Customer Reviews

The Artist's Marketing and Action Plan Workbook

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It seems that many of us who are artists are content to languish undiscovered, to deluge our relatives with gorgeous handmade cards and crafts, and/or to feel that we're really not good enough and motivated enough to sell our work - after all, we'd have been discovered if it was THAT good. This book will require you to answer questions and use a calculator, but once you've finished it you will have a marketing plan for your work - and you will feel that your work deserves it. You are neither too good for selling, nor not-good enough for it either. You can do it.

This book is highly recommended for the artist who is either unorganized and just hasn't put much thought into the financial side of things. If you are highly organized or have done some planning regarding the financial side of the art business, skip this book. And if you are looking for actual information on marketing your work, skip this book.

This series of worksheets will help you recognize and organize your personal and business goals. It will lead you through the steps of calculating how you should be pricing your work and how to determine what your liveable wage is. It will not give you any ideas on how to acheive this other than a short checklist of different venues you can sell your artwork.

Personally, I hoped for a bit more marketing inspiration than this book was able to offer me. But I speak as someone who has already spent long hours calculating the dark financial side of the art world. If you haven't done that, go ahead and buy this book, it's worth the small amount of money. Otherwise, you're better off scouring the internet for marketing ideas.

For those of us who sell our art directly to the public, anyone who can offer tips, shortcuts or revelations is a godsend. Ten pages into Jonathan Talbot's workbook: The Artists Marketing and Action Plan, I knew I had an ally. Where others fill space with wandering art theory and verbiage, Talbot gets right to work with valuable and insightful questions (such as "Why Are You An Artist?") and information on how to actually make money in the business. This isn't a book for your shelf, it's a rugged softcover that begs to be dog-eared, scrawled on and referred back to. It's a workbook in the truest sense of the word. Talbot doesn't so much tell you; the pencil is in your hands. You tell you, with Talbot's course plan guiding you to some very basic but subtle conclusions that you might have intuitively suspected yourself. This book is very much about self discovery. He just asks the right questions. And of course there are no guarantees of success with this book as there are none with others. You have to apply what you learn, or at least face yourself with your new found knowledge. That's what Talbot seems to be about; letting our own knowledge serve to direct us to do what must be done to succeed. It's inspiring, it's humbling...but it works.

It's always been too easy for me to focus on producing my art and let the financial and marketing side slide. This book made me aware of new ways to promote and market my work and helped me make plans to do so. Some of the questions in this book caused me to face "tough" realities about making and selling art, like the question about "if I sell everything I make at the prices I'm currently charging, will I make money?" But the book also showed me how small changes in price can make big changes in profit. I found it helpful that the book isolated the issues of promoting and selling my work just for the satisfaction of seeing it out there in the world. And then I could also focus on the promotion and sales sections, the parts which deal with expenses, variable costs,
fixed costs, and profit.

We discovered this book through an Amazon search, looking for a
good but approachable marketing text for our first Art as Business
course in 2006. We liked the tone of the book as well as
the content. It offers solid market and business info for artists while
being written for the "right brained" individual. Also we liked how
Jonathan had broken the content into nice, easily digestible chunks.
It works well with our business counseling structure.

Connie Lorenzo / Program Director, North Coast Small Business Resource Center

I am a believer is seeing is believing...and in Real Estate we had forms on how to make money monthly and the steps to get there...this travels the same path...Mr. Talbot has put between the covers of this book...forms, structure, interaction....and personal insight in to ones self.....You have Income/Expense Summaries, Goals, Promotions and every conceivable type of form you need to get from the beginning of your path as an Artist to a well marketed and Profitable Functioning Artist.....if you only do the work....and fill in the blanks you will be given insight...After just attending Mr. Talbot's workshop....yes, I took his recommendation and also bought the compendium book, "How to Survive & Prosper as an Artist by the brilliant Ms. Caroll Michels...... Both Michels and Talbot have refired my knowledge ( initially acquired via Real Estate Broker and Horse Breeder/Trainer) on marketing and the new applications in their books follow the same thought now applying to my Art....What a great base with which to return to my greatest love, "Art"...Carolyn's by Design

This book was very helpful in identifying everything an artist must really think about in trying to make a living from their art. Many excercises and worksheets help to narrow the focus of the artist's intent in order to be more successful in promoting and selling their unique artwok. Based on my relationships with many artists who are lacking in business training, this would be an excellent resource to get them on the success track!

Straight forward to the point with all the Where's;How's;When,s;and Why's on marketing your art work

I loved this workbook...excellent ideas in a painless, creative and fun format!!

Loved the cover hated the book. The one star is for the cover. If I saw this on a shelf I would have flipped through it in a minute or two and put it back. Just goes to show you. You can't judge a book by its cover...