THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman:
Well, hey there, passion-makers. This is Miriam Schulman, Chief Inspiration Officer and your host. You’re listening to episode number 133, and I’m so grateful that you’re here. Today, we’re talking all about generating hype for your art. Today’s episode, you’re going to discover how to build a cult-like following for your artwork and to draw lots of attention by tapping into people’s outrage. Today’s guest is the founder and president of MicroFame Media, a marketing agency that specializes in making idea-based companies famous in their fields. Some of his clients have included eBay, Magento, LinkedIn, and Citrix, as well as many more. His writing has appeared in Fortune, Forbes, Psychology Today, and the Huffington Post. His book, The Hype Handbook: 12 Indispensable Success Secrets From the World’s Greatest Propagandists, Self-Promoters, Cult Leaders, Mischief Makers, and Boundary Breakers, is currently appearing where books are sold. Please welcome to the Inspiration Place Michael F. Schein. Hey, Michael. So glad you’re here.
Michael F. Schein:
Hey, Miriam. It’s really fun to be here. Thanks for having me.
Miriam Schulman:
I’m real excited about your book. I know you’ve been working on this for a long time.
Michael F. Schein:
Yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
Ever since we met.
Michael F. Schein:
No.
Miriam Schulman:
And then, you’ve also refused a few lunches with me because you were working on the book. Do you have kids, Michael?
Michael F. Schein:
I have a kid, yeah, I have a 10-year-old, yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay, all right. So, remember before you had kids, and people would say they can’t do something because of their kid?
Michael F. Schein:
Yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
And you were like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and then you had a kid, and then you learned.
Michael F. Schein:
Right.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay, well, it’s kind of like that for me, because now I’m writing a book. It’s like, “Oh, gee.”
Michael F. Schein:
I mean, even though I had thought of the idea five years ago and wrote numerous proposals and portions of the book, when I finally got a book deal, they were like, “Finish it in four months.” So, it was intense.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh. Wow. I’ve written two proposals so far, and I’m finally showing it to an agent. She’s like, “Well, it should really be a different way.” I’m like, “Oh, God.”
Michael F. Schein:
It’s a lot.
Miriam Schulman:
“I really don’t want to rewrite this proposal.”
Michael F. Schein:
The proposals can be harder than the book; they’re tough to do.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s the stuff I wanted to talk to you about that my audience may or may not be interested in. Let’s get into your book. First of all, I was very happy with the whole topic of your book, because there was the very complicated book written by, what’s his name, Eric Hoffer about the fascism guy.
Michael F. Schein:
The True-
Miriam Schulman:
True Believers.
Michael F. Schein:
It’s good, but it’s dense, it’s… A True Believer, yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, I couldn’t get through it. Okay, so there’s that one, and then there’s the, like The One Sentence Hype Promise, which is basically the CliffsNotes version of the same book. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Michael F. Schein:
The persuasion… Yeah, it’s called, like, The One Sentence Persuasion.
Miriam Schulman:
Exactly.
Michael F. Schein:
Yeah, that guy’s stuff is good.
Miriam Schulman:
But what I liked about your book, it was very much the happy middle between the book I couldn’t read and the book that really didn’t offer me enough.
Michael F. Schein:
That’s a nice compliment, thank you, yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
So I’m very excited by the content. We’re going to get right into it, and I’m going in order of how things appear in the book, so if things don’t feel quite right to you, my listener, that is why. And I’m not going through every single thing; you’re going to have to get the book to get all the strategies. But the first one that I love is about picking fights. Why does picking fights work?
