7 Great Ways To Make Money As An Artist In 2024

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How To Make Money As An Artist And Create A Profitable Stream Of Income

 

It’s no secret that making money as an artist can be a difficult realm to navigate. You may have heard the classic assumption that making a living off your practice is practically impossible unless you make it like the big guys. Even then, the most successful and rich artists seem to be those who have already died.

 

However, we’re here to walk you through 7 simple ways that you can make money as an artist – and the good news is that it can be done when you’re still alive.

 

 

1. Sell Original Artwork

What’s the first way of making money as an artist that comes to your head? Your answer might be selling your art.

 

It’s an amazing moment when someone sees something in your work that they connect to, so much so that they’re willing to pay for it. There’s a lot that goes into the preparation behind selling original artwork, from the listing, promoting, shipping and so on. But one of the biggest questions when starting to sell artwork on your own is usually, how much should I charge?

 

To help you gain a rough idea, try using pricing formulas. The cost can then be tailored and adjusted once you’ve considered what your fellow artist community is charging, your level of experience, target audience demand and so on.

 

 

A good tip for selling is to do your research to see how much similar artists are pricing their work for, to make sure you’re not under-selling yourself and your craft. By under-pricing you could go on to decrease the value that people see in your work, affecting your artistic career in the long run.

 

Similarly, don’t give your pieces astronomically high price points either – it could turn people away very quickly. As a general rule, make sure you’re still receiving a profit once all costs are considered, including materials and your time.

 

If you’re not getting those sales, it can be tempting to adjust your work to fit more commercial trends. But try to stay true to your style and artistic practice, not forfeiting what you love to make for the sake of selling profitable art. The buyers and audience will come once you promote and market your craft. Focus your efforts on getting your art noticed rather than changing it to suit what is selling at that moment in time.

 

2. Sell Art Prints

As artists, we can sometimes hold onto our art as they’re personal and pertinent to us and our thought processes. If this resonates with you, you might want to consider if selling your art is really something you want to do after all. That being said, selling prints of your original pieces can allow you to make money as an artist that doesn’t force you to part with your precious original artwork.

 

For those who are keen to sell their work but may want to keep their originals, producing high quality art prints is an easy and affordable option. Some artists may choose to sell a combination of originals and prints.

 

How to make money as an artist through prints

With the right equipment, art prints can be made at home without having to use an external print company. Or, to save money on an expensive printer, some artists prefer going through printing services, including print-on-demand. This option takes the hassle away from you, managing the production and shipping in one. 

 

Try print-on-demand services

What if you want to delve into the idea but don’t want to fork out for the expensive equipment yourself? The good news is that there are services offering something called ‘print-on-demand’, where a customer will purchase your design through an outside company and they’ll handle all of the process right through to shipping! And it’s not just art prints that work with this kind of idea; a lot of the businesses, like Redbubble or Society6 for example, which put your design on a number of products like tote bags, mugs and t-shirts. 

 

 

3. Sell At An Art Fair 

Arts and craft fairs are a great place to start if you’re a new artist looking to immerse yourself in a busy selling environment. They offer the in-person shopping experience that a customer misses online, which, in regards to art, is ever so valuable. What’s more is that having your physical presence at the stall helps to engage shoppers, building relationships with potential buyers. The networking doesn’t stop there though. You should also use the opportunity to meet fellow artists and art industry people; it all counts.

 

Art fairs can require a bit more planning and research beforehand. As your store will be physical, you need to account for all the objects you’ll need on the day. They can also end up costing more than selling online usually would when you consider fees, materials and transportation, making your choice of art fair an even more important one.

 

Either way, branching out to selling in-person is a good experience to have as an artist. Regardless of how many sales you make, at least people would have physically seen your art and hopefully taken away a business card that they can use to buy from you in the near future.

 

4. Make use of Instagram’s shop tool

Promote, promote, promote! If you’re not out there sharing your work, the truth is people are less likely to know about it. Instagram has played a massive part in creating artists’ whole careers purely based on the way they promote themselves and in recent years, the app has taken a commercial/e-commerce path. So if you’re looking to sell work through instagram, now is the time. We recently spoke to one recently graduated artist who was able to amass over 48K followers to sell his work to on Instagram, a prime example of how to make money as an artist.

 

Using built-in shop features, artists can now directly advertise their work on a few social media sites, making it easier and accessible than ever for shoppers to find a perfect piece of work. If selling directly on social media isn’t for you, then you should still be using the platform to gather a community that you can then notify when you’re selling elsewhere. People use social media everyday, all day. By posting your work online, you’re essentially giving your art free advertisement during someone’s lunch break without it even seeming so.

