Kandas Rodarte interviews Miriam Schulman about how to sell art online for Gratitude Geek podcast episode 298
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298: Miriam Schulman on How Artists Sell Online Without Feeling Salesy

Artists face a unique marketing problem. Generic business advice doesn’t work when you’re selling creativity. Miriam Schulman, author of Artpreneur, shares proven strategies to sell art online authentically, overcome buyer objections, and build an email list that converts without feeling salesy. Perfect for creative entrepreneurs who want to make a sustainable living from their art.

Kandas Rodarte

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Artists face a unique problem when it comes to marketing. Every business book tells you to build an email list, create offers, and follow up with prospects. But when you’re an artist, those strategies feel tone-deaf at best and impossible at worst.

Miriam Schulman gets it. After leaving Wall Street post-9/11, she built a thriving art business and discovered that artists don’t need to follow the same playbook as weight loss coaches or consultants. They need their own rulebook, which is exactly why she wrote Artpreneur: The Step-by-Step Guide to Making a Sustainable Living from Your Creativity.

In this conversation, Miriam breaks down the specific marketing strategies that work for artists, the psychology behind why people buy art, and how to sell your work without compromising your values or feeling like a sleazy salesperson.

Meet Miriam Schulman

Miriam Schulman is the author of Artpreneur and host of The Inspiration Place podcast. She spent years working as a hedge fund analyst on Wall Street before the events of 9/11 showed her she couldn’t work for a culture that valued finishing work over somebody’s life. She transitioned to art full-time and never looked back. Today, she teaches artists how to market and sell their work authentically through her book, podcast, and coaching programs.

Connect with Miriam Schulman:

What This Episode Is About

This episode dives into why traditional marketing advice fails artists and what actually works instead. Miriam shares her email marketing strategy that creates demand without being pushy, explains the psychology behind buyer objections, and reveals why some customers actually want the most expensive option. We also discuss building a values-based business, setting boundaries as an entrepreneur, and using AI tools to support creative work without replacing human creativity.

Key Takeaways

Artists need marketing strategies tailored to their unique challenges. Generic business advice about meal prep strategies for weight loss coaches doesn’t translate to selling paintings. Miriam wrote Artpreneur specifically to address how artists help people when they’re selling something that’s a want, not a need.

The FOMO email strategy creates demand without being pushy. Instead of constantly saying “buy this,” show people what you just sold. Miriam’s favorite technique is emailing her list with images of recently sold artwork. This creates desire, lowers defenses, and makes people want what they can’t have anymore.

Understanding the belief triad changes how you sell. Most sellers think customers are evaluating the product. But buyers are actually having a conversation with themselves about whether they’re worth investing in. The three beliefs at play are: belief in yourself as the seller, belief in your product, and belief that the customer is worth the investment they’re considering making in themselves.

Some buyers actually want the most expensive option. These are called Veblen goods, named after economist Thorstein Veblen. Items like Rolex watches, Birkin bags, and Teslas are more desirable because they’re expensive. They signal wealth and quality. You can’t sell a Rolex for $47 on eBay, but you can sell it for $6,000. Cheaper is not easier to sell.

Popular items sell faster because they reduce decision fatigue. When six people have an item in their cart on Etsy, it tells hesitant buyers that other people think this is a good choice. This minimizes the fear of making a mistake and looking ridiculous. Social proof is powerful in art sales.

Overcoming objections requires understanding what’s really being said. When someone says “it’s too expensive,” they might mean they don’t think they’re worth spending money on themselves. When they say “I need to think about it,” they might be afraid of making a mistake. Miriam’s book includes a complete chart matching objections to their real meanings and how to address them.

Price Objections – Why 'Too Expensive' Isn't About Your Price | Miriam Schulman

🎧 Prefer to watch? Catch the full conversation on YouTube.

Episode Highlights

0:00 – Introduction: Why marketing rules don’t apply to artists. Miriam explains why artists think they need their own special rulebook and why they’re actually right about that.

2:30 – From Wall Street analyst to full-time artist. After 9/11, Miriam knew she couldn’t return to a culture that valued work over human life. She had been prudent enough to save money during her Wall Street years, which allowed her to make the transition.

5:15 – The 9/11 pivot: Choosing values over money. Miriam shares the earlier 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center when she worked there. She walked up 37 flights of stairs to return to her desk, only to see helicopters circling and smoke coming from the building. Her coworkers just kept working.

8:45 – Gen X strengths in business and fear-based decisions. We were the last generation that played outside without texting our mothers or scheduling play dates. That freedom taught us to handle uncertainty differently than younger generations.

12:10 – Email marketing for artists: The FOMO strategy. Show what you just sold instead of constantly asking people to buy. This creates desire without triggering sales resistance. People want what they can’t have.

15:20 – Understanding buyer psychology when selling art. One of Miriam’s clients worried about sending too many Black Friday emails and wanted to give people the option to opt out of the sale sequence. Miriam’s response: If they’re on your list because they want to buy your art, the only reason not to get those emails is if they don’t want to buy your art, in which case they should just unsubscribe.

18:30 – The belief triad: Self-worth, product value, customer worth. Buyers aren’t evaluating your art as much as they’re evaluating whether they’re worth spending money on themselves. If you argue about price when the real issue is self-worth, you’re making the wrong argument.

22:15 – Overcoming objections: “It’s too expensive” and beyond. The objections chart in Artpreneur covers “it’s too expensive,” “I need to think about it,” “I have to ask my partner,” “I can’t afford it,” “I’m saving up for it,” and “I’m just shopping around.” Each one has a different real meaning and requires a different response.

26:40 – Why popular art sells faster: Social proof in action. When lots of people want something, it signals to hesitant buyers that this is a safe choice. Sites like Etsy and Boden use this by showing how many people have items in their cart or noting that something is “flying out of here.”

29:35 – Veblen goods: Some buyers want the most expensive option. These items are more desirable because they’re expensive. They signal wealth and quality. This is why cheaper is actually harder to sell in many cases.

32:50 – Building an employee-first business with boundaries. Miriam’s number one company value is employees first, customers second. Her team doesn’t work weekends. She turns on autoresponders for religious holidays. If a customer is rude to an employee, she takes the employee’s side.

36:20 – Using AI for artist business: The Artpreneur Daily Altar. This free custom ChatGPT tool helps organize your brain in the morning. It asks you to choose a word for the day, walks you through Byron Katie’s Four Questions if you’re ruminating on a problem, and invites “muses” like Professor Dumbledore or Georgia O’Keeffe to discuss your challenges.

39:45 – Why AI won’t replace human creativity in art. Every piece of art created by AI looks like it was created by AI. The same problem applies to words. If you don’t know your values, your brand, and what you need to say, AI will produce generic content. AI is a high-powered Lamborghini, but you have to know how to steer it.

42:10 – Moment of gratitude: Teachers who believed in her. Miriam’s fourth-grade teacher called her “the class artist,” and she chose to believe her. Sometimes the teachers in our lives are actual teachers, and sometimes they’re people we don’t call teachers at all.

Resources Mentioned

Your Turn

What’s your biggest challenge when marketing your creative work? Are you struggling with feeling salesy when you promote your art? Or maybe you’re not sure how to talk about the value of what you create without sounding defensive?

Drop a comment below or share your biggest takeaway on Instagram or LinkedIn. I’d love to continue the discussion.

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