Ways to make money Online as an Artist

Hi hi!  time for the monthly article!  And this one is ALL about the hussle!

I am going to share with you some ideas on ways to make money online as an artist!  
This all comes from my own experience and some additional research.  

The first and foremost thing you have to keep in mind if you want to make money as in independent art is this: You have to think of yourself as a business.  You are no longer just an artist, you are an entrepreneur!  That means you will probably have to grow a thicker skin then us artists naturally tend to have, be critical and always evolving, and you are gonna have to work work work and hustle hustle hustle!  

A lot of your work time won’t even be producing new art, it will be more on the business on advertising side of things.  This could be its WHOLE own article, so I won’t get into the details of that here, but let me know if you are interested in a more in depth article on that in the future. 

Also please, realize that most of the time online income growth is pretty slow.  It takes time to build up, and unless you are a super famous artist people probably aren’t going to pile in and buy $5k worth of t-shirts every time you upload a new design.  Try and be patient, and don’t get down if growth isn’t as fast as you would like.  Keep working on getting better and better, as well as connecting with your followers.  That personal connection is super duper important.

I’m gonna divide the different ways to make money into a couple categories:

CROWDFUNDING, GOODS, and ADS

Crowdfunding:

 I feel like we are probably the most familiar with this one here, considering you are all amazing supporters.  

Crowdfunding is great because a little bit from many people can help add to your income as an artist.  However, it can be tough to build up the crowd base AND I always recommend that you provide Equal or greater value in your rewards than what people are paying.  just taking charity money and not providing anything in return is not sustainable as a BUSINESS and you should be able to provide some sort of rewards. 

So what are some options?

  ❥  Patreon:I don’t think I need to say too much on this one.  We are all familiar.  If you want to read my Patreon tips for artists article, check it out: https://www.patreon.com/posts/tips-advice-for-34075929

  ❥  Twitch: (Bits, Subs, Donations) This is all technically crowdfunding.  Once you make affiliate on Twitch, you can enable these options for people to support you with a little money.  I’m my mind, this is a way some folks say thank you for streaming if they enjoy your streams.  You can also work special rewards into these as well. 

  ❥  Ko-fi:  I am not quite as familiar with Ko Fi but it is pretty popular and it now has features similar to Patreon, or so I hear, where people can pledge monthly. There are also some cool options that let you set up rewards and even commissions on Ko Fi.

  ❥  Kickstarter: If you are working on a specific project/product, like a game, book, or even enamel pins, kickstarter might be a good option.  However, I have heard that kickstarter can be very challenging and unless you have a plan to carry out multiple kickstarters, this is just a short term option for a specific project, not an ongoing thing like patreon.

  ❥  Webtoon Okay, so I wasn’t entirely sure where to put this one.  But if you are writing and drawing a webcomic, webtoon might be a good option.  Once you are partnered there, they pay you to make your comic. 

 HOWEVER, there is a lot that comes with that, including working with their editors, and taking some direction from the folks there, sticking to a schedule that will probably keep you busy full time, and probably more.  But even before you are partnered, if you make a comic over there, you can connect it to your patreon and maybe people who find your comic there, will also come over and support you on patreon.  

Goods! 

 These are your store options.  Digital or physical.  Goods are really great because if you have merch that people like, this can be a bit more of a passive income depending on how you set it up.  Especially when it comes to goods, you really really need to exercise your self promotion/advertising muscles.  People have to know that you have a store and all that cool stuff you are selling.

 ❥  Gumroad: gumroad is a really great store specifically for digital goods.  

Ideas for products to sell on Gumroad:

• past Patreon  rewards (always for a higher price then you can get them here on Patreon, since patrons are first priority and should get that content at a good discount).
• tutorials  
• Custom brushes are also very popular on gumroad, so if you are into making cool brushes, you should definitely list them there.
• Digital comics
• Hd Desktop wallpapers
• Phone wallpapers
• Printable Coloring pages
• Video processes 
• Character/pose bases 

Merch and prints:  Looots of options on how to go about selling merch and prints.  Let’s go over some of them

  ❥  Your own Independent Store: 

This option is probably the most rewarding AND the most work.  I have gone this route for a long time and love it but with less and less time on my hands it can feel overwhelming sometimes.

Benefits:

• possibly a higher profit since you aren’t just getting a small cut from a 3rd party printer.
• You completely control the quality of your product
• You can sign your prints before sending them to customers, which increases the print’s value 
• You can customize your packaging
• You can integrate your store into your main website

Drawbacks:

• A LOT more work: website, printing, packaging,shipping, customer service… you gotta do everything yourself
• You also have to buy all the supplies yourself and keep track of those costs and test print costs to make sure you are actually turning a profit
• You don’t get the potential traffic from people just browsing the big 3rd party websites

  ❥  Etsy and Big Cartel:
Websites like Etsy and big cartel are almost like running your own independent store because you still have to do most of the work BUT you don’t have to set up your own website and you might get some extra traffic from people who are browsing Etsy. The big drawback here (especially more and more with Etsy), is the fees they charge.

  ❥  3rd party merch stores
These stores allow you to just upload your work to their website to create prints and products.  The cool thing about this is that it requires very little work on your part (other then creating the actual artwork).  No need to print, pack ship, etc.  Just upload and you are kind of good to go.

