Show Me The Money

The standard method for artists to get money is to Sell Stuff, either through a distributor (gallery, publisher, music company, movie company, etc.) or as an individual.

But there are a lot of other methods for getting money, some of which are fairly common and some which are not (although there is no real reason for the rarity of the latter in most cases other than “this is the way things have always been done”). And in case you think that these methods are too complicated or too unrealistic, consider the following: A writer, actor, musician, singer, songwriter, or dancer can get paid over and over for the same thing, and yet everyone considers that a normal way of doing business.

The Internet has created "Digital Patronage:" sites where artists can connect with fans and get funding. Kickstarter, of course, is the best known and since its founding in 2009 has raised $1.9 billion for nearly 100,000 projects of various kinds, the most popular being music, which has raised $149 million for 22,000 projects.

Other sites include deviantART, ArtistShare, and Indiegogo.

Later posts will cover other unconventional methods for getting money.

No [Person] But A Blockhead Ever Wrote, But For Money

Samuel Johnson (1709-84) said that. If you are an artist (writer, dancer, painter, sculptor, musician, photographer, movie maker, whatever), alone or as part of a group, you may protest that you are trying to send a message, or uplift society, or change everything. But the simple truth is that very few artists can ever make enough from their art to practice it full time (see, for example, this review of "Why Are Artists Poor?," by Hans Abbing). And even if you can spend some or all of your time at it, you may not make a lot, and your expenses can be considerable. Sadly, schools, whether dedicated to arts education or having arts departments, rarely teach artists about the business aspects of their profession, helping to insure that "starving artist" is more than a cliche.

I am one of those part-time artists (free lance writer - fiction and nonfiction). I was lucky enough to help out for 4 years in a course, "The Business Of Being An Artist," which was designed to help artists understand more about making money and managing the business aspects of their career. This blog will serve to transmit some of that information to a wider audience in the hope that it will help some of you to avoid pitfalls and perhaps even live long and prosper.

The blog is dedicated to my colleague Nancy Thornborrow, a remarkable person. She started the MBA program at Mills College, turned it into the Lokey Graduate School of Business and served as its first Dean, and advised generations of women as Chair of the Department of Economics and counselor to the Lokey MBAs. Among her many accomplishments, she started and ran "The Business of Being An Artist" course, which was attended by many of the undergraduate and graduate arts students from the well-known Mills programs, and also by some of the Lokey MBA students.

On a lighter note, here's some sage advice showing what it is all about.