Jae Johns · Follow
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Transcript:
0:00 Are you an artist looking for unique ways to earn money? Well, I want to share 49 side hustles that you can do, specifically tailored for the artist.
0:12 Like you, many of these will transform your life so you will go from a mere hobby artist to someone making a full-time income doing what you love.
0:23 After you hear this list, you’ll be excited to try more than one of these, but I want to encourage you to stick around to the end because I’m going to share a tip with you that will virtually guarantee your success at doing 99% of these things on this list. My name is Jay Johns, and I help artists like yourself empower their skills and earn a full-time living doing what they love.
0:45 I’ve grouped all these ways to make money into six different categories. The first category is all about selling your art. The second category is all about publishing. The third category is all about self-employed services, so services that you offer to other companies.
1:04 The fourth category is all about employment services, where another company needs specific tasks done and they hire you to get it done. The fifth category is all about teaching, and the sixth category just groups random things together into one epic category.
1:18 So, one thing you can do when it comes to selling your art is to sell physical products. This can come in the shape of prints, mugs, or clothing. The thing that you really want to consider with physical products is the production cost when you make a physical product. Depending on who you’re selling it to, you want to consider the shipping cost as well.
1:48 You can also sell virtual products. These products could be wallpapers or digital files. Selling virtual products can be a great passive way to earn money, and you don’t have to deal with shipping or production costs as much. There is your initial time to create things, but over the long term, you don’t have to keep worrying about additional cost or additional time fulfilling the orders of a virtual product.
2:23 Another way that you can sell your artwork is by selling prints on Etsy, which is a very popular platform. Etsy is a global online marketplace where a lot of people are going, which is a good and bad thing. The good thing is that there’s a large pool of potential buyers who could discover what you provide. The bad thing is the competition; it could be a little bit saturated. But still, selling your prints on Etsy is done by tons of people every day, so that means there’s a lot of availability and the market is rich with opportunities to sell your prints on Etsy.
3:08 Another way you can sell your artwork is to sell prints at conventions. At conventions, you interact directly with your buyers, and most conventions have some sort of theme or niche with the people who attend, so you can cater your prints to the people that are going to the conventions. I used to go to conventions a lot, and one of the things that me and my fellow artists did was we’d make a lot of superhero prints, and depending on the popularity of that superhero, we could easily sell prints to people who come around.
3:45 So with selling any type of art at conventions, just get a really good spot, and then make sure you’re selling things that your audience came there for. So if it’s an anime convention, sell anime prints. If it’s a superhero convention, sell superhero prints.
4:05 Another way to sell your artwork is by creating a project and using crowdfunding platforms to fund your project. A crowdfunding platform is like Kickstarter or Indiegogo, where you list your project on these platforms. They’ll take a certain percentage of it, but you build out special incentives to reward people for backing your project. I’ve seen this be quite successful. Right now, I know a person funding their comic book on a crowdfunding platform and they’re trying to raise over $44,000 for the project. They have over 50% funded, and it still has about 30 days to go. So using crowdfunding platforms can be a very viable way to fund your artistic projects.
5:04 Another way that you can make money is by selling handmade crafts. You can combine this with some of the methods I discussed earlier and make handmade crafts and sell them at fairs. You can sell them on Etsy, or you can build your own website and sell them there. But selling handmade crafts is a great way for you to earn additional money by using your art.
5:30 Another way to sell your artwork is by selling your paintings or prints at local shows. Like going to conventions, local shows offer you a way to directly interact with your buyers. But what local shows offer is the ability to make more personal relationships because it’s a local event. You can have more intimate discussions and talk with the people who come by. What I found was that you don’t have as much competition as at a bigger convention, so there’s a possibility where you can even have more of a dedicated following and make more money because you’re almost like you’re niching down and you’re kind of serving your local community.
6:31 Another way you can sell your artwork is by selling your art at fairs or local markets. Similar to conventions, when you sell at fairs or local markets, you just have a deeper personal interaction with your buyers. It’s like a place where you can instantly recognize the people, and especially if you do it multiple times, you’ll just end up building your customer base quicker, and you’ll just build a connection with people in a more meaningful way than if you go to a bigger convention.
7:09 Now let’s move on to the next category: publishing. Publishing is another great way where an artist can make money with their art. The first item in the publishing category is by illustrating children’s books. Many times, there are writers looking for artists to bring to life the stories and pictures that they have in their minds. They want to partner with illustrators who can bring their ideas to life, or you can even go the full ownership way and create a children’s book where you write and create all the illustrations within that book too. A children’s book is a great way for you to be able to sell your illustration services.
