Income for Artists: Manageable Strategies for Beginners

1. Intro: My name is Elizabeth Leg line. I'm a painter and illustrator and come back for my fits kosher class. So for a little bit about me, I'm 23 years old. I live in Baltimore, Maryland. I went to the University of Delaware and actually studied fashion. I graduated about a year ago in May 2018. I pretty much been artist my whole life, and I started being interested in selling it about three years ago to make a little bit off side income, and I really focused on learning on ways to do that. I mostly work in ink and acrylic paint, and most my work revolves around mermaids and marine life themes. I am so excited about today's topic, which is income for artists, manageable strategies for beginners, whether you're artists looking to start monetizing your work. Or maybe you've tried and you haven't found six. Yes, yet this class is for you. So he's get caught up comparing ourselves to others on social media, feeling like you don't measure up and things like you do everything perfectly to be successful, You to tell you that that's not true. I don't want anyone feeling overwhelmed to start their journey. So I really want to share my strategies on how you consort today and make all these changes work together to make your life easier. Keep in mind that all this judge is that I'm gonna cover today. Do you take time to build? Although I certainly wish you viral overnight success, that is probably not the reality. It's also all the more reason to start today. I obstruction today's class in the order that I've used these strategies to build my business So amusing, kind of as a timeline for me. You don't necessarily have do these in the same order and I will touch on a little bit the order that I do think I should have done things. So for today I will go through how to set up a website on squarespace. How to get started on print on demand like red bubble on society six. How to use instagram for your art all about learning and teaching on skill share Selling at in person events. Using Pinterest for your business and selling on Etsy as well as a few other resource is to help you on your journey 2. Resource Guide + Class Project: before we dive into the course content. I want to let you know that with this class I've included a full resource guide in the class project section, which includes links to everything that I'll talk about today. APS, websites everything I've used so that you can have all that in one place and then for the class project for this class, I want you to share where you are in your journey. If you've started, maybe share what you focused on before you watch this class and then I want to hear what you're most excited about diving into. If you haven't sort anything. What are you looking forward to? What strategies are gonna try first and what are you most excited about? Trying also feel free to include all the links to your social media, your website, anything relevant that you want us to check out. So we could all be a part of your journey 3. Creating a Website with Squarespace: and with the first topic that ruin died into today, is building a website with Squarespace name. In today's age of social media, people tend to focus on making instagram and selling on Etsy on using Pinterest, and all of those are very important. But having your own website is a crucial part of having a business. It's the only place where you truly own all of your traffic, all that content and it's yours when you think about it. Instagram is so popular, but tomorrow on Syria might not be. You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket, especially one that you don't own. So having your own website is a super important part on. That's why that's the first thing that I did. I started my website in September of 2015 and I originally got it just as a portfolio website. In my beginnings at college. That was a super important part. They want us all to have a website, think about personal branding and have a place to show employers. What we've done on my website has significantly evolved since then. It's gone through many changes and I am very happy with how it is now a NCAR urgently using squares bases hoped template for my website, and I will give you guys a little tour. And as for why Squarespace, I think squarespace is the easiest Web platform to use to make your website look really beautiful and professional. Most of squares based templates focus around gorgeous imagery and big photos and telling a story, and I think it's just so much easier to make it look like a beautiful brand. I get compliments my website all the time on, and I think other platforms like Wicks its a little bit harder to give that that beautiful professional look unless you have a background in Web development, which I do not. So it is a little bit difficult for me, but scores makes makes it very easy to learn. They have great resource is, and I have a recommend using them for your website. The first thing I want to talk about with square space is the plans and pricing. Budgeting is obviously a very important part of running your business, so you do want to keep that in mind just for starting out on the roads that you can do a pretrial. And then these two plans are more for personal websites. I definitely recommend starting with the cheapest plan and upgrading as you feel you can, it is told dollars a month if you pay it all at once for the year or $16 a month to month. How easy Just taking that deal and paying it all up front. I recently upgraded from a personal plan to the business plan in January. I believe so. It comes with these additional features and then once you're looking to upgrade further, if your online store really takes off. These are the two commerce plans, which have significantly more features, obviously, to support a successful online store. I'm hoping to upgrade to this basic commerce plan in September, when my website renews so another huge part of Squarespace is it's beautiful templates. You can browse their templates on their website Elham at squarespace dot coms. Last templates. You can check them out, preview other people's websites. You can choose one to start out on your website, or you can change your um, template at any time, and it will guide you through that. Okay, so want to show you guys what my website looks like. As I mentioned, I'm using the Hope template from score space for my website. This is my website homepage. I have the same banner image that I use on etc. I have some scrolling pictures that she shows what I'm working on or upcoming releases. I have this block that shows my instagram and then I also link my society six and my skill share and I have the option to send up for my mailing list at the bottom of my home page, My near on the Squarespace website. You. Can you have all these different options for editing your website when you go on to pages? This is where you create new pages. These air some of the options and then you'll see they're coded by different symbols and this is where you go into edit all of that and then you also have designs. This is where you would add it, your template or colors or different styles. And then commerce is where you manage orders, inventory, customers, discounts, shipping taxes. All of that analytics will show you the analytics for your shop and your site in general. So it has a lot of helpful information. They also have settings and help menu. When you're on the website builder, you simply