Michael F. Schein:
There’s been some research done by anthropologists who essentially found that what kept us alive as a species was our ability to bond with people that we perceive as being like us and hate people or ideas we perceive as not being like us. And that’s a scary thing to think about, we don’t want to believe that’s true, but it is. And the good news is, since we’re human beings and we can be rational, we can use that to our benefit. So we’re wired that way; people are very tribal. However, that doesn’t mean you have to use that to be a demagogue or a racist or a hateful person; you can pick a fight with an idea, you can pick a fight with another scene, you know? I mean, the abstract expressionists picked a fight with who came before them, and then the pop artists picked a fight with the abstract expressionists. Everyone put themselves across as, you know, “That’s the old scene, let’s be something new,” and that was a successful approach for a lot of art scenes.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, I love that you used art as an example. I was even thinking about how the impressionists versus the salon establishment.
Michael F. Schein:
The salon, I mean, that’s the first notable example that I can think of. That’s a great example.
Miriam Schulman:
Beautiful. All right, so, about picking fights, I’ve had experience with this myself, where right after the… And I’ve mentioned this on the podcast before. Right after the vice presidential debate, I decided to post a watercolor painting of a housefly, and there were many people under that post who announced that they weren’t going to follow me anymore, but there were just as many people who announced that they were going to follow me even harder.;
Michael F. Schein:
Right, that’s it.
Miriam Schulman:
Love me or hate me, but there’s no money in the middle.
Michael F. Schein:
I think that’s so true. I mean, a lot of times, we’re worried about making people angry. You know, all of us want to be liked.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah.
Michael F. Schein:
Again, speaking about art, which I’m a big fan of, and this show is about art, if you really think about the artists you love, and there might be some exceptions to this, but most of us love artists that were challenging. Those are the artists we fall in love with, right? Like Norman Rockwell made a lot of money, sure, but people look at him a little bit like wallpaper, right? I mean, it was like this sort of middle-of-the-road artwork, and a lot of people who are artists, he’s like the one. But usually, art that’s just middle-of-the-road ends up on motel walls, you know what I mean? It’s usually not the art that breaks through. We like challenging art, we like art that turns certain people off.
Miriam Schulman:
Embracing that weird, the weirdness, not being afraid to express what makes you different. Okay, again, we’re going to be bopping around. The next thing I wrote down was the value of publicity. I know you had some examples in your book; I’ve been talking on this podcast how it feels like it’s something that’s so modern, because when we think of publicity, we think of print advertising, we think of television, we think of commercials. But the truth is, artists such as Peter Paul Rubens used publicity and have been using publicity for hundreds of years. Explain a little bit more, like what you share in your book, about the value of publicity, and in particular, I really want you to expand on what you say about the value of appearing on a lot of niche media outlets.
Michael F. Schein:
There are fundamental principles, and then there’s the world the way it is now, right? You brought up Rubens; I mean, I would go as far back, not visual art but art in general, the Aeneid by Virgil was actually commissioned by the new emperor of Rome, the first emperor of Rome, to legitimize his rule, because it had always been a republic, so that was a piece of propaganda. Publicity, hype, marketing, whatever you want to call it, has always been a part of the equation, but the media has changed.
I think the difference now is that the internet is as close to infinite as anything human beings have come up with. So, if you just start blogging and podcasting on a very, very, very general topic, it will inevitably be lost. But the good news is, there’s all these little corners of the internet where you can become known. It’s very doable to become known in that world, because there are very few influencers in narrow markets. You’ve done this really well, Miriam. I mean, you picked art, right? And not just art, I mean, helping artists. There are just so many podcasts that are just, like, business podcasts or, I don’t know, personal growth podcasts, and you’re kind of like personal growth for visual artists, and as a result, you’re doing very, very well. So, you want to find that corner of the digital universe and hype things up within that corner. It’ll make your life a whole lot easier.
Miriam Schulman:
I love that you said that, not just because you complimented me, and I just want to make this a little bit relevant for my artists who are listening who are not art coaches, that if you are a wildlife painter, that is a beautiful thing, because now you know where your audience is hanging out. And I’m using that as an example, just so that you can see that if you are very niche in the kind of art you do, it’s much easier to find an audience for it than if you are more broad.
Michael, one thing I realize I didn’t do, and it’s not too late now, but I want to back up a bit and actually have you define hype, and define what we’re talking about, and define what you mean when you say “a hype artist,” because that’s really the first thing we need to understand before we get into all these strategies.
