Cover Image: The Business of Being an Artist

The Business of Being an Artist

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Member Reviews

Every artist have big dreams such as public recognition for their arts and ability to selling their work to make living. It is not easy dream to achieve but reachable with such hardwork.

The Business of Being an Artist is genuine insight guidebook for anyone who wish to starting their art journey as career expecially visual artist.
It is informed reader with related topics such as how marketing work for art, how to promote your work, cheaper alternatives to display your artwork and gain exposure, how to cut expenses, how to protect your works. Author also provide with references and resources for continuing to updating the topic deeper.

Thank you Netgalley and Allworth from Skyhorse Publishing for provided my copy. I learning something new and my thoughts are my own.

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The Business of Being an Artist by Daniel Grant takes great detail in helping artists. Explaining the hurdles one might come across. Plus, finding solutions to them.
This is the perfect book for anyone that is beginning their art career. It walks you through how to protect your work, the types of ways you can promote your art, and ways to sell. The Business of Being an Artist is full of useful information and resources regardless of your years of experience. A must-have book!

Daniel Grant shares all of this information in one book, The Business of Being an Artist. This is a great resource for anyone beginning their art career. You can sit down and read it all in one sitting, or work your way through it. Putting the information to work as you navigate each chapter, in both the book and your career.

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This book covers a lot of material. It is extremely detailed, sometimes a little too many details. However, I think that I got more out of some parts of this book than others. And I feel that others will feel the same depending on their specific art and their goals for that art.

If your soul income is from art alone, this may be a great resource for you. If you are a hobbyist who just wants to make a little extra money from doing what you love, parts of this book will be helpful.

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There's a lot to unpack here. This book is loaded with useful information. Answers pretty much all the questions you could think of regarding this subject.

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It's alright—more useful for traditional artists. I felt alienated as a digital artist who is horrible at painting.

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This book covers a lot of material. It is extremely detailed, sometimes a little too many details. However, I think that I got more out of some parts of this book than others. And I feel that others will feel the same depending on their specific art and their goals for that art.

If your soul income is from art alone, this may be a great resource for you. If you are a hobbyist who just wants to make a little extra money from doing what you love, parts of this book will be helpful.

Overall, this book shows that being in the art world and making money with art as your sole income is hard and time consuming. There are a lot of avenues to pursue, and this book helped shed light on the specifics of them. The pros and cons.

If you are an artist looking to make money from your art, this book might be for you.

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There is a lot of good information in this book. I may not use it all but it is there. The author has been thorough.

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An updated edition of everything an artist could be concerned with, financially speaking, from dealers to divorce.

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I will admit out of the gate that I found this book frustrating. Readers should know that the author concentrates exclusively on painting and sculpture, and thus much of the book is not useful for artists working in non traditional media like fiber or ceramics. It is written in an informal, conversational style which is much more like picking the author’s brain for ideas than it is for collecting practical information. When practical information is given, such as a list of artist residencies, the lists are short, far from comprehensive, and primarily concentrate on large cities. Sometimes websites are listed, sometimes they aren’t. The book would benefit from more bulleted lists, tables and illustrations; a paragraph describing what is needed in a press release is nowhere near adequate to convey the very precise formatting that news media demand.

I also will admit that I got my nose out of joint when reading the sentence: “the benefits of college teaching are clear;: long vacations, time and space in which to pursue their own work, and having to teach only part of the day - but they may be overstated.” As a twenty year veteran of college teaching, I need to point out that this description is entirely incorrect. There is no such thing as a long vacation when part of your job expectation is to produce work, present at conferences and write articles and books. There is no such thing as teaching only part of the day when you have 2 or 3 multi-hour studios, student exhibit mentoring, and advising, not to mention committees and meetings. However, there are definite advantages to college teaching, including access to facilities and equipment, professional marketers, faculty collaborators, and community connections that are more easily facilitated and funded than if you are a solo artist.

Finally, the author spends an entire chapter on whether or not an artist should get married, should marry an artist or non artist or get divorced. Obviously these are very personal and unique situations that don’t seem to have a place in a book like this.

I can’t in good conscience recommend this book to an artist early in their career, but it may work for some artists ready to go to the next level and able to absorb a “pick your brain” style of generalized ideas that they might have some context for evaluating.

My review here is quite harsh, and my biases should be noted. I’m a practicing artist, retired from a 25 year teaching career, and I have a published book on a similar subject. So take these comments with that in mind.

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I was majorly impressed with The Business of Being an Artist, which I read in its newest publication of the sixth edition. I didn't know what to expect when I picked it up, its aim or what it would manage to cover. I was blown away by the expanse of information this shared.
I believe it first opened by expressing that the dream for the artist is to always make enough profit off of selling work as to make a living. It's a hard ask, and always has been. This goes through marketing work and marketing yourself (this edition including in the social media age), networking and being picked up by galleries, even making sales and taxes. This covers gaining exposure and growing a clientele, communicating with collectors and dealers, and even discusses the pressures of living off your art. The references and resources this provides to the reader directly is quite extensive, and I would recommend any artist who would like to sell (as well as any student going to college for art!) to have this one handy for reference. I had no idea how much I had to learn, but I am definitely going to get a physical copy of this one for myself as well as a copy for my classroom when it becomes available in October. 5 stars!

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