click this arrow if you want to view your website full screen, how someone would see it if they came to your website without all of the little editing bubbles that come up. You can also click up here to see how people see your website on mobile, on a phone or on iPod, so that is helpful to check out as well. So for your website, there are a couple different pages that it's important to have, so definitely spend the time linking lots on your home page. That way people can see where you are, where they can buy all that info, right when they get there, make sure that you include an about page so that people can learn more about you and try to include a photo. I have a blogger on my website, but I will admit I don't use it nearly as much as I should. As you can see, the last post was in March and it is now June. But I have a new idea for a post, so I will be working on this a little bit more soon. I also have my portfolio. I have a fashion portfolio as that's what I studied in school, and I'm for jobs in fashion. So this is one of things that I've included, and I have buttons that you quick on, and it will take you to the page about that specific projects for my art portfolio. I have organized it by different materials because that's what makes the most sense to me. When you click on each one, I use the thumbnail for the art print on Society six as a way to maintain consistency in my portfolio without having to take tons and tons of photos. So that's a really easy way to do that. You can also click on the image and it will pop out and they can check it out. So that's a little portfolio hack To make life a little bit easier. I don't have all of my, um, artwork on society six. So for some things, like lights on my painting collections, I did use the aerial images that I took myself. But for everything else, I have used my society six mock ups. I have a shop on my website so you can head there and check out What's that? I have available tons available and then And this is what my template looks like for the shop page. I also have a contact page of my website which I found to be super important. I've actually gotten a lot of contacts through this of events, people looking for vendors for and everything. So it has been a really great thing to have. So I highly recommend making that a priority when you're cleaning your website so that people can easily contact you if they're interested. So on optional tool that you can use with your squarespace plan is their new email marketing plan. So you go to marketing and then email campaigns, and squarespace has created their own email capabilities within their site. So you can go, you have part of retrial and then you when you go to upgrade now they have different plans off how you can send emails to subscribers. You have to pay for them. And the free alternative is male chimp. I'm not gonna talk too much about email, um, lists because I have not totally mastered that yet, But those are your options because analysts are a very important part of having on online business. So another important thing is the G. P s CEO. If you don't know what S CEO is its search engine optimization. So if you go on this s e o checklist on Squarespace is help website, which I've also linked in my resource guide. It has this whole list of things you can do to make sure that you have increased your sights chance of being found in search, which is super important. So again, scroll through all these things, make sure that you're setting up these things to increase your chance of being found in different Google searches. I have done most of these things, but I haven't done all of them. So I'm gonna go through myself and make sure that I have completed all of these tests to make sure that my website is being found on Google 4. Print-on-Demand with RedBubble and Society6: So my first adventure and Simon Online was to join the print on demand sites Red Bubble and Society six. If you don't know what print on demand, is it essentially their websites and you upload your work essentially licensing it to that company, and they sell your work on a variety of different products so customers can go on their findings. They, like, order it on whatever product the company produces it and shipped it to the customer, and you are in a royalty for that sale. I started on Red Bubble in December of 2015 and then on Society six in May of 2016. I definitely think that print on demand is a great resource for artists. It's especially great if art is your side. Hustle on a very limited time to dedicate your work because allows you to spend more time creating less time worrying about shipping inventory, keeping up with different websites and trying to market your products because even know with print on demand, it does help. If you were personally marketing it, it's not as much of an essential of it would be to sell three own website or through etc and Yes, you do make a very small percentage of every sale, but it has a long term earning potential. I barely me anything for the 1st 2 years that I was almost sites but is significantly picked up, especially since I would say in November off this year. I know I'm earning good amount every month, and it's really worth it when you take into account the very limited time I have to spend actually maintaining that. First, I want to go through some of the key differences between red Bubble and society. Six. So right Bubbles Vibe is kind of cute, quirky, fun, puns and things like that society Sixes Vibe is a little bit more focused on modern trendy . There's a lot of heart about Empower men, and there's lots of prints and patterns since Society six has a lot more focused on home decor. And then for your earnings redbubble. You're allowed to set your own product margin, so I set my royalty at 20% for all my products. You can set it individually for each product, or you can apply to all of your products at the whole society. Six has a flat 10% royalty rate, except for art prints, framed prints and canvas prints. But Society six has an affiliate program, so if you sign up to be a curator on their site, you get links for each product. If someone buys a product through that link, you got an extra 10% so you get would get 10% of the sale. If it was someone else's work that you share the link for or if it's your own work, you can then earn the 20%. So for the uploading process for either one, you definitely want to scan your work at the highest quality you can, My Skinner allows 1200 d P I, which is what I dio. Red Bubble has a little bit of an easier upload process on their site, especially if you do prints. You could have your print tile. You upload it, it will tile it for you, and you can change the scale and everything. I can upload something to read bubble in about 15 minutes or less. Society six is a lot more intense and can be a little bit tedious. They do have sight issues from time to time read. Bubble has a fan art program that allows artists to create officially licensed designs through brand partnerships. So they are vetted by those partner companies, and you can go ahead and check those out. If you are a huge fan of anyone that they're partnered with, that's a great opportunity. You just have to follow the guidelines that are on their site. Society six has a very extensive product line commercial red bubble, especially in the home decor. Space 76 has furniture. They have coffee tables, benches, stools, credenza says. They just add. It's an outdoor furniture