Sharecroppers Post. Sovereigns Email.
Price like you mean it. Email like a human. Stop feeding the machine.
Important Notice
We have changed the name of this newsletter from The BoldBrush Letter to The FASO Way so that it is more clear that it is in alignment with our main brand, FASO Artist Websites. The content will remain the same.
Feature Article
Sharecroppers Post. Sovereigns Email.
Price like you mean it. Email like a human. Stop feeding the machine.
“The lion does not concern himself with the opinion of sheep.” — Game of Thrones
On The BoldBrush Show (soon to be renamed “The FASO Podcast”), we recently sat down with Miraiam Schulman, author of the book, Artpreneur: The Step-by-Step Guide to Making a Sustainable Living from Your Creativity, and host of The Inspiration Place podcast. She shared some important marketing principles for artists. You can watch the whole episode here. Below, we’ve put together an article about art marketing sharing what we learned from Miriam’s wisdom. Her ideas align remarkably well with our own concept of The Sovereign Artist. Enjoy!
There’s a quiet humiliation modern artists have accepted as normal. We’re not talking about rejection, slow seasons, or creative doubt. We’re talking about the humiliation of believing your career depends on whether a souless app decides to show your work to strangers who are half-bored and one thumb-flick away from forgetting you exist.
That isn’t marketing. That’s servitude.
The artists winning right now are not the ones producing endless content for the algorithm. They’re the ones building Trust, charging like professionals, and owning their audience.
These are the artists who practice Sovereignty.
The First Sale Is Your Identity
Before pricing, platforms, and strategy, you must decide one simple thing: I am an artist.
There’s a moment in Harry Potter when Hagrid says, “You’re a wizard, Harry.” And everything changes in that moment, not because Harry suddenly gains power, but because he discovers his true name: Wizard. He stops living as a question mark.
But, many artists still live as question marks.
The Sovereign Artist doesn’t wait for a gallery to say it. She says it herself, and then she behaves accordingly.
Don’t whisper your prices. Don’t apologize for marketing. Don’t wait for permission to build a list.
Identity precedes income.
The Biggest Pricing Mistake Artists Make
Here’s the myth that quietly sabotages art careers: Cheaper is easier to sell.
It sounds humble, kind, and safe. But, it signals doubt.
If your dog needs surgery and someone offers the same procedure for one-tenth the price, you don’t feel lucky. You feel suspicious.
Price is not just the cost. Price is the signal. It signals trust. It signals value. It signals costliness. Art is costly to create in terms of one’s time, attention, and soul. And in the soul-economy of art, costliness matters. There’s a reason people don’t send wedding invitations by email. Costliness signals importance.
Collectors are not hunting for bargains, but they are hunting for certainty.
Certainty that:
the work is legitimate
the artist stands behind it
the purchase will still feel right a year from now
Underpricing doesn’t just shrink revenue, it shrinks confidence in the work itself.
People do not buy art like they buy paper towels. They buy it like they buy identity through luxury brands; for that is what luxury brands truly sell.
Sell the Experience, Not the Labor
Artists defend their prices with effort saying things like, “I trained for years,” “This took forty hours,” or “My materials are expensive.”
None of that is relevant. None of that is the reason collectors buy.
Buyers don’t care how the sausage is made, they care about the dinner party.
They care about:
how your art feels in their space
what it says about them
the story they get to tell
the world it helps them live in
You are selling meaning, not medium.
The Sovereign Artist doesn’t explain the how, he explains the why.
Email Is Sovereignty. Social Media Is Rent.
Let’s go ahead and say the thing that terrifies the big social media platforms: their promise is a lie. They’ve already altered the deal. They convinced you to build a following with the promise they would show your posts to their followers. They let you do the work and instead showed your followers advertisements for other products.
From the individual artist’s perspective, Instagram engagement is microscopic and shrinking.
You are fighting a hostile algorithm for crumbs.
On social media, the platform decides who sees you. In email, the subscriber decides whether to open you.
That is the difference between being a sharecropper and being a landowner.
Social media is rented land. Email is owned land. And we are living in a trust recession. People are drowning in ads disguised as authenticity. Trust is now the true currency and a direct personal email builds trust.
The Simplest List-Building Strategy No One Uses
Artists think building a list requires funnels, automation, lead magnets, and twelve tech platforms arguing with each other.
You actually need a sentence.
When someone asks:
“Do you have a card?”
