The Musician Centric Podcast
Two professional violists, Liz O'Hara and Stephanie Knutsen, explore diverse perspectives in the music field through conversations together and with friends. Whether gaining fresh insights from industry innovators or laughing their way through a show like Mozart in the Jungle, Liz and Steph hope to inspire musicians, particularly freelancers, to feel a sense of agency in their lives.
**Note: This podcast was formerly titled the ViolaCentric podcast**
The Musician Centric Podcast
Creative Careers and The Art of Making Money with Miriam Schulman
Stories? Questions? Thoughts? TEXT us here!
Discover the keys to turning artistic flair into financial success as we sit down with the extraordinary Miriam Schulman, the mind behind "Artpreneur." Her book lights the way for artists to thrive in the marketplace, and we're diving deep into her treasure trove of strategies. From setting the right prices to self-promotion that doesn't feel like selling out, Miriam's insights offer a compass for creatives looking to chart their own course with confidence. Whether you paint, perform, or play, the wisdom shared in this episode promises to enrich your path to prosperity.
We tackle the persistent myth that art is an unstable foundation for a career, bringing forward real-life sagas of artists who’ve molded their passions into a sustainable income. All-in-all, we're here to affirm that your artistry warrants as much respect and reward as any other profession.
**If you enjoyed this episode, please consider rating and writing a quick review for our podcast!
We have a Patreon site! Support us here - any little bit helps us produce these episodes, so thanks in advance 💜
www.patreon.com/musiciancentric
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Mentioned in this episode:
Miriam’s book: Artpreneur: ArtpreneurBOOK.com
Get the first chapter for FREE here: schulmanart.com/BELIEVE
The Inspriation Place Podcast: schulmanart.com/podcast
Miriam’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/schulmanart/
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How did you like this episode?
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Our website: www.musiciancentric.com, for merch, joining our email list, and sharing your stories and feedback!
Produced by: Liz O’Hara and Stephanie Knutsen
Episode edited by: Emily MacMahon and Liz O’Hara
ViolaCentric Theme by: JP Wogaman, www.wogamusic.com
Additional music by: Freddy Hall with www.musicforpodcasts.com
Thank you to our Sponsor for this season: Potter Violins: www.potterviolins.com
Interested in starting your own podcast? We can't recommend our host Buzzsprout enough! Click here for an introductory offer from them!
For our listeners who've been with us for a long time. For those of you listening for the first time, we're going to try introing our conversation that is coming up within the next 10 minutes or so on the episode. So we're really excited today to bring you an episode where we had a guest named Miriam Shulman, who is absolutely incredible. I'm going to let Stephanie talk about her because she found her online and was fangirling a little bit and, to be honest, I didn't know Miriam's work all that well until we started the conversation, but once we got to the end I was fangirling too. She was absolutely amazing. It was such a good conversation and we're really excited for you to be able to hear it in a little bit, yeah.
Steph:So Miriam, she is a visual artist and she also has a podcast called Inspiration Place. But today we talked with her mostly about her book, which is called Artpreneur, and it's all about helping artists to make what they do as a creative endeavor into a career. So how to sell yourself, how to sell art, how to build relationships that will profit down the line. And I was reading about her and I read her book and I was just thinking these are read her book and I was just thinking these are skills that all of us artists can use. Whether you're in visual art, whether you're a performing artist, whether you're a musician, you can use these skills and we're not taught them. So I got so much inspiration just from reading her book and I highly recommend it. But we talk about pricing, we talk about knowing your worth as an artist and how to sell yourself out there on the marketplace. We talk about social media, we talk about promotion in this episode. So I think everybody's gonna really find something that that speaks to them, that they need in that moment.
Liz:Yeah, it was amazing how much crossover was in that conversation and it is so identifiable. You know, no matter what discipline of a creative endeavor you're coming from, there's just so much you can relate in terms of taking that kind of path in life. And, yeah, it was just so. It was truly so inspiring and you know, she got a little woo woo with us, which I very much appreciate.
Steph:Yes, I felt like this was like the perfect bridge from the Artist's Way. If you read the Artist's Way and you did all that and you know your morning pages and connecting with your inner child, blah, blah, blah. But okay, now come into the real world and this is what you need to do, now that you know your worth as an artist how to show your worth in the marketplace. Yeah, absolutely Welcome to the Musician Centric Podcast. We are two freelance violists living and laughing our way through conversations that explore what it means to be a professional musician in today's world. I'm Steph.