like sling chair outdoor cushions. So it's a bit more extensive In terms off Artists Support Society six has an official Facebook group for artists that it encourages you to join in that group. They share upcoming product releases as well as the promotion schedule, which is one of a cat a time they share their upcoming pollutions. What's included, how long it's going to be in everything so that you can market to your followers, which is pretty nice. So I talked about the margins reach product, but to talk about how you get paid red bubble recently just reintroduce their payment threshold which means you have to make $20 on their site to be paid out, that just something to keep in mind. They can pay you through direct bank deposit or through PayPal. Whatever you shoes. Society six will pay you through PayPal when you're paid in the first few days of every month. Every purchase someone makes has a 30 day pending period, which the customer can return that item in that time. So if you sell something on January 5th, it will be pending until February 5th, and then you will be paid for it on March 1st or second. I can seem like a long process, but once you start selling, you don't really notice it as much, just a little bit frustrating in the beginning. And as for returns, I've only ever had three returns in three years. So it's not really a huge problem, just something to be made aware of. If you're looking for inspiration from artists that have structured their business completely around licensing and print on demand, I highly suggest checking out cat coca Let and Hugh Bucket Cat Google. It has a brand. She holds cat coke, and she does all licensing with different brands and society. Six. And she's also a fellow skill share teacher. I have some of her classes that I recommend later in my video about skill share, but I highly recommend checking her out. She travels all over the world to paint an explorer and travel, and I love her work. She has partnered with tons of major brands. You can check out her website. Is there some of her skull share classes that Sellers? And she's worked with huge brands like Mod Cloth and Urban Outfitters and Target to license her work? So that's one person to look for. Also, I love Hugh Buckets work. He does lots of funny illustrations of dogs and other animals. Avocados. They're more of red bubbles, kind of. I've funny, but I just love how cute they are. Um, this is his website. He sells through always Everything's Red Bubble. Amazon Society six case If I designed by humans. So those are just two artists to look at to be inspired if print on demand is the way that you want to go with your business. So some other important things to think about with print on demand are that it's easy to get started. There's no money required a songs. You have a scanner and the ability to scan your work. That's pretty much all you need. Part of the game of print on demand is right to make your artwork work harder for you so that it increased its value for passive income. And by this I mean using artwork to create prints, create burying color schemes to apply to a wider variety of customers and really making sure that your art goes far to work for you and passive income. With sites like this, it is kind of important to keep up with trends. But don't feel like you have to follow all trends. Just think about what I will go with the type of work that you create, and then the last step is just to make sure that you're you're using those high quality scans and really only enable the products where art look. Artwork looks best because just enabling your artwork on every product does not necessarily increases chance for a sale. You want to make sure that your shop on Lee includes the best work possible on the best products to highlight that work 5. Instagram for Artists: Let's talk Instagram Instagram is kind of treated as the holy Grail of social media at the moment, and I do think it's great for artists. Any visual platform that lets you get your work out there is a great tool to be using. But I'm also not here to lie to you and say that instagram is all rainbows and unicorns. Instagram could be super frustrating. It could definitely feel like you're getting crushed by the algorithm or that you don't have enough followers or that you're not keeping up with others. Success. Keep in mind that in serum is unique journey for everyone, and I definitely believe that there's an amount of luck involved with your instagram success. But I also believe that you will get out of it. What you put in. Make sure that you're putting in the effort to post good photos, frequently post content without thinking about instagram all the time and kind of putting all your eggs in the instagram basket. Keep in mind that your number of likes and followers is not necessary, any bearing on your sales, so don't get caught up in comparing yourself to others and feeling like you'll need hundreds of thousands of followers to make a sale. So a little bit about my Instagram journey, I started my separate instagram account for my artwork in December of 2016 but I don't really use it regularly until January of 2018. And then I really started picking up some momentum in May of 2018 when I did Mermaid for the first time, which is an instagram. Our challenge that I'll talk about in a minute so you can switch your account to a business account if you would like full analytics and the ability to create promotions or ads on the platform. If you do create a business account, you'll also have to create a Facebook account to go with it. Much can be a great tool to use to, because you can simply set your posts on Instagram to also post on Facebook, and then you have your two pot forms going at once. There has been some debate lately whether Instagram is limiting the reach of business accounts. I've heard some artists say that they switched to a business account from a personal account and seeing a huge drop in engagement. I already have a business account. I'm going to stick with it for now, but that's me to keep in mind. I want to share some of my tips for Instagram success. So my first tip is just to post regularly try to post on Instagram at least once a day and hopefully multiple times on your stories. Stories have become a hugely important part of Instagram strategy. I was hesitant to use my stories all the time. It didn't feel like it was that important until I realized how much I was watching other artists and friends stories. And then I really picked up my use. When you're using stories, definitely show your face and tell your audience what's going on. Talk to them. They really want a chance to connect with you and know who you are. And I definitely think that's a great way to share a little bit more about yourself with your audience. My next tip is pretty simple. Just to put this on a high quality content and try to maintain some consistency with your feed, whether it's with colors and filters or maybe the location that you photograph your artwork for me, I have a particular location. Next one. My windows. I have a lot of plants on. I get great natural light there. That's where I tend to photograph a lot of my work just to create a little bit more consistency in my feed. Next one is to use a lot of hash tags is really how you get your work out there and get found on Instagram. You're allowed to use 30 Hashtags proposed, and I have created a couple different hashtag blocks that I received in the notes on my phone that