Pricing Your Art
By Renée Phillips

Learn and improve your sales skills. By this I mean, share your enthusiasm! Tell your story! The more people learn about you and your creative passion and commitment, the more they will desire your work. Enthusiasm is contagious!

Renée Phillips is the Director of Manhattan Arts International, an author of several books and a public speaker. She is known as "The Artrepreneur Coach" and provides empowering life and career strategies for creative individuals.

(This article is an excerpt from Renée's book Success Now! For Artists.)

I have curated more than fifty exhibitions and have learned that most emerging artists are clueless about pricing their work. Your prices should be competitive in the marketplace, not a number you pick out of the air. When determining your prices, be realistic. Has your work passed the test of selling to several art buyers outside your coterie of friends and relatives?

Although relatives and friends might be staunch admirers of your work they may not be qualified to determine your prices. Collect a consensus of opinion from professionals in the field.

Make some important decisions, such as: To whom do you want to sell your work? Do you wish to price your work high and be satisfied with a few, infrequent sales, or would you rather price your work fairly and raise the prices as the value of your work increases? It's easier to raise prices than lower them and it's the selling price that matters, not the asking price.

* Keep a record of how much time you take to create and promote your work. Also keep expense records of direct and indirect costs. Direct costs include things like the number of hours you spent on the work, including developing the concept and preliminary sketches, plus the expenses for materials, and your labor costs.

* Research the market. Go to galleries, art fairs and auctions. Do a comparative study between your work and others in the same style, media, subject matter, complexity and detail, technical ability, professional experience, education and talent.

* When in an art galleries collect résumés, brochures and price lists of artists who do similar work.

* Exposure will increase interest, demand and value, so cultivate a network or buddy system to keep each other appraised of how the market is going, how individual galleries operate, and what opportunities are available throughout the world.

* Continuously add value to your work.
Strive for excellence and develop your own trademark style. Strengthen your position and build your credentials through winning awards, getting publicity, having one-person shows and increasing sales.
Keep your resume up to date and write it according to emphasizing your strengths and playing down your weaknesses.
For how to prepare a resume and other promotional materials refer to the book Presentation Power Tools For Fine Artists.

* Don't sell your work at wholesale prices. Avoid the reputation of offering "bargain" prices in your studio. The word will get out and your reputation and credibility among buyers and your art agents will suffer.

* Keep your prices consistent. Whether your buyers are in New York or Chicago they should pay the same price.

* Learn and improve your sales skills. By this I mean, share your enthusiasm! The more people learn about you and your creative passion the more they will desire your work.

A more thorough discussion about pricing and many practical strategies are included in the book Success Now! For Artists.

Renée is known as The Artrepreneur Coach ™. She helps her clients identify their greatest strengths and obstacles and attain their dreams through discussion, action steps and motivation. Learn more.

Read more articles by Renée Phillips