Liz:And I'm Liz and we're so glad you've joined us. Let's dive in. I don't know if it's. Is that like a super sensitive musician thing? Like would the average person notice Well, what did you hear? Okay, wait, let's do it again. All right, for even more context. Everybody you know how well you might not know this unless you have these kinds of headphones but one says R and one says L, but like they look exactly the same.
Liz:So you're like right Theoretically if you just switch them, does it matter? And then my microphone cord wouldn't be across my body, it would just be Okay. So I've been playing around with this and Stephanie said, well, how is it different? And I was like wait, I don't know. So okay, Now I'm doing it the right way, which is the headphones on the right, right on right, yeah L on left. I'm following the directions.
Steph:I don't like even maybe Okay.
Liz:Yeah, even yeah, like across the my head, okay, okay.
Steph:Okay, so now I'm going to switch them. Okay, all right Now. Okay, so, just for continuity miggity, mic check, miggity, miggity, mic check, I mean truly it's different.
Liz:Okay, do it again. I just took the right ear off, guys, which is actually the left ear.
Steph:This is like the mirroring conversation we had about the camera Yeahity mic check, miggity, miggity mic check. Okay, so I swear.
Liz:Now, this was my whole conjecture before I hit the record button, which was would an average person notice this difference or is this like musician thing? Audio engineers hit us up. Help, I want to know. I'm dying to know. I don't know why.
Steph:Is this a thing?
Liz:I don't know why. We've had this set up for a long time, and this is the first time I'm deciding to experiment with this. But what's the deal? Everybody and I don't know, do other people hear different frequencies?
Steph:Yes, so, speaking of crossovers, as we hinted at the beginning, we're having this conversation with Miriam Shulman and she's a visual artist, but she has lots of tips for us and everyone in the performing arts. So if you enjoy this episode I think you're going to get so much out of it Please share it with somebody who you think would also enjoy it Absolutely. Or, you know, yeah, tag us on social media. Helping to get the word out is huge for us and we appreciate every single message and every single share and every single conversation you have with your friends that puts them onto us.
Liz:Absolutely. It means the world to us, those of you who have been supporting us throughout our journey, and those of you joining for the first time welcome. And speaking of yet another crossover, I'm going to steal Stephanie's line. Please enjoy this conversation with Miriam Shulman.
Steph:We are all busy, especially those of us who teach music. We give everything to ensure our students' abilities and love of music are always growing and developing. We want to make sure each one has the right setup and instrument, but we barely have enough time to practice for ourselves sometimes.
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Steph:Our guest today. Miriam Schulman is an artist, author and art business coach. From her own journey working on Wall Street to building a thriving business from the ground up, she truly believes that anyone can make a living from their art. Miriam learned so much in her path that she started a podcast, the Inspiration Place, in 2018. She wrote a book, artpreneur, and she coaches artists to use what she's learned to create freedom in their careers while doing what they love creating art and we are so excited to welcome you to the Musician Centric Podcast, Miriam.
Miriam:Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here and for our conversations. We were having so much fun before you hit record, so I know it's going to be yeah, yeah, it's going to be great.
Steph:And I have to admit that I'm fangirling a bit here, having just finished your book but for anybody who doesn't know your story, I think you need to give us a short version, because it's so moving and I think that so many people will find it familiar and relatable, like especially if they've come to their creative career after doing something else.
Miriam:Yeah, Well, like many people maybe in your audience, I was told you can't make a living that way, right? So I wanted to be an artist and I was told no, and, being from a single parent household, my father passed away when I was very young and I was on financial aid and I had a going to graduate with a mountain of debt. So I took what I thought was the practical route and went to Wall Street. I mean, I did take a lot of art and art history classes while I was in college, but I took enough of the other stuff that I was. I went to Wall Street. You know it was. The money was great. I can't lie about that.
Miriam:And, being from somebody who did not grow up that way, we really struggled for a lot of times during my childhood. My mother was on, we were living off of Social Security. It was great. The financial freedom is something.
Miriam:However, when 9-11 happened, I knew I couldn't go working in the trade center during that time, but I had worked in the trade center and I was on my own kind of extended maternity leave. Like I had just told my bosses, I want to take a break from this and I didn't know if I was going to go back after a year either to that job, another job. I didn't know what I was going to do, but when 9-11 happened, I took that as a sign from the universe not to go back, and I know that a lot of people look at the pandemic through a similar lens, that that was a turning point for them, that you know, we had the great resignation and people quiet quitting, and this was something that I was determined to make a living out of my art thing that I was determined to make a living out of my art. At first I still didn't believe that I could do it, so I took other jobs. One of them was as a Pilates instructor and when I was working for the health club, their business model is to sell personal training packages, so they had a vested interest in training us in sales techniques and I was like, well, I really don't care about selling personal training packages, but I could use this to sell my art and all this is transferable.
