Passive Income For Artists (Part 1)
As a professional artist, you know how money comes in waves, and sometimes very small infrequent waves. Illustrations, portraits, murals or any other form of commission may keep you in the financial clear, but it can take up so much of your time, you struggle to create your own body of work.
A Starving Artist is not usually a Productive Artist
Passive income is not a typical asset to an artist. I sell prints frequently through a company that handles all the work and once a month puts money into an account for me. While the general idea of this is gorgeous, the commissions I make are too small to ever depend upon.
Generating a large amount of passive income through other means, on the other hand, is very possible and can be done with a commitment of only a few hours a day, depending on the method you choose.
I’ve been exploring ways to generate multiple streams of passive income, that will use up only a couple hours per day leaving the rest of the time to choose what I want to paint/create. All of these ideas will take up time in the beginning, along with some money, but these are obvious investments for a very real possibility to be financially free.
Where to begin?
With a lot of programs offering you “Get Rich Quick” plans, it can be difficult to see clearly what you’re getting into. I’ve bought into many of these and every one of them offered value, but most didn’t say up front that it will take a lot of work in the beginning. Some of them explained the work in general but failed to mention how tricky and time-consuming the work could be. This is the nature of passive income: an initial investment of time and money that will reap financial reward if done properly. The best programs, then, are the ones that explain every step clearly so all you have to do is follow along and not get discouraged.
Some of the most common types of passive income:
- Affiliate marketing – creating websites that promote products, services or resources you are recommending and getting paid every time someone purchases your recommendation.
- Digital products – online selling of training, information and other digital products such as ebooks, images, videos, etc. This can be done through your own websites, sold through other affiliate marketers, or through market places like Amazon.
- Physical products – online selling of any physical product through your own websites, other affiliate marketers or markets like Amazon. You can sell your own work in prints, for example, or products from other companies where your only job is to connect the buyers to the shippers and collect the profit.
In this article, I’m talking about Affiliate Marketing as Part 1 of explaining the options of Passive Income. I’ll explain Digital and Physical Products later.
Building multiple streams of Passive Income takes time, initially, and patience. Many people give up early because it seems too difficult at first. If you have a clear aim and can follow the directions of good teachers, you will be able to take full advantage where so many others drop out. There is an overwhelming wealth of knowledge available on the internet if you can sift through it all or choose the right system early on to teach you the skills that will set you apart from the millions who don’t get it.
Some of these skills include:
- Website design and development
- Copywriting
- Traffic generation
AFFILIATE MARKETING
Affiliate Marketing is a system where you promote the product someone else is selling. When you, the Affiliate, sell the product, you receive a commission. The commissions vary so that is important to consider before putting any work into whichever product you choose.
You can add a link to your own website in the form of a banner ad or you can build a small website and drive traffic to it. A link is easy and will work great if you already have a large audience viewing your site, and if the product you’re promoting is valuable to your audience. Building a website and driving traffic to it is a little more work, but can be much more lucrative if done right. This is what I’ll be focusing on in this article.
Creating your own site is simple:
- Purchase a domain.
- Purchase hosting for the domain.
- Choose a wordpress theme.
Once you have picked a product to become an affiliate for (more on this below), go over to domain.com or godaddy.com to buy a domain. Don’t worry if the perfect domain name isn’t available, just get something close. For example, if you decide to promote a Raspberry Ketones Supplement, you might use buybestraspberrydiet.com.
You will also have to purchase hosting for this site which can be done through godaddy.com as well or hostbaby.com, or any number of places. Many of the hosting sites will install wordpress easily for you. You will still have to configure the page though.
Any online income strategy is built around a website, and so the design and functionality is obviously important. The mistake most people make is to make a site that looks like crap. My own mistake was to spend way too much time building an awesome-looking site only to find nobody could find it.
The easiest way to begin, if you haven’t already, is to familiarize yourself with WordPress. There are thousands of designs available to choose from with thousands of options to customize your functionality and design.
To help you dig through the sea of options, do a little research on Google about “best wordpress themes for affiliate marketers.” Many of these will cost, but not much, usually about $30. A lot of them can be used for different websites, so you can use it repeatedly.
Pros of Affiliate Marketing
- You sell other people’s products; you don’t have to create it.
- There is a huge earning potential.
- You choose the products you want to promote.
Cons of Affiliate Marketing
- Making sales requires getting your website/ad in front of people who will buy it, and this takes time, effort, and usually some money.
- There is usually competition to sell the product.
- It requires a lot of learning and fine-tuning skills.
Affiliate Marketing Summary: This is an excellent strategy for eventual passive income to pursue since it offers some of the highest payouts depending on which product you sell. It requires certain skills to learn, however if you’re focusing on a niche and building a responsive audience, you will see passive income and eventually be doing very little work to keep it going.
Affiliate Marketing Resources:
*Use these to find your product. They offer many affiliate products in many categories of niches.
Here is a system with detailed instructions that I am still using. The coarse is easy to follow and especially excellent if you’re completely new to Affiliate Marketing.
Andrew Hansen starts you with his clear formula for testing the potential profit of products before investing any of your time or money. He then takes through all the steps he has used for the past 7 years to create a steady and large passive income.
As far as the business of Affiliate Marketing goes, this coarse is the most comprehensive I’ve seen so far, and much cheaper than other programs I’ve looked into.
The More Lucrative and Easier Alternative to Affiliate Marketing
I continue to build my business as an Affiliate Marketer using Andrew Hansen’s instructions, but I dedicate more of my “business” time now to Empower Network which is a platform that not only helps drive traffic to my businesses, but also has the potential to generate a massive amount of passive income, along with invaluable daily inspiration.
A couple reasons why this beats other strategies:
- Empower Network sets up a clean, fully functional site for you.
- Empower Network offers a massive amount of valuable help for promoting your site.
- Empower Network is a fast-growing platform for marketers to make huge profits.
If you have the time to learn the ropes of Affiliate Marketing, definitely check out Forever Affiliate and go through Andrew Hansen’s steps as I am doing. He will guide you through the complicated world of online marketing with clear instructions and a concrete formula for testing products before investing your times. No matter what though, I urge you to look into Empower Network now and begin building your passive income. The starving artist is not usually a productive artist.
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More soon on Passive Income for Artists.