are used depending on what kind of content that I'm posting. When you're thinking about Hashtags, think about what the subject matter of your piece is. What materials are you using? Other. Any specific sharing hashtags you could use for their accounts that share the type of artwork that you're doing? Or maybe before the materials that were using? Keep that in mind. My next tip is to use video. Besides using video in your stories, definitely use it in your feed. Everyone loves time lapses, and it's a really great way to get your work out there. Videos tend to have a much higher reach than regular photo posts so use that to your advantage. If you're recording time Lasses, it's really easy to get a cheap tripod on Amazon. All linked the one that I have in my resource guide instagram. Our challenges are another great way to get your work out there. Things like Mermaid A and October are ones that I participated in so far, um, monthlong challenges like this. The idea is to follow a different prompt every day and create new work and share with that hashtag. That's a great way to discover other artists, and more artists will discover you. And it's really also challenge of creativity and then Philip kind of your instagram calendar. If you're struggling with things to post. My last tip is to make sure that your followers know where they can either by your work or support you. But don't bombard them with sales pitches and buying opportunities. I just want to make it clear where they can find that, but it can get a little bit frustrating for followers. If that's all that you're posting about, it really should be more about your story and your process on Instagram. So one of the resource is that can be helpful on instagram is linked. Tree link tree allows you to add multiple links in your instagram bio even know in serum only allows one So you log in with your instagram. So this is your dashboard on Lanktree. So if someone clicks on your instagram link and your bio, this is what will come up for them and it will link you to all of these different sites. So I link my website, my etc, my society six, my school shirt On my bread bubble, you can see how many times your link has been collect total dally. Add all of that. You also have a choice from her some different settings. You can change your little profile picture and there are all these different themes that you can choose. This is ah, the free version. If you want upgrade to the pro version, it's $6 a month, but it does have a lot more capabilities. Somebody they didn't even realize that it had. So that can be intriguing if your instagram is doing really well and you want to use this to take advantage, Okay, so now I want to talk about Canada. Canada is a great easy graphic design tool to use on your mobile device. They have tons of great templates that you can use to create images and things for social media. For Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, anything. I've mostly used it for my instagram story, so most of their templates are free. You can scroll through and even search for different themes, and you can add text different stickers. And there's have really fun templates that make it look a little bit more professional than just throwing Ah, picture on your story. So it's a great tool to use for that. Um, when you decide on a template, you simply click on it. And then you could just tap on something to start editing. For example, new photo school through at a photo. So that's how it's really easy to use, and it's great to be able to do it on your mobile device. So there are tons of options out there for photo editing. For social media, you can use the options on your phone or light room is popular. I use Visco. So on disco you just make an account and in your studio, you simply out of photo import it. And then there are tons of options. These are all of the free filters if you keep scrolling. Those are all part of the Visco Pro, but I usually use the C one filter. I usually told the filter down there's a slider. You can add how intense you like the filter to be. I usually bring it down a little bit, and then you can click. And they have all the regular photo editing options, which I take advantage of. And then I usually use on the options that are also just part of the photos apple on iPhone . And that's how your the edit my photos for Instagram. 6. Learning and Teaching on Skillshare: the way. One of the most important things to keep in mind when you're building your business is that you should be constantly learning constantly, staying up to date with concepts and skills they can better. Your business will really help you. In the long run, you can easily get sucked into taking free master classes or thing you need to spend hundreds of dollars on business or social media courses sold by influencers instead of buying individual courses. Still, share is a great way to learn new concepts, all paying one membership fee. Personally, I joined school share last June as part of a three months for a 99 cent deal. Skill share membership is normally $99 for the year, and then you have access to all of the premium courses on their site and is totally worth it. Obviously, you have to remember to wash this class, so whether this is the first cost, your washing or not, definitely keep checking out classes. I'm constantly learning on the platform, and I love it so much. In my first few weeks of being on skill share, I have definitely gotten that $99 value out of my membership. I've learned so much over the past year. So a few of the people that I highly recommend checking out on still share is one is cat coca. Let I get concerned by society. Six. Video. She worked with the With Art Licensing, and she has some great classes on skill share use. Creative skills Classes are a lot of fun, and I highly recommend them. I've taken both watercolor and the brush lettering, but kind just as a fun side project. I've learned a lot from her photo shop classes. That's really helped me with that part of our licensing. So if that's something that you struggle with, definitely check those out and then a highly recommend checking out each of these classes. One s specifically about art license sings that you continue from my video, and this one is about that as well. Specifically with Society six and her social media marketing class touches on a lot of the ones that I touched on today with the addition of Twitter. So definitely check that out to learn more about social media. The other classes are highly recommend is be your own boss by Martina Floor She's a lettering artist, and I found this class really helpful to really frame your mind around being your own boss and being a creative, and I highly recommend checking that out and kind of learn how to frame your mindset about you're a creative career. There are just tons of amazing classes on the platform, so highly recommend checking it out, looking for topics that you're interested in continuing your learning from this class. There are also workshops available on the school share website, which means that they are extended and they usually pull together a few different classes that are curated around a specific topic. You conduce more extended learning with workshops and also these recommended lists for you , and then you can also go to browse and look at different topics. This way I've done a lot of classes about procreate for iPad as I want. That's what I'm things that I'm interested in, so you can