Miriam:So everything we're talking about it's going to be true for visual artists like the ones I coach. It's going to be true for musicians. It's going to be true for entrepreneurs who maybe sell life coaching. It's true for graphic artists who sell web design. My husband read my book. He says oh, this is what we do in the real estate world. So this is really just time-tested advice that works no matter what your industry is. So if you're an artist and you think you're a unicorn and things don't apply to you, that's just not true. That's reassuring.
Steph:It is, that's right. You don't have to reinvent everything in order to make something happen.
Liz:Yeah, and in terms of the parallels and of course you have a personal tie to this world that we live in, Miriam that as musicians, especially classically trained musicians, we tend to not think of that as applying to us as business skills, applying as sales skills applying to us. But I found early in my own life that that is 100% not true. The better you are at those things, the easier it is to craft your own career and the more rewarding, in a way, because you're doing it for yourself and that's a really big theme that we have, of course. So just curious to know if you have any direct ties to share with our experience as musicians. Well, I'm so glad you asked that.
Miriam:Okay, so, one of the things that I felt I was at a big disadvantage when I did decide to make a career as an artist is I had not gone to art school, and so both of my kids actually are very musical, and one of them is a career musician she teaches right now. She's teaching middle school orchestra. We'll gossip more about her in a little bit.
Steph:Oh, god bless her. Yes, we will discuss?
Miriam:No, we will discuss. But you know, when she was coming up and struggling with traditional academics, I was like well, you can just be a music teacher. And so she went to Interlochen, she went to Hart and she has a master's in music ed from Columbia, so she's very much in this professional world. When I tell people, oh, my daughter's a cellist, who's professional like you, people are like yeah, yeah, your daughter plays the cello, who cares? You know, so does everybody else's kid, but yeah, she is conservatory trained.
Liz:We get that a lot, even as professionals like oh, you play that instrument, that's so cool.
Miriam:It's such a great hobby. You know it's not a hobby, it's a career. Yeah, it is very interesting. And you know what I get as a visual artist? Oh, my kid is doing great stuff. You want to look? I'm like no, I really don't.
Liz:Yeah, it's that challenge to communicate to the greater society in which we exist that art of any form is a viable career path. It's challenging. That is a challenging thing it is.
Miriam:And then, like people who will meet me, they'll say, oh, but you don't really make money, right, it's your husband. I'm like, oh, that's so cute, stephanie is seething over there.
Steph:So when I was reading your book, there are so many of the sections that absolutely resonated with me, but one that I think that musicians really overlook, and that is selling yourself. We always think, at least in the classical music world, we're going to take an audition and our playing will speak for itself, we're going to get a job, or we're going to go to academia, or we're going to go to academia, we're going to become a teacher, and we don't think of what happens if that doesn't happen for you. What are you left with? And a lot of musicians just don't know how to sell themselves. So what can you offer our listeners, who are musicians, and why should they be able to sell themselves? Why is that important?
Miriam:Okay, so let's do a reframe, because what most people think, and my artists especially, is they have to sell themselves and they make statements like I've always wanted to be an artist and ever since I was five I had a crayon in my hand and I love to paint and when I paint I feel so good and whenever I make a painting it connects me to God, and it doesn't matter how pretty these words are and I know my daughter being a musician, when she goes in interviews it's the same thing. I want to do that. Notice. Every single sentence begins with the word I, and the number one rule I would say in business but this is really just relationships and life in general is nobody cares about you, nobody cares about you, they only care about, especially in business, what you can do for them. So every sentence should start off with either the word you or who the consumer is going to be. So, for example, can we just like circle back to the dreadful middle school music teacher job.
Steph:Okay.
Miriam:Yes, please. So my daughter she's had a few leave replacement jobs, which have all been lovely and nice. She loves teaching orchestra and this year she accepted a tenure track position, which she was so excited about where she gets to teach a few orchestra classes to middle schoolers and she also teaches general music. Now, for those who don't know what that is, the kids who don't want to sign up for orchestra and don't want to sign up for band and don't want to sign up for chorus have to take something. Yes, in New York I don't know if it's true everywhere, but in New York, at least in her county, they do and those kids are in middle school general music, and so basically she's like a corrections officer.
Miriam:And she has never had to experience this before, where she's with kids who just really don't want to do it. I mean, she's had the occasional kid who, whose parents were making them do it, but not like the whole class was like out to get her. You know his life and their mean girls, their mean girls. You know it's like. You know, middle school is Mrs Shulman, what are you wearing?
