THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so you got featured. Maybe it was a magazine article, a podcast interview, a local news spot, or one of those top artists to watch roundups. You posted it, your friends congratulated you, you felt great for 24 hours and everything was about to change. But then nothing. No new collector emails, no commissions, no DMs from galleries, no flood of sales. Just crickets.
Speaker 2: It’s The Inspiration Place podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to The Inspiration Place podcast, an art World Insider podcast for artists by an artist, where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host, Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman: Hey there, I’m Miriam Schulman. I’ve been an artist for 25 years. I’m also host of this podcast, The Inspiration Place. And in 2019 I founded the Artist Incubator Coaching Program. I’m also author of the book Artpreneur The Step by Step Guide to Making a Sustainable Living From Your Creativity. And today we’re going to talk about what you need to be doing once you get the press. So has that ever happened to you? You got some visibility, some recognition, but then the sales just didn’t follow. Here’s what I want you to know. It’s not because your art isn’t good enough. It’s not because press doesn’t matter. It absolutely does. It’s one of the best ways for you to get more visibility without relying on social media. In fact, it’s way better than social media. However, press only works when you have a system for turning that attention into trust and then trust into a sales event. So today I’m going to show you exactly how artists accidentally waste press opportunities and what the smartest artists do differently, and how you can turn a single feature into a collector pipeline that keeps working for you long after the article is published. Now, before we get into it, if this is the kind of content you’ve been craving, the real strategy behind building an art business, not just pretty pictures, make sure you hit subscribe because there is so much more where this came from. The fantasy artists have about press. Let me tell you about the fantasy that I see all the time by artists I work with, and it goes something like this.
Miriam Schulman: An artist finally lands some press coverage. Maybe it’s a feature in an art magazine. Maybe they’re mentioned in a gift guide. Or maybe they even went on a walk. And in their mind they imagine that the article drops. The collectors discover them. Which does happen, but not always. The gallery calls, the waitlist fills up, and their legitimacy is confirmed. Everything is going to change. Now I get why you think this visibility does matter. I’m not going to tell you press is worthless. In fact, it’s a very solid strategy. But the reality is most press creates a small temporary spike in attention and then it will evaporate. Why? Because artists treat press as an ego event instead of a business asset. They spend their energy chasing podcasts. Magazine features local press awards, grants, top artists list. But then they completely ignore the question that actually matters, which is what does the press do? Does it grow your email list? Does it increase collector trust? Does it justify higher prices? Does it create demand or. And this is where most artists land. Does it just give you a dopamine hit for 24 hours on Instagram? So I want you to think about the last time you got some visibility, an article, a feature, a shout out from a bigger account. What happened next? Did you have a plan or did you just post it and hope? Because hope is not a strategy.
Miriam Schulman: Here’s the thing people don’t buy art just because they see it. They buy when they trust you, when they understand your work, and when they feel an emotional connection, and when there’s a clear and easy path to say yes. And definitely press can support all of that. But press alone doesn’t create it. So here’s the phrase that I want you to keep in your mind. Visibility without a system evaporates. What press actually does. So if press doesn’t sell art by itself, what does it actually do? Here’s the real value. Press is a credibility marker. When a respected source says this artist matters, people listen differently. It lowers the perceived risk. It shifts how a potential collector thinks. They think this artist is established. This artist is serious. I can trust this purchase. That’s powerful. That’s real. And let me tell you, it doesn’t have to be the New York Times. I remember when I would get featured in my local paper by local. I’m talking about just the paper that went to the people who lived in my town. And people suddenly thought I arrived because seeing something in print has that effect. Now the problem is a lot of artists stop there. They collect those credentials like trophies instead of deploying them strategically. Let me give you an example from inside the Artist Incubator, Cheryl Russell started applying for opportunities she never would have pursued before, and the results were remarkable.
