How to Become a Successful Art Selling Artist in 2024

If you are looking to sell your art and make money from it this year, you must first decide if you are a professional artist or simply a hobbyist.

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A hobbyist is someone who creates art for their own pleasure. This means they may make a painting and decorate their own home with it or give it to friends and relatives. They may or may not get compensated for it. Making money, essentially, from selling their art is not their end goal. They are simply creating their art for the pure pleasure of it.

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A professional artist on the other hand, is someone who creates their art for the purpose of selling it to earn a living from it. But more to the point, professional artists are business owners.

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Unfortunately, this is the point that becomes convoluted for some artists.

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Many of them feel that if they work on the business aspect of their art, they are somehow “selling out” from being a true artist.

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Nothing could be further from the truth.

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From the rivalry between Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo to Andy Warhol’s entrepreneurial spirit, artists have been known to compete for gigs all the time. Of course, the competition wasn’t just for the sake of money, but money did play a part in the grand scheme of things because by earning those commissions, these artists were able to establish their reputation that put them on the pages of history forever.

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So, if you are one of those artists who feels that by focusing on the business aspect of your work is somehow going to take away from your being a true artist, you’re doing yourself a great disservice.

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If anything, it will enhance your credibility and improve your quality of life as a professional artist.

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Now let’s explore 5 major reasons some artists may have trouble running the business side of things and what to do about it:

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1.??? I JUST WANT TO CREATE MY ART

A lot of artists simply want to stay in their comfy corner and produce their work because this part of their work is what they enjoy doing the most.

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I know that because I was the same way.

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They are the least bit interested in handling mundane tasks related to operating their business. ?

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Quite a few are not even aware of what they need to do to grow their business.

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But it is critical to educate yourself on the basics of running a business. This means knowing how to handle all legal compliances such as registering your business, creating a platform for your business that includes your personal brand, understanding the basics of marketing and sales, taxation, logistics, and operations.

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PRO TIP:

I will always recommend that you learn about the basics of running a business so that you know what it takes to run a business successfully. As you are educating yourself and you come across things that you know you don’t want to do, you can always delegate those tasks and outsource them.

For example, if accounting is not your thing, hire a professional accountant to do your taxes for you. This will ensure that you are meeting your legal requirements, and it will free you up to do other things that you do want to do.

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2.??? I’LL MAKE IT UP AS I GO

It is crucial to develop a system for your business that gives you a blueprint of how you will work on your business each day. Think of it as a recipe for a delicious dish. If you create a usable recipe, you take out the risk of ruining the dish.

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Martha Washington had a recipe for a “Great Cake” that included the following ingredients:

Forty Eggs

Four Pounds of Butter

Five Pounds of Flour

Four Pounds of Sugar

Equal Quantities of Fruit

Mace

Nutmeg

Dry Ingredients

Wine

Brandy

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After mixing everything together, the cake was baked for 5 hours. When it was served, it was enjoyed by family, friends, and especially the Great Man himself, George Washington.

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But how did Martha know how to get the cake right each time?

Cholesterol aside.

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Although she didn’t bake the cake herself, she did have a recipe for it which she used to teach her slaves on how to bake the cake perfectly every time.

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PRO TIP:

You too need to develop a written recipe or a planned system for your business. Start by listing everything down from your mission statement to how many hours a day you will spend on creating your art and marketing it to bring in the sales. Use planners, calendars, and journals to develop your time management skills and keep yourself on track with what you need to do each day, week, month, and year. But remember, writing things down is only part of what you need to do. You must also actively work on your systematic plan to grow your business.

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3.??? I’M AFRAID

Yesterday, I watched an old episode of Jordon Peterson’s YouTube channel where he was interviewing artist Juliette Fogra. Talk about having an incredible opportunity to share your art with the world!

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Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way for Fogra, at least not from the clip I saw.

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I watched the interview with great pain as I saw her struggling to express herself. This was partly because English may not have been her first language, at least that’s what I suspect, but also because she was extremely self-conscious and shy.

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I felt her pain.

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I’ve been there and done it too.

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That interview could have gone well for her and opened several doors of opportunities for her business. Tragically, I feel it was a missed opportunity.

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If you go and read the comments left by other artists who watched the video, they include everything from support to disdain.

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I wanted to just hug the dame.

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Fear is a common factor for many artists, especially the introverted ones.

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Trust me, I know this one too well.

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I’m an introverted artist too. So, I completely understood her pain. In her awkwardness and struggle, I could see myself.

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But here’s the thing, if you have decided that you are a professional artist, then you will have to overcome your fear, at least to a certain degree, to share your work with the world.

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So, again, here you will have to decide about who you are: a hobbyist or a professional artist?

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PRO TIP:

One way to improve upon your fear factor is to surround yourself with like-minded people. Find other artists who inspire and support you and connect with them whether in person or online.