definitely find what you're interested in. Whether it's in creative business tech, you confined something awesome to watch Besides learning, the other component of skill share is teaching if you're interested, I decided to get into teaching at the end of August of last year after participating in the Obvious Teaching Challenge, which guides you through the process of publishing your first class and also has prizes available at the end to the best classes. My first class that I published as part of that August teaching challenge was about creating flats for fashion, which is something I learned in school as I studied fashion design. Since then, I've also published my class about society six, which is really popular and helpful to move on from this class. If that's one of the avenues that you're very interested in pursuing. I also have a class about how to create seamless prints that kind of goes along with society six and about how to maximize the army they've already created. And I also recently create a class about that you're drawing for fashion as that fashion illustration is very popular at the moment, so I create that class as well. Teaching on skill share is a great way to make passive income as well a share your knowledge with other creatives. Part of the premium membership revenue that skill share gets goes back to paying teachers for their content. You're paid based on the number of premium minutes that air watched of your classes every month, plus referral bonuses for students that sign up for Scotia membership based on your links. If you are interested in teaching on skill share, you can simply go to this teach drop down menu and to the teacher handbook to learn more about getting started planning, producing and everything that you need to know. You can also go to create a class where you can find out why should teach on skill, share some more information about their teachers and to get involved with one of the 30 day teaching challenges. Personally, I mostly focused on taking more business and entrepreneurship type classes on the platform . But there are also tons of classes about specific creative skills. How to use certain pains or techniques, which is another way to learn on the platform. And it's also another way, if you're interested in teaching those type of artistic skills, that's culture is a great platform to do that and that way to manage all of the course support and everything yourself. You're included in the sculpture family 7. Pinterest for Business: e thing that I think doesn't get quite enough recognition for artists is using Pinterest for your business ventures is always the truth is very important as a blogger or an influence are things like that, but it's also super important. As an artist, I converted my existing pinches account to a business account in September. Person, I didn't see the advantage of creating a completely different account for my business, maybe for businesses under a different name than your own. But I simply cleaned up my existing profile, reorganized some boards and I've gone on from there. A huge part of my website traffic now comes from Pinterest. The number one advantage of Pinterest is that your pin lives forever. So when you post an image on Instagram, it probably has about 24 hours before it's kind of died and is irrelevant. But on Pinterest, when you pin something, it could have a very extended life, so you could have weeks, months, years where your piece is pinned over and over again, and I've already seen the advantage of that. And some of my Zodiac mermaids from last summer still get 20,000 views a month, which is bring incredible traffic to my site. You can get as into Pinterest as you want to. There's tons of tools and services that can help you make Pinterest as incredible as you want it to be. Personally, I'm still kind of in the exploring phase with Pinterest, but I've also seen results already from just what I've done. What I've done so far is just to create one board that kind of houses all of my products and artwork. I'm working on creating some other boards for specific artworks and projects that I've done . So that's something that I'm looking into in the future. And then I have also have boards right. Collect inspiration for my artwork for certain types of artwork, and I still paying my style pans, my food pans, everything on my profile. Okay, so this is my actual Pinterest page. It displays your monthly viewers right under your name once you've converted your account to a business account. When I initially changed mine last September, I had about 2000 monthly viewers, but since then it's pretty much fluctuated between 50 and 75,000 monthly viewers. When you convert your account to business accounting changes things a little bit. It has this overview, which shows you your latest pins and tries to get you to promote your pins. But then I have my boards, and this is my board, where I house all of my products and exclusives and artwork. So each pin has statistics that you can check out and these air for the last month. In a way, it kind of seems random. What pins end up being popular, but you'll kind of figure it out as you go. So another super important thing to do is to clean your websites. Once you created Europe Entries business account, you simply click the three dots over here, go to settings and then claim so only one person can clean your website and you get the specific analytics and all from your website. If you click, learn more. It will take you through the steps to do this, and you could also clean your instagram, etc. And YouTube. I don't really use the YouTube channels. I don't have that, but have added my instagram and my etc. It just helps keep track of your pans and attribute your content to you so it doesn't get lost in Pinterest, so make sure that you do that when you're setting up your account. Okay, so I want to share some tips for pin creation if a lot of what you're selling is with print on demand. Red Mobile and Society six both have templates that are really great to use for Pinterest. If you go on the red bubble blawg and search templates or click promote your work. Use are some of the templates that you can download to your device and then replace with your artwork to create realistic mock ups of your work. The are perfect for Pinterest, also on society. Six. You can simply use the pictures from the listings so some products, like the coasters, have this. But then they also have this image that is great for Pinterest. You can crop it to their suggests, suggested dimensions off a two by three ratio and is ready to go for Pinterest. Another tip is when you're creating print pins with society. Six products is definitely use your affiliate link. You want to use that as the length for customers who are looking at that pin so that if they click it and go through with buying it. You get that 20% of the purchase. Like I mentioned in my print on demand video, as I mentioned before, you can also use the app Can VA to create pens? Simply click Pinterest graphic, And these are some great templates to use to create pins, especially for blawg posts. If that's an important part of your website, do you control through these again? Replace with your own image and text, and you can create really eye catching graphics for Pinterest. So one of the features that I highly recommend you use when you're creating your pins is the product tag feature, especially for pictures where you have multiple products. So, for