Miriam Schulman: She won the Women Artists Award through Arts to Heart Project for their six inch exhibition. She got accepted into the Women Thrive magazine in the UK, and she received a $2,500 grant from the Adam Jay Elkhatib Foundation. Now, here’s the part I really want you to hear when I talk to Cheryl, she shared with me, I never dreamed I would get in. That’s what changed. First, her identity changed before the opportunities did. The pitch challenge inside the Artist Incubator forced her to stop hiding and start putting herself forward consistently. And once she started accumulating these credibility markers, the awards, the features, the grants, her confidence shifted, which led to more applications, which led to more wins. And here’s the bigger difference it changed how she showed up. Now she knows she needs to knock on bigger doors, bigger galleries, bigger opportunities, and yes, bigger prices to match them. Now, does every magazine feature instantly produce a sale? No, of course not. And you don’t need to hear this. This is what I call being professionally impressive, but commercially invisible. And Sheryl’s not one of them. She’s been stacking wins, and she’s going to be turning these into tangible results. But I actually have seen artists win award after award after award, but not make sales. So artists like that are somebody who I consider professionally impressive but commercially invisible. I don’t want that for you. So if you’ve got accolades but no collector pipeline, the solution is not more press.
Miriam Schulman: The solution is knowing how to leverage the press that you already have. Okay, so let’s talk about the mistakes artists make after getting featured. I see these mistakes constantly, even among very talented, serious artists. And yeah, I’ve made my share of them myself. So mistake number one is posting about it only once they share the link they write. So honored to be featured and then disappears forever. Now I’ve had a friend on the podcast. I’m not sure if we put it on YouTube or not. Beth Neidich and she teaches people how to turn press Into profit. One thing that she does is when she’s on a podcast, she shares it to her email list not once, but she continually rotates it all the time. So it makes it seem like she’s always on podcasts because she’s just continually resharing the same wants. And it works. You’ve got to do this to sophisticated brands and businesses, reuse press constantly. They reference it in emails. They put it on their website. They mention it in sales conversations. This is something I talk about in my book Artpreneur. I’ll say things to people at an art show. Oh, did you see this in the whatever the Scarsdale Inquirer, did you learn about this show? They’re like, I make sure that they know I was featured in press. Like, how did you hear about the show? Did you see my art in the New York Times? So I dropped those credibility markers.
Miriam Schulman: I meant you mentioned in sales conversations, you put it on your booth and signage at fairs. One feature can become ten emails, 20 social posts, podcast talking points, collector conversation starters, and proof that Liz on your page for years. Most artists dramatically underused the credibility that they’ve already earned. So like I was featured in Igniting creativity. So you’re going to see this the as seen on you’re going to hear sometimes when I’m being introduced on somebody else’s podcast, as featured on the New York Times entrepreneur. These are all things that I’ve done. Entrepreneur, professional artist, magazine. Okay, so I remember when I was waiting for this magazine article to come out, I kind of made the same mistakes that I’m talking about today. I thought when this magazine hit Barnes and Noble that there would be a mad rush for my Artpreneur and I learned my publisher. I was like, oh my gosh, we have to reprint now. It barely got a blip. But the thing is, is this became a credibility marker I could use over and over again. So we have the magazine, we have pictures of me. We can show pictures of this on our social media feed. They did include an excerpt of the book, which was nice. I think what they did here was pretty cool because it really associated me with some of the artists that I talk about inside my book, people like Britney Spears and Courtney Love and Beyonce.
Miriam Schulman: So that’s super fun. So yeah, press is super fun, but you do need to reuse that asset over and over again. Mistake number two is not capturing the traffic. So someone reads an article about you. They’re curious, they click over to your website, but there may not be a clear step once they get there, like no email opt in, no collector pathway, no way to stay in your world. So here’s a quick tip you can do. Whenever somebody goes to my Instagram profile, they always have a welcome message. And inside the welcome message you’re going to see, hey, are you making consistent sales? If not, I have a free masterclass to help you. So I immediately am giving people a next step on how to work with me. Now, a lot of times when I’m in a magazine, I try to give them a custom URL for this particular magazine article. The next step was really just to buy the book. So the very end says. Excerpted from Artpreneur The Step by Step Guide to Making a Sustainable Living from Your Creativity. So the next step was to buy the book. But in other magazines I’ve been in like art journal magazines a lot of times I wanted them to get onto my email list so that they could eventually take one of my art classes. I don’t offer those art classes anymore, but at the time in my bio, that would go at the bottom of that article, I would say something like this.
