Hot Take: Art Collections
When I started building my art business three years ago, I thought the only way to make money was to release art collections. I released art collections four times a year for a couple of years. Finally, I decided it created too much pressure on my creativity. Which made me enjoy making art less.
Instead, I decided to begin releasing art monthly. Whatever I've created that month that didn't make it to the trash pile gets shared on the first Tuesday of the month. The question is: has it improved sales? I don't know; it's only been six months. I'm planning to re-evaluate the process at the end of the year.
Let's talk about the work that goes into launching my artwork each month:
Creating the artwork: It's the most fun part. I have begun planning some of my series of artwork better. I've started doing artist studies to plan composition, color palette, etc. Doing it this way helps me create a better vision for my work and makes the last couple of steps of the process easier.
Photographing the artwork: this has been a specific goal of mine this year. As an artist, I want my photographs to be cohesive and similar. At this point, I take a photo of me with the artwork for scale (and because people love seeing the artist with the art), another on the wall or easel, and a bunch of detail shots. The strategy that's helped the most is editing them all at once. It takes FOREVER, but it's worth it.
Writing copy: is the most emotional part of the process. I don't always know exactly how I want to talk about the art. I feel like my artwork says a lot, but I don't want to give you a bulleted list of what each part of the painting means. Honestly, you may see something I didn't; and I love that for you. Writing descriptions is easy enough with a template, but this last time I asked the AI to write my SEO for me. It worked well, but time will tell if the SEO it wrote is helping drive traffic for me.
Writing an e-mail for my subscribers: I've got this one down. I use the same template each time to help keep things consistent so people know where to find the early access password. Each month, I write a newsletter and include the release information. I try not to send too many e-mails, so it's nice to lump these together. I then schedule the e-mail for the morning before the public release just for my subscribers.
Marketing the work is the part I struggle with the most. I want to shut down after each launch, but it's not the best marketing strategy. In the coming months, I want to be better about planning ahead for that mental shutdown and have material prepared for social media posts so that I'm not interrupting my needed rest.
It's a TON of work doing a monthly release, but I've found that I'm more efficient overall. I also find doing it this way makes me feel less burned out with the process. Now I have the freedom to create what I want while still consistently sharing it.