What Are You Plans For 2019 Business Wise?

Sounds good, Marlene. I'm pretty much the same way...in order to slow down a little as I hope to do, I will need to first speed up. So I'm going to open a Shopify store (it's almost done), and possibly a second (must give it more thought first), do more cat and dog art commissions, and upload new work here on a consistent basis. I'm also contemplating starting a blog but I would like to feel that I can add to it on a regular basis before I take the plunge and get it started. I also have a couple more artistic avenues I hope to explore and develop. Also, on Boxing Day I'm going to start training somebody to help make my jewellery before it takes over my life too much.

Since having to retire from my career last year due to a health issue, I have been thinking about what it is I should do with my photography, it is a hobby for me. I did lose thousands of images on an external drive in June of this year and have had to start over on a lot of them (luckily I had a few hundred on a cloud, should have put them all there). Anyway, I am at a point where I am just gleaning from all of the experienced artists here on what they do. So, I don't have 'plans' per se, but hope to figure out what the next steps are for me in the way of should I pursue this as a business or just keep on 'hobbying on'. Thank you to all of you who are so open with your suggestions and experiences.
Happy New Year and best wishes to all of you here.

I just want to be taken seriously as a painter, then work from there. So, no firm plans

Make more from FAA than JC does. ;-)

Merry Christmas

No rest for the wicked, Peggy...only I like our kind of wicked awesome!

I am expanding out a few hours drive to new galleries, or I hope to. I have one that i need one or two more paintings for waiting. :) I have pretty much removed my work from the no sell galleries and trying to get in some of the higher volume and better client ones. :)

Very smart, Teeny. Being repped by a gallery is only a piece of the equation...they need to be able to move your art!

Lol, David

No business plans, no plans at all really except to make only art I want to make and only when I feel like making it. I know, I'm not a pro.

Bliss of Art

Do you not understand the topic, or are you announcing your imminent demise?

I COULD tell you, of course, but then I'd have to kill you, ... which would be uncomfortable for us both.

Trade secrets, you know. (^_^)

I plan to begin making and selling bongs (see Stonepunk thread).

:::smacking Robert and David:::::

"are you announcing your imminent demise?"

Eminient, not that I'm aware of, definitely inevitable.

DK

Check my post. I was responding to the person who's trying to slip a religious post into the thread, or doesn't read English well enough to understand it.

Just playing it by ear, who knows what tomorrow has in store?

I see now DS, sorry. I didn't notice that you mentioned the name of that poster, I didn't really take much notice of that post and the name of the poster isn't obviously a name.

I plan on doing more of the same,,Hopefully the year will have no Drama to distract me from my Art. Im going to stop showing in galleries and concentrate on FAA. Next years goal to increase sales more than this year. Not much else.

Just keep plugging away...Have a show in Reno next November but that is currently the only thing firmly on the docket. Doing a few restaurant exhibits and doing, gasp! a photo show...first possibly my last! Anyway never say never, especially in the art world!

Planning some adventures.

Communicating buyers and would be buyers.

Creating more exciting work to purchase.

I'll be out looking for a soul killing retail or office assistant job (about all that's available in my neck of the woods.) I'm afraid I really need to make a little money and my art career is going nowhere. I guess I'll keep adding to my images here when I can but I'm not sure I'll be able to do as much promotion as I have this past year.

As time goes on, running my booth in Maryland, (my now biggest money maker), has become more and more difficult.

So I'm selling the structure (at a tidy sum) with the contractually stipulation that my work would still be sold there.
,
Now, someone else will have to deal with the nitty-gritty and I can spend more time creating.

More time creating art and more time creating trouble here on this forum

Keep posting new work, and crossing my fingers that someone actually buys something. Hahaha. Ugh.

End of January Yamaha keyboard.

I am psyched. If I am any good that's the long term business plan.

Dave

Good plans, Roger...especially the trouble making part!,

I'm really going to work hard this year, very hard. Borderline steroid hard. I have some extra money (not much) to invest in my domain development / wordpress debauchment. I have the shopping cart widget on my site and part of it is broken (FAA's fault) - wish me luck with tech support, last time it took 30 days.
That's my plan: work hard at all aspects of art - from street level to the pope. I wish everyone much luck. I'm happy my with FAA site, however I need to cull and get rid of the junk:

https://kathyanselmo.pixels.com

Happy Holiday's!

love, Kathy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRv0FZzoxWI

So I'm thinking this will be my last year and what I want to do is continue to do well in the Gallery Underground, a gallery I manage in real life, and market more effectively online, avoid the forum, and completely enjoy my last year of painting. (I threaten every year to quit...just ignore me)

Kathy, message me. The cart is working our end.

Group exhibition in January, convention April. Next week away at beach and continuing ocean series, following up on venues for ocean, war, body, urban, tango dance, jazz musicians series, plus collaborative group. Painting competitions and following calendar of submissions for public and private cultural proposals.
My face is known, soon it will be my work.

just paint, play with my granddaughter and hope to make it at least one once year.

Business wise? Sell more shower curtains, three so far this year....Business wise I really don't have any plans except to hope an eccentric collector living in a huge mansion decides to collect my photographs and buys at least 100 of them.

Do my best to stay healthy. Enjoy a few good vacations to the woods.

Continue my study of Art and Artists (esp painters).

When the weather warms (50 or more) return to the mean streets to do my "street" photography.

Be with my friends. Tell my wife How much I appreciate her for doing all that she does for me.

Continue learning from some of my public intellectuals such as: Sir Roger Scruton, Jordan Peterson, and Bishop Barron and many others....

Thanks for asking.

