Do you have 5 minutes to promote your work?

 Art is essentially communication. It doesn't exist in a vacuum. That's why people make art, so other people can relate to it.

Conor Oberst

When I talk to artists, so many of them tell me how hard it can be for them to talk about or promote their work. It is just One. More. Thing. If you are very lucky, art is your only job. More likely, you juggle other paying work with your work as an artist. Your minutes are precious and time away from the canvas or the dance studio or the jeweler’s bench can seem wasted. It’s not. If you don’t promote yourself your work will not be seen. That conversation about the world that your artwork is trying to start just won’t happen. I like to break down huge, overwhelming tasks into simple steps and am always a fan of doing the very least amount of work needed to accomplish something. I always say, can’t you find 5 minutes to promote your work? What about 10 minutes? Spending just a few minutes a day can make a huge difference in how many people know about your work and what they know about your work.

Here is my checklist, broken down by time commitment, of things you can and should do to promote yourself. If you do nothing else from this list, that top item in the daily category will change how many people see your work and the very last thing on this list will help you find more time in the studio. 

DAILY

In 5 minutes a day:

• You can post a single image of a work in progress or a work for sale to Instagram/Facebook. Do it before you leave the studio each day. 

In 10 minutes a day:

• You can create short video content for an Instagram story or YouTube channel (ideas: you doing the thing you do, you answering questions about the thing you do, time-lapse of you working)

• You can write a thank you to someone who recently purchased your work or saw your show

WEEKLY

In 5 minutes a week:

• You can promote another artist you admire. Share an image of their work (with attribution) and a link to their show/event/site

• You can email ONE gallery or shop where you think your work should be sold or displayed. 

In 1 hour a week:

• You can work on your artist email

• You can update your show and event calendar

• You can update your website with sold/new for sale images

• You can take a week’s (or month’s) worth of social media images of a work-in-progress or finished/for sale work to post daily

MONTHLY

In 1 hour a month:

• You can send your artist email

• You can write a thank you letter to an artist who has helped you or influenced you

Wait, Cynthia, how can I do all these things? Well, dear arty friend, you need to do some prep work. Set aside ONE HOUR for each of these tasks, and they only need to be done once:

• Create a digital packet to send to galleries and shops about your work. This can be a google docs folder with a letter (that you customize) plus 5-7 good images of your work, your vita and any other promotional info you want a gallery to see. This digital packet can be sent out to many galleries and shops, and can even be used for show applications sometimes. (I lie, you’ll have to update this but it should last for 6 months at least)

• Set up a free email account for your own artist email. Read more here. 

• Automate your all social media accounts so that they are linked together and posts to one account cascade through multiple accounts.

• Set up auto-responders on emails and social media accounts that let people know you are working in the studio and will get back to them when you can. 

Check out this reminder at the studio door of Tiffany Price-Coley at Golden Belt in Durham, NC