Recent world events have many folks looking for a side hustle. If you took your downtime during the pandemic to pull out your easel, clay, or other creative tools, you have generated a stock of items to sell. Promoting your own art can be a bit challenging, especially if you engage in it as a way to center and calm yourself. However, you can promote your art and maintain your privacy and pleasure.

1. Win Awards

Find art contests that award prizes for your medium. Contests provide you with free advertising, a nice way to fill up your own bio copy, and a place to get your work photographed. Make sure that you enter contests that don’t limit your flexibility as a working artist. For example, you want to be able to:

• Use the images promoted by the contest producer
• Sell your artwork any time
• Join multiple competitions with one piece of art

Carefully review the rules of any competition to make sure that you will not be limited by the showings, sales, and other competitors.

2. Build an Online Presence

Social media is an excellent starting place to share your artwork without making a large cash investment. As your friends and followers start to share images of your output and information about your upcoming shows and competitions, consider also setting up a virtual art exhibition through online tools, such as the one currently in the works by the PandaMR metaverse developer.

Work with a professional photographer and website builder to make sure that your images are true to color. Unless you are a photographer, the risk of an unfortunate color change or limited image clarity can waste a lot of time and money. Invest in the professional help you need to successfully launch your online store.

Digitizing images can change both color and clarity. If acrylic paint is your expertise, make sure you rely on the expertise of a professional who can help you produce images of the highest quality. Keep lines of communication open with your buyers. If you notice a trend of color concerns or a lack of clarity in your images, go back to your store or website designer to do a quality check.

3. Focus on Text as Well as Image

Make sure that each of your pieces has an excellent narrative beside the piece. Share your story. Why was this created in this color? What was your inspiration? How did the use of light come about in this image?

Consider starting a blog to share your day-to-day experiences as an artist. If you’re not a confident writer but love to talk about your work, add a voice-to-text converter to your phone and use the timer to spend 3-5 minutes talking specifically about one project or technique.

Hire a ghostwriter to review this text, clean it up and make it presentable. You may also want to schedule a weekly conversation with your ghostwriter to start publishing regularly. Finally, have a friend who really knows you do the final read of your blog articles. They need to sound like something you would say. Be ready to go back to your ghostwriter to fine-tune any text that doesn’t sound like your voice.

4. Share Your Expertise

As your skills improve, people may come to you and want to know how you do what you do. Consider creating a free eBook to support and encourage beginning artists. As your book gains traction, consider creating YouTube videos to demonstrate the skills that are unique to you.

As an artist, you may struggle to hire professionals to help you share your expertise, images, and output. However, a shoddy video or an abandoned blog will limit your credibility as a producer and may cause people to turn away from your artwork over time. Be fussy. Be demanding. Allow yourself to be considered a bit of a diva to get excellent quality videos, eBooks, and articles to get your artwork presented in a professional, polished manner.