Artists Unfiltered - Terri Abrahamsen| Finding the Confidence to Step in Front of the Camera

You sent the email. You posted the painting. Crickets. Your art isn't the problem. Nobody saw it. This episode is about the one idea the pros live by that almost nobody outside marketing has heard of: being everywhere at once. Want to join Patrick for a live webinar? He hosts one every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Register here: asf.today/webinar We picture the world stopping for our message. The email gets read, the post goes out like an emergency alert, everyone visits our profile. Reality is a crowded inbox and a warehouse full of posts. Once you see that gap, saying it again stops feeling annoying. You're finally being heard. Stick around to the end: there's a big announcement. In this episode: Mind the gap: what we think happens when we hit send or post, and what actually happens, across email, Instagram, and Facebook A flood warning, twenty stucco workers, and John Wick: what a real "everybody gets the ping" moment looks like, and why your post isn't one The spotlight effect and the Barry Manilow T-shirt: why we badly overestimate how much anyone notices what we do Nobody sees the frequency: real numbers from the Art Storefronts email program, and why sending more didn't drive people away Everybody big has always done this: a London ad man in the 1880s, Coca-Cola "within arm's reach of desire," WWII war bonds, and how movies get launched Effective frequency in plain English: more than once, more than you think, spread out, in a bunch of places Spread beats cram, and why three noticed exposures takes far more than three sends Messi alone versus the whole team: you already have a roster of players, you're just leaving them on the bench The full roster: every player an artist or photographer can put on the field, online and off, including the ones you forgot you had One message, every surface, each platform in its own voice, and a simple staggered launch week Find Your Team: the free prompt from this episode. Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Grok. It interviews you about what you have to work with, online and offline, shows you every player on your roster (and which ones are sitting on the bench), gives you creative ideas for each one tailored to your art, and lays out your first week. No marketing experience needed. Get it here: artmarketingpodcast.com/find-your-team The big announcement: the Art Marketing Podcast finally has its own email list, just in time for the show's 10th birthday. It isn't a "new episode is out" list. It's built to be one-to-one, not one-to-many. Join at artmarketingpodcast.com/join This week's homework: count your oars. List every surface you own, online and offline. Then pick one piece and put it on all of them this month. Related episodes: Q4 Prep for Artists — why now is the time to get this right A Greek Warship, a Horse Named Sally — a full multi-channel sale, start to finish The Artist's Guide to Instagram Live — one more player, even if you hate being on camera The Long Game — Why Your Website Will Still Be Working in 2055 Comment on Spotify or YouTube: how many players did the prompt find on your roster, and how many were you actually using? I'll answer every one. Nobody saw it. So say it again, somewhere new. Your art will thank you. Stay Up To Date With The Latest https://linktr.ee/artmarketingpodcast

No scripts. No polish. Just artists being real. On the Art Marketing Podcast, Art Storefronts sits down with working artists and photographers to talk about what actually happens behind the work: the wins, the flops, the pricing decisions, the slow months, and the moments that changed everything. Unfiltered conversations for artists who want the truth about building a creative career. 🎥 YouTube: https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/artmarketingpod 🎧 Spotify: https://urlgeni.us/spotify/GDwR 🍏 Apple Podcasts: https://urlgeni.us/applepodcast/Qhatu 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artmarketingpodcast/

