Income for Artists
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Most people believe that it is difficult to make money using one's creativity and artistic skills. When you have a full time job as a multimedia designer, it's a different story but if you are an independent artist and work for yourself, becoming financially successful is not so easy. Selling your art is hard unless you know what exactly you are capable of doing, who is your potential target group and how to market and sell your talent. Yes, you are an artist but you also have to become a marketer and to be able to focus on planning, promotion and customer service.

Different talents require different promotion and sales tools and methods. If you like taking pictures with your digital camera and you are able to do it well, you might be interested in selling your art to micro stock web sites like Shutterstock or Istockphoto. If you produce hand made or digital illustrations, graphic pieces or even vector images using Adobe Illustrator, you can also use these stock agencies. When you work with micro stock you should keep in mind one important thing: both quality and quantity matter. You have to produce very large amount of high quality pieces in order to maintain decent monthly income.

If you do paintings, you can try to sell them on Ebay, Etsy or any other online stores. The web sites like Etsy are quite suitable for all kinds of artists; just look into all the categories there and you'll find a huge variety of approaches, media and styles. Find as many web sites as you can because greater exposure provides better chances to sell your art.

The good thing is that more and more people would rather buy original and unique artistic gift (for example: a little painting, a hand made card, a piece of jewelry or even a hand made toy) then a mass produced item available everywhere. This tendency is a pretty good chance for all kinds of creative professionals to show and sell their artworks.

No matter what you do, you should always have an online portfolio. You can make a profile page on a portfolio network like Carbonmade or Bigblackbag where you can upload your best pieces and write a little bio, but at the same time it is a very good idea to make your own web site. Having your personal branded web site adds a great deal of creditability to your art. You can register your own domain name and buy hosting which will cost you about 5 bucks a month.

Do not forget about social media promotion. Upload your art to Facebook, make a fun page and set up a Twitter account. Do not forget about Youtube! Make a few fun videos about your art. Having your personal blog is also a very good idea. All promotional means are good. If you are talented you'll be successful, just let the world know you are out there.