How I Earn Passive Income as an Artist

A How-To Guide for Artists Looking to Boost their Passive Income

My goal for the year: Maximize my passive income. I knew at the offset of the year that I wanted to be able to spend less time working and more than time exploring the world around me, so I've spent the last twelve months working towards that path. I took everything I learned this yr about earning passive income as an artist and compiled it into this one guide. I hope it helps all of you lot out there who are looking to boost your income.

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**Update**
I've just launched an online course that dives into all the details that I overview in this post. It's filled with actionable steps and my best advice!

What is passive income?

Passive income is money being earned regularly that requires piffling effort to maintain. For artists, this can mean generating regular income from the artwork you've created.

For instance, I painted these alpacas in January, and considering of strong sales, take continued earning a monthly royalty rate from them since. All the piece of work was done upfront– at present, I just promote them occasionally through social media. I employ this method for most every piece of artwork I create. Now, I'm selling hundreds of pieces through dozens of outlets.

Ane of the greatest perks of passive income is the fourth dimension it frees up, allowing you lot to focus on other avenues of life. For me, that ways working as freelance designer and traveling the globe for creative inspiration.

There are a TON of options for artists to generate passive income.

one. Impress-On-Demand Sites:

PODs will impress your artwork on phone cases, pillows, tote bags, apparel, notebooks, wall art, and so much more than. The POD visitor handles the product and manufacturing, sales, shipping, returns… everything.

POD Examples:

  • Society6

  • Redbubble

  • Casetify

  • Art Crate

  • Threadless

  • Drawdeck

  • Design by Humans

  • Fine art America

  • Zazzle

  • Saatchi

  • ...and literally hundreds of others. There are new POD companies starting upwardly every day.

POD Challenges:

  • It's difficult to get noticed. With thousands of artists participating, it can be challenging to make a name for yourself and gain traction.

  • Loss of individual branding. When a POD sells to a client, the branding is a reflection of their visitor. Sure, they'll credit you lot as the artist, but you won't have an opportunity to include your business concern cards or collect email addresses from each order.

  • Less command– The POD site may change at whatever time without notice, which could affect your shop, for better or worse. (Keyword tags, search functions, uploading platform, algorithms for how featured artwork is chosen.) A POD site may be going well for you, then totally go under OR get bought out by a company that mismanages information technology. Farewell, profits.

  • Each site has a unlike uploading process and template requirements. You spend time all-around for each.

  • Success doesn't happen overnight. It takes effort to promote your shop, gain followers, push sales. It's a boring build.

  • Artist turn a profit margins tin seem very low. $2.40 for a $24 travel mug means y'all earn just ten% off each sale. However, it tin be worth it if you sell in large quantities.

POD Benefits:

  • It's piece of cake. You don't accept to fulfill orders, handle production, or manage customer support. You can focus on creating beautiful art. They practice the residuum.

  • The POD site will invest a lot in marketing, which tin can do good you if your piece of work is included in campaigns, Instagram posts, e-blasts, etc.

  • Co-promotion. Society6 has nearly 300,000 Instagram followers alone. Whatever time they tag me in a post, I proceeds plenty of new followers.

  • People will notice you lot. I have a handful of new clients every month that have plant me through my POD shops and are reaching out for custom work or wanting to sell my work through their site besides.

  • Sales will abound with time. Month 1 = $. Month two = $$. Calendar month 3 = $$$.

  • No web hosting fees or custom pattern requirements. Everything is ready to go and maintained past the POD site.

  • PODs often promote their own sales events. This always translates into additional sales for your store.

  • Once your store gets traction, you get a paycheck every month. This is the reason I get to spend so much time traveling and exploring the earth.

2. Art Licensing:

You work direct with an art licensor to license your designs directly to a visitor. An example of the latter is the work I sold through Urban Outfitters. Like to POD, you get paid a royalty rate based on sales.