Steph:It's really bad, and they have this language that you can't even understand. That's right, and my daughter was, like as many musicians like she was not a cool kid, so it's like it's like PTSD in there, like what am I doing in here with these bullies?
Miriam:Okay. So she was prepping for an interview and she's saying well, you know, I'm going to tell them how much I like this and how much I like that, and blah, blah, blah and why I love music. And I said, oh, that's very lovely. I gave her advice. I doubt she took my advice because I'm the mom, but I hope your listeners will listen to me. So I said to her think about, even in this job or in your last job, tell me about that little girl who wrote you the letter at the end of the year, who the eighth grader, who said she made friends and she loved it and she was so happy she stuck with it. She said Sophie.
Miriam:All right, tell them about Sophie on the interview. So why do you want to teach middle school orchestra? Then you can say something. Well, last year I had this child, Sophie, and I made such a difference in her life. Or talk about the letter you got from the kid Rio who moved to Japan and how much that music helped him when he was struggling with the language. Or tell them about a fifth grader who you had a breakthrough with. So this is business skills. They don't realize. It is telling case studies of your clients, and if you're a teacher, your clients are your students, and that is what somebody interviewing you as a teacher would want to learn about it. They don't care how much you like doing it, they really don't.
Steph:Yeah yeah, yeah, that's. It's such an important skill is to be able to tell stories right. That's what people relate, yeah.
Liz:And this is great, because I know for a fact that we do have other musicians in exactly the same career field who listen loyally to the podcast, and so they're going to be laughing right along with that story. So let's take this from an interview, setting into a musician who has something they're trying to put out there that's their own. It could be marketing for a private studio, something like that, where they're teaching, but it could also be their own music. Well, it's the same thing.
Miriam:Let's say you're gigging. Let's say you want to play your harp at weddings, but you know, nobody cares how much you love it. Oh, I love to play at weddings. That's not what's going to get you hired. It's like I played this piece at the wedding and everybody was crying, you know when I do weddings.
Miriam:This is like their big memory, and it's so. You're, you're painting a picture with what you do, but you're thinking not about yourself and how you like to do it, but the audience, and that's what you're selling to people is the result.
Steph:What is the result of what you do so?
Miriam:there's something I like to talk about and this is not in the book, but we'll maybe the next book. So, as a musicians, you should you probably relate to this. We have two aspects of our soul, and the creative aspect of our soul is the what and the how, and as artists and musicians, we're very concerned with the what and the how. But what people buy is why and who, and that's what you need to talk about.
Steph:Okay, so the two sides of our soul are the creative side is the what and the how, the why and the who is the sacred side.
Liz:Yeah that's giving me artist's way vibes big time. It's a.
Miriam:Kabbalist concept of having.
Liz:I love it. I love it so much and it makes so much sense because and I was just thinking this before you said that, Miriam, that the artist, often when we have some sort of creative endeavor, we are concerned with this expression coming from ourselves. That's where it comes from right, it comes from me and I'm doing this thing right, and so the shift is in once you release that, like the answering those questions means everything and, yeah, it's just so good.
Miriam:Love it, I mean it should make it easier for you and more aligned when you are air quotes, selling yourself like not to think of it that way. But think about is that you're sharing the sacred side who and why, what and how is what you do? And we're human beings, not human doings.
Steph:Yes, it's one of my favorite things I love to talk about pricing your art. There's a really great section all about this about how to determine how much to charge for, you know, appearances in your world, pieces in our world maybe it's private lessons, maybe it's classes, these kind of things and there's one thing that I think that all of us are really guilty of, and that is crowdsourcing our prices. So could you talk a little bit about what that means to crowdsource and what we should be doing instead?
Miriam:Yes, so crowdsourcing is? You're making earrings, so you go to a flea market and you say everyone at this flea market is selling earrings for $15. So I can't possibly sell my earrings for more than $15. But since I'm just starting out, I should probably charge 12, which is like pulling in another starving artist thought.
Miriam:As opposed to I'm making these earrings. And then, instead of going to the flea market, you go to Bergdorf Goodman and you say, okay, let me look around and see what these bespoke earrings are Now. Oh whoa, those are $240. And so that's not crowdsourcing, that's like going high end. But to get rid of that thought that you're just starting out, I can't charge those prices.
