MAKING GREAT CONTENT

Before we get to selling your art, we have to discuss making great content. It’s useless to try to sell something that isn’t great.

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How to Build Your Creative Career was my first non-fiction book. It is set up in five sections: How to Make Great Content, The Basics of Sales, Building an Audience from Scratch, Making Money at Live Shows, and Launching your Product Successfully. Every creative I’ve ever met is stuck at one of those stages of their career, and this book gives you the tools to open those floodgates, overcome those blocks in your own career, and supercharge your career. You can find more of my work on my website.

How long have you been trying to build your career? How many hours have you spent banging your head against a wall? How much money have you sunk into ads and marketing that just don’t work?

Now, what if you had a blueprint that could show you all the elements you need to build a creative career without feeling gross about it. How much would that be worth to you?

This book can’t guarantee you a successful career, but it can give you all the fundamental knowledge you need to set you up for success because it was written by a creative for a creative.

Paid subscribers can access the entire archive of this series from the beginning, along with other series and every article I’ve ever written. If you aren’t a paid subscriber, you can access the archive for free with a 7-day trial.

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I hate the way creatives treat their livelihoods. There seem to be only two career options for any creative I speak with: a soulless career as a corporate drone or a whimsical flight of fancy pursuing their passions while living in squalor. Go and ask a creative for their business plan, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred you’ll be laughed out of the room.

“I’m an artist, not a businessman,” they’ll say. Break that down for a moment. This person, who is trying to build a list of clients and increase their revenue year over year by offering products people want to buy, has flat out stated they are not a business.

That’s crazy talk. Creatives are as much a business as a plumber or a web designer or an IT consultant. They have to file taxes, deal with audience building, find clients, negotiate with vendors, and deal with every other nuisance that other businesses encounter; however, they believe themselves cut out from the rest of business like special snowflakes.

It’s easy to see why, of course. In creative circles, business is portrayed as soulless, money centric, and dirty. This idea of thinking of art as a business is something that bristles even the most successful creatives. After all, art should never be sullied with money, right?

Wrong.

It’s that kind of thinking that devalues artistic endeavors and prevents creatives from making a decent and consistent living. Those who can make a living are in constant competition with people who will do the work “for the exposure,” because they’ve been taught that art is something you pursue above monetary concerns. Therefore, successful artists are consistently underpricing their work relative to their experience to keep up with an undervalued market.

It’s the reason that some of the most successful artists of all time died in squalor and misery, their talent only being recognized upon their death. It’s the reason companies can exploit creatives for far less than they are worth, making massive profits in the process. Corporations certainly do not hold the same stigma about creating a business from art as creatives do.

In fact, massive industries have built their fortunes on the backs of artists. Marvel, DC—heck, the entire advertising and publishing industries—generate billions upon billions of profits from art every year while creatives can barely make rent.

Well, I am sick of it. I don’t blame the companies for exploiting their workers. I blame us, the creatives, and the idea we’ve lived with for far too long that mixing business and art is gross. It’s not that thinking of yourself as a business is a necessary evil; it’s not evil at all. Implementing business practices into your art allows you to get better clients, improve your life, and gives you more freedom.

Growing a brand and a business offers you the flexibility to turn down work and have enough money to take vacations with your family; it allows you to save for retirement and prevents you from working your fingers to the bone just to scrape by. 

I learned this a long time ago when I was stubborn and ignorant. I thought sales was gross and marketing was evil. I thought people should value my work for its merit alone. I thought people would magically find me…and that puppy dogs cleaned their own poop.

Of course, this isn’t the case. The market is flooded with content. It’s impossible to stand out from the crowd without a bullhorn. The good news is that it’s also never been easier to build an audience and find a market for your work. The tools are already in your hands.

That’s what this book is about—how to turn your art into a business and make a career as a creative.

What is a creative? A creative is anybody that makes things. This includes, but isn’t limited to: writers, painters, sculptors, craft people, comic book artists, singers, musicians, animators, and people that create things from scratch, with a strong emphasis on people who create products, whether that be books, art prints, jewelry, oven mitts, et al.

I am a writer by trade and a publisher by profession, and my experience skews toward comic books and novels. However, I’ve done my best to give examples from all creative fields.

I’ve broken my thoughts into five sections: Creating great content, the basics of selling, building an audience from scratch, making money at live events, and launching a successful product.

Together, these are incredibly powerful tools, but even alone they can make you a better business person. Every lesson is packed with ways to build your career as a creative and start thinking about yourself as a business without feeling yucky inside.

Thank you so much for picking up this book. Just by holding it in your hands, I know you are more serious about your career than 99 percent of creatives I meet. You are ready to make more money as a creative, and you think buying this book is a good idea.

May these pages help you expand your business and give you the freedom you deserve.

Before we get to selling your art, we have to discuss making great content. It’s useless to try to sell something that isn’t great.

Why?

Because the world is flooded with great content. There are great artists, writers, sculptors, animators, and every kind of creative you can imagine. You can’t walk into a flea market without seeing ten things that will blow you away.

If you’re going to compete, you have to make something great and consistently perform at the level of greatness. Once you can make great stuff again and again, then you are in the game.

Wait, did I just say in the game? Do I really mean that making great content doesn’t guarantee sales?

Absolutely.

Making great content means you are IN THE GAME. It’s the first step to building a career. It doesn’t mean you can win the game, or that people will buy from you. It just means that your stuff is now salable on the open market. It means that it’s competitive with everything else out there.

Creators often come to me and ask why their stuff isn’t selling as well as mine. Sometimes, it’s because they stink at sales, but it’s usually because their quality sucks. I can immediately tell they took the cheapest route, hired the lowest-priced manufacturer, and still priced their work equivalent to the best available products on the market. 

That’s crazy.  Why would somebody buy their crappy stuff when they can buy something way better for the same price?

Answer: They wouldn’t.

You have to outperform—or at the very least meet—the market standard before you can expect anybody to consider buying from you.

Sure. They might buy once out of pity. Anybody can be tricked into buying something once, but they won’t be lifelong customers. And that’s what we are trying to achieve here. We aren’t trying to get a one-time customer. We are trying to get a customer for life.

That’s what we are going to explore in this section—how we can make great content consistently so we can attract customers who will buy from us forever.