Selling your work?
Clarify your current plan
Selling or publishing our work is a whole process other than making. Not everyone wants to sell their work. Some are highly motivated to make money from their artist. Maybe you haven’t much considered the business side of publishing or selling your art.Â
What’s true for you right now? I say ‘right now’ because it may change. You may start off wanting to make money. You may end up realizing that the real payoff is the feeling you get from making your art. Do you have a bias not only toward making money but making a profit? If so, you have other things to consider alongside the making.Â
There are many resources out there for publishing writing and selling art.
For writers, Jane Friedman offers a ton of resources for writing and publishing.
For artists, two friends and colleagues of mine specialize in helping artists run successful businesses.Â
Alyson Stanfield offers programs to help artists with their art business. She has a great book called I’d Rather Be in the Studio. (I coached her to write this!)Â
Cory Huff offers programs and wrote a book called How to Sell Your Art Online. (I illustrated this book!)Â
Whichever side of the money line you are on, that is totally okay. It’s up to you and your artist.Â
INVITATIONÂ
Start by clarifying why you are sharing your work now. Use the prompt for reflective writing: I share my work now because….
Now, explore the financial side of your artist. Use reflective writing to clarify your financial motivations. Remember that your desire for moola may ebb and flow over time.Â
It’s important for me to make money because…
I need to make a profit because…
When I make money from my art, I will be able to….
You might also reflect on the opposite:Â
It’s not important for me to make money because…
I don’t want money in my making because…
From your reflective writing, cull a sentence or two that you can use to explain this to others if they ask.Â
Affirmation: My decision to sell art or not is mine to make and I feel good about where I am now.Â
In the comments: What’s important to you about selling your work or not?
After years working in public relations and some time doing freelance writing, I realized that I do not need to make money from Hidden-inSite. It's my personal travel magazine, and I try to make it as good as I possibly can. Even without the side hustle of making money, it's a lot of work. I think some of my stories are good enough to publish outside of my blog, but I don't have the energy to write them soon enough to push them out for review and possible rejection by publishers.
That said, I have lots of great photos that can be shared, but I'm not sure where besides social media. Like Donna below me on the comment page, I'm retired, and making money is not what's important.
What is important, is the comments I get from my readers. I often have a dozen individual comments (plus my responses) on my posts. That's really gratifying for me.
This popped up in my feed again and made me think more: I'm super glad that I am retired and my husband is taking over creating some extra income for us by making a couple of rentals in our giant house. SO, I can make what I want and share it here and wherever, and not worry about making money from my art and writing at all. It's really wonderful. Although, to tell the truth, I never made that much money from my writing. I usually made a whole lot more from teaching. And since I've dropped that, I have way more time to make stuff. It's difficult sometimes to keep busy and remember I can just make a sweater or a painting FOR NO REASON! These transitions take tie to adjust to.