I got into a conversation a few days ago with a fellow art enthusiast on Facebook, going by the name of Ivan Shershukov, with whom we had previously discussed a lot of my blunders in the past and I have found his insights to be incredibly valuable — especially when trying to make sense of this convolution that is the art market.

As I believe we share a lot of the same appreciation and understanding for the business side of art, I’d like to open up today’s blog with a small shout-out to his Facebook page; if Surviving Art is your cup of tea, I think you’ll enjoy reading Art Business Talk with Ivan Shershukov and his commentary on the art business, too!

But to get back to the topic at hand, I would like to use today’s post to open up a conversation about the different approaches we could take, when trying to find a partner in crime to sell and/or market our art for us.

Regardless if it’s a contract to buy your first home, if you’re getting married or if you’re trying to get your first painting sale — there really are two main questions to consider, when entering any agreement:

Value and risk.

If we wish to find someone willing to sell our work for us, the question really is: What can we give to them to make it worth their efforts, while at the same time figuring out how much of it we should give them, so that the deal still makes sense for us and we don’t end up broke because of it.

If I were to sell my art prints via a company like (pick one of the million places that now do on-demand printing providers — if you are one, message me, Surviving Art needs bread money and is willing to affiliate), the value that they provide for me is incredible; automated printing, shipping, customer support, quality checks, storage, machines, labour and all the other overhead costs that they take care of for all of us is incredible. 

But because they do so much they do demand a lot in return.

Instead of me making a shirt for 15€ myself and earning well over 50% on each sale (total price minus expenses), I have to be content with 20% or even 10% of the total price as my earnings.

Were I to look at this solely on the merit of value, I would quickly decide it’s not a good deal for me as I could be making 5x the cash! I mean, I have to do all the creative work and marketing and they only make the shirt, but take most of the capital.

But the problem is, that they also have almost all of the risk on their side — and risk is the less thought about part of the equation; they had to buy all the equipment, build all of the infrastructure, hire all their workers and make contracts with shipping providers, programmers, paint mixers and the fine grannies that make the T-shirts they print on.

I on the other hand only had to draw a pretty flower and find 10 min of my time to set-up a free shop on their system…

And these are the same problems we have to face when searching for a parter that would sell our work for us: What do they bring to the table and what value do we provide? How much risk do they take? How much do we keep? Where is the fine line — the status quo — that makes both of us happy in the long run?

More on this, tomorrow.