example, there was this photo that I had from an event, and I went ahead and tagged the products that I still have in my shop, which are these three pieces here, which means that, um, customers can see your products, and it will take them right to that product on your website and just makes it a little bit easier for them to check it out. And it seems like those pins often do better than regular pins. So it's another reason I recommend checking that 8. In-Person Events: Let's talk in person events. Whether or not you decide to do in person events is completely up to you. There are plenty of artists either sell exclusively in person or exclusively online, or do a mix of both. Fully depends on where you live and what kind of events are available for you to take part in. So keep that in mind. But I do want to share a little bit about my experience. I've done four different in person of as the 1st 1 in September of 2018. I had a small table at a local creamery on a Saturday evening, and that was pretty successful. I mostly had smaller pieces, stickers thinking about, But there will be a lot of kids there, which worked to my advantage that you really have to keep in mind who is going to be at the event and really, who is your customer? Is your customer gonna be in that audience? Also did a two day Christmas market at the K through eight school that I went to, which was another great experience. I re had connections with some of the people there, Um, and it was really great. It was a little bit affected by the weather. It was great to have a two day event. I had a lot of people come back and buy things, so that's something to think about. I sold at a small craft market at a brewery in downtown Baltimore, which was actually my least successful event, which kind of surprised me. But it was mostly focused on kind of smaller craft vendors. So I was competing with a lot of people that had kind of lower price things, like soaps or knit hats or jams. So I was a great lesson in looking for events that really do. Foot was on artists also sold at a large statewide festival for artisans and food vendors. It was an outdoor event and it was terrible weather. It pour the whole time, so that really affected the turnout, whether it's something super important to keep you in mind when you're thinking about doing events from my experience, I am not looking to do any outdoor events in the future. Most events will be rain or shine, at least in my area, and I guess it depends how predictable the weather is where you live. Also It's pretty unpredictable here in Baltimore, but I know other places. It can be a little bit easier so that you might have an easier time with that. When you're thinking about getting into events, definitely take it slow. Don't commit to a ton of events without kind of figuring out who your customer is. Are they gonna be there? What the event is gonna be like, What other vendors will be there? These are all really important things. Keep in mind because events can get expensive quickly with the equipment that you need to set up the time driving their all of that, you're selling items that are more of a fine art kind of direction and be wary of events that are also just craft vendors and could be really difficult to compete. When everyone else that you're selling with has $20 signs or small canvases with quotes, things like that, there's anything wrong with that. So one of the things I mentioned is when it comes in person events, you don't want to break the bank when it comes to your display. So I'd highly recommend going on Pinterest and just browsing through different vendor booth ideas. There are tons of awesome ideas on Pinterest that are cheaper D i Y. Ideas that won't break the bank, um, and can show off your work more efficiently, so I highly suggest checking it out. I've gotten things at Kia, um, on store supply warehouse dot com is another one I've gotten wire grid. Things like this are super helpful, so definitely just check that out and look for ideas and see how you can be creative. So the last step for preparing for an event is to make sure that you can accept payments. You can obviously accept cash to make sure to bring change, but you'll want to sign up for a square so that you can process credit cards. Square is super easy to use, and when you sign up to make an account, you get a mag stripe reader for free. The other hardware you have to pay for. But I just use the mag strip reader for now, and it's super easy to sign up. You get the app on your phone or iPad and use that I have a link in my resource guy that you could get $1000 of free processing when you make a new account. So sign up and it's really easy to use 9. Selling on Etsy: E is a super important part of selling online as a creative. I actually resisted selling on Etsy for a really long time. I wanted to focus on my own website for the reasons I mentioned earlier in this course. But after doing a lot of in person of ends, I kept getting so many questions about whether I sold on Etsy. So I decided to open a shop a to the end of December and 2018. So I've been on Etsy now for about five months and I'm pretty happy with the progress and I've made so far and it's kind of changed my opinion about it. I was hesitant because of all the stories people creating an etc. And kind of not selling anything for a really long time and I just didn't want the frustration. I'm glad that I waited. I highly recommend waiting till you have at least kind of a warm audience that is already interested in your work before you launch at sea. Since there is some investment involved in etc. It's not free to get started. Having that warm audience really helps convert the sales quicker, which is just helpful on getting established on the platform from the things to keep in mind with etc. Or that I think there's a little bit more strategy involved with etc. Than there is with selling on your own website. The fees are super annoying. I wish they would just charge one flat rate for every sale and just have one deduction from your revenue. But instead you have to pay 20 cents toe Liston item than you're paying different percentages on the transaction fee. They're usually like 3 to 4 fees per sale that you may, for example, if you sell multiple one item. For example, I sold 15 of one of my stickers to one buyer recently, and I was charged $2.80 in thes because they bought multiple, which I just think it's ridiculous. So do keep that in line with that. See the fees air frustrating, but it is it can be worth it to put your work in front of a larger audience in terms of etc . Strategy. I just started on at sea, putting some seekers that I had some smaller originals just to kind of test things out, and the stickers have really taken off for me as my listings expire, they're on there for four months. Unless there order renewed through a sale or unless they expire, and then you have to really renew them again as my listings that are currently on their expire. I'm only gonna be offering stickers in Prince on etc. In the future, one of the big things about etc. Is that when you have an item that you have an inventory of when you sell, say a sticker, it really boost that sticker in their search engines so that it will lead Thio more popularity, more sales, and we kind of build on each other, which is can be an advantage on etc. If you're selling one off original art, it can be a little bit difficult to find that audience, because once you've sold it, that's