You've nodded along to the story lesson all year and kept firing the art gatling gun. So I'm done teaching it. This episode, I become it. Want to join Patrick for a live webinar? He hosts one every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Register here: asf.today/webinar I've never recorded an episode like this one. Three proofs that the art doesn't change, the story does. Then I run the experiment on myself, on you: the mini life story I've avoided telling for nine years. At the end, one question. How much more do you have in common with me now than you did forty minutes ago? In this episode: The two failure modes after every "yeah yeah, I get it": nod and revert, or one post and revert The art gatling gun. Art, art, art, one shot fired forever. What I see when I open your profile My hedge: the artist who did the exact opposite of everything I teach, to the tune of $347K, and the softball story about copying a fence-clearing home run What happens on a webinar when one artist opens with their story instead of their awards: the whole room asks for their Instagram Mona Lisa: respected, not famous, until a Louvre handyman walked out with it in 1911. Story added, value explodes Banksy: signed originals at $60 from an unmarked Central Park stall. Eight buyers all day. Story removed, value collapses Joshua Bell: a $3.5M Stradivarius in a DC Metro station, 1,097 people walked past. Context removed, excellence disappears How Elon Musk interviews: "Tell me the story of your life." Your art is the résumé. The story is the interview. Every collector is Musk I asked AI what my listeners actually know about me after nine years. It's embarrassingly thin Then the story: Hawaii, Pearl Harbor from a front yard, Boston Latin and MIT, Janis Joplin as the backyard band, an IBM under the Christmas tree, a john boat off La Jolla Scott and the nametag, the dog you end up walking, and the claw machine: every facet you surface opens another lane to your art "But I'm not interesting." Rare lanes are small, common lanes are enormous. Painting at 5am in half the garage is a bin with millions of people in it This week's homework: make the list. Every facet of your life someone could glom onto, the mundane ones included. Pick one and put it in front of your art this week. You don't know what's going to work. You do know art, art, art isn't. Resources mentioned: Hello, My Name is Scott by Scott Ginsberg — the nametag guy Banksy's Central Park stall, October 2013 — go look at the picture Related episodes: The Artwork Didn't Change. The Story Did. — where this year started 4 Prompts That Pull Your Story Out — if you need help making the list The Coffee Shop Test The Algorithm Doesn't Care About Your Art — memes are the fuel, this is the sorting machine When a Buyer Asks for ode

A buyer asks, "Can you do any better on the price?" Most artists feel their stomach drop — like they just lost something. I don't accept that premise. Want to join Patrick for a live webinar? He hosts one every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Register here: asf.today/webinar It's my strongly held belief that more art gets sold at a discount than at full price — especially at higher price points, especially in person. Once you know that, everything changes. You can prepare for negotiation, and you can negotiate on your terms. Last episode we covered the maths of pricing your art for Q4. This one is what happens after the price is on the wall: the rules, the tradecraft, and why the buyer who negotiates is the best thing that ever happened to you. In this episode: The premise I refuse to accept: that entering a negotiation means you're the one losing How I learned to reject a premise — the story of why I haven't been offended in decades A car dealer, a real estate agent, and Thomas Crown — why negotiating an art sale is different from every negotiation you've seen The one metric (new customers acquired per year) and the long game: you're not playing a one-shot game, and that changes everything Sun Tzu was right — the battle is won before it starts Your three rules: know your floor, have a range of pricing, and never give something up without getting something in return Why negotiation is the greatest thing that's ever happened: it signals intent My Craigslist career — over a million dollars of cars, boats, and gear, and what the "$7,500 cash, I'll pick it up today" guy taught me The serious buyer drives over to look at the car — for an artist, that's the phone call or the Zoom Get out of the DMs: every step from message to email to call to in-person gets more real The asks list: what to trade for instead of dropping your price Q4 is coming — which means sales are coming, which means negotiations are coming This week's homework: write your asks list before Q4. Know your floor on every piece and be comfortable with it. And decide right now what you'll ask for the next time someone asks you to come down. Related episodes: How to Price Your Art for Q4 — the maths this episode builds on Advanced Pricing Strategies for Artists and Photographers — the pricing opus, including the original negotiation rule Discounting Your Art or Photography. Should You? Why Your Website Will Still Be Working in 2055 — the long game

