What I'd Do If I Woke Up Tomorrow and Had to Start From Nothing as an Artist

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I saw that

Tim Denning

shared an email with this title and it inspired today’s share. I haven’t read Tim’s email yet because I wanted to shoot my shot without taking from his, but I highly recommend you subscribe to

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Zero Dollars and a Laptop

If I woke up this morning to find out someone had drained my bank account and deleted all my social media accounts, and stolen all of my art; after the initial freak-out and ugly crying, I’d crack open the Macbook and run right over to Substack.

I’ve been thinking about Substack a lot lately. Not only is it one of my personal content pillars, I believe it could become a much bigger player in the social media space soon, but that’s a topic for another update.

Day One

After I opened the Substack account, I would add the email addresses of several of my closest friends and family members. Then I’d seek out and follow several, art-related writers on the platform.

I would also add a membership tier to my account, making it really inexpensive for others to support me by becoming founding members.

I would spend most of the first day writing 3 to 5 posts in order to populate my feed, turning the final post into an email similar to this one here, letting everyone know what happened to me, sharing as much value as possible, while gracefully begging for people to support and share my posts with all their friends.

Finally, I’d write one last update for the day, an artist resource, filling it with every possible art supply, book, or online tool I could think of that helps me do my work. I would sign up for affiliate accounts in as many places as possible and turn the resource into a link farm for passive revenue.

Sidebar: In an early stage like this, it’s important to lean into credibility. I would only choose affiliate sources that I honestly believe in and trust.

I’ll spend the most time on this post, making it as content-rich and valuable as possible so I can use it as a way to get new subscribers in the door of my Substack.

Fingers tired and eyes sore from typing and staring at a computer all day, I crash into bed with anxious dreams of potential opportunity.

Day 2

I jump out of bed way too early because I couldn’t sleep from the stress of an empty bank account, I shower, make some coffee, and get cracking on opening an e-commerce store for my new art and design projects.

Most might think the best free option for artists and designers would be Etsy, but I have no interest in that website. Instead, I’m running to Shopify to start an account with their free trial. Using the knowledge that I learned from reading my own 7-Day Art Shop, I bang out the most basic and functional website possible, and I do it in a few hours (desperate times and desperate measures, you know).

Next, I start an account on Printify so I can sell a variety of products without any initial investment. I then integrate that account with my Shopify to populate my shop with new products.

Of course, I would need to make some designs, but I need to think strategically about these designs because my traditional art style may be appreciated by many, but I can admit it’s not the kind of art that inspires impulse purchases.

Instead, I would tap into trends, memes, and aspirational ideas, and put my creative spin on them. I would also work hard to design things that made people laugh and commiserate around a singular idea, and hopefully engender solidarity with like-minded folks.

To also encourage impulse buying, I’d make these initial designs available for a limited amount of time. By combining that idea with future pleas for support, I hope to gain enough attention to get people to buy and share my work.

With what few hours are remaining in the day, I spend some time interacting and commenting on posts from other Substack writers. Yes, I’m looking for eyeballs, but I also want to show the community that I’m here to be part of it.

Day 3

Woken up in the wee hours by the cha-ching sound that the Shopify app makes whenever I make a sale, I rush to see the hundreds of orders that came in the night. Ok, maybe it was only one or two, but I’ll take them.

Shower, coffee, keyboard; I start by writing a post on Substack about my experience so far. I talk about all the highs and lows, wins and fails, but instead of posting that one public, I make it a member-only post with a teaser for the public folks. If anyone has joined my Substack membership, I want them to have something new written especially for them as quickly as possible.

I also would open new accounts on YouTube, TikTok, and begrudgingly, Instagram. Again, thinking strategically, I make several pieces of short-form video content to share across all channels. Some would be purposeful, sharing thoughts and videos of my process, with others being more fun.

I also start a LinkPop account so I can add several links to products, content, and other social channels. That link gets added everywhere, and it’s the only thing I share with people. I even generate a QR code that leads people directly to that. I could use that QR code with one of my cheeky designs and make stickers (a random idea that popped into my head while writing this).

Day 4

I had to turn on Do Not Disturb on my phone because of all the sales notifications! Perhaps that’s wishful thinking, but if I am making sales, I will need to reinvest all of that immediately.

I open a business account on Facebook, integrate my Instagram, and start making a couple of advertisements that drive people either to my shop, or my Substack content. I do not promote any other social channels because my only objective is to get people to places where they can buy (hunger is a powerful motivator for opportunism).

From this point forward, my main goal for each day is to create content that informs, inspires, and entertains. I’m not making new designs unless it’s to chase a time-sensitive idea. Otherwise, I’m a content machine, churning out new stuff several times a day (NOTE: this works better on some channels more than others—choose wisely).

I also tease that on Day 5 I’ll be live streaming my art process and encourage everyone to set their alarms for the event because it’s going to be epic.

Day 5

I make a bigger pot of coffee because today is going to be a long one. I’ll be doing a marathon stream all day on both YouTube and TikTok, recording every minute with the potential of creating micro-content from it later.

I make several, small, original pieces of art and as I’m making them, I post a listing on my shop for people to buy these one-of-a-kind items.

It’s an exhausting day, but worth it because I sold so many items and gained dozens of new subscribers with a few new members. I spend the rest of the evening with my family, falling asleep in the Barcalounger until they kick me out of the room for snoring.

Lather Rinse Repeat

From this point forward, I continue this process, but I ease up on the flood of content a bit. I don’t want to bludgeon anyone with my posts, and I also need to take my own sanity into consideration.

Some of that energy gets turned toward making long-form content for YouTube so I can grow the channel enough to start earning ad revenue, but that takes time.

Hopefully, my Instagram ads are converting enough to drive new sales and my Substack list is growing.

I pepper in new designs in the shop, taking down others, and occasionally adding new originals. Growth and maintenance is my objective now and I’m in for the long haul.

Perhaps this idea is oversimplified, but I believe that if I was pushed into an extreme situation such as losing all my money and all my social media accounts deleted, I’d go to extreme lengths to get back to a sustainable level.

And maybe I should be taking my own advice on some of this.

Cheers,

Dave