The Crucial First Step to Making Money From Your Art

The Crucial First Step to Making Money From Your Art

Derived from…
Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable
Previously
How Gifting Has Changed

RAP7 : Your Tribe
PROFIT : Previously commerce was centre stage because it was more profitable to produce average products for average people. Art was marginalized. Today, art is central. Your new model for success is: Create art first, a tribe will likely follow and commerce will fall out of this.

Performing Your Art
Consider a busker performing in the street.
Some passers by will stop, others won’t.
Some will applaud, others won’t.
Some will tip a coin into their hat, others won’t.
If the busker doesn’t ply his art, there is no performance, no fans, followers, tribe or commerce.

It all begins with the busker’s art. By being the artist and sharing their gift, the opportunity is created for tribes to congregate and ultimately for commerce to occur.

Now, there’s an obvious ‘maybe’ in this approach.
There’s no guarantee anyone will want to pay for your art.
An alternative approach is to design your art for an audience.
However, as soon as you take this route you’re not doing your art anymore.
You’ve contaminated it.
Either way, you have choice: To do your art or not.
Once you’ve created your work then invent a way to monetize it.