Getting ready for this episode, I re-read everything I've ever taught about pricing art. Four years on, the rules haven't moved an inch. That's not a confession — that's the point. Want to join Patrick for a live webinar? He hosts one every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Register here: asf.today/webinar Pricing your art comes down to one metric: new customers acquired per year. Everything else — the range, the non-wall-art, the bell curve — works backward from that number. This is the full pricing refresher pointed straight at Q4, plus four pricing plays I've never taught on this show before, each backed by real research. In this episode: Why "nothing new under the sun" is the best news your art business ever got The one metric — new customers acquired per year — and the Slack channel of $10,000 sales that proves it "But Patrick, I only sell to high-net-worth individuals" — the pushback, and the street-cred riff The socioeconomic bell curve: price points from under $100 to prestige. It's all just maths Gift buyers price the occasion, not the art — roughly $628 of gift budget across 8 gifts. Call it a $75–80 slot The catalog test where the $39 dress outsold the identical $34 dress — nines are the costume of cheap Originals end in zeros, mugs end in nines — but get precise inside a negotiation Stepped editions: the documented ladder that opens at $4,000 and hits $17,500 at 95% sold The January price increase — real December urgency, zero discounts Gift cards as taste-risk insurance for the buyer scared to choose for someone else This week's homework: walk your store like a gift buyer. Is there something at $25, $50, $100? Is anything merchandised as a gift? Does every slot on the curve have a price? Resources mentioned: Art Storefronts NRF Holiday Survey — the $628 gift budget Deloitte Holiday Survey — budgets flex, the gift list doesn't Stanford: It's the Thought That Counts — price doesn't buy appreciation The $9 Price Endings Experiments — the $39 dress study Magnum: Understanding the Fine-Art Market — stepped pricing Related episodes: Advanced Pricing Strategies for Artists and Photographers — the magnum opus this episode re-hits The Gallery Test — should artists list prices on their website? Q4 Prep for Artists — the race this episode trains you for The rules are the rules and the maths never lie. Set the range, cover every slot, put non-wall-art in the lineup, publish the ladder — and let Q4's gift buyers do what they came to do. Acquire as many new customers as you can this season, then market to them for the rest of your art-creating life. Your art will thank you. Stay Up To Date With The Latest

I've worked out with my buddy Dom for years. There's normal Dom, and then there's the Dom who has a race coming up. Normal Dom shows up when I show up and does the same workout I do. Race Dom shows up thirty minutes early, goes for a run first, and then does our entire normal workout on top of it. Nothing changed about Dom. What changed is there's a race on the calendar. Want to join Patrick for a live webinar? He hosts one every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Register here: asf.today/webinar Q4 is that race. And it's the one you didn't realize I signed you up for. It starts October 1st, which is about two months out — and here's what most artists get wrong: mid-October isn't your launch. It's your deadline. Nearly half of holiday shoppers say they start before Halloween. By the middle of October, 40% already know exactly what they're buying. The big retailers figured this out years ago — Best Buy's own press release last year announced they were "putting the creep in holiday creep" and kicking the season off on Halloween. This episode is the broad game plan for getting ready. The tactics come next, week by week, between now and October. In this episode: Normal Dom vs. Race Dom — and the small detail in that story that's really the whole instruction manual Why the "Rule of 7" is marketing folklore with no study behind it, and the 1959 experiment that makes the point far better Effective frequency explained as reps and sets: the same 13 ads crammed into 13 weeks spike and then collapse; spread across a year, they hold The number that should worry you — by mid-October, 40% of shoppers already know exactly what they're buying Attention arrives in October. Money arrives in December. Why that's better news for artists than it first sounds Tell your story first, show your art second — and how that one reordering kills the "I don't have enough to post" problem for good Three questions to answer before you get out of the car: can you transact, are you open for commissions, are you actually marketing The Gallery Test pointed straight at December — what a real gallery does differently for the holidays, and the digital twin of every one of those moves The Bathroom Art Sale — how naming the destination