Michael F. Schein:
Yeah, thank you for that. And in fact, before I do define it, I want to talk about why I picked the term “hype,” because for most people, hype is considered a negative thing. It’s like blowing a lot of smoke and mirrors around stuff that isn’t fundamentally good. And when you started the podcast, you talked about how I was a businessperson and I own an agency, and I am, but it’s kind of ironic; I fell into that, and I like it, but I always wanted to be a small-a artist. I can’t really draw or paint, but I wanted to write novels, I wanted to play in bands, I wanted to do all of this kind of stuff. And it was not considered a negative thing in the world I was in. The kind of art that I was involved in was kind of punk rock, both in music and just the kind of stories I wrote and things like that, and I liked hip-hop. And in those kinds of worlds, hyping something up is part of the fun. It adds color to what you’re doing.
So, I’ve decided to take that word, and I’m just defining hype, and I hope this becomes the definition that everyone starts using: any activities, good, bad, or indifferent, that generate a large amount of emotion among a large group of people to get them to take an action that you want them to take. And that action might be awful, it might be a terrible outcome, but it might be a wonderful outcome. It doesn’t matter. It’s those things that human beings respond well… or, not well to, but that human beings, we’re more alike than we are different, and certain types of stimuli get groups of human beings, digital groups, offline groups, whatever, get them excited about things and get them to follow things. If you’re doing that, you’re a hype artist. It’s my intention for that to be seen as a positive thing.
Miriam Schulman:
Although a lot of the examples you picked in the book were the scumbags of the hype artist world.
Michael F. Schein:
Right. However, and that’s funny that you bring that up, and it’s a good point, over history, on balance, scumbags have been better at this than non-scumbags. There are a lot of really notable examples. I mean, Martin Luther King did this stuff really well. People don’t like it when I call him a hype artist, so I stopped calling him a hype artist. He was really good at getting the media to pay attention, to using language the right way, to being theatrical. However, the reason that “scumbags” tend, on average, to be better than this at the rest of us is that they tend to see the world as it really is. A lot of them are psychopaths or sociopaths or narcissists, and when they do studies on those kinds of people, they don’t get worked up as easily as the rest of us. They see the world in a very sort of detached way.
I have studied them, because it’s very possible to take what they understand and apply it to good causes and good art. Now, you might be saying to yourself, “Well, why would I want to be like them? Why would I want to become detached?” Well, you don’t, but… Like, if I could follow every tip in this book, and I’m the person who wrote it, I would be worth $20 billion.
Miriam Schulman:
Right.
Michael F. Schein:
But the problem is, even I let my emotions get in the way.
Miriam Schulman:
Let’s back up to number one, the very first thing I brought up, which is the first part of your book, is why does picking fights work?
Michael F. Schein:
Right.
Miriam Schulman:
So, if you’re somebody who is a highly sensitive person who has a lot of empathy, that’s a difficult thing for you to do. Nice people don’t go around picking fights, because they worry about hurting other people’s feelings.
Michael F. Schein:
That’s right.
Miriam Schulman:
So, that was the number one strategy. I love that you brought in some examples where you can pick fights, it doesn’t necessarily have to hurt somebody else’s feelings if you are throwing rocks at something that… You make an enemy be not a person but like a different art style, a different movement, a different way of doing things.
