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By Carole Mooney

There’s a common misconception that being a professional artist means that you’re going to be poor. There’s no money to be found on this career path, so they claim. We know this isn’t true because some of the richest people in the world made a living off their art. Ah yes, but they are the exception not the rule, the familiar rebuttal bites back. Well, that may be the case and it is true to say that you will only make roughly fifteen thousand on your first novel as an author. It’s also true to say that there are millions of people who want to become musicians and only a few hundred major stars. So, there may be some truth in saying that it’s difficult to make a decent living as an artist. But, there’s a difference between different and impossible. You just need to know the right steps to take.

Don’t Rely On Others

The first lesson that you need to learn is that you can’t rely on others. If you are writing a novel, you should probably forget about sending it directly to a publisher. Most will only accept unsolicited manuscripts. If you’re not represented by agent, you won’t get it in the hands of a publisher. Of course some would argue that getting it represented is a trial in itself and they’d be right. It takes a lot to even get noticed by a literary agent so maybe you should cut out that step as well. Instead, you can self publish your work. Amazon are just one of the major companies offering this possibility these days. It’s true to say that a lot of writers have found great success on this particular path.

It’s not just the literary agency either. It’s possible to sell anything yourself these days without representation. For instance, a service such as Nationwide disc duplication will allow you to create discs of your music to sell to fans. You can advertise this online and make yourself a marketable star.

Create An Online Profile

If you want to be successful as an artist you can’t be invisible. You have to put yourself out there and this is true for any creative industry that you can think of. It’s important that you don’t just hope that people will find you without any help because they probably won’t. Without marketing your blog, Youtube page or Twitter feed, it’s not going to receive any attention. You should be updating each one daily and make sure that it always look fresh and focused.

Make Connections

Last but not least you need to understand this one fact. It is about who you know. If you have no connections in your chosen industry, you are going to struggle to make any ground. Knowing people in the industry will help you gain a stronger footing. Eventually, it will mean that you are presented with opportunities that you can use to boost your own career.

You see, it’s not impossible to make money from art. Although, we’d be lying if we said it wasn’t a challenge.

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Carole Mooney is a successful artist who shares her gifts as an instructor as well as commercial artist.