8:09 The second way to earn money in the publishing category is by creating an art magazine. You can create a physical or digital version of your art magazine, or do both. With a physical version, you can partner with local coffee shops, music shops, or local comic shops to help publish your art magazine. In fact, when I was going to school, there was a popular comic book store that accepted creators to sell their local books, whether it’s an art magazine or comics or whatever, and they just got a small percentage of whatever is sold. But by doing this, you kind of bring more people aware of your art magazine. And then, if you want to go the digital route, you can always sell it through online platforms and use social media to help bring awareness to it.
9:11 The third way you can earn money as an artist in the publishing category is by creating a comic. And this one is kind of near and dear to me because I’ve done this, and I’m actually currently working with an artist to do this as well. But by creating a comic book, you’re creating stories that could potentially captivate people. And by doing this, you can help build your own audience and help get people to become fans of what you do because it’s the stories that captivate people. So creating a comic can be a great way to earn additional money. It is a lot of work, but it could be a great way to help build your fan base and to earn money through there. And nowadays, there’s so many ways that you can distribute your comic, so it almost costs nothing to put your comic out there for people to enjoy.
10:16 The fourth item in the publishing category in which you can make money is by selling art books. And this is another one that I have done and I have tons of experience with. When it comes to selling art books, you can do it in two ways. You can collect a bunch of your artwork, whether it be digital artwork that you’ve created or traditional work that you’ve just scanned or made a digital version of and put it in a book and sell it. The other thing I’ve seen that’s quite popular is people share their processes and tips and put it in a book and sell it. Sell like the tutorials and tips in their processes that are collected in a book and sell that to people too. So either you’re putting together a collection of work or you’re putting together a source of guides and tutorials to help and sell that.
11:12 Next, in our category on ways that artists can make money, it’s all about self-employed services. Doing portrait commissions is a great way for an artist to make money. And if I may share a little story with you about portrait commissions: I used to do a lot of these, and one of the things I’ve learned a lot from them is how you really need to communicate with the client. So, for example, when I used to do them, my most common client was parents, whether that’s the actual parent or grandparent, and they’re getting a commission of their child. And what I noticed is that the parent would come to me frequently asking about like, “Is it done? Is it done?” And of course, any parent in that situation would be excited for this, so it’s normal for this to happen. But I realize that this would, when this happened, this kind of interrupted my flow. So one tip that I give when doing portrait commissions is always let your client know, especially if you’re doing the commission on the spot and live, let the client know how long they can expect to wait before they get it. So whether it takes 1 hour, two hours, three hours, or however long it takes, communicate that. And then you will find that the process of doing portrait commissions will be a lot more enjoyable for you.
12:45 Next on this list of ways that artists can make money, it’s all about doing face paintings. And I really recommend doing face paintings at theme parks or fairs. And this is because theme parks and fairs already have a lot of people there, so you already have a built audience. So you’ll find it easier, and a lot of times at theme parks or fairs, people want to enjoy the festivities, people want to partake in them. So if you’re offering face paintings, I find that a lot of people just embrace the fun of it. And especially if it’s a parent getting a face painting with their child, they’ll gladly spend the money so that the event is enjoyable for their kids.
13:27 Next on this list is mural paintings. Mural paintings are large-scale paintings done on large surfaces. Mural paintings are usually in some sort of public area. They can be in an indoor office space or other types of buildings or an outdoor setting.
13:43 Next on this list is tattoo designs. More and more people are getting tattoo designs, so there’s a growing demand, and you can either sell your designs online or you can work with tattoo shops to sell your designs to them. The advice that I have with these is to remember when you’re doing these designs, your canvas, so to speak, is human skin. So you really want to understand how the skin behaves because that will allow you to make really effective designs that people will be satisfied with.
14:22 The next way that artists can make money is by doing live painting events. And what I really love about live painting events is just the nature of them allows you to monetize in multiple different ways. And let me break it down for you: usually, when you do a live painting event, you get paid the upfront fee, and then on top of that, you can charge for the painting when it’s done. You can accept tips and donations during the event. And also, you have a potential of being sponsored for the event. So you can have multiple income streams from just doing one single live painting event.
