What did you actually put in the email subject line?
Mine was "Portfolio / Mira / mixed media" and I cringed at it for two days after I hit send. Pretty sure it landed in the void, which honestly might've been a mercy.
I keep hearing advice on this and it's all "be concise, be memorable, don't be gimmicky," which is three contradictory things. So what's the actual subject line you used. Not the polished version you'd tell a workshop. The real one, and did they open it or not.
I want to know if anyone has cracked this or if we're all just guessing and mailing into the dark.
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I sent "Etching / screenprint portfolio, Giulia" for years and I think it was fine but unremarkable, which is its own kind of problem. The two that actually got replies were the ones where I put something about the work in the line itself, not the category: one was "density of repetition, new prints" and I got a real answer from a small space in Leipzig that said it was the only one that month that wasn't "artist submission." So my unscientific theory is that the category word is the thing that gets filtered, not the length.
That said, I'm not sure anyone has cracked it, because the honest answer is that the open is often decided by whoever is already half interested. I still send the boring ones.
The Leipzig thing tracks. Any word that describes the paperwork instead of the object gets skipped, because everyone's inbox is the same six words. "Density of repetition" tells a person what they're about to look at, and that's the only job the subject line has.
What I'd add: put the size in there. A gallery that shows small work and gets a line about a six foot steel piece is going to pass no matter how good the phrasing is. Saves you both the email.
size is a good call and I hadn't thought about it that way. I've been treating the subject line as a plea and not as a filter. my stuff is mostly small, under two feet, so that's actually a selling point for the right room and a fast no for the wrong one.
"six foot steel piece" in a subject line is also just a better sentence than anything with the word portfolio in it.
"density of repetition" is a much better subject line than mine, and the Leipzig thing is telling. category word as the filter makes sense, galleries get so many of these that the word "portfolio" basically does the deleting for them.
but yeah, the honest answer is probably that the line gets it opened and nothing after that is in your control. which is annoying. I've been rewriting mine for a week and I think I've just been avoiding sending it.