Month: November 2014

Book Club: Artist As Brand Part 6 – My Market Niche

My reading of Greg Spalenka’s Artist As Brand continues with section VI. Creating Your Market Niche.

I found the book for a great deal on the Nook.
Or you can buy it via my Amazon referral link
and give me a little kickback!
You can also buy direct from the author!
 

This section covers a lot of ground concerning how to establish a connection with your target market and present yourself in such a way that you can find and appeal to your audience while preserving their loyalty and encouraging them to invest in you as a business.  This is particularly relevant to artists who rely on a symbiotic relationship between themselves and collectors to maintain their income.

This section reinforces the advice I’ve been hearing from other successful artists I know that having great art is the best starting point, but selling your passion and your story is where the magic happens.

But who is my audience?  I’ve struggled with this for years because I started out wanting to go one direction (concept art and book covers) and being drawn towards another (angelic art, Art Nouveau, and mask-making).  In the end, I just did everything, burned myself out big time, and realized I was not really making the kind of advancement in my career that I wanted.

My artistic identity was like someone changing the channel back and forth and never deciding on something to watch.  I’ve had some folks interested in my work, but I’m pretty sure if I had a more unified identity that I would be more successful than I am now.

This has been the reason for me splitting up my current identity into several faces.  I hope this will help my audience more easily identify with my work and locate what they’re interested in.  For those who have been asking how the heck I handle it all, truth is, I haven’t really been doing it well in the past!

All of these ‘brands’ used to be thrown together under the umbrella of Angelic Shades Studio.  Now, they’ve each been given their own real estate completely separate from one another.  Cover art is going to be my focus from now on, while the rest will be side projects I attend to when I have the time outside of this endeavor.

So Who is My Audience?

What do they do?  What do they love?  What do they spend money on?  I did the initial brainstorming for this in my Vision Board.

For Art by Angela Sasser (Fantasy book covers and character driven art)

Audience – Usually readers and/or writers, Magic the Gathering fans, Kushiel’s Dart fans (thanks to my Kushiel cover project), Game of Thrones quiz, folklore enthusiasts, 18+ and up demographic, both male and female.  May be able to expand into a fine art gallery audience if the topics are more surreal or based on mythology (ie. Flowery Mythology series).

Current experience shows most of my customers who buy my character-driven fantasy work are interested in buying prints and books with a more specific narrative, bookmarks, or other book-related things.

For Angelic Shades Studio (Angelic art and Art Nouveau)

Audience – New Age enthusiasts, Angel therapists, decorative art enthusiasts, generally female, 18 years old and up.  Current experience shows most customers seem to be buying gifts for others, usually for moms or wives.

May expand out into fine art gallery audience with the Art Nouveau pieces and to a younger demographic with more fun series (ie. Cake Dresses and Butterfly Masque).  My Angelic Visions art instruction book appeals to art students, but not necessarily to my main buyers.

For Angelic Artisan (Masks and custom accessories)

Audience – Cosplayers, Renaissance festival attendees, mask lovers.  Generally an older demographic with expendable income and a passion for costuming.  Most are interested in buying cosplay masks or other accessories to help them channel their favorite fandoms and original charaters.

For The Muse’s Library (Art-related book/product reviews, art marketing articles, and stock art resources)

Audience – Art students, working artists, game artists, and art educators, creative professionals, art entrepreneurs, usually 18+ up demographic.  Best-sellers so far have been the stock art, since these resources can be used directly in artists’ personal projects for free with a fee for commercial use.   Most of my target audience for this brand are passionate about art, mastering their skills, promoting their creative businesses, and saving money.

Writing this all out really helps me focus on purposefully targeting people rather than accidentally stumbling upon fans.  As ever, this doesn’t cover half the info provided in the book! Go support Spalenka if you’ve found the information I’ve been writing about useful.

Next up: VII. Brand Promotion: The Art of Social Media

Book Club: Artist As Brand Part 5 – Declaring My Name!

My reading of Greg Spalenka’s Artist As Brand continues with section V.  Declare Your Name – Taglines, Blurbs, Business Cards.

I found the book for a great deal on the Nook.
Or you can buy it via my Amazon referral link
and give me a little kickback!
You can also buy direct from the author!

Spalenka gives a plethora of examples about how a business name can say a lot about you, but also cautions about being influenced by your ‘tribe’ to change what your identity represents.

I experienced this exact thing when showing off my logo from this workshop to my family.  They all saw a shrimp or a squid.  I’ll admit to an aquatic vibe to my logo, but I still feel it represents me very nicely.  I won’t be changing it any more than it takes to bring it more towards a wing/cocoon/seed vibe.  Feedback can be helpful, but it can also be dangerous, especially when you respect the critiquers!  It ends up being more about pleasing them than your original idea, if you aren’t careful.

Cannot unsee the shrimp/squid in my logo now…

A more serious example would be my past experiences with being cautioned away from the book cover industry by very embittered artists I respected.  These artists were my ‘tribe’ and they were so very detrimental to my development.  Stick to your core beliefs!  This is all about having faith in your ideas and skills.

Next up, taglines.  I’ve never really had one before and I feel that has been to my detriment!  My ‘Angelic Shades’ name was a catch-all I started years ago for all of my art, but now I realize that using it this way just made it a very unclear brand with an unclear target audience.

Now, it seems I’ve splintered my business into several brands, all which I can link back into some form or fashion to my core virtue of ‘unlocking potential through discovery‘.  Here are the taglines I came up with for them:

Angelic Shades Studio (My Art Nouveau and angelic art brand)

Creator of Whimsical Art Nouveau and Angelic Art for Classical Souls.

Angelic Artisan (My masks and leather crafts brand)

Revealing the Being Within through Masquerade.

