There is one key concept that is important to understand if you want to make a lot of money using your creative skills. There is this false idea of the starving artist that just doesn't make sense in the modern world because of the opportunities available through the internet.
1000 True Fans
This idea is based on the fact that if you can find 1000 fans that are willing to spend money on you on an annual basis you will have a full-time income. Let's do the math:
1000 True Fans * $60 Product = $60,000
Within the realm of the internet, finding this type of success is not unheard of and is actually becoming more and more common. There is no reason that you can't make that type of money with the right Strategy.
Where Do I Start?
To have this type of success you want to make sure you are offering a product that scales easily. Art has the advantage that it is easy to replicate in the form of prints, books and on merchandise (especially 2D Art).
Scalability means that the amount of effort you have to put in as the audience grows is only incremental. If you sell 1000 prints of a single painting, you only had to paint that original painting a single time.
This is why you see successful artists sell a lot of prints, books, merchandise and digital courses. These are all products that scale very nicely and in many cases they will outsource the printing and shipping so that the artist can focus on creating great work.
The best part of this concept is that it is attainable, finding 1000 people online doesn’t mean that you need a million followers on Instagram or hundreds of thousands of subscribers on YouTube. You just need to find 1000 people who feel deeply about the work that you make.
Memberships
Platforms like Patreon are also becoming very popular because the artist will usually provide digital goods to a large audience. Uploading exclusive images or videos doesn’t require more work as the audience gets bigger.
Think about it in terms of uploading a JPEG to your website, there is no difference in effort between 1000 people seeing that image and 10. The process of making the art and the effort will stay the same.
Memberships are also great because people love taking part in your creative journey, regular support through a platform like Patreon is a great way to build a strong connection to an audience.
I have a Patreon page and if I am able to find 1000 fans that are willing to support at $4 per month then I would be making $48,000 per year which is a full time income. You can check out my patreon page here if you want to see how it is set up: https://www.patreon.com/JeyRam
Golden Opportunity
One more thing that you really need to absorb to see the value in this is that it has never been better than right now. During the early days of the internet it was horrendous to set up a website and pay for bandwidth, there were no social media or any easy way to market.
Now we have easy to build websites and platforms that are hungry for good content. You can upload a YouTube video today, set up an entire website in a single day and post as many images to Instagram as you want. It has never been better to be a creative online trying to make money.
On top of the ease of access we have the overall demand growing online because more and more people are gaining access to the internet. There are billions of people that will come online and you can serve them with your artwork and there is a huge monetary value to it.
Marketing
There is no way you can find your 1000 true fans without some marketing skills. Make sure to set up a website and a mailing list so that you can send your fans to a platform you have control over. Use social media and find creative ways to reach more people.
Make sure that you are making art that you actually enjoy making, you don't want to get stuck making art that you don't enjoy. I'm not saying that this entire process will be easy, but it has never been easier than right now.
There are artists right now who sell 1000+ prints every time they do a print run and they do them at $60-100 profit margin which means that they can make $60,000 from a single piece of art. This is currently towards the upper end of the spectrum but it is achievable.
Imagine building up a body of work and an audience over the next 10-15 years, finding a large fan base and selling 1000 prints is totally within the realm of possibility for you. I truly believe that most artists can achieve this with the right strategy and a long term vision for their creative business.
It wont be easy, but you can do it.
I hope this was useful to you, if it was let me know in the comment section of the YouTube video and I will make more videos on this topic. Thank you so much for checking it out and sign up for the mailing list at the bottom of the site to stay in touch!