Miriam:These are all thoughts, so this gets into a lot of what I talk about, and I laced this throughout the book, because mindset is so important for life and for business, and we all have these thought clouds that pass through, and we think that our thoughts are facts and they're not just because you think something doesn't make it true, and but we observe our through. And we think that our thoughts are facts and they're not just because you think something doesn't make it true, and but we observe our thoughts and we're like, well, I could never do that. So whenever you have fear. So this is a evolutionary mechanism, people who feel this way it's not because there's something wrong with you, it's not because you're stupid, it's not because you're broken. Humans have evolved for survival. We're supposed to be afraid of tigers. We cannot tell the difference, though, between a tiger and charging a high price. But if something makes us feel uncomfortable, our brain is going to sense that discomfort or fear and it will come up with all kinds of reasons why it's a terrible idea. So I don't call it excuses, I call it doubts. But when we feel something's a terrible idea and the more and the smarter you are and the more creative you are which is everyone we're talking to today the better you'll be at coming up with those kinds of stories about why it's a terrible idea. So you have fear that leads to doubt, doubt that leads to these stories.
Miriam:So what do people do? They're either going to crowdsource, as you said, which means they're going to research, all this research, procrastinate, learning, what do I charge? Or they just get confused. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And either way, they end up pretty much either procrastinating or doing nothing, because if you do lots of research, you'll get conflicting advice. Maybe something else will come up. Oh, that's a bad idea, I can't never do that. And this? So, like I said, it leads to procrastination. The confusion, overwhelm, leads to procrastination, which ends up making you just feel bad because you're not taking action to move your dreams forward. And it's not your fault. You're not alone. This is the way humans were built to keep us alive and safe learning.
Liz:That's so good. I just listened to one of your podcasts in this month that came out right when you got back from Israel, it seems, and you were talking about emotional discipline and in that you referenced this, but related to even just the motivation to get started with something, that you feel that you can't create this and you can procrastinate out of fear. Oh yeah.
Miriam:And the thing about procrastinating is it feels like you're doing something. It feels like very necessary research. I'm doing this, I don't, can't make a mistake. Like it feels like you're doing something, but you're really not taking action. And it's much better to just try something. Scientific method. Let's try it and see if it works, and then, if it doesn't, try something else or try it in a different way, you'll learn much faster, taking action and being willing to fail at it.
Steph:Yeah, it's in those failures, though, that we learn things. You have to have those failures in order to learn. If you did everything perfect all the time you wouldn't learn anything. Yeah, I love that. I love that just getting out there, because I'm personally totally guilty of the procrastinating. I want to learn everything there is so that I do things right the first time and it leads to a lot of unfinished projects.
Miriam:And then the expectation that you should do something right the first time. So if it doesn't go right, well then I must be stupid, I must be this, I must be that, rather than be like well, I'm just going to try it a different way, see I appreciate this about you, Stephanie, because I don't have any of that in me whatsoever.
Liz:I'm more of the person who's like I just have failure to launch, like it's. It's like I know I want to do a thing but unless I feel that, unless I push myself past the, I could just jump in and try a thing. But it's like it's just starting. It is the problem. The research part. I'm too ADHD for that.
Steph:Liz, what's the project?
Liz:You already know what the project is. I know I want you to share it. I'm trying to cross over into a market that is more related to the rock and roll world as opposed to the tradition I come from, and in order to do that, it requires me to build up a set of skills. But in order for me to get that set of skills, I just have to jump in and start trying it, and that's where I've been stuck for a little while, because I keep thinking I'm going to do it, but I don't know how to do it and I don't know where to start, and I wish I was doing research.
Miriam:But I'm not doing anything. So it's you know. Yeah, that's where.
Steph:I'm at.
Miriam:Miriam, I think, especially somebody coming from a conservatory world where there's such a linear path to where you need to go and there is a lot of training and education involved, so to do something where it's more of a wild, wild west. But I see you guys both started a podcast. Did you take like years of podcast? Did you get an MBA in podcasting? No, right. Okay, no, you told me, you bought the cheapest thing you could find on Amazon. And there we go.
Liz:Okay, let me actually I'm gonna. I'm gonna share this too, because this is something I've been thinking about a lot, particularly in the last several months, when I when I sort of decided this is something I want to do. I'm also a very collaborative person, and so starting this podcast didn't actually feel the least bit scary because I had my partner with me. But doing something that's just an expression of myself, it's something I desire for myself. Being externally motivated is a big thing for me. Having that internal motivation is much more challenging.
Miriam:Well, why don't you create some external accountability by telling your podcast people what you're doing and give yourself a deadline. It's finally very specific. I mean, this is what I do. I like nouns on the podcast. Guess what? I'm writing? A book you know, like okay, where is it?
Steph:I love that. Yes, that's so important.
Miriam:It's so important for many people people to be like I said I was going to do this thing and now, okay, I guess I have to do this thing now, like there's very few people. If you're the only one who knows you're going to supposed to do it, we'll do it. Maybe hermione granger, I don't know who else you know?
