How to Survive as an Artist - Part 2

Last week was a good introduction to the idea of surviving as an artist, especially the idea that you need to take control. But you need to do more than just take control and think of the business side of things. You need to think in terms of multiple streams of income and how you can make enough money to survive. Not very many people can make a lot of money from selling their art in galleries, but almost anyone can make a little bit of money that way. Not very many people can make a lot of money from selling their art online, but almost anyone can make a little bit of money that way. Think in terms of all of the ways that you can make even a little bit of money. There are a lot of them, are there not? Now if you add them all up, you can probably make enough to survive as an artist.

Let’s look at a few:

• Sell online
• Use Adsense to make money from your art blog
• Teach
• Do online classes and coaching
• Sell at galleries and shows
• Sell cards and prints
• Sell to businesses/offices
• Have your own show
• Add your art to other people’s projects and create joint ventures
• Create information products (articles, books, audio, video… )
• Create a community-based project that garners media attention
• Promote your own line of products
• License your work
• Take people on art tours (locally, nationally, or internationally)
• Live simply

These are just some of the multiple streams of income that you can create and use. Some of them may take some time up front, but most of them can be automated so that you have time to actually work on your art.

Next week I will start to look at some of these multiple streams and go more in-depth on a few of them.

Thanks for stopping by!

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com

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Here is some information about art education:

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