3. Content Producing:

  • Online classes or tutorials through sites like Skillshare or Lynda.com

  • Selling fonts, avails, illustrations, textures, etc. through content purchasing sites like Creative Market

Four questions to ask at the starting time stages of building your passive income:

  1. Exercise you have unused artwork or existing designs yous could repurpose to sell online?

  2. Are y'all putting all your eggs in i basket? Make sure you lot're diversifying your channels of income. One bad month on Society6 isn't platonic, merely it's not going to bankrupt me. I sell through a diversity of POD sites, license my piece of work through various brands and licensors, and piece of work as a freelance designer.

  3. Are you expecting overnight success? I grew my brand slowly over several years before I started making a living wage.

  4. What do you want your brand proper noun to exist? I use an abbreviated version of my proper name. Cat Coquillette = CatCoq

A quick note on contracts...

Read them. The three biggest factors I expect for:

  1. Nonexclusive. Because I sell my work through a diverseness of platforms, I want to make certain I tin sell an identical piece of artwork through all of them. This helps me maximize profits for each slice.

  2. Fair royalty rates. Your royalty percentage can fluctuate wildly, depending on the quantities sold, type of product, distribution, etc. This is my go-to guide when I'k wondering about pricing.

  3. I retain ALL copyrights. Fifty-fifty if y'all're creating exclusive content to license, information technology'south vital that yous own the copyrights to your work. There are occasions when I exercise sell my copyright, only it comes at a high price. (Case: If I create custom branding for a company, I sell them the copyright so they own their own identity.)

Deciding Where/How to Sell Your Work

Utilize past history to project future sales.

  • Be proactive: Create holiday artwork in accelerate and so it'south ready to sell/promote when applicable.

  • Rails what'south selling well and create more work in the vein– People like to purchase multiple pieces of artwork that pairs well.

  • Using by records, I tin can identify coming months with high sales (back to schoolhouse, holiday) and promote heavily during those times to maximize income.

    • Here's a snapshot of my December sales statistics with Casetify. I tin see page views + sales by day, every bit well as private designs that are selling well.

These alpacas were a huge hitting, so I created more artwork in the same style with other animals: cats, dogs, otters, and elephants.

Considering where to sell certain works:

  • Know the audience of your POD. Some PODs are catered to specific products, like Casetify, which exclusively sells tech accessories. I upload designs to Casetify that translate well to their specific market and audience: blogger fashionistas who want a stylish phone case.

  • Patterns and quotes sell best on phone cases. While all-out patterns practice not bad as phone cases, they don't sell likewise (for me) as fine art prints. I make a higher profit margins on art prints, but move product faster on phone cases. Information technology'due south a balancing game.

  • Observe what type of artwork sells well for you across the Large 3:

    • Art prints (highest royalty charge per unit)

    • Telephone cases (lower royalty charge per unit, but sell in large quantities)

    • Apparel (some other low royalty charge per unit fabricated up for with large quantities of purchases)

Top-selling art prints:

Common factors for a elevation-selling art print (for me): hand-painted watercolors or acrylic, quotes, animals, cheerful vibe, limited color palette, light backgrounds.

Top-selling phone cases:

Mutual factors for a tiptop-selling phone case (for me): patterns, quotes, color, details, paw-painted.

Tiptop-selling apparel:

Some common factors for a pinnacle-selling shirt (for me): simplicity, vector linework, colors that print well on dark textile, quotes.

Three questions to inquire when considering where/how to sell a work:

  1. Afterward analyzing your artwork (in terms of sales or even "likes" on social media), what trends are you noticing in your most successful pieces?

  2. What trends in the marketplace tin can y'all implement into your piece of work?

  3. In what ways can you prep for big auction opportunities? Call back specific holidays or back-to-school. I fabricated a Holiday Gift Guide out of my top-selling pieces.

Prepping Artwork to Sell

I have a procedure for digitizing my hand-painted work. (Annotation: If you're a digital artist, some of this won't be applicable to you, every bit information technology just applies to physical pieces that nevertheless need to exist digitized.)