Liz:yeah, I keep telling my friends, but then? But now it's out and now it's on the internet. So it. Stephanie's going to make a social media reel about it.
Steph:That's a great point, Miriam. When is this going to?
Liz:happen, and how will we?
Steph:know that it's actually a thing.
Liz:Well, the goal is to actually put them online. So my experiment is going to go online. So why don't we just say that I'll have something within the next six weeks. I'll have something online? I've been stewing about it for a very long time, so six weeks seems reasonable.
Miriam:Six weeks from today or six weeks from when this airs.
Liz:How about six weeks from today, just to be super? So it's the end of March, it's March 28th, so by the end of six weeks from now.
Miriam:By Mother's Day, you'll give birth to some rock and roll by mother manifesting, yes, okay.
Steph:So, miriam, what's your spiritual take on making things happen in your life? Is it something that you put out into the universe, like we just did, or how do you get yourself to?
Miriam:the next. I'm very spiritual and I pretend not to be, but I tell, I tell some people I manifested my husband, my daughter manifested our cat. Yeah, so you know there's some things like if you look for things in your life, you'll see that there's more about that than you know. I like to pretend I'm very, you know, miss scientific method and everything, but it's not that I pretend. It's like sometimes I really think that way and then other times I'm like no wait, there's a lot more going on here. And if you are open to finding and being very clear about what you're looking for and believing that it's there and that's really what manifestation is about. It's about being willing to believe about what is possible for you.
Liz:Yes.
Steph:Yeah, we get in our own way a lot of the time, and you're familiar with this, with the starving artist mentality. And where do you find the belief in yourself, in your art, in order to put yourself?
Miriam:out there. Great question. So what I talk about is the belief triad. So I do hear a lot of self-development gurus. They talk about what you said, Steph, the belief in yourself, belief in your art. But the third part of that triad is belief in the buyer, the customer, the audience, whatever you want to put in for that third part of the triad, and the best way I can illustrate this is in the movie Pretty Woman, when Julia Roberts.
Miriam:she's still dressed like a hooker, but she's got Richard Gere's gold card and she's going down to Rodeo Drive and the mean salespeople won't wait on her because they don't believe in her and we all think that we're not the mean salespeople.
Miriam:But we are, because how many times are we thinking, oh, she won't pay that for my music class, and we think we're not being mean. But you're not believing in the other person, you're not believing in the audience. Oh, they won't like it if I do rock and roll. I'm classically trained, yeah, so you're not believing in the audience. So it's that third part, that that's what really sabotages most people.
Liz:Immediately. Think of multiple examples where that's true. For me and, I think, for people in our discipline in general, I think that's very true. So that's really interesting. And also, if you want something really nice and woo-woo, to tie together your scientific method and your manifestation. One of my favorite pieces of information that I've learned and of course this is not this, is not new information, but that in science, what we've discovered is that every piece of matter is all made up of the same particles, right, which means that everything is connected. No matter which approach you take, whether it's scientific or it's spiritual, everything's connected. And so if you're trying things out through the scientific method, you are manifesting right. You're putting things out there and seeing what comes back, and so I love that so much because there's room for both, and I think a good balance of the two is really that's the way forward more than anything else.
Steph:That's so good, yeah, so let's say, you have a belief in yourself, a belief in your product, a belief in your audience, and you need to market yourself. Now, right, you need to get yourself out there into the world. There's an incredible section on your book about prospecting, about how to get in front of the right people, and one thing that we all have in common now is social media, right, so there's some advantages to that way of getting yourself out there, but there's other ways to do it as well. So could you talk about how you coach your clients to get their art in front of people and what are some of the benefits, the pros and cons of social media, the pros and cons of the other ways that you talk about?
Miriam:So many things we can unpack right now.
Liz:I know, I know.
Miriam:So there's that myth that is put out there that you just have to post on social media and it makes it really easy and introverts love that idea that they can just post things on social media and people will find you and you know the art sells itself and you know it's really, that's what people are thinking.
Miriam:And then the gurus who charge oodles of money to teach you how to build these followings on the social media they're the ones who's pushing this myth. So I did research for the book because my my first draft of the book the publishers were. The editor who was assigned to my book was really upset with me. They're like well, you really didn't talk about social media. I think that's because you're in your 50s and you're old fashioned. I was like crying, by the way, with this editor.
Steph:I was like oh my God.
Miriam:But then Once I dried my eyes, I was like the problem with my book was not that I didn't talk enough about it, but I didn't make a strong enough case about why it's not effective, because it isn't because I'm old fashioned. The old fashioned way is to think that you can just rely on this. So let me share the numbers. The numbers.
