Jamie writes: I’m in college. What should I be doing now so that I’m not a starving artist later on after I graduate?
I’ve watched your previous videos where you talked about learning business skills like marketing, so I’m planning on taking business classes like marketing in college before I graduate, what else can I do to help my cause?
Should I make a website at this stage? Should I start a blog at this stage? Should I do a video blog like you do at this stage? I’m a sophomore right now if that helps. What else should I be doing?
Please help!
Take any business and marketing classes available. This is the main area artists fail in. Read books and blogs about marketing and social media as well. There are SO many free resources available, so use those! You may want to take some basic web design classes if those are offered. Not because you will be designing sites for others, but so that you can make your own great. I don’t so much mean in coding (you can use a wordpress site now and skip having to do all that), but for understanding what features to include in your own.
I would absolutely recommend getting your website, blog, and videos going now! It takes time to learn how to best use these things, start learning now when making that income from your art isn’t a big deal. If you wait until you’re trying to pay rent, it won’t end well.
It took me YEARS to build a fanbase. This is not something that generally happens overnight. It also took me years to get comfortable on camera, so if videos are in your future, start getting used to that now. Get all of your social media pages going (at least facebook, instagram and gplus). Doing all of these things now is going to put you in a much better position when you are out making a living.
In addition to that you may want to look into joining local art shows and artist guilds. Start getting your stuff in the public now 😀