Angela Sasser Art (Fantasy covers and character art brand. This brand will possibly combine my fantasy author identity as well, should I ever choose to publish any stories.)

Exploring Humanity through Mythic Visions.

The Muse’s Library (A new brand I’m working on inspired by this workshop!)

Creative Resources for Artists by an Artist.

Thinking about these concepts has helped me better understand what I’m attempting to do with my varied areas of interests and creative output.  (You guys remember that CRAZY Vision Board I did).

Somewhere along the way with this workshop, I realized yet another facet within Angelic Shades and that is my passion for providing resources (reviews, stock art, etc.) for other artists.  I’ve finally given this passion a name in the form of The Muse’s Library, thanks to this workshop.  More on that later!

Other useful info included in this section:

  • Strategies for engaging people in conversation that extends beyond “I draw stuff” (aka. your 30 second elevator speech/blurb). This is especially useful if you’re bad at small talk, like most artists I know, including myself!
  • Tips for creative and unusual business card design.
As ever, pick up the book and support the author if you want to learn more!  There’s so much I can’t capture here in my blog entries.
Next up: VI. Creating Your Market Niche
Back to Part 4
Back to Part 1

Book Club: Artist As Brand Part 4 – Plan the Brand

My reading of Greg Spalenka’s Artist As Brand continues with section IV. Plan the Brand.

I found the book for a great deal on the Nook.
Or you can buy it via my Amazon referral link
and give me a little kickback!
You can also buy direct from the author!

 

A lot of this section talked about the concept of job security being an illusion.  This comes up a lot in books I’ve read about creative professionals because so much of our downfall is that constant fear of where money for bills is going to come from.
We struggle, we burn out, and then we get sucked back into the trap of ‘security’ and all the people in our lives (our ‘tribe’, as Spalenka calls it) help reinforce this illusion of safety because it is what they believe to be the most prudent way to go about one’s life.  We want to please these people we care about, so we define our success by their values.
Unlike a more stable “real” job, there is no veil of safety convincing us that because we’ve worked 30 years at Such-and-Such Incorporated that we’ll always have that income and nice, cushy benefits.  Freelancers have no such safety net.  We must accept the truth of the world as it is. (Though that doesn’t mean we can’t be smart about it by planning ahead, either.)
If this were a live reading, I would’ve stood up and cheered at the end of this section.  My whole thesis was based around the fact that audiences are evolving and finding new ways to connect with artists and that the old traditional methods of connecting via institutions were becoming obsolete. I believe this to be true.  Our modern age has allowed artists so many diverse ways to profit that aren’t constrained to one institution or the other.  We are more in control in our destinies than ever we have been!
The rest of this section covered the familiar territory of describing the cost effectiveness and thought process behind planning products and ideas for varied income.  It’s a good rundown if you’re brand new to thinking about what goes into making products or considering less common income streams for artists, such as art licensing.  With several working examples provided.
Random Note – I learned from this section that the founder of Etsy is a young wood worker who was going to start a furniture company.  That company became Etsy, which is what he would’ve named his furniture company.  Cool!
The homework from this section was to start building a Business Plan starting with several prompts about products, including projecting how complex they will be, how long they will take, etc.
Including all of that would make this entry super long, so I’ll just list off some of the products this book has me considering for my business:
  • Stock reference photos for artists.  I’ve been doing this in a small capacity, but now I feel like it’s something I should be spending more time doing.
  • Educational resources for artists (ie. book reviews, product reviews, etc.). I’ve been doing this via my blog, but have never considered making it a commodity for my business.
  • Yearly sketchbooks based on themes.  Having themes and a yearly time table would help focus my very flighty muse!  Inspired by Cory Godbey’s interview over at One Fantastic Week.
I’ve really been supercharged by this book! It has encouraged me to zero in on where my passions really are and to step back from other projects that were less appealing to my core interests.As always, there’s SO much I’m leaving vague.  Be sure to pick up the book from the links at the top if you’ve found any of this useful!

Next:  V: Declare Your Name – Taglines, Blurbs, Business Cards

Go back to Part 1

Go back to Part 3

Book Club: Artist As Brand Part 3 – My Vision Board

My reading of Greg Spalenka’s Artist As Brand continues with section III. Your Vision Board.

I found the book for a great deal on the Nook.
Or you can buy it via my Amazon referral link
and give me a little kickback!
You can also buy direct from the author!

This section focused on another visual brainstorming exercise meant to help you visually map your passions and interests and connect them with products, people, and places.  I found a lot of value in doing this because I have a lot of interests, from video games to art marketing to folklore and beyond!  It’s always so difficult for me to narrow down my projects and focus, which has been a constant challenge for me over the years.

View a larger version of my map here.

I went a little insane and fit as much on the board as I could.  What a crazy web I wove!  The text at the bottom represents the connections I drew with colored lines between my top three activities from the first circle, the products I can produce, and the people and venues I could reach those people through.

That’s a pretty powerful thing to figure out for yourself!  So many of us just throw art out there with no thought put into who that art is meant to resonate with.  Creating with purpose seems a valuable way to focus your time and energies and make your brand more consistent, which is something a lot of novice artists don’t do when they’re first starting out (I’m guilty of it, myself!).

I also made a .psd template, since one wasn’t provided in the book. Feel free to download it here for your own use.

Download the blank template I made here.

As ever, I have left some details of this exercise (such as the explanation of Mind, Body, and Spirit and other instruction) vague on purpose to encourage you to purchase the book.  It’s a really worthwhile read thus far and I would recommend it based on the helpfulness of the exercises I’ve already completed!

Next up, IV.  Plan the Brand
 
Go on to Part 4. (coming soon!)