Here’s the very basic basics about art sales — ready?

• Title — the title is everything, and must contain three root words. Every word counts — put nothing in the title that doesn’t work for you, by which I mean attracts the views.
• Drive — You can’t depend on casual random browsing to sell your product. You are trying to reach people with means, who can afford what you’re going to have to do to their home, so you need to get out there in social media and drive the customers to your doorstep — actually, right to the object itself. How to reach them is what you’re trying to learn right now.
• Simplicity — It has to be easy for your customer, which means YOU do all the work, without complaint. Again, you need to train yourself to do ALL the steps to a sale, including follow-up and remarketing.
• Story — Any and every experienced salesperson will tell you that it’s not the price, not the look — it’s the story. When you first start selling, you won’t get this idea for a while, even though you’ve heard it a million times, but for example, the Jazz Art has a story … I was the ONLY official IAJE artist for 15 years. Over the decades, my jazz backdrops have been used by every jazz great from Oscar Petersen to Wynton Marsalis, and there are equal stories, contained in full-color photo scrapbooks available to the public, about the Museum of Modern Art, Otis Art Institute, the Cedar Bar, and other important historical segments of the art world.
• Authenticity — Every one of my works comes with complete documentation directly from me in my studio. All of my paintings have been photographed at least once, and many have photo evidence to prove that they are what they say they are.
• Condition — All my works are stored correctly, and they are as fresh as the day they were painted, some of them as much as 60 years ago.
• Market — My paintings have been on the secondary market for over 20 years, and the prices are well-supported, with many bonafide sales between $5,000 and $50,000.00.
• Size — Very few artists paint in architectural sizes like 11 feet tall by 50 feet wide, but I do, and if there are a bunch of wealthy people living in homes with 22 feet of headroom, I have the art.
• Celebrity — All of my Jazz Art pieces were used in performances behind almost all of the jazz greats of our time.
• History — Your support makes it possible to give our support to jazz musicians all over the world.
• Charity — Part of the sale price goes to the community.

The most important point is that you can’t stand on a street corner waiting for those wealthy clients to come along and buy your enormous canvas out there on the sidewalk. It just won’t happen that way. Continue reading →