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I met my dear friend, fellow artist, and writer Rod Jones online many blue moons ago. Over the years, he has become an incredible source of inspiration to me. Our artistic style could hardly be called similar, but we both enjoy a great rapport and have the greatest respect for each other’s work.

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It isn’t uncommon for me to leave him messages in the middle of the night when a thought strikes me which I feel is a good idea. Of course, it helps that he works crazy hours like me too. His beautiful wife and an incredible writer in her own right, Inci Jones, has been beyond gracious in dealing with my hair-brained ideas. She keeps us both well grounded.

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The important thing to note is that their friendship and support has helped me tremendously in coming out of my shell and to pursue ideas I may have never thought of implementing before in my work because I was too scared to take that chance.

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Not only this, but they have even asked for my advice on business matters! Can you imagine how incredibly rewarding it is when you are asked for your opinion and feedback by people who you admire? I’ll tell you it is an amazing feeling.

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Do you have people in your life that could support and encourage you to overcome your fears and become the best version of your artistic self?

?4.??? MY ART SPEAKS FOR ITSELF

Although this statement may be fair enough, I’m going to speak strictly as a historian here.

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Do you know how helpful it is for us historians to write about people (who may be a source of inspiration for so many people all around this globe) when we have primary sources left behind for us by our subjects?

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You can’t even begin to imagine.

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I spent over a decade hunting for primary sources for my book, Rough Diamond: The Life of Colonel William Stephen Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton’s Forgotten Son.

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Unfortunately, Colonel Hamilton didn’t do me any favors as he left very little about his life in his own words behind for me to use in my research. Much of what was left was spread across the nation and my quest to find pertinent material took a long time to complete, much more than I had ever imagined.

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But what can I say? I am a glutton for punishment because I am now working on a biography of Abraham Lincoln and his formative years. Suffice it to say, there’s plenty of primary sources available about his later life than there is about his beginnings.

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As if to mock me, Mr. Lincoln had already pronounced in June 1860 that, “It is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life.”

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With that kind of encouragement, what could possibly go wrong? Right?

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I suppose it pays to be a resilient sort when it comes to matters such as this.

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At any rate, my point here is simply to say this to you that don’t presume your art is enough to tell your story. Yes, your art speaks for itself, but your fans would love to know more about you too. You are a part of the story of the art that you are creating, a major part of it indeed. Don’t neglect that fact.

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PRO TIP:

I would encourage you to write about yourself and your art. And if you have trouble writing because you think you don’t have the technical skills then either learn how to write by taking some courses, reading books on writing, and then putting your knowledge to practice or hire someone to do it for you.

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But do consider putting something in the written word about you and how you came to create your beautiful art. Write about your experiences if you want. Write about your inspirations if you want. Write your autobiography. Write your memoir. Have someone write your biography. Write much or write just enough but do write something about yourself. You may not think you have anything to say, but this historian implores you to reconsider that thought. Please. If for nothing else, then for the sake of my future fellow historians.

5.??? I’M ALREADY DOING TOO MUCH

If you are working a full-time job and working on your art, that’s a lot of work.

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If you are taking care of your family and working on your art, that’s a lot of work.

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If you are struggling with health challenges and working on your art, that’s a lot of work.

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There could be a myriad of reasons why you feel burnt out because you are doing so much. I can completely relate to that too and have all the empathy for you.

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I also know that it is a competitive world for artists today. Yes, we have technological advancements that can help us to share our work with people around the world, much more than Vincent van Gogh to be sure, but so do other artists.

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To paraphrase Peterson, not only are we competing with our contemporaries, but we are also competing with the works of famous artists of old. Now, that’s a lot of pressure.

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So, you must find out how you can make your work stand out differently.

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In today’s world it isn’t enough just to be a great painter. In today’s world if you want to be a successful artist, you must also be prepared to treat your work as a business.

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This may mean that you must work on the things you loathe to do such as learning about how to run a business, writing about your art and yourself, and making sure you are taking care of yourself to do all the work you need to do for your business. But these are challenges that you must conquer to achieve the lifestyle you want. That is, of course, if you want it.?

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PRO TIP:

In working your business, you must remember to take some time off for yourself. Make time for mindful activity. Practice Breathing Exercises. Meditate. Relax. Unwind. Enjoy Nature. Exercise. Pray. The idea is to find ways to soothe your soul. Allow your body to rest, relax, and rejuvenate.

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Owning a business doesn’t mean you have to grill yourself daily at the cost of other things that are meaningful to you. You can do both by creating a plan of action that keeps you on track. You can create your art, generate an income from your business, and live a fulfilling life. But all this requires strategic planning, acting on that plan, and treating your work as a business that continues to grow.?

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For all this to occur successfully, you must first decide: are you planning to work as a hobbyist or a professional artist this year?

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Until next time,

Keep Creating!

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Angelina

Creative & Motivational Storyteller

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I hope you found this post useful.

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