How Much Money I Make As An Artist - Passive and Active Online Art Income

hello i'm mimi and i don't know about you but i've always had this dream of making a living from my art not having a boss and being able to choose where i work from it's only in the last year and a half that i've taken that dream seriously and i've started making progress toward actually making an income from my art online so i wanted to share with you today my experiences so far in case it helps you to do the same i know that money can be a bit taboo but i also know that i'm not the only one who dreams of making an income or even just a side income with their art so i want to be transparent about how much i'm earning now and how much work it took me to get there to show you that although it's not easy if you have an internet connection a means of making art and the motivation to stick with it then you can absolutely earn some money with your art now i'm not yet able to solely rely on my art income and still do some graphic design work on the side but let's take a look at how much i've made from my art in the last full calendar month which was august 2021 so in august i made a total of one thousand four hundred and twenty seven dollars and fifteen cents in australian dollars that's broken up into a few income streams so let's take a look at them individually before we jump in i'll just quickly say that i'm not going to be talking about the legal side of earning money from your art in this video so make sure you check your country's legal requirements before you start earning money so the first way i earn money online is with digital products which is probably the most passive so once i've done the initial setup there's minimal work involved from me i have two etsy shops that sell digital downloads before starting my mimimu illustration journey in may 2020 i already had an etsy shop where i had dabbled in trying to make money online selling printable wallet i've been active with that shop for about four or five years on and off aside from answering customer questions making new prints from time to time and the recent overhaul i did where i cleared out lots of old prints it doesn't require much active time for me at all the income from that shop typically fluctuates from 200 to 400 per month and in august it earned me 210.36 after etsy fees my second digital product shop is for mimimu illustration which is the digital illustration i do associated with this channel and my instagram account i just opened my etsy shop last month and also have a couple of products on gumroad on a pay what you want system at the moment on etsy i have phone wallpapers printable bookmarks and step-by-step drawing guides it's a super new shop and took a few days of setup time but now that the store and listings are built it'll be really quick and easy for me to add new listings in the future the products that i'm selling in my shop are files that i've already made as previous month's benefits for patreon which i'll talk about in a minute so i haven't yet made any brand new etsy exclusive products these are all files that i already had so in august i made 219.72 from these digital products the vast majority was from etsy and a tiny bit was from gumroad so if you wanted to get started selling digital products related to your own art you'll need a product to sell consider what your target audience wants from you and do some research into the product either an audience to tell about your new product or a way for your product to get found like through search or with advertising and a platform to sell on like etsy gumroad or kofi some pros and cons of selling digital products some pros are it's very easy to get started it doesn't have to cost you anything besides listing fees once it's set up it can be really passive and you can make whatever you like as long as there's a market for it some cons are you may need quite a lot of traffic to make a decent income and it can be very competitive after my digital products i then have my patreon where i share updates digital downloads and tutorials across three different payment levels and people can choose which one suits them it's a subscription service but you can also just join for one month and my earnings from patreon have slowly been growing in the six months since i started it it takes quite a few days of work every month to create the benefits for patreon but i really love being able to provide extra value to people and it's something i enjoy doing plus some of the digital download benefits are different for each month on patreon like the phone wallpapers and step-by-step drawing guides so for anyone who missed out on benefits from previous months i put them in my etsy shop where they can be purchased separately so in august i made 489 dollars from patreon if you're thinking of getting started on patreon yourself you will need an established audience on any platform something you can provide them with that they don't get from the rest of your content and time every month to create the benefits and that one is really important some pros and cons of patreon some pros are you get to provide extra value to people who like your content it can be very scalable you'll be doing a similar amount of work for five patrons or 500 patrons and you can choose what benefits you provide and can be as creative as you like with them some cons are it can be a lot of work and it's not as personal as social media platforms okay so i want to mention affiliate marketing briefly because i do make a few dollars from it here and there but it is not very much i don't push very hard on affiliate marketing and i only recommend things that i actually use and like so it doesn't come up very often and for me it just isn't a big earner affiliate marketing is when you recommend a product to an audience and give them a link that is tracked to you or your business and if someone makes