Miriam Schulman: If you’d like Miriam’s favorite list of art supplies, go to SchulmanArt.com And I think it was supplies or something like that, or Art Journal. And I don’t think that you are all is going to work for you anymore. So I’m just sharing it with you as an example, not for you to go in and get my art journal supplies, but I always had a next step, the next logical step for people to take. Here’s mistake number three. If you make the press article about yourself instead of about the reader or the buyer. So if the article talks about your awards, your biography, your achievements, and then you repost it with, I’m so honored, there’s nothing in it for somebody else. It’s about you. It’s about your achievement that doesn’t give anybody a reason to click. So if I’m going to be posting about this feature in igniting creativity, it’s not. Yay! I got featured in igniting creativity. It would be something like this. If you want to read the excerpt from my book in Igniting Creativity, you can click here. So I’m giving them something that they will get out of getting it. Okay. Or I might focus on the title, which is how to be an original. If you want to learn how to be original, how to embrace your signature style. That’s what I’m talking about in this article. Inside Igniting Creativity. So in terms of you for selling art, collectors don’t buy achievements.
Miriam Schulman: They buy emotional meaning, they buy identity. They buy the feeling of owning something that matters. So the question is, what does this say to a collector about the experience of owning my work? Think about that question. That’s a completely different framing. Mistake number four. I’ve talked about this a lot already and I’ve been very, very outspoken about pricing transparency. So you might have known that this was coming. But there are many artists who think that hiding their prices make them look more high end and luxurious. Or maybe they’re just confused about how to do the shipping. But you’re not building mystique. What you’re really doing is creating buying friction. If someone discovers your work through a press feature, but then has to email you to find out whether they can afford it or how much the shipping is going to be. They’ll disappear. Not because they don’t love your art, but because uncertainty is going to create hesitation. And hesitation kills sales every single time. Research on online art buying consistently shows that the absence of visible pricing is one of the top barriers to purchase. So when press does create attention, you need a clear, clean pathway, not confusion. Okay, let’s talk about what press should do. So you have five goals for your press. We talked about mistakes. So what should you actually accomplish. I want to give you a framework. Any piece of press you get to do at least one of these five things.
Miriam Schulman: Number one, grow your email list. This is the highest value outcome for long term monetization. An email subscriber is someone who has chosen to stay in your world. They’re far more likely to buy than a random Instagram follower. Now, this was coordinated between my publisher and the magazine to get the excerpt, but a lot of times the magazines will ask for a mini bio instead of saying Find Miriam at TheInspirationPlace.net or at SchulmanArt.com. If they had asked me for a mini bio, I would have said. To get more pricing strategies, go to SchulmanArt.com/Pricing. I would have given them something that they would want, after reading this article, to be the next obvious step where I can capture their email address. That’s what you need to do too. Number two increase collector trust. Third party validation says other people believe in this artist that matters, that transfers. That reduces the psychological risk that a collector feels when they’re considering a purchase. You’re going to want to put that as seen on every single place you can. So as seen on goes on, your LinkedIn profile goes on your website, possibly in your Instagram bio, if. If there’s room, maybe have a highlight reel on your Instagram for all your press features, which you should have multiple. Okay. See how that works? Number three pre-sell higher prices. Authority changes the perceived value. An artist who has been featured in respected publications can charge more and collectors feel confident paying it.
Miriam Schulman: The credential isn’t just an ego boost, it’s a pricing tool. Number four create conversation starters. When collectors have language to talk about your art, to explain it to their spouse, their friends, their decorator, why they bought it, they’re more likely to buy more and more likely to stay loyal. Number five open future doors. One feature leads to another. Press gets more press. I know that happened to Grace Marquez. She said that in the beginning she was doing more of the outreaching, but once she started to get out there, then people started coming to her. So press begets press speaking invitations, gallery interest partnership, licensing conversations and the compound value of credibility is enormous. Over time, the real value of press is momentum, not vanity. Okay, so let me ask you which of those five would be most valuable for you right now? How to strategically use press. Let’s get tactical. You’ve got a feature you’ve got to win. Here are four moves that turn that visibility into business momentum. Move one put as seen on everywhere. Everywhere. Your homepage, your about page, your email footer, your proposals. Your art fair booth signage. Your LinkedIn profile. Most artists kind of hide their press like it’s bragging. It’s not bragging, it’s reassurance. It’s the psychological signal that says to collectors, other people have already validated this artist. It’s like cars in front of the diner. People ate here.
