TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Setting up a blog website is so easy and cheap it's tempting to just register a domain, link it to a blogging platform and then just start blogging. Why not, right? Everything else you can just work out as you go. That's how I started all my other blogs and look how well they're doing... (see part 1 in this series). To summarize, I started this blog in 2004 and my Animation and Video blog in 2008. At the time of writing, both blogs combined earn me enough income to buy a cheap lunch once a month. Let's do something a little crazy and try a bit of research and planning before launching the digitalartandanimaton.com site. In doing so, I should be able to, at the very least, earn a higher monthly income than my current blogs, a lot sooner (like years sooner).

Interested in starting a profitable blog? Gain valuable insight following the progress of a real blog business from idea to reality. After completing a 13 part blog series on how to start your own independent, mobile Artist business I thought, why not back up some of that knowledge and experience with an actual, real example, of starting an online business from scratch?

If your business is keeping you busy that can be a good sign, however, if you've reached capacity with your schedule and are still not earning the income you hoped for (or you just want to earn more), it may be time to think about expansion. In the previous post I suggested 'over commitment' as a potential pitfall that could lead to bad word of mouth and a loss of future business. One way I suggested to overcome this is to hire trusted freelancers to do the excess work for you. Which is great if you're providing an arts based service that doesn't rely on your specific artistic talent. Not as useful if you personally are being commissioned to create art in your unique style. However I have an option for you too...

By now you should have enough information to begin setting up your own Mobile, Independent, Artist Business. Last post I looked at pricing your art , this post I'll look at some of the pitfalls that can bring you unstuck or just slow your business down. This list is by no means exhaustive but it does cover issues that I've personally had to navigate running my own Artist Business.

Now that you have options for where to sell your art or make money from it ( Part A and Part B ), the question is how much do you charge for your art? Working out prices is one of the first questions new artists moving into a career often ask. There are many different approaches to pricing your art with many different factors to take into account. In this article I'll look at, what I think, is the simplest method to get you started with setting your prices from the point of view of running a business and earning enough to live on.

Last post I began describing a few Opportunities to make money from your art. This post I'll continue on with a few more ways. As mentioned previously this list is by no means exhaustive. I do not recommend any particular opportunity over another. Some I have personally tried whilst others I have discovered in the course of writing this article. You should do your own research to see if an opportunity is the right fit for your goals. The main purpose of presenting these opportunities is to simply broaden your knowledge of the many possibilities online for making money from your art. Just remember, whatever path you take is going to require hard work and dedication. There is no choosing an option and then sitting back to watch the money roll in. If there were such opportunities, those would be the only ones I'd recommend.

In my last post I looked at What to Create and Finding Your Market. This post is something of a natural follow on from finding your market as many of these money making opportunities include their own market places that you can research to see what kinds of themes and subjects sell best. It's worth doing this research to find out if the art you're already creating is a good fit for that market place - which is ideal - or if you may have to consider expanding your interests to cover popular themes in order sell in a particular market.