General Prep Work

  • Scan at a very high resolution (1400 dpi for 11"x14" artwork). It's overkill, only it offers me a ton of flexibility in terms of how I want to use the work.

  • Big format artwork: Yous tin either scan it in pieces and reconstruct in Photoshop, OR photograph.

  • I clean up the artwork and edit in Photoshop. This includes:

    • Erasing whatever pencil marks or mistakes.

    • Removing the newspaper background. This gives me the option to upload transparent PNGs, which are necessary for wearing apparel and phone cases, where the groundwork needs to be absent.

    • Adding in a new paper texture on a separate layer. Information technology's cleaner and that way, the background paper is compatible across all of my paintings. I use "multiply" in transparency settings to ensure that the paper texture is visible through the artwork, which helps information technology feel cohesive.

    • Bumping upwardly saturation and adjusting levels– sometimes this gets lost during scanning. Oftentimes, I make my paintings even more than saturated with deeper tones than the original slice was.

  • Next, I experiment with color and create several different color palette options. You lot've already washed the hard work, so why not fully capitalize on your efforts with a variety of colour options? I usually have betwixt 3–10 colour palette options for each slice of artwork.

  • Adjust artwork for various templates. Primal dimensions:

    • Square (tote numberless, throw pillows, clocks, tapestries, bedding, shower curtains)

    • Vertical (telephone cases, towels, stationery cards)

    • Horizontal (laptop + ipad cases, studio pouches, rugs, mugs)

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Enroll in my online video class to acquire how to translate your artwork beautifully from paper to screen. There is so much more to the procedure than but scanning in your artwork and uploading it to sell online. What you do in-between those actions tin can make the deviation between an average piece and a best-seller.

Before/After Editing in Photoshop:

Same artwork, six different color options:

3 questions to ask when formatting your work to sell:

  1. Can your artwork be cropped or adjusted to fit a diverseness of templates?

  2. Do you accept the tools needed to go your artwork from paper to computer?

  3. Do yous know Photoshop or Illustrator nuts to edit your artwork?

Marketing

Okay, so marketing isn't technically passive, simply hear me out: information technology's nonetheless incredibly important to have a strong brand recognition, which comes from marketing yourself. I primarily use social media for this, then my tips are based in the realm of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. I often come across direct correlations between posting a product or art print on social media and watching the sales of that piece rise that same 24-hour interval.

Before the work is on sale:

  • Build hype with a sneak peek. This starts conversation early and gives y'all the opportunity to show works-in-progress.

  • Encourage conversations: What should I paint adjacent? What do y'all want to meet on a telephone instance? Tote purse?

  • Postal service photos of things that inspire you– it gives a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes and shows what may interpret into a future piece of artwork.

  • Include process shots or videos of live painting.

At on-sale moment:

  • Post when artwork is available online

  • Evidence variety of products in which artwork is available

  • Utilize hashtags to describe the attention of potential customers

    • Example: "Santa Iron Garden" = #santafe #southwest #succulents #vector #artprint

  • Get in easy to purchase.

    • Facebook + Twitter: provide URLs

    • Instagram: full general URL + filter by "nigh recent"

    • Likewise implement bitly or tinyurls

After it's on sale:

  • Take advantage of auction opportunities provided by POD sites.

    • Always share promo codes and links when a sale is happening.

    • It'due south a free and easy style to immediately boost sales and gain traction to your shop.

  • Utilizing product mockups that the POD site provides.

    • I usually add a colored background to give it a unique experience or "mock information technology up" in an surroundings.

  • Show previous works on social channels, throwing dorsum to classics, pull from archives

  • Resist getting tired of your older work, it can take a long lifespan of strong selling.

  • Mail service on a diversity of channels:

    • Instagram = beautiful photos. You accept the opportunity to reach new audiences with hashtags. Instagram connects bloggers, brands, potential clients, and fans alike. If someone posts a picture of my piece of work, I thank them for their purchase. If someone comments on my posts, I besides thank them.