Miriam Schulman: They didn’t get poisoned. It’s safe to trust her at it. Keep it visible. Update it every time you get a new win. Move to create a collector entry point after someone reads about you, what should they do next? This is where most artists have a gap. They have press, but they don’t have a bridge. The bridge is everything. It could be the free collector guide. They download an exchange for an email. It could be a curated featured works page on your website. It could be a simple opt in, join my collector list to get early access and studio updates. Boom. That’s it. It could be an invitation to browse available works with prices of course clearly displayed. Point is, the press should send people somewhere specific, not just your home page. It’s like inviting people to your front door, but not opening the door and telling them where to go and not Instagram either. Someplace with a clear next step. Move. Three. Use press to justify your positioning. This is especially important if you’re moving into higher price points, larger commissions, or more premium collector market. And this is not arrogance. This is a psychological reality. Third party validation reduces buyer uncertainty. Period. A collector who is on the fence about a $3,000 painting is less on the fence when they see third party validation, when they see you’ve been featured in respected places. That’s the math that they’re doing. That’s the calculus. And that math changes. You don’t have to say it explicitly.
Miriam Schulman: You just have to make sure it’s visible. Move number four is recycle your press consistently. Don’t just post it once. Email with a story behind the feature. Behind the scenes about how you applied a reflection on what being in this organization meant to you. Maybe a post about what collectors told you after the feature ran. Maybe a story about the piece that sold as a result. I have artists in the incubator like Megan Mayberry, who received a grant that grew from $8000 to $12,000, and others like Natalie Bradley, Grace Marquez, Vicky Baths. They have built real momentum by stacking these wins and using them consistently. Or how about Anna? She is on the list of black Miami artists you should know. Got her art featured in the Miami airport. That’s what this looks like when you stop treating press as a trophy and start treating it as fuel. Now, if this is helping you see your press in a different way, I want you to give this video a thumbs up. Or if you want to help another artist share it with them, I’m sure they’ll thank you for it. Now we’re going to do the Deeper truth. Press follows momentum. Here’s something that might reframe everything. The confidence you get from these features is the result. You don’t have to get the confidence first. So are you in that cycle right now? Are you waiting to feel confident before you apply, or are you willing to apply and let the confidence come from showing up, from taking the chance? I also want to name something that I think is underneath a lot of this press chasing behavior, and not that there’s anything wrong with chasing press.
Miriam Schulman: Chasing press is great. Just make sure you do all the steps we’re talking about to turn it into something lasting. A lot of artists secretly want press because they hope it’ll finally make them feel like a real artist. Like once I’m featured somewhere that matters, then I’ll believe in myself. I get it, I understand it, I really do, but legitimacy does not come from the article. It comes from becoming the type of person who builds collector relationships, creates the opportunities, and knows how to translate that visibility into momentum. The press is evidence that you’re becoming that person. It’s not the origin of it. Press is fuel, not the engine. You’re the engine. And when artists understand that shift, when they stop chasing validation and start building systems, everything will change for you. Not because you got featured, but because you got strategic. All right, so here’s the takeaway from today. Press is not the business. It’s fuel for the business. And if you know how to capture attention, build trust, create collector pathways, recycle your credibility markers strategically, one article can keep generating sales for years. Okay, gonna recap. The four moves are simple. One put your press everywhere it reassures collectors. Two build a bridge from attention to an email.
Miriam Schulman: Opt in. Three use your credibility to justify your positioning and your prices. Four. Recycle that one feature into content that works for you for months. And if you’re ready to go deeper on how to actually sell your art without needing to be Insta famous, without needing a massive following, without needing to hustle on every platform, I have a free masterclass for you. It’s called How to Sell Art without being Insta famous, and it teaches you exactly how to build a collector pipeline that converts whether you have 10,000 followers or ten. Head on over to SchulmanArt.com/sellmoreart to watch it for free. I’ll leave the link in the show notes. All right. If you been wondering if making a full time living from your art is possible, you’re definitely going to want to check in next week because I’m passing the mic over to five artists who have done exactly that quit their engineering job, quit their medical sales job, quit their full time teaching job, taking the chance on a full time art career. And they’re doing it six figure art careers. So for that, you’re going to want to make sure you tune in next week, because we’re going to talk about how you really can make a full time living from your art. So thanks for joining in today. I’ll see you the same time, same place next week. Until then, stay inspired. Bye for now.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on facebook at facebook.com/SchulmanArt, on Instagram @SchulmanArt, and of course on SchulmanArt.com.
Subscribe & Review in iTunes
Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you’re not, I want to encourage you to do that today. I don’t want you to miss an episode. I’m adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the mix and if you’re not subscribed there’s a good chance you’ll miss out on those. Click here to subscribe in iTunes!
Now if you’re feeling extra loving, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find my podcast and they’re also fun for me to go in and read. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you!
.