strengths and skills can combine with the needs of the marketplace
• how to be a citizen of the planet (with a green and humanitarian consciousness) AND be a successful business person
• discipline
• negotiation
• the power of the network
• what is leverage and the value of an hour

And more!

What kinds of classes would you like in my hypothetical School for Artist Entrepreneurs!?

From: http://www.artpreneurbootcamp.com/artist-entrepreneurs/

Why artpreneurbootcamp?

The simple answer to this question is: because artists deserve to get paid for their work but to do so they need a plan in place and to follow a strategy. To quote Napoleon Hill: “Reduce your plan to writing. The moment you complete this, you will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire.”

There is this false notion that being artist results in starvation. The truth is most artists are entrepreneurs and self employed and all that is missing is the marketing piece, which will help them find their target audience to sell their work to. Money is an exchange of value and great artists provide value to society and besides there are 6 billion people in the world and with enough innovation we can all find at least 100 people who love our work enough to buy it.

Join our beta program!!

What is Artpreneur Bootcamp?

Artpreneur Bootcamp is all about the business of art, it is an online bootcamp for artists teaching them to think and market themselves like entrepreneurs. We are bridging the gap for anyone that has ever wondered why they have to choose between following their passion and making money. The Bootcamp is 4 weeks long and covers business planning, the importance of positive thinking, setting goals, managing your time and social media connection. Everyone that completes the beta program will be invited to be part of an exclusive online community where they can change ideas and form strategic partnerships.

Our blog also gives business advice to artists.

Join our beta program!!

We are having an accelerated beta program to start January 13, 2011.

We have 30 free spaces available for this.

Join our beta program

The mission of PA Artist Entreprenuer is to encourage Pennsylvania artists to start their own art studios. This site can assist in this process by providing resources and tools.

More at: http://www.paartistentrepreneur.com/

Thanks to Zondra Hughes writing in the Huffington Post today, Aug. 3, 2010.

Here are her Five Quick & Dirty Rules of the Author Entrepreneur:

• № 1. You are on your own.
• № 2. Research the industry.
• № 3 Think beyond the book.
• № 4 Invest in your business.
• (In my opinion, the most challenging for an artist…) № 5. Market your book before it is published.

Go here for the whole, well-written article!

Yesterday, I was keeping on top of my activities, logging everything I did into my homemade time keeping excel spreadsheet.

But by the end of the day I felt stressed, frustrated, and not at all liberated by all that structure.

I’ve been told by many advisors, both professional and personal, astrological and entrepreneurial, to get focused, get structured.

But it wasn’t working. Or so I thought.

The problem, though, wasn’t in structuring my time. The problem was how I was going about my activities.

I was driven. I was running. I was running away from… that nameless fear that hounds us all: fear of death. Death of myself as an entrepreneur. My virtual question was “What if I fail? What if I’m no good at this entrepreneur thing?”

Okay. What if I do fail? What if I am no good at it?

Then I die. Well, I won’t die, but the dream of this company with this aim (helping writers) dies. Or so it seems. It feels that way.

But I didn’t have such a sanguine attitude late last night when I was twisting and turning in my bed, mulling my day over. I was hot. My inner thoughts were burning me up from the inside out. In a good way. I was angry. I was frustrated. I was tired of being stuck, of feeling stuck by my mental barriers that locked me up so tight I felt I couldn’t breath.

I burned up. I was the phoenix. I fell asleep determined to listen to my inner rhythm, so I could experience the freedom in the structure, the leisure in my time tracking.

I was driven by fear yesterday. That didn’t work so well for me. Today I am driven by freedom and leisure. And I’m still tracking. I’m still structured in in how I go about my day.

What drives you? Is it working for you? What do you want to be driven by?

As Artist Entrepreneurs, we get to make the tools of business fit in creatively with the tools of art.

My way is to dialog in writing between the two. What is your way?

I’m looking to interview successful business women and men who have combined their passion for their art with their business savvy, and made a place for themselves.

By artist, I mean someone who actively does their art (writing, painting, dancing, fiber arts, etc.).

By entrepreneur, I mean someone who is earning a living through business transactions.

I understand my definitions are broad. That leaves room for your interpretation.

By successful, I mean you make a living from your art or from what you know about doing your art. Please email me at beth @ bethbarany . com if you’d like to be interviewed. 

My interviews will be here at the Artist Entrepreneurs United blog, and are for an upcoming book, and related projects. 

I am also open to hearing what you think about this concept of “artist entrepreneurship.” Is it feasible? Desirable? 

I post on this topic on Eric Maisel’s Creativity Central blog. My latest post is here:

http://ericmaisel.blogspot.com/2008/11/artists-entrepreneurs-unite.html

It is so great to know that I am not alone in advocating for artists to take charge of their intellectual property.

A great post by Lisa Canning, the author of the blog, Entrepreneur the Arts.

And the professor, Rick Cherwitz, who is championing this work at the University of Texas at Austin.

Artists are well-suited for change, at least in their minds. By changing our mindset, and healing our hearts, we can have the life we desire. Because we can imagine it, cn’t you?

As a spiritual life coach and a colleague, Jacci Delaneau says,

You can either react or create. Reacting to life is powerless. Creating your life is powerful and what we are meant to do. Reacting is ego based (fear based) and creating is spirit based (Love based). It is always a choice. I invite you to make the choice and do what you have to do to reflect that choice.

You are the creator. There are no limitations on the creator. The limitations are on the creation. Look at the circumstances of your life as the creation, (a temporary creation), which will change when the creator decides to create something new. Let go of all the limitations the creation has.