25 Income Streams for Creatives (and HOW to start them!)

one of the most common questions creative people have is okay I have this interest I have this passion I love it I love doing this creative work how do I make money from it how do I turn into a job how does how does this happen explain it to me and well I've talked about that question just a couple times like once or twice like here and there today I want to explore it from a little bit of a different angle I want to talk about not just what income streams are available to you but

when you should pursue them two really vital things because there are so many incredibly talented creative people that start way too complex of a business way too early they try to do everything and it doesn't work they get burnt out and they quit before they ever experience real success and I don't want that to happen to you thank you so much to Squarespace for sponsoring this video the first category of income streams that I want to talk about are active income streams these are cases where you are directly trading your time for money a job

is a very classic example you clock in you make money you clock out you stop making money right custom commissions also great example things like Pet Portraits live painting at events murals you do the thing and you make money and then you stop making money after that right it's kind of a oneoff deal selling Originals is a very active income stream you are putting in the work every single time to make that painting that sculpture that custom dress whatever it is right and then once it's sold like you ship the thing out and it's not

there anymore you don't have it you can't leverage that asset that you've created to make other things unless you're doing prints and stickers and other stuff right which is something that you should be doing by the way you should absolutely be selling prints and stickers and merchandise it's a great way to take that asset that you've created for your business this piece of you know amazing original work and leverage that in multiple ways but it's more doable for folks like visual artists than it is for folks that do sculpture in-person events like art fairs Anime

conventions and makers markets are also a great example of an active income stream you put in all of the effort to create the originals the products the prints the merchandise for the event then you show up you set up your table you do the thing and you make money and then the event is over and you leave and you stop making money you can minimize this granted by having a really good kind of like customer capture strategy by having your you know repeat and prospective customers sign up for things like an email list you could

have a QR code on a little banner and give people a discount for signing up to your email list that way that is a great way of staying in touch with the customers that you build relationships with at these events but even if you do things like an unsold inventory sale to your email list after the event chances are probably the bulk of your income is going to come when you are live at those events when you are actively doing things rather than when you are just selling to your email list for example the last

income I want to mention on this active list is freelance work things like editorial illustration concept art maybe you do children's book illustrations maybe you do storyboarding you are trading your time for money you are not building a thing that you can sell many times after that's kind of the difference here that's the big distinction that I want to hammer home when you are building an asset when you are creating a thing that you can sell multiple times that is called p passive or leveraged income as I like to call it personally there are Income

streams that fall into this category there are a bunch of them digital products is one of the main ones that I can think of immediately I am a really big fan of digital products I like them a lot I think they are so so valuable for creatives of all types I have a ton that I sell myself mostly in kind of the educational side of my business but you could do things like brush packs textures you could do things like tutorials or demos you could have mockups you could do I don't know like DND character

sheets or digital stationary or like emotes for twitch and Discord ton of things like there are so many ways that you can leverage your art and your creative work and the skills that you are building to give yourself more time off more Revenue I have a whole video by the way on product ideas it's a really great video you should watch it I think you would like it a lot also on this list of like leveraged income streams or online courses I know that online courses always have like kind of a bad rap or something

and like I get that there are bad online courses out there but I have personally taken a bunch of really valuable online courses I think the quality of the education is like really what we're talking about here it's not like the product it's sell for like the category of product it's just the quality I think if you're going to make an online course just make the genuinely best thing you possibly can just put your entire heart and soul into it make sure that you are delivering a really high quality product for your customers and make

that the focus of your energy and you'll do fine you'll do totally fine also on this list print on demand print sales the way that it works is that you have some kind of file of your art be that a scan a photo an exported file what have you you upload that to the website of a manufacturer and then as you get orders in they manufacture so they print out and ship the orders for you you do get a cut of that profit and in return you have to do none of the work and that's

pretty nice that is pretty nice also on this list we have art licensing and wholesaling art licensing is really for folks that do like a lot of pattern design a lot of like I don't mean to be insulting by saying this but like kind of generic artwork let's say like abstract stuff maybe you do mostly kind of patterns abstract work maybe you do like cutesy illustrations with like n a ton of like narrative components to it this is basically where you partner with a large company and they license your art from you and give you

a royalties check in turn that could be some kind of flat royalties scheme or it could be based on the goods sold and usually it's paid out kind of quarterly so it's like a big paycheck a couple of times a year wholesaling is very different wholesaling is basically where you have your entire collection of products in your online store and you partner with like a brick and morar store somewhere else it also could be an only retailer whatever and they pay you a wholesale price for a certain amount of goods you ship that off to