The BAD thing about these options is that you get a much much smaller cut.  Most artists who use these options don’t make much income at all from selling their stuff on these sites, but maybe that is fine if you are not counting on selling merch to be a main part of your income, or you just don’t have the time, equipment, and expertise to make your own prints and ship all the merch.  

Here are some examples of these types of stores:

• INPRNT:  Prints and phone cases only.  Artist gets a slightly larger cut.  Opening a store is by invite only.
• REDBUBBLE: Some more merch options, but a pretty miniscule cut
• Society6: Some more merch options, but a pretty miniscule cut
• Cafepress: A little more random and not as art focused, but quite a few merch options.  I used to have one of these stores when I was in high school and made some sales on this site way back when… even with my less than appealing high school artwork.  Haha  If you have a clever saying or something to put on a t-shirt, this is a good store to sell it on. 
• TeePublic: If you make cool or cute tshirt designs this could be a good option for you
• Rage On: You can make some cool allover printed clothing to sell on Rage On

There are probably another 500 options out there for shops like this but these are the main ones that come to mind.  In my mind, if you aren’t invested in running your own store, why not try to make a little extra cash through opening one of these?  Just make sure to read their TOS in detail.  Sometimes shops like this will try and claim rights to designs that you upload even after you remove the design, which is not cool.  Just make sure you are aware of their policies.

Custom art!

  ❥  Freelance Commercial Contracts:
This is when you do commercial work for companies.  Going this route tends to be much more profitable then going the route of complete independence, at least until you are a popular and established artist.  To land these kinds of gigs, your skill really needs to be up to par and you need to be good at taking direction.  You also likely won’t be able to show what your working on for months or even years. 

I personally have not really focused on going this route but I do have artist friends that regularly do freelance work like this. Much of their work comes through art station.  So if you want to focus on this, make sure you have a killer portfolio uploaded to art station. 

  ❥  Commissions:
Doing commissions full time is not something I recommend for most artists.  A few artists make it work but for most artists, it is usually not very sustainable.  But if you are needing some quick extra money, it might be the best option.  Going into the details of doing commissions deserves its own article but for now I want to say:  make sure you don’t bite off more than you can chew, and make sure get paid upfront (at the very least a deposit if it is a large commission)

  ❥  Fiverr:
if you don’t have a large audience on social media to advertise commissions to, you can try joining fiverr as a freelancer.  There are people who do absolutely everything on that website and sometimes it’s fun to just browse to see what kind of stuff you can hire artists and animators to do on there.  This is how I found the artist that I commissioned to do custom sub badges for my twitch channel.  

The downside of fiverr is that you might not be able to charge as much for your commissions because there is more competition.  I also am not sure how much of a cut fiverr takes. 

ADS

  ❥  Amazon Associates:Popular among bloggers.  Amazon has a way to set up an amazon associate account where you can get custom links to products you recommend and when people buy a product through that link, you get a little cut. .  I have heard that fashion bloggers make bank using these links in their Instagram stories..TBH, I have never had much luck with this but why not try it out if you are already recommending certain products to your audience.

  ❥  Blog Ads: If you run a blog, you can add google ads.  Not as popular with artists, but my mother in law runs a blog and makes a good chunk of side change by running ads on her food blog.  So if you run a blog, you could try it.  

  ❥  YouTube monetization:  if you build up a high viewership on YouTube, you can make money through how many people view your videos.  Note that you need at least 1000 youtube subscribers to get monetized.  My art channel is so new that it is not monetized but back when I ran a sailing channel, I monetized my channel and earned a fair amount for only having 3000 subscribers at the time (not anything I could live off of, but a nice little bit of extra money).  Based on what I have heard from other youtubers who were larger then I was, I would not recommend counting on just this as your main source of income, but if you have a good viewership it can be decent.  

  ❥  Sponsorships: I have less experience with this one, but maybe someday! Haha! We can dream, right?  

This is something that will only come if you have a large audience and I get the impression that something like a large YouTube channel is more attractive to sponsorships then just a large Instagram or Twitter.  

Hopefully this gives you some ideas on where you can start earning some extra money online with your artwork.  Most independent artists don’t earn their entire living expenses from any one category.  It is a combination of many different streams of income.

 Looking at this list is pretty intimidating, so if you are new to this, I recommend that you pick 1 or 2 ideas and focus getting that up and going first.  

One Final Note: Advertise yourself

Whatever you choose, remember,that you have to let people KNOW that you have started that store, or gumroad, or ko-fi, or whatever it is.  You have to advertise.  As self conscious as I know that makes us artists, it is a necessity.  Obviously, it's not good to be annoying and only post ads, but it's okay to let people know that you have a store (or whatever you choose to do) every once and awhile.  

I know this was a big wall of text but there were quite a few ways that came to mind!  And each One really deserves its own in depth article!

 So what do you think?  Do you have other ideas and experiences on ways to make some 💰 online that I missed?  Are you interested in me going more in depth on a particular point in a future article?  Let me know!

Stay safe out there!  And happy hustling!

Read Past Articles:

Patreon tips for Artists: https://www.patreon.com/posts/tips-advice-for-34075929

Instagram Tips: https://www.patreon.com/posts/instagram-tips-i-34829373