Michael F. Schein:
I think a great example of that is Andy Warhol, who was insanely shy, you know? I mean, he was remarkably, incredibly shy. So, what he decided to do was pick a fight with the kind of loud, loquacious manly-man artist who was always talking. Like, if you talked to one of the abstract expressionists, they would go off on a seven-paragraph tangent about what their art was trying to say, and the depth of the emotion, and the this, and when they would ask Andy Warhol, “Why do you paint cans of soup?” he would say, “I like soup.” And people would talk about it for hours, but he just… He basically turned his insecurity and his weakness and his sensitivity and his shyness into a stance, into a bold move. And you can do that. You can find the bold move in whatever personality you have, and it doesn’t have to be hurting… You can pick a fight with an idea, you can pick a fight with a way of looking at the world.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. One of the things I’m always picking a fight with is the whole idea of becoming Insta-famous, because I have a strong belief, which I’m going to back it up, it’s that the people who build these huge followings on Instagram have built huge followings off of Instagram first, and that’s why they have huge followings. So, I’m always throwing rocks at that idea, when people come to me, the “How do you build a following on Instagram,” it’s like, no, you’re doing it wrong. You have it backwards.
Michael F. Schein:
I agree with that a lot.
Miriam Schulman:
Ooh, I’m glad you agree with me.
Michael F. Schein:
In fact, I would say, and it’s a principle in the book as well, that most people who are good at this thing that I’m calling hype, and by extension good self-promoters, they make it look like they’re building a grassroots following, which is what Instagram is. “Look at all these people who like my photos.” What they almost always do behind the scenes, the really good ones, is they build deep networks and deep followings with real people who can pull strings for them. But the rest of us don’t see that, so we hover around our Instagram accounts instead of painting or drawing, and “I got to get more followers,” but if you look a little deeper, the best players aren’t doing that, and it seems like you’ve identified that as well.
Miriam Schulman:
Ashley Longshore, so she actually likes to spread the myth that Instagram is the reason she has a huge following. Like, she actually hired a publicist to write articles about her Instagram account. But the truth, what built her following was all the publicity that she was paying a publicist to get for her. You go to her Instagram account, she has not one but two tabs for her publicity. One is the general press; the second tab is just her New York Times press.
Michael F. Schein:
It’s hilarious. First of all, I love this example. Second of all, it really reminds me of a thing that I’m always saying to people, which is, if you want to be successful, look at whatever the guru is in your field. I mean, it could be a marketing guru in closer to my field, it could be an Ashley Longshore-type guru, big artist who gets a lot of promotion. And don’t look at the advice they’re giving in interviews; look at what they’re actually doing.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah.
Michael F. Schein:
Because a lot of times, the advice they’re giving is a chess move, because they know… Like, when Tony Robbins tells you to walk on hot coals, a lot of religions do that, because when you give a little bit of pain and discomfort to people, it releases endorphins and it bonds you to them. So you have to ask yourself, “Should I follow Tony Robbins’s advice to walk on hot coals, or should I create some version of walking on hot coals to hook people into what I’m doing?”
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah.
Michael F. Schein:
So you always have to ask yourself that.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s a really good example. I remember when I was in college in psychology class, there was this thing that I learned. I got a C in the class, but somehow this thing stuck with me, that if you want people to like you, don’t do them favors, ask them to do favors for you.
Michael F. Schein:
It’s so true. Yeah, it’s so true. One of the first jobs I got when I went on my own, I saw this guy Gary Forman, who became a mentor to me. That’s how I got the work with Magento, then eBay so early on. He was in my alumni magazine, and he was doing what I wanted to do, so I said, “You don’t know me. Could you give a kid some advice on,” I’m not a kid, but a young guy, “what to do?” And he gave me a bunch of advice on my website, and I implemented his advice right away, and he was so impressed by that that when he became the head of product marketing at Magento and then moved over to eBay, he hired me. So, asking for advice, asking for favors and implementing it… And don’t be a taker, but people want to be needed, they want to be important.
Miriam Schulman:
They want to be needed, they want to be important, and what I remember from that is that when people do a favor for somebody else, they think to themselves, “Well, I must like this person if I’m doing it.” That’s where that psychology…
Michael F. Schein:
Yeah, I think that’s right.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, like they kind of justify it to themselves. I’m not saying go around and ask people to do favors for you. Well, maybe I am.
Michael F. Schein:
You know, our mutual friend Michael Roderick-
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah.
Michael F. Schein:
… he has this thing that he always says, and I know your audience doesn’t know him, but he’s this really well-connected, really generous, successful guy.