them and they pay for like the thing in b usually or maybe you do it kind of like on commission kind Like a Rolling basis where you give them like 10 prints and they pay you a certain amount of money per the ones that sell and then eventually after a certain amount of time you like get the unsold inventory back for example okay ton of stuff there so jaty oh gosh this is going to be a long one I do want to take a moment to thank Squarespace for sponsoring this video when I first started

sharing my art online one of the smallest but most impact ful steps that I took was creating a professional website it gave me a home base for my work that I actually owned and controlled and Squarespace made the process incredibly simple even when I was completely overwhelmed by all of the technical aspects of building a creative business whether you're just interested in sharing your art via a portfolio or you want to start selling your work via an online store Squarespace has all of the tools that you need to build a beautiful professional website their templates

are designed to make your work look incredible and they're built in marketing tools like email marketing help you grow your audience and sell your work with confidence when it comes to having a home for everything that you do online there is truly no platform easier to use and more versatile than Squarespace when you're ready to give it a try go to squarespace.com Kelsey Rodriguez and use my code Kelsey Rodriguez and all caps for 10% off you are first order of a website or domain the next category of income streams that I want to talk about

are platform income streams this is where you build an audience on a certain platform and you leverage the kind of builtin monetization features of that platform to make money off of that audience things like YouTube AdSense great example of this right probably you watched an ad before you saw this video maybe you've watched an ad in the middle of this video I make money from that that like pays my bills it pays my rent it feeds my cat it like gives me health insurance it's great YouTube is like just the Best in Class when it

comes to platform monetization there is literally no better platform on the planet right now for paying creators and making a full-time living like YouTube has kind of single-handedly created a creative middle class and that is kind of insane and exceptional twitch of course is also on this list they pay their creators we also have Creator funds for platforms like Snapchat Tik Tok Instagram they all have their own unique features and their own unique ways of paying people out and like unique ways of even like raising the funds they people out with but it's a whole

thing and you can get paid for posting your art and your content online and that is kind of cool like I think in general I like the idea of getting paid to Market myself and my art and my business that's kind of nice you know it's like oh yeah like a part of having a business online is creating content and like talking about my art and the stuff that I do but then I could also get paid for that and that's kind of cool I like that a lot personally the next thing that I want

to mention here is paid newsletters like substack like beehive like convert kit they all have paid email newsletter options things like medium and subsec are I think the best at this maybe subsec is a little bit better either way I know folks that make an entire full-time income from their substack email newsletter like genuinely it is insane and so so cool that writers now have this really great platform to not only have discoverability but monetize their creative work I think that's really exciting also on this list we have social media sponsorships things like brand deals

like for example Squarespace is sponsoring this video they sponsor a lot of my videos that again helps people pay my bills it helps me make art it pays the rent for this office like it is just genuinely really really great and these Partnerships hopefully with brands that you genuinely like right like you enjoy working with them you like their product you use it yourself it's just a really great way to pay the bills I know folks that do stop motion animation for Brands like Samsung and those are really cool Partnerships I know folks that have

been like flown out to different countries to watch like for 1 for example and do you know artwork and stuff for them and that's really cool and exciting I love platform income I think it's genuinely really great it's provided a huge amount of financial stability in my own life and I'm incredibly grateful for it also on this list that I wanted to mention teaching platforms that have built-in discoverability right things like skillshare udemy teachable a ton of things on that list as examples but all of them basically are an Avenue for you to share your

expertise while also gaining some amount of following the process and making money next up on this list we have hybrid income streams this is kind of the miscellaneous category this is the category of like stuff that I couldn't figure out where else to put it and so I put it here instead it kind of these income streams really mix aspects of active income streams and aspects of passive or leveraged income streams so they're kind of like Towing the line they're existing in many worlds some examples of hybrid income streams include things like live group coaching

or cohort based courses where you have a place that you have to be at a certain time but then you also have like the group element so you are teaching many people at once not just one person or you could leverage the recordings in a really cool way to make profit for the done line stuff like that also things like membership communities using platforms like Kofi or patreon or Discord or even YouTube memberships I thought about including this in platform income but it didn't feel right in the case of patreon because patreon does not have

