Convince A Journalist To Write About You And Your Art

If artists have a show coming up, they often approach journalists from magazines such as Artforum, Artnews, Artnet News, NY Times or others. However, in most cases, none of these magazines or journalists are the right ones to target, since it can be difficult to persuade them to write about you if you are not part of their network. It might be better to widen your scope. Consider this three step approach to finding and talking to journalists.

First, it is essential that you research the right journalists for your needs. Look for journalists who cater to the audience you want to attract and who write content that you can see yourself in. Make sure that they are also approachable and within your regional scope. For example, if you have a show in Lisbon, Portugal, it’s unlikely that The New York Times or Bloomberg will write about you. Instead, approach the art journalists of every local Lisbon newspaper. 

This might limit your search, so think beyond art publications alone; research general media outlets and topical pages and blogs that coincide with common themes in your work. If your work deals with astrology, find interest groups local to you on Facebook and Instagram. Engage them and invite them to the preview. In order to identify the right fit, subscribe to every newsletter and magazine that you think your ideal audience or perfect buyer would read and look into the authors of those articles. 

Second, the most important thing to keep in mind when approaching journalists is: it’s all about the story. Sometimes, admittedly, there is no story; then you have to find a reason for a journalist to write about a show of your work despite your lack of visibility. Sometimes you get lucky and a story falls into your lap, but other times you have to really dig deep to come up with something that will spark a journalist’s desire to write about you. 

Third, when you feel ready to contact a journalist via email, DO NOT paste the press release copy into the main body and send it out to their entire press list. 

Why I don’t like it: it’s generic, interchangeable with almost every press release in the art world. Who wants to read this? Every journalist immediately knows that this is an automatic email sent to a whole contact list. Five hundred other journalists will get this same email. Why should any of them write about it? It may give you a momentary sense of accomplishment to press Send, but it won’t really have done anything. This approach shows the lowest opening and engagement rates. Nonetheless, the majority of gallerists and artists persist. 

The right approach is very different but will lead to a much higher opening rate and you will end up with articles. In this lecture I present to you what you have to do to score great opening rates of your email which will lead to great articles:

I also interviewed Georgina Adams, the grande dame of art market journalism. She is the art market Editor at Large for The Art Newspaper and a contributor to Financial Times. From interviews like this and my own experience (I was written about in every leading art magazine in the world) I formulate my advice on how to approach journalists. Stop sending mass emails to journalists, you can learn how to convince journalists to write about you if you sign up via the link below.

Best, Magnus

P.s. My online class helps artists to sell more artworks. It’s based on my teaching at Ivy League Universities and 20 years of experience in the art market. And the best art market experts contributed to the class. The class has helped thousands of artists around the world, in every medium and age group. Find out more and sign up to my free masterclass by clickling on the link below.