5 Ways to Help Fund your Artist Lifestyle

I am writing this while I am in the middle of placing my book collection (which is several hundred books) for sale on Amazon. I am not doing this to have a Zen lifestyle (“less material goods means happier life”). I am not doing this to make it easier to clean my house, but that is a perk. I am doing it to fund my art.

At the same time, I’m dropping down to part time at my day job. Which means a lot more time to work on all the projects I have lined up, but it also means a lot less money coming in.

I realize I need to buckle down and come up with ways to fund my artistic lifestyle both for myself and to continue to keep my family happy and healthy.

Here are 5 Ways to Help Fund your Artist Lifestyle.

1. Sell your Belongings

Byron Wilkins – Episode 20

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Welcome to Episode 20!

In this episode of Jason Loves Life Podcast we have Byron Wilkins; Illustrator of comics, builder of models, editor of video/audio, capitalist pig, and drinker of beer. Byron shares insider secrets to being a freelancer, improving your artistic skills, and marketing yourself. Make sure to check out his websites below and if you get the chance, say hello to him at a comic convention (his 2014 schedule listed below) or on twitter (@tr1byron)

Where you can find Byron Wilkins online:

• tr1studios.com
• 1977thecomic.com
• webcomicalliance.com
• tgtmedia.com
• Twitter @tr1byron

Byron Wilkins’ Advice for New Artist:

The 6 elements of a successful WebComic part 2

This post is part 2, you can read part 1 here.

So, far we covered the first half of the 6 elements of a successful WebComic. The first three are: You, the Story & Art, and the Stage. For this article we will talk about Propaganda, the Audience, and Revenue.

Before we jump into these elements I wanted to take this opportunity to mention you can check out my webcomic at www.madmanofmagic.com. If you enjoy it, please share it with your friends and those who might also enjoy reading it.

Thanks!

Now back to the last 3 elements of a successful WebComic.

4: Propaganda

This is what brings an audience to your site. It is technically marketing, but I like the idea of not promoting your webcomic, but instead spreading propaganda. In my mind propaganda has more of a viral feel to it (technically it’s supposed to be on more of a political a political nature, but lets ignore that for this article).

How to Start a webcomic

Of all the things I have covered in this blog about web comics, the one thing that seems to be asked the most is “how to start a webcomic“.

Since I have a blog about learning to be an independent comic book creator and starting a web comic is an important part of the independent comic world, I’ll go ahead give you a simple checklist to get started.

Read then ACT!

Before I jump into the list I want to give you a little heads up on most people reaction to this post.

Many of you will read this and never act on it.

Madman of Magic #1 update #9

At the bottom of this update is the list of all of those who are in the “Thank You” section.  If you are supposed to be on the list (backers of $10 or more and $5 backers), please check that your name is on the list and spelled correctly.

We are still doing changes to the comic book, but we are very close!

The entire family is helping

Down to 3 printers

Kickstarter Madman of Magic Q&A

I have received a lot of questions surrounding my choices with Kickstarter and the Madman of Magic Comic Book project. I figure instead of answering the same questions over and over again, I will share them here for everyone to read.
If you have a question of your own, leave it in the comment section and I will answer them too.

Question

What do you think of Kickstarter?

Answer

Kickstarter is ideal for projects like mine.  My wife and I don’t have any way to raise funding for investing in this project or, at least in our case, not to cover all of it.  With Kickstarter we can pre-sell and see if people are interested in our work.  It turns out they are interested in our project and in a big way.

Question

Isn’t Kickstarter a scam?

Answer

I guess it depends on how you define scam or who’s projects you fund.  I am not sure what happens if a user doesn’t fulfill his backer’s rewards.  Maybe someone could have a project, collect the money, and run.  I am not sure, but the 3 projects I have funded all seem to be fulfilling their rewards

Goals of this Blog

Lately I have been posting a lot about my personal struggles with finding figuring out who I am.  The last article being a week ago on what I want to do with my life.  I have been continuing to mull this idea over and I feel like I don’t have an answer, but I am closer.  This being said, I feel this means I need to rethink the purpose and goals of this blog.

Blogging to Make money

I would like to make money from this blog.  It isn’t that I want to rip anyone off or get rich off of my readers.  I would just like to make enough money that I could cover my modest expenses and focus my full attention on my art projects (including this blog).  There is no problem or moral objection to this frame of mind, but I feel it has been forcing me to write a specific type of article.

The Digital Arts Alchemist

Having followed Internet Business Blogs/podcasts for a few years now I see the potential for making money online, but my obsessive compulsive tendencies have forced me to seek out everything I can find and devour too much content.

From this, I subconsciously want to have an internet marketing blog like the ones that I personally