Miriam Schulman:
We will link to his episode, so just note, check it out in the show notes, yeah.
Michael F. Schein:
He always says, if you ask someone advice on solving a problem, they want to be part of the solution, you know, subconsciously. So, if there are people they can introduce you to, they’ll take it as like a responsibility to solve the problem. And sometimes, your problems get solved because they go out and solve them for you instead of giving you the advice to do it yourself. We’re funny that way; maybe it’s that tribal thing.
Miriam Schulman:
One of the hype tactics that you put down here was producing a bible. I assume because if you want a cult, you need a religion; if you want a religion, you need a bible. But it’s a little more to it than that, yeah?
Michael F. Schein:
And it doesn’t always have to be a book, right? I mean, it can be a piece of media, it can be a signature speech. But the idea is… Let’s talk about my world for a minute and then extend it to the art world. You see a lot of these “thought leader types,” businesspeople, speechmakers, and they say, “If I have a book, everything will get better for me. It’ll give me credibility, I’ll write some book.” So they write some technical book, Leadership Strategies for the 21st Century, Project Management for Dummies, whatever it is, and then they wonder why their fortunes didn’t go through the roof.
The people who are really gurus upon gurus, you know, The Artist’s Way, Rhonda Byrne, The Secret, it’s not a book, it’s a bible. It’s basically this thing that says, without any self-doubt, “Follow this formula, this way of being in the world, and you will get the results you want.” So, like, think about this. Rhonda Byrne, and I’m sorry if this sounds cynical, I don’t know, I know there are a lot of fans of her, but she basically said, “By imagining something and putting it into the universe, your dreams will come true.”
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Michael F. Schein:
It makes no sense. It’s not true. I mean, whatever… I mean, there are things about it that’s true, like, so, for example, when you really want something, you tend to not overlook opportunities that you might ignore otherwise. But she says this with such confidence, that you literally can close your eyes and magically put this into the world, that Oprah put her on her show, that people worship this woman.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah.
Michael F. Schein:
It’s amazing. When you have the answers to everything and you cut out the qualifying words, it’s magnetic, it’s addictive. A book is a good way to do it, but there are other ways to do it if books aren’t your thing. Simon Sinek started with a talk, Start with Why. That’s all he needed.
Miriam Schulman:
We as artists… The book is great, but your art can be your religion too. It’s a matter of what we talked about in the beginning; if you can embrace that weirdness about your art, you’re halfway there.
Michael F. Schein:
You know what I’ve seen artists do? I just want to say, a manifesto works well for an artist.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, yes.
Michael F. Schein:
Like the dada manifesto, right? This art movement, they were just in this corner of Switzerland, no one knew who they were, it was in this one little café, and they created this manifesto, and it’s just so… Take a piece of paper and write down declarative statements, no qualifiers. “Do not use lifelike objects, they are obsolete.” You know, whatever it is.
Miriam Schulman:
Or the impressionists: “Don’t use black.”
Michael F. Schein:
That’s a great example, right?
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah.
Michael F. Schein:
So, if you can create this bold manifesto, “This is the new art, these are the 10 new things you must do to not be obsolete as an artist,” go back, artists do that all the time and it spreads like wildfire. That’s a bible.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s beautiful. One thing you talk about, which I think would be really helpful for the artists who are trying to sell their art, I usually put it this way, that selling isn’t telling, but you had a section in the book about asking questions to persuade.
Michael F. Schein:
Yeah, I mean, the example here that I used is from probably the single worst person in this entire book. It was Charles Manson. You know, he basically got a group of middle-class kids, one of whom was a homecoming queen, to become murderous lunatics, and he never told them what to do. So, his technique was he would sit around with them, and he would say, “Yeah, you know, things are really bad in society today. What do you think we should do?” And they would give a bunch of ideas, and he would, “Well, maybe, maybe, maybe,” and then when they would get closer to something that he wanted them to do, he would seize on it and say, “Yeah.”