15:05 Next on this list of ways that artists can make money is about being a character artist. And I would like to share a story about character artists: I used to live in Las Vegas, and I saw a lot of people do this, particularly on the Las Vegas Strip. The Las Vegas Strip is one of the most tourist areas that people go to. A lot of tourists go there, and because of this, a lot of people try to sell their services or products on the Strip. But in particular, the Bellagio Fountain I found was like a really amazing area for stuff like this because people are just waiting at the fountain because the fountain show is like 15 minutes long. So people will just stand there in front of the fountain watching it, and a lot of people will be set up near there to sell their service and whatnot. So as a character artist, you could easily be in that area, just like with fairs or theme parks, being in an area that has a lot of people in it and sell what you make. And a tip that I have if you want to be a character artist is to try to have a portable setup because you want to go to areas with a lot of people, and sometimes you’ll notice that an area might have slow traction, so you kind of want to adjust. So a portable setup allows you to move quickly to different areas. And the other tip that I have is that, as a character artist, you’re making money based on how many sketches you can do. So you really want to streamline your process so you can print out a good amount of characters per the hour, however long it takes. So really streamline that process so you can be quick and efficient.
16:51 Doing book cover designs is another great way that artists can make money. And when you collaborate with authors, it’s a good chance for you to work with them because authors know that a lot of times, the cover of a book will make or break the sale of that book. So authors are really motivated to have an amazing cover because they know that that attracts people to potentially buy. And a tip I have for doing really good covers is that you really want to understand the genre and who the audience is. And if you’re unfamiliar with who the audience is or what the genre is, then I recommend going to like a bookstore or seeing similar books of that genre and seeing the type of covers they do well, and then kind of process that in research process that in and kind of use that as inspiration for your book cover.
17:42 Creating fonts is another great way that artists can make money. And what I really love about this is that first, fonts are the backbone of everything. Everybody uses fonts in everything that we do. Fonts are essential. But secondly, is you can create the font once and then you license it out, and you get paid in perpetuity. So you get paid for the initial work you do, and since fonts are so integral in our society, that everybody needs them, you’re bound if you create a great font, you’re bound to sell that.
18:22 Next on this list of ways that artists can make money is by offering graphic design services. More and more businesses are popping up. More and more people and companies just need graphic design services. Like they’ll need it for their website, they’ll need it for their marketing materials, they’ll need it for their online presence, especially more and more people are getting into the digital space, whether that be social media or e-commerce. So more and more people need graphic design services.
18:47 Next on this list is commercial illustration. And what I like about commercial illustration is that it has a broad versatility to it, so it can access many different industries. So you can create an illustration and license it out and be paid in royalties later on.
19:05 Next on this list of ways that artists can make money is by doing album cover for musicians. Album art is essential because the album art could help increase the sales of the music album. So if you collaborate with a musician, one tip I have is to really try to understand the musician’s identity. Really understand the type of music that they’re making, so that will help you create an epic piece of art that will resonate with the musician. And therefore, if you do a good job on that, I’m sure being able to do other album art covers for other musicians will be just on the horizon.
19:40 Next on this list of ways that artists can make money is doing custom embroidery. More and more people want personalized things, so custom embroidery allows you to put your art, offer that personalization on different types of material, whether it be clothing, hats, or whatever it may be. And so because of the personalized nature of this, you can charge a premium price.
20:01 Custom art commissions are another way that artists can make money. And I know many artists solely making full-time income just by doing custom art commissions. And doing these types of commissions allows for a personalized nature, so you can charge a premium price. And what I find is when you’re doing these commissions, it creates like a deeper connection with your client. So oftentimes you might see your client coming back for other commissions, or oftentimes you’ll see them eager to refer your commissions to other people.
20:40 Next on this list of ways that artists can make money is by doing wedding invitations. And every bride wants their wedding to be special. Every bride wants their wedding to be unique. And because weddings are happening all the time, there’s just a huge demand for this. And what I like about doing wedding invitations is that you can structure them so you can offer many different packages, so you could essentially earn a premium price or charge a premium price just from one client.
21:06 Another way artists can make money through their art is by creating wine label art. And creating wine label art offers a unique opportunity. Just by starting out doing this, you have the potential of earning $500 to $1,000 per wine label art. And if you’re intermediate in this, you have the potential of earning $1,000 to $5,000. And once you build more of a name for yourself, you have the potential of earning $5,000 to $10,000. In fact, I just read about an artist who was earning $30,000 just from one wine label art. And in addition to that, you can earn royalties. So every time a wine bottle with your art gets sold, you earn royalties per bottle.
