How Much I *ACTUALLY* Make As a Full-Time Artist

Instant gratification. We LOVE it. It’s that feeling you get from opening up Instagram or watching a new YouTube video. It’s that feeling of buying a pack of Chips A’Hoy cookies from Walmart instead of making a batch of cookies at home. It’s that big ol’ dopamine hit that requires zero effort on our part.

Statistics say that only 36% of people who set New Year’s goals actually make it past the first month of pursuing them. Why? Because goals take effort. They aren’t instantly gratifying. It’s a lot easier to create a vision board on Pinterest than it is to actually take the steps to achieving what you want.

And building an art business is no different than any other goal. It’s no different than working out or learning to bake sourdough or becoming debt-free. There’s no instant gratification. There’s only doing the work to make it happen.

#INCOMETRANSPARENCY. A trend that’s been floating around the wide world of the Internet lately, and it’s recently entered the art niche. Full-time, part-time, and hobbyist artists have jumped on the trend and begun sharing what they make from their creative careers and what they spend to keep their business running.

So many artists have been sharing their $10,000 profits on social media, and I’m BEYOND happy for them! That’s an incredible achievement! But it’s an achievement that’s taken most of those artists years to build. They didn’t start their business and immediately make thousands of dollars. During the “building block” stages, most of them didn’t see any financial return on their creative investments for many months or even many years later.

But those building block stage profits aren’t what we see on social media, and that can give new art businesses a very skewed image of what building a business really looks like. So, last May, as an artist still in that building block stage, I decided to share my own earnings.

I earned a grand total of $257.83, and the truth is, I was pretty embarrassed to share it. My numbers didn’t match all the other artists I was seeing. But I couldn’t help but wonder if there were other artists out there feeling the same way I did. Feeling confused about why or embarrassed that they weren’t making as much. So, I shared the numbers, and it resonated with a LOT of people.

Let’s fast-forward to December. I decided I wanted to participate in the trend again, and here are the results:

Patreon: $108.61

Etsy sales: $40.00

Personal shop sales: $532.57

YouTube: $263.82

Affiliate marketing: $75.48

Local craft fair: $80.00

-Fees and supplies: $138.86

GRAND TOTAL EARNINGS: $980.76

Some might look at this and see an income that doesn’t pay the rent. That doesn’t buy groceries. That can’t afford a car payment, doctor’s appointments, or dog food.

But I look at this and see GROWTH. I see a massive increase from my May profits to my December profits. I see the last three years of time and effort dedicated to growing my art business finally beginning to pay off financially.

I won’t lie, it’s been hard. I’ve wanted to give up more times than I can count. But let this be an encouragement to you (and to me) that slow growth is good growth. Like roots under the soil, growth is often invisible. You may not see immediate results from the effort you put into your job, your health, your art, your hobbies, but good things take time to grow.