“Where can I see your work?”
“What’s your gallery?”
They are not testing your legitimacy, they are trying to learn more; they are trying to take the next step.
So just reply:
“I’d love to invite you to my next show. What’s your email?”
That’s it. You don’t need a show scheduled. You need a relationship. And relationships are built one invitation at a time.
The Second Mistake: Having a List and Not Using It
This mistake is worse. Artists build a list… and then go silent because they’re afraid of “bothering people.”
If someone gives you their phone number and you wait three months to call, what message are you sending?
You’re ghosting them. When that happens in dating, we think the ghoster is the jerk. Guess what? Marketing art is dating.
You’re saying to this prospect: I don’t care enough to show up.
Consistency builds trust.
So, the solution is simple: send a weekly email. Not a corporate newsletter. Not “March Studio Update.” Not six sections crammed into one apologetic essay. Just sent one story; one image; one invitation. If you have more than one thing to communicate, send the second thing next week.
Write like a human, you know, like you’re emailing a friend. Everyone knows how to do that. Stop pretending you don’t know how.
Here’s what one of our collectors emailed me, coincidentally, last week about this very subject:
“I think artists may think they have to have a lot to say to get out a newsletter. So it never gets written. I don’t get many. What I would really like to see is an informal news blast of new work, links to new posts on their website, save the date-type info for new shows, work accepted in competitions with a link, etc. I get a lot of email notices for auctions, news, etc., so I want it short and sweet.” — A FASO Collector
“I want it short and sweet.” Her words, not mine. In further correspondence she agreed that shorter is better, and one topic per email blast is the best way to go. Think of her list in the quote above as ideas for individual email sends.
Stop Being a “Content” Machine
Instagram is not evil. But it’s just not your business model.
Make your life easy and just use it like a storefront window.
Pin a few posts that clearly communicate:
who you are
what you make
what it means
how to buy
how to join your list
Then stop performing for it.
Artists had careers before Instagram existed and they will have them after.
The Sovereign Artist refuses to be farmed.
Keep Marching
Most artists don’t fail because they lack talent.
They fail because they stop moving.
They try something for three weeks.
They don’t see fireworks.
They blame the economy, the platform or the market. It’s rarely one of those factors.
Continual movement creates increasing clarity and, if you’re walking in the wrong direction, you can adjust, but, if you’re standing still, you can only think. And if thinking is your only option, you’ll overthink.
So:
Raise the price.
Send the email.
Make the invitation.
Do it again next week.
Sovereignty is built through repetition. It’s a choice you make in every moment.
The Sovereign Artist’s Weekly Plan
Send one real email every week.
Ask for emails like it’s normal (because it is).
Price like trust matters (because it does).
Use Instagram as a brochure, not a treadmill.
Keep marching.
Take The Next Step
To execute this plan you need to stop serving the platforms that are hostile to your goals. But you do need a platform that supports you. And you need one that provides the tools you need to achieve sovereignty.
That’s exactly what we do at FASO.
And, in fact, it’s all we do.
We provide you with a beautiful website chock full of features collectors love. It includes built-in promotional tools including a dead-simple email campaigns tool for you to execute such weekly emails. In fact, when you post new artwork, we email your fans an alert automatically, so, even if you hate creating newsletters, we give your collectors what they want. And they work, the collector I spoke with? She shared with me that she does purchase art that she finds due to our new art alerts.
We’ll Make it Easy
We know setting up or switching websites is a pain. But, in this day and age, you need your own home base.
A great website, contrary to what big tech says, is more important than ever.
So to make it easier for you, we’ve put together a special deal where you’ll get your first year on our platform for only $150. That’s a 52% savings off the normal price of $312/year. Think of it as us paying you $162 to move your website to a place that actually promotes human creativity. Please take this opportunity to move away from platforms that use your hard work as “content” to serve hostile algorithms while they callously steal your artwork to train their AI systems. We are here. Ready and waiting to help you regain your sovereignty. Please join us in this movement.
PS - Hope to see you on our platform soon! And just to show you that we do promote our artists, in addition to the piece we featured at the top of this article, here’s another great piece that caught my eye in our DailyArtStream just this week. Don’t forget to sign up here.
FASO is the best artusts' website platform of all. I've been a Gold member for years and it is worth every penny.
I enjoyed that podcast with Miriam and Laura! It was so helpful so now I'm listening to her other ones.