Marketing Art

 Marketing art is at best a crapshoot. This fact is made readily apparent to anyone who writes a book, creates a painting, or makes a film. Art is an incredibly personal thing that should be driven by the emotions of the artist, not a marketing committee. The problem is that some forms of art are very expensive to create, or take an inordinate amount of the artist’s time to create—time which may be needed to earn enough money to eat and afford shelter. Starving artists have been and will be the norm and I don’t think there is any way around the problem.

Why do I say this? Because, people all have different tastes and when you try to make money by selling something, you want to maximize the number of people who want to buy your something. To do this you need to adjust your something so that it appeals to the largest group of people possible—you want to make your something commercial. Art, on the other hand, is personal, an expression of the artists soul. This expression may appeal to millions or it might only appeal to the artist, but that is the nature of art.

The point I am trying to make here is that artists need to decide why they are creating a work. Many authors are worried about how to make money with their writing, yet they resent when anyone makes suggestions on how to make their works more marketable. It is almost as if they are shoving their work into the public’s face and saying: “buy this because I wrote it!” Filmmakers, meanwhile, are lamenting the number of films that are bombing at the theaters, yet they all want to create something that is purely their vision.

The bottom line: if you don’t care about making dime-one on your work, then it is your art and your vision, and you should just create what your heart says to create. On the other hand, if you want to make money from your work, then it must please your audience, you know: the ones who are shelling out the money from which you get paid.

Tags: art