While I have a few income streams for artists that have been most successful for me, I have tried almost all of them at some point or another. I’m what nice people call “multi-passionate” and what less-nice people might call “all over the dang place” when it comes to my revenue streams.

In truth, I love having money coming in from all over. I recently made a list of all the places money comes in for me and it was 46 (I’m sure I forgot at least one). Here are some ideas of how to make more money with your art!

Licensing Your Art to Brands

Licensing art to brands is a great way to make more money from your artwork, and one of the best income streams for artists. You can sell the brands the artwork, and they decide what to put it on: think mugs, shirts, planners, and so much more!

Getting started with licensing

To get started with licensing, you’ll need to create an art portfolio. Brands want to see:

• Cohesive collections, not just individual pieces of art
• Themes (holidays, a type of buyer, a hobby, florals, etc.)
• “Hero” images as well as more subtle patterns and softer images that correspond (think – the outside of the planner vs. the inside cover)
• How your artwork looks on products
• Versatility

You can reach out to brands yourself directly, especially smaller brands that you think you’d be a really good fit for. You can also work with an agent to help introduce you to larger opportunities.

Brands will typically pay you a royalty, possibly with an up-front fee for the artwork. You can negotiate based on how many they expect to sell and how long they plan to sell the items. Once the artwork is purchased, you truly don’t need to do much else – this option is fairly passive after getting the sale.

If you’re brand new, I’d recommend niching down to a certain type of potential buyer, vision, and/or industry. For example, maybe your artwork is perfect for craft beer cans, and you can reach out to local breweries that you admire!

Licensing Your Art Directly

You can also license your artwork directly to consumers or designers who want to use it. This is often thought of as digital downloads. I am a wedding invitation designer, so I have done artwork of some wedding venues, and occasionally people who are getting married at those venues will see my artwork and want to license it for their own invitations.

The best way to get started with this type of licensing is to reach out directly to people who might be interested in your artwork. 

Selling digital downloads – income streams for artists

Another great example of this is selling digital downloads! I sell digital downloads on Creative Market and on Etsy. These are both marketplaces where people are already searching for digital download artwork. You can offer personal licenses or commercial ones if you want people to be able to use your work for business designs. The things I’ve found help a lot with sales are:

• Really descriptive listings
• Trending titles / subject matter
• Eye-catching cover images
• Showing how to use the designs (realistic mock-ups, etc.)
• A variety of options in each “pack”
• Participating in site-wide sales on each platform 

I have personally found more “general” types of products to be more successful in my shop, but that’s not necessarily true for everyone! I typically sell everything for a tad bit cheaper on Etsy because the commissions are smaller (they take ~20% whereas Creative Market takes 50% of every sale!). You can of course also sell digital downloads on your own site, but unless you have a good way of converting traffic from somewhere, the other sites are generally more worth it! 

How to Sell Stationery Templates

Selling stationery templates is another great use of art you’ve already done! If you’re a graphic designer, this will be easy for you. If not, you might have a little bit of a learning curve but it’s not too difficult if you keep your designs simple. There are 3 popular stationery template platforms: Corjl, Canva, and Templett, where you can create the templates, and then you can sell them on Etsy or on your own website.

Templates can be for any type of stationery – wedding invitations, party signs, birthday cards, personal greeting cards, and more! 

Selling on Templett or Corjl:

Personally, I sell my invitation templates on Corjl. I like Corjl because it gives you a lot of protections over your designs. Templett is extremely similar to Corjl. On these two platforms, you can create designs and decide how many times the user can access, download, edit, etc. the designs. You can also decide if they can use their own images, fonts, etc. or just the ones you want them to be able to use. And you can login and edit their designs if they need assistance or want you to print them.

Selling Templates on Canva:

Here’s a video showing you exactly how to create and share invitation templates on Canva! The biggest pull to Canva is that customers are generally already familiar with Canva and comfortable designing in it.

The biggest negative, however, is that Canva doesn’t offer really any protections for your designs. The client could share their template link with a bunch of other people, and you wouldn’t know or have any recourse. So you have to balance that ease of use with protecting your designs!

Get Started with Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the outlier on this list but it’s absolutely my favorite way to make more money from my art! I make over $100,000 every year in affiliate marketing. If you are an artist you can make affiliate sales from:

• Tools that you use to make your art (brushes, pencils, etc.)
• Tools you use to run your business (cameras, easels, printers, etc.)
• Software that you use
• …basically anything that you use you can make affiliate sales from!

Getting started

I always advise that your first affiliate relationship is with a company that you love and use ALL the time. So whatever your favorite supply is! If they don’t directly have an affiliate program, you can probably find them on Amazon!

The more you share about the product, the more money you’ll make. My favorite types of affiliate content to make:

• How to use X
• Why I love X
• Why I chose X over Y
• Don’t get X if you…
• Compare X to Y
• Testing out X
• Testing out X, Y and Z to see which is best

If you already have videos / photos of you creating art with a certain product, these are great to use for affiliate marketing! Just share them with the caption “Get my favorite pen here!” and link it! 

Selling Products with your Art

Put your most popular art on products! People love to collect stickers, shirts, etc. with art that they enjoy. Even something as simple as a print or magnet can be very lucrative. The best advice I can offer is to do pre-orders for your first few products, just to ensure people are ready to buy (instead of just saying they will!). 

It’s helpful to start with your most popular art and expand that to 1-3 products that people might like. If someone sees the artwork on a shirt but is more of a sticker person, they’ll likely go look to see if there are other options in that print / design.

The hardest part about selling art products is keeping track of orders and inventory (oh, and shipping!). So if you want to see your art on products, but don’t want to run a warehouse, I might recommend Print on Demand. 

Get Started with Print on Demand

Print on Demand is a great way to see your artwork on products without managing products. You can create designs and then the Print on Demand company will handle the printing! There are sites like Printful and Printify (very similar, but Printful is my favorite by a hair!), where you can create a store of your designs or connect your designs to a Shopify or Etsy store. There are also sites like Zazzle and Redbubble where you create the designs, and the site will drive all the traffic for you. I’d recommend the former if you like driving your own traffic, or have a popular Etsy shop already! You’ll make more money but of course that comes with tradeoffs. If you want something that feels truly passive, but for smaller income, try Zazzle or Redbubble!

Overall there are so many new ways to make money with your art! If you can make a little more money from each piece that you create, whether that’s by putting it on a product or simply getting some affiliate sales from sharing the tools or process, then you will have more time to create what you love!