a purchase using your link you make a small commission for referring them it's important to make sure that you always disclose that the link is an affiliate link so that people know you're earning a commission from it i will use affiliate marketing if i'm letting people know what gear i'm using like i do in the description of my videos because i know that's something people ask but mostly i like to use it to share art resources like creative bug who have online arts and crafts classes that i like because they're really high quality and fun to watch so that's something that i do share sometimes and in august i made a whopping eight dollars from affiliate marketing to get started with affiliate marketing yourself you will need an audience that trusts your opinion to sign up to affiliate programs i'm a member of amazon affiliates and share sale to create links for those programs to products or services that you trust and like and to share those links with your audience on your blog or social media channels some pros and cons of affiliate marketing are the pros are that it's low effort to set up and it's passive once you set up the link and any content you want to share with it some cons are it takes a while to earn from it and it's not very creative my biggest income in august was from commissions and client work i recently wrote a post on patreon about getting started with commissions and my story with them but the gist of it is that i started being asked by people on instagram if i could draw their pet or a portrait of them or some friends and so i started charging for drawing custom commissions i prefer chatting to customers one-on-one in instagram dms about their request and then accepting payment via paypal but i know that others have listings in a shop like etsy where people can purchase a commission that way around mid-year i got offered a big illustration project that i took on so i paused my personal commissions to focus on that instead but to me it comes under the same umbrella of illustrations i'm commissioned to do for someone else and the income even now over the last few months works out to be about the same as personal commissions so last month i earned 500 for commissioned client work to get started with commissions yourself you will need examples of your illustrations so people can see what style they'll be getting this can just be illustrations in your instagram feed somewhere to show off your examples like instagram or on a shop like etsy a way to communicate with your customer about what they'd like you to draw and a way to accept payment some pros and cons of commissions are first personal commissions are really nice to do because you get to be a part of something special for a customer they're really fun and you get paid to draw it's super easy to get started and doing them is great practice for your art skills some cons are they can be time consuming and it can be hard to price for them [Music] so those are all the ways i earn money through my art and social media channels in august 2021 some ways that i'm planning to earn money in the next six months are monetizing this youtube channel which requires a lot of views and watch hours so you're already helping with that by watching this video creating online video courses about things like digital illustration building an audience and building a business from your art and making my own brush set to use and to sell to others so they can use it as well you'll probably notice a theme throughout this video that it's much easier to monetize if you have an audience that doesn't mean you need to have a big audience you just need a set of people who know like and trust you and then to offer them something that they want or that will solve a problem in their lives so if you haven't already i cannot recommend enough that you start building an audience and if you think you don't have the skills to share with an audience yet then share the journey like i did i set out to learn how to draw and hoped to eventually earn an income from my art and knowing that i was a long way off from being able to do that i started sharing the journey on instagram so that i could build an audience along the way it's taken a huge amount of time and work to get even to the amount i'm earning now and it will take a lot more time and work to earn enough to make a comfortable living but i love what i do and i'm determined to make it work and to show you that if you also dream of illustrating and getting paid for it then you can make that happen none of the content art or income on my channels would exist if i hadn't decided that i was going to create it so if you want a similar thing then build it for yourself it's only going to happen if you do it thank you so much to anyone who has ever made a purchase from me because your support really helps or even if you've been supporting me by watching and engaging with my content i really appreciate you and you're helping me achieve my dreams if you'd like me to go more in depth into these income streams and how to build them for yourself then let me know in the comments and i'll make a video series about building an art business thank you so much for watching this video i really hope it helped you and i'll see you in the next one

Channel: Mimimoo Illustration

Views: 122,811

Rating: 4.9873075 out of 5

Keywords: how much money i make as an artist, photoshop art, digital illustration, photoshop, photoshop artist, artist, instagram illustrator, instagram artist, beginner art, art for beginner, digital artist, beginner photoshop drawing, social media artist, mimimoo illustration, making money online, passive income art, art income, earn money with art, how to make money art, digital art earnings, digital art passive income, how to make money online, Digital artist income

Id: 6uZ4XsygalU

Length: 10min 10sec (610 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021