So, I think how this might apply, you know, as artists, there’s a “business side” to that art; you have to negotiate, you have to convince people to put your stuff in their gallery around everyone else, you need to do all of this. Either you can not ask for what you want, and you’ll get nothing, but I think the other mistake people made is they ask too directly, they get all their… They steel all their stuff up and they say, “I’m going to finally do it,” and they come and they just approach someone and say, “Can you put my painting in your gallery?” And the person says, “No, but thank you for asking.”
But if instead, you sort of massage the conversation, “So, hey, do you think having all of the kind of artwork that was popular five years ago is a good idea? I’m curious how you feel about that.” Knowing where you want to end up, and then guiding the conversation, people will be there before you know it. It’s very persuasive.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, or using from the used car salesman world… My grandfather was a used car salesman, so no shade there. But it’s about getting people to make micro-commitments to where you want to take them, and a really great technique for doing that, and I think you mention this in the book, is using tie-downs. Instead of making a declarative statement, like “This painting makes you feel happy,” I don’t know, I’m just making… I’m just trying to pull something out of the air. So, instead of saying “This painting makes you feel joy,” it’s “This painting makes you feel joy, don’t you think?”
Michael F. Schein:
A hundred percent, you know?
Miriam Schulman:
You get people to take a micro-commitment of… And then, as you lead them along the way, all these micro-commitments then leads them more towards the sale, which is kind of what… I like that you picked the Charles Manson example first, but it’s about asking questions to lead people where you want them to go, and asking smaller questions first, so, like you said, not starting with “Do you want to put my art in the gallery?” but starting with getting them to look at your… Well, I guess, you know, and take the book world publishing thing, first it’s like you send, “Would you like to look at the proposal? Oh, you do? Okay, now would you like to read a sample chapter? Okay, now would you like to meet about that?” So, there’s an example there with moving them forward.
Michael F. Schein:
Being the master of marketing and hype I was, I did everything that normal people do. I just sent my… you know, got a regular agent the regular way, and they sent stuff directly to editors, and it didn’t get published. I thought it was dead. I mean, the original agent that I had, who was a big agent, just sort of did the typical throwing the thing out into the world. And what finally got the book published was I was with a woman I knew, who’s now my agent, named Heidi Krupp, who’s a very successful PR person, and I knew her because she used to pitch me for… because I’m a journalist.
We were sitting at a bar; I said to her, “Yeah, I’m probably going to do these workshops around this hype concept,” and she’s like, “What’s that all about?” And I said, “Well, you know, this,” and I told her a little about it. She goes, “Have you ever thought of doing a book about that?” And I was like, “Well, it’s funny you should ask, you know? I mean, do you think that would be a good idea to do a book? Well, yeah, actually, it’s funny, because I’ve really tried to.” And she ended up becoming my agent and selling it for me.
Miriam Schulman:
It’s awesome. I didn’t hear that story; I just heard you had given up because the agent had shopped it everywhere, and the next thing I knew, it was like, “Nope, no, I’m writing a book, can’t meet you for lunch, writing the book.”
Michael F. Schein:
It’s funny, and we won’t go into this, the agent didn’t shop it everywhere. This is what’s so funny about the world of being an agent. He shopped it to 14 people, they said no, many of whom said, “Yeah, it’s actually good, but this and this, it doesn’t fit,” and he was like, “Oh, can’t do any more.” It was like they have a Rolodex of 14 people, and when it doesn’t hit… The good thing about Heidi is she’s actually an agent. She pushed, you know, she made it happen.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s good. All of this is relevant to all of my artists out there. If you are approaching galleries, if you are working with licensing agents, I mean, there’s agents in the art world too, between licensing agents and gallerists, and just because a gallerist can’t place your artwork, or a licensing agent can’t sell it, doesn’t mean the art doesn’t have value; you just may not have the right person gunning for you.
