When a visitor stops by your artist website, they want to learn more about you in your artist profile. If you want to make sales, it’s critical that you help total strangers get to know you.

For many visual artists and new entrepreneurs of all types, talking about yourself can be uncomfortable. If you’re an introvert, even more so.

As The Working Artist reminds us in our Art Business series, many getting-started artists believe their work stands on its own, and it doesn’t. You have to tell its story and connect it with your story. That’s what this lesson is about.

Note: ETChster helps you make all of your creations a part of your story as well, so be sure to write strong descriptions on your public Etchings. We cover this topic in another lesson.

How Many Words Are Enough?

It sounds a bit arbitrary but character counts have helped many artists with a little bit of accountability. We have a built-in counter on your user settings page to tell you how many characters you currently have.

You want a visitor to your website to see that you cared enough to write something thoughtful to help them understand you and your art.

So our recommendation is as soon as possible, get past the 400 character count limit. For some of you, this may be painful but understand that profiles with a shorter description are likely to get no interest.

Then build up your energy and come back to this article and expand on that. Get past 800 characters.

And then seek out feedback from the community. Note: we’ll cover this topic in a separate lesson.

Once both friends and strangers are telling you that your bio succinctly tells your story, you can leave it alone for a while. But set a calendar reminder to review it every six months. You don’t want it to appear dated as time passes.

If you are feeling stuck about what to write, try answering some of the following questions…

Artist Profile Questions to Answer:

Without copy-pasting these questions in your bio, your first version can simply be answering these questions in separate paragraphs sequentially.

What Mediums Do You Prefer?

What mediums do you currently work with? Have you tried others in the past?

Have you ever developed a new medium?

If you have work for sale, what mediums and dimensions are common for you?

Are you open to trying new mediums?

Where Can You & Your Work Be Found?

ETChster makes it easy to show where your public work can be found on your artist profile, so be sure to keep your map pins current, art collectors can find your work.

Besides that, where have you lived and where do you currently live? Have those locations inspired you?

Would you like to have your work featured somewhere that it isn’t currently?

If someone wanted to spend an afternoon looking at your work, where would be the best place to do that?

What Else Are You Up To?

Are you constantly traveling? If so, where?

Do you study or teach? If so, where and what?

What other hobbies do you have?

What is your family like?

What languages do you speak?

What are you currently reading?

Are you involved with any causes?

Tying It All Together

Once you’ve answered some of the questions above, look over your answers and put them into a narrative.

Along with your artist profile photo, the goal of your artist profile bio is to give your fans a way to connect with your story.

When they buy your work, they’re buying a piece of that story and also getting the satisfaction of supporting you. Have you told them what story they’re buying into?