great. You have that money, but it doesn't necessarily lead to more sales in the future. So that's one thing to keep in mind. Stickers are by far my best sellers, and if your art lends itself, I totally recommend going down the path of stickers and prints. Like I said, the more items you have even sell over and over on the better you'll do on etc. I love stickers because all you have to do is stick about envelope by sticking a business card, write a little note and then I just need a stamp and it goes in the mail. It's so much easier than having to have a pack, complicated packaging and shipping every single day. Besides selling stickers and Prince one of the things you need to think about in terms of, etc. Strategy is how the things in your shop go together and how you can incentivize larger purchases. For example, I have stickers had made of all of my Zodiac science that I did. I did this artwork last summer, and I did a different mermaid for every sign of the Zodiac. So those are a couple examples I've found that people really love to be able to connect with something that you've made. So when they see all the different Zodiacs and are able to say, Oh, which ones mind, they really connect with the piece and then also incentivizes them to purchase me for a friend or a family member who they know is really excited about. Their sign was just a great way to incentivize purchases. Another great way to incentivize larger purchases from her customers is to bundle deals for them. So, for example, with stickers I usually charge about $3 per sticker. I have this Maryland mermaid, which is part of a serious and I'm doing of every different state with their different state symbols and mermaids and things. And then I also got this blue crab sticker, which is very important to us Marylanders. So I bundled this on, etc. As a $5 listing. So you either pay $3 each for them separately or you bundle them together, and most people do choose to bundle them together. So I'm definitely working on creating more sticker packs in the future. I already have Florida stickers as well, and I ordered Manti seekers to go with those. Think about how all of your work connects how you can incentivize those purchases and how you can connect with your customers. So I'm sure most of you guys have been on SD before, but I just want to show you my shop real quick. I made this banner image of some of my popular ink drawings that I put together Obviously, the big thing on Etsy is that you can see a person's number of sales right on their profile . But don't focus on that. I really don't think it matters and that people Foot was on that a lot when they're deciding whether to purchase. So really, just ignore it and foot was on your content. Um, I have free shipping for all of my items on Etsy s. He's kind of pushed for that lately, and it's been a little bit controversial among some sellers. So actually, those that sell heavier items that is really make sense to bundle in the shipping. I bundle in the shipping with all my prices. Um, and I felt only the us at the moment. Um, so it's the decision that I've made. So to Manager SC shop, you go to the shop manager, which will load your dashboard. Um, you can have there are all these different tabs to manage your shop. You can check out your listings and at it them. So it's really important to think about what you're putting in a listing when you make it. So when you go to that a little bit, make sure you get great photos, try and get from a couple different angles and show it off. So you want to make sure that you include some keywords in your title. Like, for example, this one is for my tourist mermaid. So I included both were tourists and mermaid and sticker obviously categorize that as a laptop decal. And then all of these air kind of optional I usually don't use them usually use the theme. One actually is usually the only one that I put in. I have it set to automatically renew, um, and is a physical item. So in your description, you kind of want to make it as lengthy as possible to include all possible keywords that could bring in potential customers. So this is my description for my Taurus Mermaid. Also, make sure you put in dimensions so that Joe buyers can see that information and then the tags are super important when you're, um, putting a listing together. So the best way to look for tags is to go back to at sea and simply type in some of the key word that you're thinking of putting in. For example, Taurus. So then you can see These are all of the common things that people are searching for tourists. This is what's followed by. So obviously, a lot of these things don't fit with the sticker. But that is something to think about. Simple Zodiac. Just think of all the different combinations of things that people could search for that would want to see your sticker pop up. Another thing. Anything about tags is, um, pay attention to the Search Analytics, which I will show you in one second when you add your price, quantity and shipping. Okay, so for Search Analytics, it's not in the statistics party. Go to marketing Search Analytics, and this will actually tell you how your items are being found on Etsy Search, which is super important. So the first stickers that I posted I noticed that people were fighting them through these stickers for a hydro flask search, which I then started to include in my keyword tags for my listings. If you don't know hydro flask, you just a brand of reasonable water bottle that's popular. But apparently people searched a lot, so I have included that in a lot of my descriptions. So as you can see, they're just all different searches, so really, pay attention to how people are finding you and how you can use that to your advantage. On other listings, I have more information about services and pricing for stickers and prints. In my resource guys, you could head there for more detailed information, so my take a way for etc as that is definitely a great way to get more eyes on your products. But don't rely on it too heavily. It's another platform that is constantly changing and you don't own the traffic so it can be really helpful. Build your business, but make sure you're still really focusing on your website and 10. Other Resources: so another really important part of being an artist is having the support and the people to turn to. If you have a question and one place I found that is the studio source, which is a community for artists that sell online. It was started by Ali and Lindsey. Alley is a fine artist who does these amazing gold leaf landscapes and Lindsay as a ceramicist who has these really beautiful glazes and gold finishes on her pieces. So the studio sore started as a Facebook group that I'm a part of. It's a great place to ask people questions and interact with other artists that have the same focus, and you also have the same goal of selling online. It is a great resource use, and I've learned so much just from what other people have asked, and I best questions and just a great place to turn to if you feel like you need help or you're struggling with something they also recently added and membership, so they open in a few times a year, so you can't always join. But there's a monthly fee, and they have different courses that you can take to really learn about selling online and build your business. I have not joined yet, but I am hoping to the next time that they open, which I'm guessing will be end of summer or in the fall. Also, in