removes the friction that quietly kills art sales, and why "under the tree" works even better Why commissions carry a hard deadline, and what that means for your October This week's homework: answer three questions honestly. Is your website set up so a total stranger can buy without having to ask you a single question? Are you open for commissions? And are you actively marketing right now — not in October, right now? Whichever one you answered no to is where the next two months go. Resources mentioned: Art Storefronts — the storefront engine for working artists Bankrate Holiday Spending Report — nearly half of shoppers start before Halloween NRF Holiday Survey — when shoppers really start browsing and buying Zielske, The Remembering and Forgetting of Advertising (1959) — the study behind the whole episode Related episodes: A Greek Warship, a Horse Named Sally — the full anatomy of a sale. Swap Mother's Day for Black Friday and run it Art-Selling Holidays You're Sitting Out — the calendar as a forcing function The Coffee Shop Test — why your social media is failing The Gallery Test — should artists list prices on their website? The Artist's Guide to Instagram Live — even if you hate being on camera Here's the takeaway. You've been creating for a long time. Not enough people have seen your art. You want to sell it — and Q4 is the single best window all year long to do exactly that. So enjoy your summer, genuinely, by all means. Just keep it in the back of your head that Q4 is coming, and start putting the reps in now. Your art will thank you. Stay Up To Date With The Latest https://linktr.ee/artmarketingpodcast

Few on earth has a website problem. Everybody has a marketing problem — and the fix is hiding in plain sight inside every art gallery in the world. Want to join Patrick for a live webinar? He hosts one every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Register here: asf.today/webinar In 12 years and 15,000+ artists, Patrick has watched one truth play out over and over: selling art online isn't about reinventing anything. It's about copying the paradigm that already works offline — the art gallery — and refusing to play the short game. This is the "customary rant" that opens every Art Business Webinar, start to finish. The art gallery is the same in every country and culture on earth: minimalist walls, the art front and center, nothing else. That single paradigm tells you how to build your website, how to behave on social media, and why consistency beats talent every time. In this episode: Why artists in their 80s, 90s, and 100s still show up asking "how do I get my art seen?" — and what that proves about your real time horizon The "graveyard of hobbyists": whancer for an art business The one paradigm that sells art everywhere on earth — and how to copy it three ways Your website is not a canvas: whworst enemy online "Your art are the commercials" — the Art Gatling Gun that kills your social media, and the programming the algorithm actually r The open sign: why consistency beats talent, and the New Year's-resolution trap that gets every artist Art sells 50% story, 50% craft — and the REAL Vincent van Gogh story nobody tells you (hint: it's not "you have to die first") This week's challenge: walk your own website, your last 10 social posts, and your posting calendar, and ask of each, "Would this work inbout where you're running the Gatlinggun. Resources mentioned: Art Storefronts — the gallery-style storefront engine for working artists Join a live webinar — Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays with Patrick Related episodes: The Gallery Test — Should Website? The Coffee Shop Test — Why Your Social Media Is Failing Why Your Website Will Still Be Working in 2055 So here's the takeaway. You wouldn the real world — minimalist walls,art front and center, doors open six days a week. Stop reinventing it online. Copy the paradigm on your website, bring a human to your sociait — and give the work the story itdeserves. That's the whole game. Stay Up To Date With The Latest https://linktr.ee/artmarketingpodcast