21:57 Another way artists can make money is by creating custom art for marriage proposals. Because of the nature of this, because of the emotional significance of this, you can charge a pretty good price for this. And usually, people starting off with by making simple designs can charge up to $500, and for a little bit more complex, you can charge up to the thousands for creating proposal art.
22:15 Another way artists can make money is by becoming a social media manager. And what I like about this is it actually is a really solid business decision, and it will help propel your business. Here’s what I mean by that: so if you become a social media manager for an artist that is building their following, most of the time these artists have a following but just don’t have enough time. So they are looking to hire out with things that they don’t necessarily want to do in lieu of creating art. So they want to focus on creating art and hire out for the other things they do. So if you offer a social media management service to them and help them work on building their social media presence, what I find is that through doing work with them and doing quality work for them, they’re very generous in spirit, and they will use their platform to help bring awareness to your art. So if you’re a person struggling to get more awareness of your art, just by the virtue of helping someone else build their art brand, they end up reciprocating the generosity and help build yours.
23:37 Art licensing is another way that artists can make money. Art licensing is when a company pays you to use your art on their various products. And art licensing is a fantastic way because I’m sure you’ve walked through a store and you’ve seen a lot of art on different shirts, apparel, home decor, so when someone buys those products, you’ll get royalties from that. So art licensing your art for commercial application is a great way for you to earn money.
24:12 Another way artists can make money is by selling their art to online retailers. And unlike with art licensing, usually when you sell your art to online retailers, it’s in one lump sum. And also when you’re selling your art to online retailers, they’re using their large customer base and their huge marketing resources to help push your art to even more people. So you’ll just get more and more exposure with the art by working with online retailers.
24:49 The next way artists can make money is by designing custom invitations. And there’s a high demand for this because there’s always events going on. There are events like graduations, anniversaries, birthdays. So all these events are a great opportunity for you to provide custom invitations for.
25:10 Another way artists can make money is by drawing logos. More and more companies are happening. And the logo is a key part of a company’s brand. So this is a great opportunity for you to offer a service that almost every company needs.
25:22 Another way an artist can make money is by being a virtual assistant for a creative person. And what I like about being a VA is that it can offer steady income. And as a VA, if you’re a VA for a creative person, you’ll just gain so much insight about the industry that will help you with your own creative business as well.
25:47 Another way artists can make money is by doing greeting card designs. And greeting cards are in high demand because there are tons of occasions where greeting cards are needed. Like you can do greeting cards for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, graduations. There’s tons of opportunity there, and it’s an evergreen demand, meaning that greeting cards will last and last. So, and what I like about this is that you can essentially earn royalties for the design that you make.
26:17 The next category and ways that artists can make money is called employment service. Becoming an animator is a great way for an artist to make money because there’s a high demand for more and more animated content, especially with more and more digital platforms out there. More and more social media, more and more companies are trying to increase their online presence. There are more opportunities and more desire for animated content out there. And what I like about animation is that it’s an opportunity to enhance other skills. So if you’re really into storytelling, it’s a great way for you to enhance your storytelling skills.
27:05 Another way artists can make money is by becoming an art exhibition organizer. And in this role, you’ll be planning and coordinating different art exhibitions. And one of the key aspects of this is by helping increase sales and building networks. And what I love about this is when you go and start your own business, those are two essential skills that you can use every day in your business to help grow your business. So by doing this, by becoming an art exhibition organizer, you’re already giving yourself the skills to do it for your own business.
27:48 Another way artists can make money is through an art rental service. By partnering with an art rental service, you can rent out your art and earn passive income through it. So what I like about this is it allows you to focus on your art and all the business operations will be done by that service. So you can focus on doing what you love while earning passive income.
28:07 Another way artists can make money is through art restoration. And if you’re really into art history, this may be right up your alley. This involves a highly specialized skill of preserving and repairing art. And you’ll also be working with really high-profile clients, like museums, galleries, and private collectors. So this can lead into a very financially rewarding opportunity for you.
28:31 Teaching is the next category on ways that artists can make money. Art classes and workshops are another way that artists can make money. This involves you sharing your skills with a group of people, and this can be done in person or online.