built-in discoverability right patreon is all about like monetizing an audience that you have built elsewhere and that's amazing that is a Lifeline for many creative people but it is not really the same thing as a platform Revenue income stream in my opinion um yeah I think it just fits better here often because you do have to like really actively deliver stuff to that Community you have to show up you have to be active you have to be doing things you have to be marketing it and I think that is an important kind of caveat to

mention there also on this list are things like limited edition releases for things like merch prints Originals even seasonal collections anything with like a live launch component that then has like a Evergreen element to it we like okay yes you've launched this thing it has been live launched you have done a whole like campaign to announce it but then prints are just available forever right the merch is just continually available it's not like super scarce in that way that's kind of what I mean there also last one on this list are virtual workshops that you

can then kind of Leverage the recordings of into a paid product maybe this is like a 3-day live class that you teach about watercolor basics for beginners you teach that live you take in those questions live and then you leverage those recordings into like a small little mini course that you sell for like $25 or something you know what I mean so let's talk about which income streams you should start with and which you should add later here's what I recommend starting with number one one main platform for sharing your work this could be a

platform that you're interested in getting platform revenue from later on but either way it really needs to be a place where you are optimizing for eyeballs right this could be in person it could be online number two you really need some something super simple to sell maybe a print on demand shop or a super basic digital product something with low startup costs that lets you practice selling selling is a skill it is a skill that lots of creative people are not too good at but it's a skill you can get better at it right you

can practice that's what this is really for if you're trying to primarily sell in person I think that your small kind of lowcost product should probably be Originals something small something very doable don't start with like a 3x4 ft oil painting okay that's that's not what we want here number three the last thing that you need to start out with is an email list I ignored email lists for way too long and there is probably no bigger regret that I have in my business like genuinely not taking email marketing seriously has been a huge mistake

for me because in the past like 3 to 6 months I've really focused on it and I have had some of the best months I have ever had my business as a result as a direct result like emails have converted far better for me than any social media post ever ever and my email list has like less than 5,000 people on it compared to the 260,000 subscribers that I have here on YouTube like the math is just staggering it's like truly insane focusing on those three things things gives you a really stable foundation for your

business you can test things out and just try stuff without having a huge financial investment without losing a ton of money that you cannot afford to lose right you can just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks and the world doesn't end if it doesn't work out and once you have that first product working meaning that you're getting some sales and you have a better understanding of your audience here is what you might want to try next if you started with digital products you should create a few more at some different price points

try some super simple print on demand products maybe and consider taking commissions if you enjoy like the one-on-one active income stream kind of work if you started with Originals or in-person sales you might want to test out local art fairs or makers markets you could add prints of your most popular pieces you could have a small online store where you sell unsold inventory stuff like that you could also have like print on demand limited editions that you do not sell in person to kind of entice folks to your email list you could do inperson or

virtual workshops a whole poost of things ton of options the key is to start small and to build gradually don't jump into a huge project like a book or an online course or art licensing those are things that you work up to I strongly recommend that you focus on really mastering one or two income streams first like don't overwhelm yourself like really do not overwhelm yourself building a business I have said this a thousand times but genuinely really it will just take a lot of time right it's going to take years just let yourself enjoy

the journey let yourself not be super stressed out don't expect immediate results from your business allow it to grow naturally and organically you also don't need every single possible income for your business there is no set amount of income streams that indicates a healthy business it's really just about what aligns with your creative practice what provides Financial stability for you what you enjoy doing and what allows for the growth and experimentation that you need as a creative that's it that's it if it's just digital products all the luck in the world to you right like

I wish you the best if it's just art fairs that's amazing I'm glad I'm I'm glad that it works for you like the whole point of learning about the theory is to assist your implementation but don't let videos like this one stop you from starting right don't let videos like this one make you feel super disheartened about a business that you really feel deep in your heart of hearts will work try it let me know how it goes right and if it doesn't maybe turn back to Theory and pick get that idea a little bit

more and try and refine it a little bit but if it works like that's amazing there are so many exceptions to rules like this like I don't want to put you in a box you know what I mean okay so if you enjoyed this video I did write a whole book you can buy that you can read it there is a free preview available it comes with a mini course the mini course is currently over 2 hours long I'm adding more to it every single week and it also has a bunch of free updates associated

with it that are coming very soon and an exclusive community of creatives just like you it's really a great place to be and yeah that's all for me I will see you in the next one bye super long video wow this was this was this took forever okay bye