    • Facebook + Twitter = It's easy to include a direct link to the artwork in your shop. In that location's a shorter shelf-life, so accept advantage of sales at the moment. Have conversations with your audience and reach out to other artists yous admire.

    • Pinterest = Translates well into sales. Pins stick around in collections for the long-haul. Huge opportunity to get a lot of traction through repinning.

    • Dribbble = the designer'south version of Pinterest. Build credibility in the creative world.

  • Post a diverseness of content:

    • Macro shots of your work

    • Backside-the-scenes of being an artist

    • Process shots

    • Products in the wild

    • Inspiration

    • Beautiful and centre-catching photos

  • Lighting is primal. I shoot nigh of my work in bright, natural calorie-free with my Catechism, then upload it to my iPhone and polish it up with the VSCO Cam app.

  • I also pay attention to the limerick. You can never go incorrect with the rule of thirds.

  • Virtually of my posts are simple scenes with limited props. This ensures that my artwork is the focal point.

  • If I do determine to take a photo with my telephone, I use the camera app and crop the viewfinder to a square and so I have a good idea of how to prepare the composition.

  • If I'grand on the debate about a particular photograph, I don't mail it.

  • POD sites provide mockups– renderings of your artwork on their product. Use them!

  • Get influencers to share your work.

    • Influencers promoting your work is one of the fastest ways to grow followers. Hypemarket can help you facilitate connections.

    • Sometimes I reach out to Instagram influencers and offering to send them some a few free prints. I pick my best pieces to postal service and e'er include a hand-written annotation.

    • When I discover that a major blogger has posted a photo that includes my work, I give thanks them and share information technology with my followers equally well.

  • Experimenting with new ways to heighten your social media and grow your audience:

    • Giveaways

    • Posted works-in-progress + behind the scenes

    • Enquire your audience what they'd like to see next

    • Include links to your shops

  • Be active in the POD community

    • Annotate and like other artists' work.

    • See what other people are posting– get inspired.

    • Society6 is ever looking for opportunities to promote new/old work and highlight artists with programs like their Art Quarterly, Half dozen Pack, production collaborations, collections.)

      • Some PODs specifically look for artists that are active in the community and have consistently dandy work.

Overall: Have fun with social media. Your brand is a reflection of your ain unique artful and voice. Exist authentic and be yourself. I go on my captions casual and conversational, leave genuine comments, and post what best reflects my brand.

3 questions to enquire when thinking near marketing:

  1. Is there something you could be doing amend on social media to grow your make and generate sales?

  2. Are yous posting engaging content?

  3. Are yous interacting with your followers and encouraging a dialogue?

Classes

My vocation goes across pattern and illustration – I'1000 also passionate nearly using my experience and success to assistance other creatives reach their full potential. I believe in community over competition, and devote a large part of my brand to creating resources that permit fellow artists to thrive.

Equally an online educator, I've published a series of video courses that educate beau creative entrepreneurs in building their businesses.

HOW Information technology WORKS

I take a series of online video classes geared at creatives wanting to grow their brands and income. My classes encompass a wide variety of topics, including finding your creative niche, marketing through social media, selling artwork online, working with clients, and making a name for yourself in the online fine art globe.

Each of my classes are broken downwardly into short video lessons so information technology's easy to follow forth. In nether an hour each, I pack in loads of info to help you abound your business organization and earn money.

Proceeds PREMIUM ACCESS

My friends and fans become a special deal on all my online classes– Click the Enroll Here button below each class description to score three months of Premium Membership for 99¢.

This will grant you unlimited access to my Premium classes forth with thousands of other Skillshare classes taught by creators from around the world. No commitments. Cancel someday.

UPDATE // Every January, Skillshare announces their curated "All-time of" list, where their team hand-selects the top fifteen classes in two categories: Artistic and Business + Tech. I'm then excited to denote that both of my new classes made the cutting and I was featured in both lists !

I hope you found this guide helpful! Please feel free to annotate if you have whatever questions or would like me to swoop deeper into a particular point.  : )

Insight, Creative person Resource

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