 

 

5. Open An Etsy Store For Your Art

As we’ve just discovered, the online art space is rapidly growing, so utilising the e-commerce sites out there wouldn’t be a bad idea, one option being Etsy. Take your time to do some research though, as there are a lot of e-commerce options to choose from, and some will suit your practice more than others.

 

Etsy can be a great marketplace to go with as it’s very origin comes from creators and artists alike. The site is designed for art, as well as other products like craft and vintage items. One of the benefits is that with a pre-existing customer base, an Etsy shop doesn’t necessarily require you to have a large following of your own. Getting your first sales on Etsy can be a challenge without an already established audience, but the best things you can do is market your shop well, apply up to date SEO tactics and build good reviews to increase your sales and in turn, make money.

 

Despite Etsy’s positives, it can end up taking a long time to generate enough sales to support yourself, and there are a few things to be aware of before you get started on Etsy. You may need other means of income whilst you build and establish your shop. A lot of sellers on Etsy will tell you it’s something they do alongside another job, so if you’re coming into this thinking you can rely on it financially right out the gate, you may need to rethink your strategy. 

 

But essentially, an Etsy shop can be a great way to gain a bit of extra cash from something you’re already making and enjoying. If you’re ever had people say how much they’d love a print of yours, you could direct them to your Etsy. The experience and confidence in selling that you will gain can develop into something bigger in the future, like your own shop on your artist website, for example. For that, Etsy is a really great option.

 

 

6. Offer The Option Of Commissions

Commissions are a great way to grow your audience, as not every artist is open to them. Let’s not get these confused with the commission that a gallery takes when you sell a piece in their show – that is a different concept. 

 

In the case of the artist commissions we’re talking about; the artist is approached to make something bespoke and unique for a client, catering to their brief. These types of projects usually cost more for the customer, as they’re personalised and made specially for one person or brand in mind. Therefore, commissions can give artists a good monetary return, especially if you build up a good reputation and an impressive art art portfolio.

 

If you’re new to this process, it can be quite daunting to get started. After all, you’ll need the confidence in your ability to execute something your buyer will love, and pay good money for. But the very fact that the customer has chosen you for the commission, proves that they see something in your vision and creativity. Their belief in your practice should carry you through, but remember to be honest about what you can and can’t make too. Ideally, you would like your commissions to fall closely to what you’re already making, in keeping with your style and approach.

 

7. Licence Your Artwork

Licensing at designs is great for those artists who perhaps don’t have as much time to put effort into their stream of income. Labelled as ‘passive income’, this kind of revenue requires work at the beginning, but doesn’t need a lot of monitoring or maintenance in order for it to be sustained over a period of time. Print on demand services like Society6 are an example of this; where the art you’ve created can be printed onto whatever product the service offers without you having to do anything in the process.

 

Licensing your artwork operates in a similar way. Once the art itself is created, the majority of work you need to do is completed. Now with an agreement in place, your creation can be used on all sorts of products, from cushions to billboards. In exchange, the artist and owner of the image receives a payment. Unlike selling physical art and commissions, art licensing is considered a smaller, but more steady form of income that can support an artist in the background of their other projects.

 

In order to start your art licensing journey, it’s important to have a quality collection or portfolio of work that you can take to a manufacturer. Familiarise yourself with Copyright rules and regulations, focusing on ways to protect your work once it’s out there. When you’ve done some research and found a manufacturer or company to work with; always read your contract carefully before signing, it could be worth asking a friend or lawyer to read it over with you.

 

 

Making Money As An Artist Is A Process

With all business ventures, money doesn’t come flooding in overnight. As artists, we often have to work a little harder in order to see any financial payoff from our practice. If you’re serious about focusing your career on art, then be prepared to put in the work. 

 

It’s also worth noting that many of the methods mentioned here can be used in conjunction with one another to build a sustainable and reliable source of income. For example, you could sell your work at art fairs while using your Etsy shop or Instagram shop as a way to sell to customers who can’t physically attend the art fair. Or you could offer commissions while you make passive income by licensing your artwork. Having multiple streams of income is a smart strategy for making money with your art, especially as you establish yourself and begin to see what works and what doesn’t.

 

Being able to make money as an artist and creativity is a skill in itself, so don’t be disheartened if it doesn’t work out straight away. If art is something you love then keep at it, using your artistic passion to drive you onwards rather than the elusive monetary gain.

 

What method of making money as an artist has worked for you? Let us know in the comments below!

Also, don’t forget you can always share your art with us or tag us on Instagram – @darkyellowdot.

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NEED MORE ADVICE?

ARTICLES TO HELP:

Top 10 Tips You Need Before Opening An Etsy Shop

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SITES TO HELP:

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ARTQUEST | Gallery Commission

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COURSES TO HELP:

How To Make Money As An Artist

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