How do i monetize my art?

[Zairoq]

Ive been drawing fantasy/landscape art for about 7 years now, and i think the quality is there, but i cant seem to find a way to earn a living from it. I offer commissions on a few sites, but alas i don't get them often enough. Ive also got an IG page with 11k followers and a website that sells my art as prints. I can get paid 100-200$ for a commission usually which takes me ~4-5 hours, but i get one of those like once every month or two. How could i increase this?

I would also like to get more sales from my website to generate a more passive income, so far ive had none (website is only a few weeks old tho).

Im not sure if art is a good thing to monetize as it seems like more of a luxury rather than a product with a purpose. What do you guys think?

 

[blogzandstuff]

Ive been drawing fantasy/landscape art for about 7 years now, and i think the quality is there, but i cant seem to find a way to earn a living from it. I offer commissions on a few sites, but alas i don't get them often enough. Ive also got an IG page with 11k followers and a website that sells my art as prints. I can get paid 100-200$ for a commission usually which takes me ~4-5 hours, but i get one of those like once every month or two. How could i increase this?

I would also like to get more sales from my website to generate a more passive income, so far ive had none (website is only a few weeks old tho).

Im not sure if art is a good thing to monetize as it seems like more of a luxury rather than a product with a purpose. What do you guys think?

How about print on demand, like t shirts etc. You could talk to a writer and self publish on lulu.com for example. Just a couple of ideas off the top of my head

 

[Zairoq]

How about print on demand, like t shirts etc. You could talk to a writer and self publish on lulu.com for example. Just a couple of ideas off the top of my head

Ive been selling on society6 for 2 years and earned a grand total of $250 from selling 36 items... I do have stuff on other sites but cant seem to get any traffic at all, i guess i would probably have to bot or something on them.

 

[DunDidIt2X]

I know a few artists that make good money on etsy

 

[Jay423]

A good way to monetize art is to find ways to mass produce it in my opinion. Comissions are good but if you can continue to build your website and social media together, you can offer cheaper products to more of your followers like shirts, coloring books, posters, post cards, prints, etc. Someone I stumbled upon by accident who has done this with gaining social media followers is Annie Taresova who's managed to create a huge following and sell prints on Etsy. There's a lot of website nowadays that offer to handle product inventory in exchange for the middlemans fee so you wouldn't necessarily have to handle your own inventory if you didn't want to (sites like teespring) Also I know that niche community forums like art. I made money one summer by offering to draw cartoon quick forum avatars for people.

 

[Zairoq]

A good way to monetize art is to find ways to mass produce it in my opinion. Comissions are good but if you can continue to build your website and social media together, you can offer cheaper products to more of your followers like shirts, coloring books, posters, post cards, prints, etc. Someone I stumbled upon by accident who has done this with gaining social media followers is Annie Taresova who's managed to create a huge following and sell prints on Etsy. There's a lot of website nowadays that offer to handle product inventory in exchange for the middlemans fee so you wouldn't necessarily have to handle your own inventory if you didn't want to (sites like teespring) Also I know that niche community forums like art. I made money one summer by offering to draw cartoon quick forum avatars for people.

Ok sure there's plenty of artists who see success, but i have no idea how to acquire this kind of following. I already sell a bit on etsy and other places, but i dont know how to get people to actually see my stuff.

 

[Jay423]

Ok sure there's plenty of artists who see success, but i have no idea how to acquire this kind of following. I already sell a bit on etsy and other places, but i dont know how to get people to actually see my stuff.

So I'm not sure if my techniques are outdated since I'm coming back from a little break but I think the general principles behind them are still effective. You can get people to see your stuff multiple ways.

I think one of the most effective is posting on social media like instagram, art communities like wherever all the tumblr people are going lol, twitter, make a Facebook page, maybe a YouTube if you want to create tutorials or like filming content, etc. Linking multiple social media pages together (like putting your website on your instagram) can help you with search engine results. In terms of instagram engagement you can also think about creating a Telegram group specific to your niche (so fantasy drawings or even more specific than that) and incite others in your niche to support each other by liking and commenting on your work and supporting their work. You can join Facebook groups and other peoples Telegram groups as well. When you reach a large enough threshold of likes, it becomes easier to gain more likes and followers since your work will be seen by more people. However if you were to follow this engagement through groups approach I would be sure to think about how much time you're spending doing community engagement vs how much in terms of engagement for you you're gaining since I don't know your specifics. You can also think about running a contest where people can win a commission or something. You can get them to tag a friend or follow your other social media sites, etsy, maybe a website email list. There are some big pages featuring artists. If you get a feature or shoutout by contacting them it could boost your page.

Also if your work is very niche (like if you focused on drawing fantasy dwarf characters from the Hobbit for example) then you can capitalize on that on your website by including low competition keywords along with your pictures so when someone searches for that specific niche thing, your result will pop up on the first page of a search engine. There are a lot of techniques for SEO I'm still trying to catch up on but if you're in a really low competition niche, then you can use that to your advantage.

You can also build up a community following by offering your services on forums that allow it. Think of the BHW marketplace but for fantasy lovers or people who like to roleplay as fantasy characters (I think they're called larpers), and dungeons and dragons enthusiasts. There are some popular forums out there that allow artists to showcase their work. You can probably get more work from there.

 

[Asayus]

Art is very straightforward to monetize, and it looks like you are already doing everything that anyone can suggest. Unfortunately, because there is no lack of artwork in the world, earning a living on it without connections is extremely difficult. I am not sure how well this would work, but if you want to build a following, you could make every social media account that you can think of and start uploading. Including links to where your art can be purchased along the way will get you more exposure and hopefully more money in the long run.

If your artwork is physical, you could always try to set up shop at a local park or flea market type location and probably make some money, but ultimately, you need connections, exposure, and a little but of luck to earn a living with art these days.

 

[Zairoq]

Thanks for the suggestions! I will look into these things, maybe this should remain as a "some extra cash" sorta thing instead of a living. Also not sure if im comfortable sharing my art here since its associated with my real name.

 

[Vindancur]

Try Patreon

 

[thouxanbanfauni]

Patreon, Craiglist, Local art shows. All of these are great ways not only to monetize your art but also get your name out there.