28:44 Art blogging is another way that artists can make money. And this is very personal to me. I’ve been art blogging over three years, and I made full-time money with it a little bit after two and a half years. And what I like about this is there’s so much passive income opportunity with this. So right off the bat, you can earn money through ads. When your blog gets more and more traffic, you can have ads on them and partner with companies that are specialized in putting ads on your site for you. So you can earn passive income through that. And also, when you build up your art blog, it helps you build your newsletter. A lot of artists have art newsletters. And if you’re an artist struggling to get your art newsletter to grow, blogging will be a great opportunity for that. And what I found is that as I share more insights, techniques, and stuff like that on my blog, it helps grow my newsletter. And as my newsletter grows, companies want to sponsor my newsletter. So I’m getting income opportunities from the sponsorships as well.
30:01 Another way for artists to make money is through making an art YouTube channel. And like with a blog, an art YouTube channel is a great opportunity for you to earn passive income. Now, you’re still doing like work with it. It still involves a lot of work, but it’s a great opportunity for you to earn passive income in the future. And also, because of the nature of video itself, I find that it allows you to build your brand faster. So you can get a lot more rewarding financial opportunities for you down the road as you build your YouTube channel more and more.
30:39 Another way artists can make money is by teaching art at senior facilities. And a lot of these senior facilities need activities for the residents. So it’s a perfect opportunity for you to go in and speak with somebody there to see if you can teach art there. And what I like about this is you’re building a one-on-one or one-to-many connection with these different people, and you’re helping them build up these art skills, which is a very rewarding and internally fulfilling thing to do.
31:11 The next way artists can make money is by building up their Instagram or TikTok. Like with blogging or YouTube, you’re building up your audience, which creates a great opportunity for you to earn money through it. And I know many of my colleagues are getting brand deals left and right. So it’s a great way of getting financial income to you by doing these brand partnerships. And also, you’re getting exposure from these other companies too, to help even build your audience as well too. So building an Instagram and TikTok is a great way for you to make money. In addition to that, you can set up a lot of these platforms, like both with Instagram and TikTok, you can have a shop. So you can link your shop and help drive more sales to your business as well.
31:53 This next category I call like miscellaneous or other but involves items that don’t neatly fit into the other categories but are too good to not mention. So I’m grouping them into this other category.
32:11 Offering custom t-shirt designs is another great way for artists to make money. First of all, it’s a great and empowering feeling to have people wear your designs on shirts. And depending on the way you set this up, you can earn money passively.
32:31 The next way artists can make money is by making custom wall art. And this is an evergreen demand because lots of places need wall art. A lot of public places like offices, home decor, interior designers need wall art. So also, you can earn a lot of passive income based off of the way that you set this up as well.
32:50 Another way artists can make money is by making custom shoe designs. And making custom shoe designs is a great way to make money. I know someone who makes anime shoes, and they make like $500 to $1,000 per shoe. So offering custom shoe designs could be an immensely rewarding way for you to draw your art on shoes and make a great income from it.
33:19 The next way artists can make money is through an art subscription box. And what this is is you’re providing high-quality art materials in a recurring subscription plan. And so what I like about this is just by the nature of it, it creates a recurring revenue stream for you.
33:38 Print on demand is another way that artists can make money. What this is is you upload your art to a print on demand platform. What I like about it is you can put your art on different types of products. You can put it on shirts, you can put it on mugs, you can put it on tons of different things. And then the service or the platform handles, takes care of everything. So they’ll take when an order comes in, they’ll fulfill the order, they’ll ship it out. So they’ll take care of everything. So what this allows you to do is just focus on your art. So this can be a great way without so much effort to earn income.
34:18 At the beginning of this video, I promised to share a tip that will guarantee your success with like 99% of the things I mentioned here. And through my years of running my own business, my own art business, and through just talking with other artists who are struggling to earn income, it all boils down to building an audience. If you just build an audience around your craft or whatever expertise you have, it becomes way easier to be able to make money off of your art. By building the audience, I mean sharing the things like sharing your processes, sharing tips, sharing techniques of what you do. I think many artists are afraid of doing that because they feel like other people will steal their knowledge. But the thing is, all of that exists, all that information, there’s nothing new under the sun that you can do that is new. You’ve learned these techniques from other people. By sharing these techniques, you’re building an asset, you’re building a community around your art, and that community will then be able to purchase and support you. So that’s the tip I wanted to share today. I hope you can really think about that and process it because I know it’s work. It won’t happen overnight, but in time, you’ll find that it compounds and grows.
