12 Ways to Make Money From Your Creativity
If you want to make money from your art, consider doing something else first
Hard Truth: Only a tiny percentage of artists can survive on their art alone.
I know a lot of artists, and only one who can live off their art. They’re talented and industrious in their involvement in the local art scene. Still, despite their prolific skill, I suspect they’d be ruined if they suffered from a medical tragedy or natural disaster.
Of all the other artists I know, everyone has another job that allows them the freedom to practice their art. Sometimes their day job is art related, but often they work a mindless day job yearning for the time they can get back into the studio if they aren’t dead-tired by the time they get home.
I don’t have the answer to a sustainable art career yet, but instead of the Sisyphean act of entering every open call and street fair and debasing our work by peddling it on social media to an increasingly diminished audience, what if we used our energy to build creative projects that can produce more awareness than our art alone?
“Compelling careers often have complex origins that reject the simple idea that all you have to do is follow your passion.”
– Cal Newport
Would you instead be reading Excel spreadsheets that don’t help you at all with your creative impulses, or would you like to build a project that allows you to indulge that creativity and makes you money, builds your awareness, and grows your follower and collector base to a point where living off your art becomes achievable?
Caveat 1: This will take work. It will be a lot of long nights to build a worthwhile project, but if you work toward making something that improves the lives of others and allows you to use your creativity, you have a chance at greatness.
These Ideas Go Hard
I stumbled across a Twitter account yesterday that inspired this entire post. I wanted to look for more creative business ideas that might be unconventional and allow the more enterprising readers to bring in more revenue.
Instead of the normal listicle that the title of this post employs, I’ll take one of the many ideas I come across and go a little deeper into them, talking about the potential, how easy it is to get started, and how someone can earn from them.
Caveat 2: There will be many who won’t have what it takes. That’s rough, I know, and I’m sorry, but some of you are doomed to the drudgery of a day job unless you find a way to light a fire under that Herman Miller knock-off they bought to make you feel more comfortable in your servitude.
Ultimately, the purpose behind any of these ideas below is to build awareness, authority, and perhaps a community of people who will eventually buy anything you have to sell. There will be inflection points where you can share the other side of your creative work (your art), or people will find their way to it organically. That’s a topic for another time, but it’s something to be conscious of always.
Over the last month, I’ve brow-beaten my YouTube audience about why using other people’s marketplaces (like RedBubble and Etsy) is a wrong business decision for a multitude of reasons. And some always come back at me saying that doing things any other way is too costly, time-consuming, and requires too much technical know-how.
For those folks (and you), I present Shirts That Go Hard, an stupid-simple idea; it’s borderline genius. This Twitter account started by doing one thing—sharing t-shirt designs they found cool, interesting, or funny. They started the account in 2021 and already have over 1.4 million followers (results are not typical).
I don’t know when they opened their Shopify store, but I’m betting that 1.4 million followers make selling products much more accessible. If only 1% of their followers bought a single $27 t-shirt this year, that’s nearly $400,000!
Shirts that Go Hard is a meme account, but for t-shirts and the model is so basic; post funny t-shirts, make people laugh, and they will share you with all their friends. In theory, simple, but is the executable for the rest of us?
Before answering that question, it’s important to note that you can’t just start a meme account for whatever you’re into and expect it to go off as STGH did. Whatever idea you are pursuing must have a transformative effect on your viewers.
If you can make people laugh and share, that’s great, but if funny isn’t your thing, you must find other ways to educate, inform, and entertain them. If you can add to that by finding a way to improve their lives based on what you’ve shared, they may reward you with purchases.
Steal This Idea
Find a thing that people are passionate about (Science fiction, cats, romance novels, fishing, golf); better if it’s something you’re into.
If you can find a topic with an inherent product attached (t-shirts, mugs, bags, hoodies), that makes a move to your merchandise easier, BUT it’s not imperative.
Pick a clever name that gets attention (bonus points if you can get the domain)
Start a Twitter account and share memes, photos, and videos around the niche. Post multiple times a day throughout the day.
Establish trust with people by posting selflessly. Do NOT start building a merch brand right off and shill your products—that is a fast way to failure.
Engage with your audience. Until you get to a point where you’re getting so many comments it’s impossible to keep up, you should reply to everyone interacting with your content.
As the account grows, consider adding an Instagram or a Facebook page and start sharing older posts from Twitter until you catch up.
As your awareness grows, open your own Shopify or similar e-commerce shop, and design your first product(s). IMPORTANT: Whatever you design should match the vibe of your social media accounts, or it will be a disconnect for your followers.
Immediately start an email list (Shopify has this function already integrated) and collect emails to market directly to your potential customers.
Add the link to your newsletter landing page to your social media accounts. If they like you enough to go to your site and join your email list, they will likely find their way to your shop’s home page and also buy something.
Start advertising on Instagram and Facebook with your best content. This isn’t about sales but about the acquisition of new eyeballs. If they end up subscribing to your email and buying, even better.
Incentivize loyalty. If someone has purchased from you before, follow up with automated emails sending them a discount code to share with friends and use again for themselves. You can also incentivize people to subscribe to your list by offering special one-time deals.
If it’s not fun, you’ll quit, so make sure you’re having fun posting and creating content.
This idea is a long-term project. It won’t happen overnight and may take several months to get traction. Keep posting good content, making great products, and reaching out to new people. Diligence and patience are your most important assets for making this idea work.
The Other Eleven
I wouldn’t leave you hanging with that clickbait title and not deliver, so here’s a list of other ideas I will expand on in future posts. Also, these are only the ones I came up with off the top of my head. I’m sure there will be more, but this list gives you something to look forward to. Subscribe if you haven’t already.
Build a niche merchandise site (non-meme) and integrate targeted advertising to find customers.
Long-form YouTube art instruction videos or live streaming.
Make short tutorials on Skillshare.
NFTs (yeah, I said it!).
Create digital products and sell them on various marketplaces.
Start a mastermind group for artists, each paying a monthly membership.
Creative a virtual Art & Sip where you teach single drunk moms to paint with gouache.
Make handmade and altered wearables using upcycled clothing.
Start a newsletter/art subscription, like The Hungry Artist, except paid supporters get art.
Create a monthly open studio event and you bring in new cohorts every month, which helps bring in new audiences for both of you.
Create a niche authority site about art supplies and use affiliate links to gain revenue.
These ideas are random and some need further explanation. Some are wildly specific but as I dig deeper, they may have derivative potential. I don’t have a timeline on when I’ll get to all of these, but if any of them sound more intriguing than others, let me know in the comments below, and again, subscribe so you don’t miss the next one.