the meantime, you can check out their blawg, which has different features of some of their members, but also great tips like they just posted this, which they have a course about how to ship worldwide on their membership. But they have some free tips that you can check out, Beach remembers, and they just have Great resource is on here, so I highly recommend taking checking it out. If you have questions, especially about selling online, another great person to turn to for information about selling online and social media, everything is Josie Lewis. I would be shocked if you're on Instagram and haven't seen one of her videos. She gets millions of views, all her videos, and she's a great person to follow. She works with all the kinds of different materials, but she also in her captions, kind of tackles tough questions and with artists about creativity, what drives us? There's just lots of great conversations that she starts so I highly recommend following her, even if it is just for the cool videos. But the captions are important, too. She also has a YouTube channel, which has great videos, where she has ones where she shows you for processes that she does, which is fun. But then she also has thes that are all about social media instagram tic tac going viral, tackling tough questions. She's a great person to learn lots more about being an artist on the Internet, and I highly recommend checking her out. I actually have a copy of her book as well as her watercolor set, which I absolutely love. I got them for Christmas. Her book is kind of all about these fun projects that kind of make us think about creativity and why we have certain stereotypes and different thoughts about it. So it's just a really great resource to kind of push yourself and really kind of tackle what's behind your creativity. So I highly recommend checking, So my last tip about finding support is to try and meet people in your area. Someone was amazing enough to start this. Makers of Maryland Page on Instagram A few months ago, Stephanie created it and created this community of Maryland makers and artists, and it's really been an incredible resource to learn about other people in your area and connect with them. She had a meet up at her house that I went to, and I got to meet lots of other people and talk about, you know, social media and selling and making. And it was just incredible experience. So have a recommend trying to find something like this in your area, or maybe even started yourself. 11. Final Thoughts: now for some final thoughts about how it's implement these strategies as an artist, your income strategy cause should consist of both passive income and active income. Passive income is the income that you weren't through, minimum daily effort and upkeep once you've put in the initial time or money to get that strategy started. For example, that includes print on demand like Society six and Red Bubble or one of the other sites that also uses the strategy. There's also online teaching. Active income is income that you were and through sign directly on your website, on etc. And in events. There's more work involved in this, but there's also potential for higher margins for your efforts. The first step in implementing these judges is to keep learning. You've started the process with this class, and there are tons of amazing classes on the skill share platform. And with all the other resources that I've talked about in this course, definitely check out the studio source, look for information on YouTube and read lots of blawg Post. Look on Pinterest. There are tons of ways that you can learn about the topics that you're interested in to better your business. The next step is to share start sharing your story and be authentic with your audience on social media on your website. Blawg. Anything, even if you don't feel ready, and that's something I really want to emphasize. I think people tend to put things off until they feel that they're ready or things are perfect, and there's no need to wait for that. You should start now and really be real and authentic with the audience. And the sooner you start sharing, the better. The sooner you're sharing on Instagram, the sooner that you can get feedback or fans. And it's a great way to interact and start understanding your market and your target customer. The next step is to evaluate. Think about the time and money that you want or have to spend on your art as a business, both right now and long term. How do you want to make money? How much time do you want to spend? What would you like to focus on things like print on demand required No initial monetary investment, just a little bit of time to get started, then you won't have to worry about any inventory or shipping and you can spend more time creating. This is perfect if art is your side hustle and you really just want to focus on the process of creating your art. And then you can just spend a little bit of time up loading and editing your work and selling it through print on demand. If you have a little bit more time and money to spend, you want to perhaps use your website, etc. To sell and maybe check out some in person events, and this has a potential for a higher per item profit, and you have a little bit more control over your business. But you'll have to spend more time things like taking photos, writing descriptions, researching events and things. So think about how you want to work your business. The next step is to plan once you start to understand your business and your market, and you start to develop a flow with your creative process. This is when you really have to start thinking long term. When you get on a calendar and a notebook and really start thinking about deadlines, budgets and goals, it will really take your business to the next level. I've started doing this in about the past four months and has really made a big difference in how I think about my business. And I highly recommend really getting a schedule for yourself and really figuring out how you work. And it will make your whole process a lot easier. And the last step is just to learn and evolve. The more you do, you'll make mistakes and you'll learn from them. It's very important to find a balance between moving on from what isn't working and not getting to discourage. When you don't find immediate success with something, Just remember at the end of the day, nobody owes you anything. This is your artwork and your business. You have control over your destiny and other platforms don't owe you success for sales. It's totally fine. If something isn't working for you, ditch it. If Etc. Isn't working, don't put the money into it. It doesn't really matter what anyone else is doing. This is about you really think about how you want to run your business, what you want to dio and just keep working for that. Just remember to keep working oval. They in Crete. It's never too soon to get started. So power through those ups and downs and I promise you good things will happen. Don't forget, Teoh. Leave your information in the class project so we can all follow along with your journey. And if you're interested, I have included links so that you can follow me along On my journey on all the platforms that I've discussed today, all of those links are also in the guide that I've included with this class. So also, please leave me a review. If you found this class helpful or if you'd like to leave any constructive criticism, it is much appreciated. So thank you.