Michael F. Schein:
That’s true. At the core of this whole idea of hype is really the idea of creativity. You know, everyone talks about marketing, and even though I formally own a marketing agency, I don’t really like that word, because what marketing has come to mean is, hey… It’s like what you said: Are you building your Instagram following? Are you doing A/B testing? Are you looking at the data? And while those are all great tools, really, what becoming a splash and becoming successful in this way is all about is pure creativity and playfulness and a sense of benevolent mischief. You know, the best hype artists, they’re like trickster characters. They’re not really always bad people. Charles Manson is, but a lot of them are… It’s about, how can we generate chatter and steam and play, and get people worked up into a frenzy so they transcend themselves, you know? And there’s a way to do that, there’s a framework for doing that.
And I would think every artist should be into that. There have been so many art scenes in the world where they’re not just painting pretty pictures, that has value, but where they’re trying to change the world, and a lot of the… Putting a urinal on a wall, right? I mean, isn’t that… I mean, that’s hype.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. What people want is that transformation. So, the transformation could be the association with what it is that this movement that you’re creating in the world, that they want to associate with that.
Michael F. Schein:
Totally.
Miriam Schulman:
That it says something about them, that they are part of that group, whether… or an artist like a musician, you like this type of music, you like this type of clothing. You like what having this art on your wall says about you, because it’s not about filling a space above your sofa, because a mirror will do that.
Michael F. Schein:
That’s so true. Yeah, exactly. It’s funny, abstract art in the 1910s was, like, so groundbreaking; now it’s something you put on your wall instead of a mirror, and you pay 400 bucks for it if you’re lucky. It’s the stuff that is a movement that generates true emotion, that people can form an identity around. That’s the stuff that changes the world, but it’s also the stuff that… That’s the Basquiat, right, that’s the millions-of-dollar paintings.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah.
Michael F. Schein:
Yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, absolutely. So, all these techniques are in The Hype Handbook, many that we talked about, many more we didn’t. I think this is a great place to wrap up, Michael. I want to make sure everyone knows The Hype Handbook. It will be linked in the show notes, schulmanart.com/133. And don’t forget, if you liked this episode, I would love for you to check out The Artist Incubator. I’ll show you exactly how to apply these kinds of techniques to take your artwork, whether you’re a passionista or a true passion professional, we’ll show you how to take your current art business to the next level, meaning more art sales. The program is by application only. Go to schulmanart.com/biz, biz, B-I-Z, and if you qualify, I’ll get on Zoom with you and we’ll talk about your art and your business and the steps you need to take to reach your goals.
All righty, Michael, do you have any last words for my listeners before we call this podcast complete?
Michael F. Schein:
The only thing that I would say, if I had any advice at all, and it took me a long time to get there, was try to find side doors whenever you can. You know, I always wanted to be, as I said, an artist. I wanted to write novels, and I wanted to play in bands. And when this band I was in didn’t work out, I was heartbroken, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m going to be doomed to being a boring old businessperson.” And when I got to a point where I started widening my view and saying, “Okay, how can I use the situation I’m in to find side doors?” So I started making this thing that some people call marketing into a form of artwork. I started studying artists and weirdos. I started creating content, which was a form of writing. And eventually, I ended up with a book deal, and I wrote a book that has a lot of elements that I might use in a novel.
So, a lot of times we get so fixated on the front-ahead view; it’s “I’m going to be a sculptor or a potter, and I’m going to submit it to galleries, and if that doesn’t work out, there’s nothing else I want to do.” Well, there are many ways through the maze. I think that was the most important thing I learned, and there are a lot of artists I think that would serve well.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, that’s super valuable, Michael, thank you for sharing that, and thank you so much for being with me here today.
Michael F. Schein:
Well, thank you. This was so much fun. It’s so fun to talk about these topics.
Miriam Schulman:
So, that’s it for today. I’ll see you the same time, same place next week. Until then, stay inspired.
Thank you for listening to The Inspiration Place Podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart, on Instagram at @schulmanart, and of course, on schulmanart.com.
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