The most influential poster in the history of art was an ad for a play. It was designed by a broke, unknown illustrator who only got the job because he was the one stuck working over the holidays. His name was Alphonse Mucha, and that single commission — a rush job nobody else wanted — turned him into the father of Art Nouveau. He didn't sit in a studio and find his direction. A customer handed it to him. Want to join Patrick for a live webinar? He hosts one every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Register here: asf.today/webinar That's the heart of this episode: a commission isn't a compromise. It's an idea-generation machine. A client drags you somewhere you'd never have chosen on your own — and every so often, that detour becomes your entire career. It happened to Mucha. It happened to a portrait painter named George Stubbs who took a few horse commissions and ended up the greatest equine painter who ever lived. It happened to a studio photographer named Dorothea Lange the day a government assignment sent her into the migrant camps. But before we get to the good news, we have to clear out the lies. The longer you spend in this business, the more you realize the "sacred truths" of the art world are mostly nonsense — and most of them are really just hobbyist rules wearing a business suit. (If you've heard me draw the hobbyist-vs-business line before, this is where it earns its keep — same line that runs under The Long Game.) In this episode: The Christmas shift that invented Art Nouveau — how Mucha got the job nobody wanted and never looked back Six "sacred truths" of the art business that are complete nonsense — and the one thing wrong with every single one of them "You need a niche before you can start" — why you don't pick your niche; the work reveals it "Good art sells itself" — the $128 of thrift-store junk that resold for $3,612 on stories alone, a $3.5M violin that earned $32 in a subway, and the painter who went from unsold to $2.5 million without changing a brushstroke "Never discount your work" — why that rule is real, why it isn't yours, and what the galleries who preach it actually do behind closed doors The line in the sand: hobby or business? Drucker said a business has exactly one purpose — to create a customer — and in that equation, you don't get the last word. The market does. "Nobody bought it, so I'm a failure" — the lie that makes good artists quit, and why Picasso died holding roughly 45,000 of his own unsold works Why constraints beat the blank canvas — Stravinsky, and the bet that produced Green Eggs and Ham in 50 words The honest catch: when a commission becomes a cage instead of a doorway, and how to tell the difference This week's homework: take the one commission you'd normally turn down — the weird request, the subject you'd never choose, the client who wants something slightly off from your usual. Say yes to it. Then watch where it drags you. Reply or DM me what you learned — I read every single one. Resources mentioned: Art Storefronts — the storefront engine for working artists The Mucha Foundation — the Gismonda poster and the birth of Art Nouveau Significant Objects — the experiment that turned $128 of junk into $3,612 with nothing but stories Pearls Before Breakfast — the Washington Post's Pulitzer-winning Joshua Bell subway story Freakonomics: The Hidden Side of the Art Market — how art is really priced (and why prices "only go up") Related episodes: The Gallery Test — Should Artists List Prices on Their Website? The Long Game — Why Your Website Will Still Be Working in 2055 POD and Samples — What Wyland and Gray Malin Actually Do 20 Ways to Grow Your Email List as an Artist — hobbyist or business, the honest cut So here's the takeaway. If you're a hobbyist, make whatever you want, forever, and be happy — there's no shame in it. But if you want a business, stop waiting for the market to reward your purity, because it never will. Go meet it. Say yes to the commission, the weird job, the thing you'd never have chosen — because that yes creates a customer, which is the only thing that makes you a business, and it just might drag you, like it dragged Mucha off that holiday shift, straight into the work you were put here to make. Stay Up To Date With The Latest https://linktr.ee/artmarketingpodcast

You don't own your followers. You own your list. Every platform you're on is rented — the landlord can change the rules or close the door anytime. Your email list is the one audience nobody can take from you. Want to join Patrick for a live webinar? He hosts one every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Register here: asf.today/webinar The good news: it doesn't have to be huge. Three hundred of the right people is enough to run a real art business — which is exactly why you want three thousand, then thirty thousand, then three hundred thousand. This is the foundational one: why email matters, the creative ways to capture it, and the latest tradecraft. Almost no artists do this well. (We covered why the basics outlast everything in The Long Game — this is the basics, weaponized.) The unlock isn't new places. It's the places you're already standing — the booth, the bio link, the DM, the box you're shipping, the car in your driveway. Every one is a capture opportunity you're wasting. In this episode: The trifecta — phone, email, snail mail — and why email