Review – Art Inc. by Lisa Congdon
Art Inc.
You’re an artist or creative, you’re looking at your creations to become your job or primary income source, and google Art + Business + books, Lisa Congdon’s book Art Inc, comes up on many of the top lists of recommendations, best of, Top 10s, suggestions etc.
It’s a book from 2014 written by Lisa Congdon, who is an artist herself, with a range of written works and a catalogue of successful artistic activities. There is no question that Lisa understands the artist journey and setting out a book on this journey seems here to have a lot of personal and collective experience In the book which is a good thing.
The book itself is about 180 pages, that is well illustrated as you can imagine, and in a format that makes it very readable. It presents a lot of the details of setting up a business, managing your art, and topics with a full scope of the business of general selling, marketing, shipping, and other areas, that are of common relevance and specific art relevance. Additionally, and of more value in my opinion is the range of interviews that the book has. Every few pages you are presented with a different artist quick interview where they share their story and method and a few handy tips. These are often interesting and more detailed the rest of the book.
The book also contains sections about social media and internet marketplaces which are good on their addition but naturally dated due to the book being over 10 years old. Much of the content is relevant and presented in the right order to allow for a person coming in blind to begin to tackle the huge range of key business requirements.
Board scope, light in details.
The challenge I have with a book like this is that while it takes a relevant and critical subject to an audience that needs this support, it does so very briefly. The lists of things to do and the topics are scratched at such a light touch that it’s barely more than an introduction paragraph. For example, the concept of brand and having a brand is half a page of text about 40 words. That’s it. I personally thing your brand is probably more as important as your product in many cases as it’s often difficult to separate the two.
The book is ripe with issues like this where some topics are either completely brief and virtually pointless, or oddly specific such as how to package your prints, and a page long list of materials to use in sending your prints. Which is fine but I would appreciate more focus on things like pricing discussions, see my article on pricing if you yourself are having issues with pricing.
The interviews in the book provide probably the most value as we here get a range of different journeys told by artist across a range of different media. The stories they tell are limited to a few questions however they do tell how they started and how they were able to succeed. These stories I think have a lot of value as they reflect a range of different paths and definitions of success. The book doesn’t have this nuance. I think the book misses a lot of the key messages that are hidden in the interviews. They all speak of hard work, long nights and having the drive to succeed. This is missed by the author I feel or under played. Additionally, every one of the interviews clearly shows how important having a network, and community is. Most of the artist have their success in part due to a conversation, a collaboration or exposure event.
Read it?
I think the book serves as a light lunch and check list of topics, which little content to explain or give advice on what to do in each section. I feel that coming in blind to the idea of business or if you’ve no exposure to commercial process this book has value. I think it will compliment other sources of knowledge, as a thought starter but it’s not going to give you many answers. I would suggest looking for depth in answers elsewhere.
