How is possible to do what you love and earn money at the same time? If you are an artist it may be difficult to live simply with your current job.
Here we have 5 tips for making money as an artist and for being successful:
- Uniqueness
- Consistency
- Discipline
- Branding
- Solid Network
No method will guarantee you easy money or success if you’re not willing to put dedication and hard work into it. But surely these tips can help you to make the right decisions for your interest.
We will analyze them in the following paragraphs.
Uniqueness
Creating valuable artwork is definitely a great thing but it’s just the starting point, won’t be enough to guarantee the success you’re looking for today.
You must be unique and always updated to the newest trends and technologies of the moment.
This is the only way to get a statistical advantage over others.
Creating your own style takes time and practice, day after day, year after year.
If you are consistent on this, you have all the credentials to emerge over everyone else in the market.
Consistency
Most artists fail at this: they don’t have patience and perseverance.
Furthermore, they also tend to give up easily after the first failures and rejection.
The main reason is attributable to their ego. Being an artist implies measuring yourself with your expectations and sensibility.
It’s the latter that plays a decisive role in your success. Because when you create an artwork you put all of yourselves in it, within your inner emotions.
The criticisms you may receive could hurt your soul and make you believe that everything is wrong and not worth it.
That’s why it’s crucial to develop a certain detachment towards the outside judgment.
Don’t take it too personally: if somebody doesn’t appreciate your artwork, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong.
Maybe it’s just a matter of time for your art to be accepted by the great public.
Discipline
It’s often said that all you need to do is to create great artworks to be rewarded enough.
This is a very common mistake.
It’s fine if you let your creativity and talent flair out, but it won’t necessarily lead you to success.
This achievement needs discipline and organization. You have to manage properly your time, doing even what you don’t really want to do, like taking care of the promotion and intercepting potential customers.
If you are not disciplined in this, you will never progress in what you’re willing to do.
Instead, once you start making money, you can think about outsourcing those side activities. Your collaborators will take care of them, while you dedicate yourself to what you prefer the most, like creating artworks and venting your passion.
Branding
An English language adage says that “a picture is worth a thousand words”.
There is nothing more appropriate in this case.
As long as you deal with artworks, you have to make them visible to the great public.
This means not only participating in art exhibitions and events but also creating a website so that everyone can see and enjoy your content.
Develop your presence on social platforms is even extremely important. You can post your artworks every time you make one and create engagement.
In short, what it needs is a showcase that gives visibility in everything you do.
This is the key to be successful, even if it’s something you may don’t appreciate at all.
Branding is not just a matter of creating a logo, but it’s the whole bunch of emotions and impressions related to your art and your person that make you appear unique.
In a competitive society like this, it’s crucial to develop a clear identity and convey it to others.
To achieve this, you have to use the best instruments possible: quality photos. vibrant colors, the right typography, and beautiful designs.
In short, everything has to be as professional as possible.
Real art dealers use these strategies to attract more and more customers to their shop, relying on their refined tastes.
Solid Network
Having the right network of artists definitely helps on your path.
If you collaborate with other artists you can also get their support and ask for opinions on your artworks.
You can learn from all of them, especially from the most experienced ones. You could even have sincere friendships, which will come in help during the hard times that may occur.
However, getting into this kind of network is important to get more visibility and therefore intercept an increasing number of potential customers.
Focus On A Single Niche (Additional Tip)
The basic rule, as always, is to find a meeting point between supply and demand.
Either way, you’ll have to go through lots of efforts to attract potential customers to your store.
Therefore, as an entrepreneurial artist, you have to make sure that you know which is your target market and ask yourself what people’s tastes are.
In the first case, you know in advance the successful product of the moment. In contrast, you have competition from many potential sellers. In the second, your articles may have much less resonance so you will have to find a way to promote them and make them known to your audience.
However, the latter is what we personally recommend for newbie artists.
Summary
Following these steps is important but not enough unless you don’t show the right mindset. It’s not just a matter of technical skills, we’re talking about entrepreneurship. You need to develop new marketing skills as well as your creative mastery, and doing that requires a business owner mindset.
But, although seems difficult, with hard work and dedication, it’s definitely possible to learn how to make money as an artist in 2021.
Are you ready to catch this challenge?
BONUS – Pros & Cons Of Print On Demand
Despite the surprising recent growth, print-on-demand, like every other business model, has its own set of pros and cons.
If you’re wondering what Print On Demand means, we recommend reading this article.
Pros
- Low costs. Unlike traditional retailers, you don’t need to invest high capital upfront and, in some cases, money is not required at all. Print On Demand marketplaces like Teespring, RedBubble, or Merch by Amazon do not require any initial investments, as they will provide you all the necessary features to launch your store. You just need to upload the designs and create your products. But, if you want a real store on your own, we would better recommend to subscribe to Shopify or create a WordPress website. In both cases, around $200 is enough to start.
- Easy to set up. Nowadays, with all the themes, guides, plugins, and templates available online, it’s quite easy to set up a Print On Demand store. There’s no need to hire professionals and web designers anymore, which are expensive and not for beginner stages. Only when your store is starting to have consistent results, you could think to scale up further, hiring freelancers that handle for you all the tasks.
- No inventory required. Suppliers will take care of order fulfillment; you just have to focus on creating and promoting products.
- Worldwide access to markets. Today all the major suppliers can ship and deliver products internationally, which means that your potential customers could be illimited.
- Brand identity. By selling unique products, you’re just creating your own brand identity. This is why at certain levels, graphics and photographers become crucial for the brainstorming process, as they could provide you new ideas for your catalog. Of course, if you’re already a professional, it’s much easier for you to monetize your artwork through the Print On Demand marketplaces.
Cons
- Low-profit margins. Definitely, it’s the main cons as we’re talking about 20-30% of profits on average per sale, so you need big orders for satisfactory results.
- Low-quality materials. It’s common for those providers who care exclusively about their margins and not customer satisfaction, as they prefer to reduce expenses as much as possible. That could be so harmful to the shopping experience of your store, no matter how beautiful your design might be. Be aware of this, before choosing cheap services.
- High competition level. The Print On Demand industry has grown up incredibly during the years, thousands of artists are creating new designs and uploading them every day in every marketplace possible. Socials are full of sponsorships and ads with the new trend of the moment. So, it’s important not to give up during the first months of no sales and to be as much as active as possible through your social platforms. If you’re constantly uploading and promoting, sooner or later results will arrive!
- Learning curve. It could take time to research the right niche, create good designs, set up a store, and advertise it. If you’re not willing to spend much time on it (at least in the beginning) and learn new procedures and techniques, maybe Print On Demand it’s just not good for you. So be aware of your goals and the time you are willing to spend because maybe it’s not so worthing for you.