is the cheapest and easiest one to own Hobbyist or business? The honest cut, and why every opportunity is an email-capture opportunity The four online venues: your website (footer to popup to content upgrades), bio links, DMs, and comments The 11–15 second popup rule — the delay that converts at 6.45%, and why a zero-second popup kills it The Birthday Club, the new favorite opt-in: some people are birthday people, and if they are, they love it (3–4x) Just ask, then shut up — the DM play most artists never run The three offline venues: in-person events, the QR-code layer, and direct mail The clipboard and the fishbowl — $0 plays that are 150 years old and still work QR car magnets — the hero play nobody in art is running yet (about $35 a pair) Direct mail at $0.40 a piece — your art in 1,000 mailboxes around your gallery for less than a Meta ad The compounding math — how the basics become $800K–$1M over ten years Wyland and Gray Malin run this at the highest level — get on their lists and watch (see POD and Samples) This week's homework: pick three tactics. One online, one offline, and one you'd never have considered. Set them up by Friday. Then reply or DM me your three — I read every single one. Resources mentioned: Art Storefronts — the storefront engine for working artists Linktree — a bio-link service that turns your one link into a mini-website Sticker Mule car magnets — for the QR car-magnet play GotPrint — EDDM direct-mail postcards, ~$0.40 a piece Wyland and Gray Malin — get on their lists for the master class Related episodes: The Long Game — Why Your Website Will Still Be Working in 2055 POD and Samples — What Wyland and Gray Malin Actually Do The Gallery Test — Should Artists List Prices on Their Website? All Oars In — The Anatomy of a Sale So pick your three. A clipboard on the table, a real opt-in in your bio, a magnet on the car. You don't have to run every play — just start capturing in the places you're already standing. Followers are rented. The list is yours. All roads lead to email. Stay Up To Date With The Latest https://linktr.ee/artmarketingpodcast

There's one number that should end the price-on-request debate forever: artworks with visible prices sell 2-6 times more often than the same works with hidden prices. The data is in. The artists are still hiding the prices. Want to join Patrick for a live webinar? He hosts one every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Register here: asf.today/webinar This episode runs the gallery test on your website. A real gallery prices the work, frames it, lights it, and puts a checkout at the desk. Christie's, Sotheby's, Gagosian, 1stDibs — every serious art business does this online too. Almost no working artist does. Today we close that gap. In this episode: The gallery test — the one rule every digital decision should pass The 5 things almost every artist website gets wrong "Oooooh so mysterious" — why "contact for pricing" is the gallery with the lights off The shop is the signal: how a real storefront tells visitors they're welcome to buy Why the biggest art sellers on earth all do this — and the artists somehow don't The generational gut-punch: collectors under 40 don't tolerate hidden prices Mix the feed the way you'd mix an opening — killing the "art-only Instagram" sacred cow Why a gallery with the lights off on Wednesday loses every Wednesday walk-in The data referenced (with sources): Artsy, Dec 2019 — works with visible prices are 2-6x more likely to sell than identical hidden-price works Hiscox Online Art Trade Report 2018 — 90% of new art buyers say price transparency is a key consideration (n=831 international buyers) Art Basel and UBS 2020 Mid-Year Survey — 81% of high-net-worth collectors say it is "important or essential" to have a price posted online Artsy Art Market Trends 2025 — 69% of collectors hesitate to buy because of lack of transparency; 43% name "lack of visible price" as a top barrier; only 5% call the art market completely transparent Hiscox Online Art Trade Report 2020 — 96% of online art platforms agree price transparency is "key to building trust" (n=62 platforms) Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting 2024 — 71% of collectors under 37 bought art online in the last year Robert Read, Head of Fine Art at Hiscox (Oct 2022) — "Buyers would like more clarity around pricing" Resources mentioned: Art Storefronts — the website and storefront engine built for working artists Walk into a real gallery this weekend. Then load your website. Stand them side by side. If your site doesn't make a stranger feel welcome to buy, you have work to do. The basics in this episode are the same basics in 2055. Stay Up To Date With The Latest https://linktr.ee/artmarketingpodcast