Miriam:The numbers don't lie even if you're woke, Because the numbers don't lie even if you're woke. Yes, yes, the average engagement rate on Instagram and I did update this. It's still pretty much the same for 2023, 2024. The average rate for a person an engagement rate is 0.6%.
Miriam:Not 6%, not 60% 0.6. What does that mean? If you have a thousand people following you, six people will engage with what you're doing on average. So you can think well, maybe I need to learn better techniques for engaging so I'm not average anymore. The average engagement rate for an influencer. An influencer is a pro.
Liz:Someone who does it full time A pro 1.2%, 1.2.
Miriam:So out of their thousand followers, 12 people. So what about email Email? So the average open rate on email is 24%. So if you have a hundred people I don't even talk about 1000s anymore you have 100 people on your email list, you would have 24 people engaging with you. To get the same exact result on Instagram, you would need 4000 followers, which is why it's much easier to build an audience and make money from that audience when you build an email list rather than a social media following. I'm not saying don't do social media, but it's a lot harder.
Liz:Yeah, Can we go further down this rabbit hole? So emails 24% engagement.
Miriam:Open rate Open rate. So that means they will see what it is you're talking about.
Liz:Yeah, that's right. That's right. And I mean, I know from another business I run that once we started consistently writing and sending emails advertising our performances, we sold more tickets. We sell more tickets. We just do. It's actually you know, I have firsthand experience with this which is great. In the world of sales. There's this whole other universe of networking and I'm curious to know how that ties in, because if you have this much you can expect from your emails, then when it comes to in-person engagement or showing up, how do you increase that exposure in that way? Or do you have suggestions for that? Because I know it's difficult for us to envision, probably as musicians like what that might look like. I always think on a gig we're networking, no matter what, with everybody we work with, but I don't know. Are there other avenues to take that offer you even more?
Miriam:Right here what we're doing today.
Miriam:So, there's three ways that you can build your audience. So the first is your universe. Your universe is your social media, your, if you do blogs, if you go in person, any, any place that you interact with people in your world. That's what we talked about those warm people that you're already in front of. The second way, which I think has the most opportunity, because people do not take advantage of this, is free publicity. So the first part is your universe. These are other people's universes. This is earned press and the artists who do it, and artists, visual artists as well as musicians. When you take advantage of this, this is a huge opportunity to introduce yourself to a new audience while building credibility for yourself. So it's not just who gets who sees it in your local paper, but now that is part of your portfolio of as seen on.
Miriam:and then the third way is paid press, so in other words advertising. So those are the three ways to build your audience.
Steph:Yeah, those are great ways like for us as a podcast, even, you know to go out and find publications, find someone who's going to do a story on your next concert or you know, like press contacts, things like this. Yeah, I love that, and I don't think enough people I don't think enough people think that what they're offering is good enough to go out and do that. I think that's where the big handicap is for many people.
Miriam:Totally that and also circle back to what we were talking about before. When they do go out to pitch themselves their aye-aye instead of thinking about how is this interesting, so it's not the what and the how, because they'll write all about the what and the how.
Steph:It's who and?
Miriam:why and that's what makes the most interesting stories for the press is who are you doing this for and why does it matter? Your art matters art, music, theater. It matters more than any other time when you have these existential crises. This is when people need art, they need music. This is, this is the who and the why. This is the sacred part that's going to help them make sense of things, and they need it.
Miriam:And right now with AI looking like it's going to take over the world and you can stream any music you want for $9.99 a month. Who's making the most money? Taylor Swift has like billions of dollars, and why is that, when you can stream it all for free? Because people want the real thing.
Steph:Yes, Yep, they want to go to the concert. Yep, yeah, they, they want it. That's so powerful. That's so powerful and you deserve to be paid for it too. Yeah, there's this wonderful quote that is in your book that this just reminded me of that when you were talking with Denise Duffield Thomas, and she says why should art and beauty be so cheap that we burn ourselves out creating it for people? You know that at the root of this is the belief in yourself that you are providing something that is valuable to other people and that without that, you can't go out and sell yourself to anyone.
Liz:Yeah, it's really true and I think it happens in so many little micro ways along the course of a career because you're so dedicated to the art that you're willing to take whatever you can get without recognizing maybe early on that you you can assign that value for yourself and you can decide. You know this is worth a lot. Actually I've been, I've been toying recently with. I still get emails sometimes from people that I used to work for for far less per service we call it per service in our world than I do now. I would never say yes again and I'm really graceful. I just kind of write great, you know, I write back with gratitude and I say thank you so much, but I'm not available and part of me recently. I got one recently and I thought I feel like there's a respectful way for me to just say thank you so much. But like my expectation is that you know I get paid X amount per service now and nothing less.