For the coming year I need to figure out how to make enough money to pay for food, car, property tax and expenses on my Mom's house until we can get the non paying tenant out and the house can be sold. Since that will take another 2 months to a year or more, I'll be spending the time photographing all of the items that I've accumulated for props over the years and then selling them off.

When the house is sold I want to have just enough stuff that I can live in a conversion van or class B RV for a year or two.

I want to travel around the country to see where I want to end up. Maybe spend a few months in Europe over a summer as well.

For now I plan to continue what I’ve been doing, as overall it seems to be working. I want to try to expand to a few more galleries and I’m also considering changing my online presence a bit as well. Much depends on how the year starts.

:::ignoring Lisa::::: lol ;)

This year has been such a blur, I feel like I lost the whole year with my Mother-in-law being sick and passing away and spending 9 months clearing her house. Then my mom got sick in April, so I had the crossover of both of them going through stuff from April til the estate settled in October. My son starts his senior year of college in Jan. he is still home, so i have to face the fact that he may be moving on somewhere after he graduates. acccckkkkkk!!!

I have not regained any of my creative drive. so much to do physically here at our house, having acquired a lot of the stuff from my husbands' childhood home. It is overwhelming and suffocating sometimes.

I want to try to create new work, network better, I am horrible at it, and stabilize my stores, shops etc online. I toy with going back in a brick and mortar locally, but, quickly come to my senses. I still don't feel I have found my best way to express my creative side but maybe somewhere between my now 63 year old self and a new year to try, I will at least get closer.

All my best to you here, and on to a better year in 2019.

Denise,
I hear ya. I have had years like what you described. There just isn’t enough of you to go around.
This year, I spent almost 5 months not living at home, helping my partner , children and grandchildren.
Life is not getting easier,

I know Marlene, it does seem that way. Hoping we all can have some times of respite this year if the life events get tougher.
Have a good rest of your day.

I ended the year with 2 photoshoot bookings through a new source. I hope to increase my online portfolio of client work and get more bookings through my 2 sources and begin doing some booking on my own.
I am starting the new year filing for bankruptcy. I reached a point where my finances were no longer sustainable and I would end up homeless with no income if I continued with the debt load I have been carrying , which started with a lay off in 2010.
As always I am optimistic. In my down time I will continue to shoot speculative art and stock photography. I am fighting the effects of age and past disease and ultimately I need to be marketing my existinging work. Galleries don’t work for me as we are saturated here in Florida and my market audience nce is not here. But it is still a goal to find an physical outlet for print sales as well as grow my online sales. I picked up a repeat buyer at the end of the yesr who is still browsing. I need more like that! I am very happy with how the site has been working, keeping my viewers in the relevant images of my portfolio.

Because of some medical conditions, I haven't been able to do as much photography as I'm used to and it was getting kind of depressing. So this year I decided to go back to something else I like to do and that is making jewelry. I decided to learn something new and started learning how to do wire weaving and wrapping stones. I initially did this to make pendants for myself, but I've had so much interest in it that in mid September, with the encouragement of my family and friends, I opened my own shop on Etsy. I've had some pretty good beginners luck there! So, my plan for next year is to work really hard on my shop there and still continue to build my portfolio here with the vast library of images I already have. And, hopefully be able to get out sometime to take new pics.

LOL, Marlene. And hopefully this next year will be wonderful for you, Denise and Judy...and everyone.

I said playing it by ear earlier but now I'm thinking of a total revamping of everything and letting go of everything that's not related to creating art and selling originals with the only exception of having to run my day business cuz that's what pays the bills.

I'm going to continue doing what I've been doing which is building my collection. I plan to continue exploring a lot more locally plus a few more big trips this upcoming year. Once again the focus will be on the content over sm or any major outside advertising.

I'm probably going to skip doing art festivals this year and focus on just selling online as that is what works best for me.

Go on three cruises - loaded with photo ops.

Where to, Bill? Just curious. I'm trying to decide where to go on holiday...never been on a cruise before. I think I'd have to go alone though since it doesn't seem to interest my husband in the slightest.

I don't really have plans other than slowing down a little.

My business plan is just to take some different kind of photographs, process them and add more to my pages here. I would also like to increase my marketing efforts somehow as the competition increases every hour of every day.

I would also really like to try and stay healthy to enjoy everyday life, time with family and friends, and maybe even see some places I have not been to yet.

Best wishes to all!

2018 saw my best friend from age 5 die of cancer in Sept. In 2019 I want to finish a book. It is the 40th anniversary of YANKS - starring Richard Gere. I was his stand in for the whole movie and have dozens of unpublished pictures taken during the filming back in the UK.

Crazy stills of him, John Schlesinger, Vanessa Redgrave, Lisa Eichhorn (think she had a crush on me). Lets see Michael Green 2nd asst/dir, Simon Relph 1st asst/dir, plus others will be in the book.

Looking for a publisher if anyone has any contacts.

Best of 2019 to everyone on this great site. Your like another family to me.

-Doc

Finish the book for children i started. If the kids from my family and friends like it, try to publish.

Send some of my comic strips to swiss newspapers.

I wanted to do more, but all banks refused to lend me money to advertise on television during the alpine ski world championship, chickens.

My major plan is to stay alive - it becomes more difficult as the years go by. Other than that, planning a trip to the Grand Canyon, the wife wants to fly over it in the helicopter - I'm not buying - if she pays - I'll fly. It will be a road trip - with perhaps a stop over in Dallas to see my older brother and his wife.

But, I have no business plans. Just keep plugging along.

On a closing note, success is directly related to your plans... ;)