As with press releases, horoscopes and quite a few event newsletters that have popped out the last years, self-improvement guides are practically useless. Unlike press releases, I flip through “success manuals” religiously, but whether on purpose or by accident they never NEVER deliver the information they promise, but seem to forever evade the issue, through self-referencing general nonsense like: “Think Big to be Big.””Big Ideas start Small.” “Success is the Sum Up of the Right Choices”(this is slogan of the Deutsche Bank btw)  

In the art scene the “rules of the game” seem even hazier than in the real world. (I will always use the world real sarcastically). There seems to be an unforgiving order of Do’s and Don’ts, which has not made it to any press release or e-flux announcement, so it is very hard to quote from or follow. 

There is not one recipe for success; everybody has his own sum up of right, wrong choices and incidental encounters that make up what we later try to mistakenly identify as a path in life. There are, however, a few story-lines that repeat themselves and there is valuable information that can be passed on.
In this new series How Did I Do It -paraphrasing its title from a brief series of interviews with start up –multimillionaires in the easyjet in-flight magazines- we will try and address all the milestone issues in an artist’s life starting of course with the question of questions How Do I Get a Gallery? How not to get a gallery? But also the questions that follow, how do I get a second gallery? How do I quit a gallery? Why does a gallery take 50%? Who pays what? What kind of pricing system should be used? How to sell (well no, this question will remain unanswered) etc etc
The series will unfold, as most on bpigs.com, whenever there is time; alternating between essays, interviews and real life anecdotes from all of you. Yes you.

Needless to say this manual is and will remain incomplete, do try this at home, but at your own risk.