Miriam:Well, yeah, I mean like for some reason, this is what you were saying earlier about the education for other people is like they think we'll do it for exposure and us artists, we can dive over exposure.
Miriam:And this doesn't happen in any other industry, like you would never say to your plumber you know what? You should give me a deal on this because, well, we'll just hang a sign over my toilet that says you did the work because because there's a lot of people who use my toilet. You would never do that. So it's like why should we do things for free for exposure? We don't need exposure.
Liz:Right To create it for ourselves.
Steph:Well, it's hard to like us in the in the music industry. There's all these singer songwriters on tick tock that are doing this for free.
Miriam:Let them it's gonna be banned soon anyway, yeah, well, yeah.
Steph:So change that to whatever you want Instagram, Facebook, whatever that's on social media these days but I think it kind of perpetuates the idea that we'll do it for free. You can get this art for free.
Miriam:Well, you can, but that doesn't stop people from buying spending a lot of money on it. My husband has a tremendously large and expensive vinyl collection. People like investing in things like that. We already talked about the Taylor Swift concert. People want the real thing, so it doesn't matter if they can get it for free on TikTok Sitting at your phone. That's not the experience. That's not sacred. There's nothing sacred about looking at my phone.
Steph:It's the community and it's being with other people. That's what makes concert experiences so moving.
Liz:Yes, and in our world as freelancers, whatever that might look like let's say it's a singer, songwriter trying to make this work it's finding those other doors. It's finding, like, okay, you know, if I just try to do this on social media, I'm just going to be like another voice in the crowd. But if I find, if I find the right people in the right place, the who, if I find the who, then I have something marketable. You know it's, it's that's really interesting, amazing.
Steph:Yeah, so many great points oh and. I'll say that for any any artist, musicians included, the your book art print is worth a read. It's not only hilarious and moving, it's very informative, and this is stuff that we don't learn in music school and I bet that a lot of artists don't learn. That's why it's so valuable. That's why you wrote it.
Miriam:I mean, I wrote it for me of 20 years ago. This is like I basically talking to my past self, but many, many selves out there who need, who needed this voice.
Liz:Yeah, it's, that's really beautiful and and you also started doing a podcast on these topics kind of before it was like hugely, hugely, hugely popular. I feel like you were a little ahead of the curve. I don't know, at least in the art world or in the artist world, because we, you know, as musicians, yeah, these conversations relate so much, like all of the topics that you discuss on your podcast as well, just so helpful and inspiring, which is literally the title of the podcast. So it's really refreshing to speak with someone who has this understanding, maybe in a different discipline, but there's so much we can relate to and so that's so great and I think our audience is going to love it too.
Steph:So for all those folks that love what they heard here today, like we did. Where can they find you? What other things do you have? Well, if you like what you heard today.
Miriam:This was good Kool-Aid. I have more of that at the Inspiration Place. It's on every podcast app and my book, artpreneur, is available in Barnes Noble Amazon, and I have some freebies for you. If you head on over to artpreneurbookcom, you'll see the bonus package that you can get for ordering the book.
Steph:Awesome, nice, I haven't checked it out yet. You don't have to order the book through me.
Miriam:If you order it someplace else, whether it's an indie bookstore, just let us know. You can email us a picture of you holding the book. We don't.
Steph:I love it. That's right Low tech I got it from the library.
Miriam:That's fine, too Accessible.
Steph:We don't care, but you also offer coaching as well.
Miriam:Those who want to take it to the next level, I have the artist incubator. The lessons I teach in the book are for everybody. My coaching program is geared more towards visual artists, but visual artists of all kinds digital photography, painting, ceramicist macrame, et cetera, et cetera. So you can learn about that on my website or just by listening to the podcast. Amazing.
Steph:Great Well. Thanks so much for making time for us today this has been really inspiring.
Miriam:Thanks for having me. It was such a fun conversation.
Liz:Thank you so much for listening today. If you loved this episode, consider writing us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, amazon Music, spotify or wherever you listen.
Steph:Thanks also to our season sponsor, Potter Violins.
Liz:If you'd like to support the podcast and get access to bonus content, consider joining our Patreon community.
Steph:You can buy all your musician-centric merch, including shirts, water bottles, koozies and a variety of other fun items.
Liz:Our theme music was written and produced by JP Wogeman and is performed by Steph and myself.
Steph:Our episodes are produced by Liz O'Hara and edited by Emily McMahon.
Liz:Thanks again for listening. Let's talk soon.
