Why it’s not enough to be an artist if you want to make a living off it

When someone tells me he’s an artist, it usually means he doesn’t make any money. Artists and money don’t seem to fit together. But you have to get rid of this conviction if you want to make a living from your art.

I have a problem with calling myself an artist. I am an author. When I write, I am an author. Who paints is a painter and who makes music is a musician.

The words author, painter, and musician express what someone is doing. Being an artist, on the other hand, stands for a way of being and thinking. I also find that the word artist is often associated with a certain arrogance.

You don’t understand me, I am an artist

I often hear that from other authors when it comes to how you can earn money with your books. Authors who see themselves primarily as artists look down with contempt on those who also see a business in writing.

Whoever writes for money betrays art and makes himself the whore of mass taste.

At the same time, however, these “artists” insist on the right to be able to make a living from their art. In their opinion, the government or someone else should make enough money available to every artist so that he can pursue his “art” undisturbed.

After all, art serves society.

Well, yes …

The misunderstanding of the artists

In my experience, the more vehemently someone calls himself an artist, the more dilatant or detached his work is. Anyone who works only for art and not for an audience is not doing art any service.

Art and therefore books, pictures, and music, are not an end in themselves. For me, all arts are there to please people or to make them think.

Art that doesn’t reach people — in other words, art that doesn’t find an audience — isn’t worth paying either. Period.

But suppose one of these artists produces really great works — shouldn’t he be paid for them?

I say: of course he should. But it’s his job to ensure that. He has to show his art to the public. Yes, he must impose it on people and force them to look.

Why is that so? Because people are already more than busy with the thousand things in life. Nobody is actively searching for an undiscovered artist.

As long as people don’t know that this grandiose artist exists, they have no way of paying him.

An artist must also be a manager

Of course, we authors, painters, musicians, and all other artists are not ordinary businesses. But we should really know the principles of management.

The first thing we have to manage in our work is ourselves. Our ego, our impatience, our strengths, and weaknesses — we have to have everything in mind if we want to create our best work.

The next thing we have to manage is our portfolio. We need to expand it, make it known, market it, and indeed sell it.

All this requires a planned approach and, at first glance, is in direct contradiction to the chaotic, creative act of art.

But it only seems so. The chaotic and anarchic, through which our art is apparently produced, is ultimately nothing more than a practiced workflow.

Authors must know the laws of storytelling, musicians the theory of harmony, and painters must understand the perspective and pictorial composition.

What is necessary to make a living from one’ s art

Only if the artist succeeds in taking a real-life perspective will he be able to earn money by practicing his art.

The easiest way to make this change of perspective is to see yourself first and foremost as an author, painter, or musician, rather than as an artist.

I make art — and that’s precisely this art. I paint/write/ make music.

That’s the product I can sell. I can’t sell my being an artist.

Whoever understands that at least has the chance to make a living from his art. Everyone else won’t make it.

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