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Online Digital Painting Tutorials.

Lexauton

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Hey everyone! I've been working slowly these past few months on my site www.powerpainters.org.

The main purpose of the site is to provide a plethora of free and premium content for all digital artists-- aspiring and established.

At this time the only way I have for generating revenue is the premium tutorials, but I'm definitely open to other avenues as to how I can monetize the site or related aspects. I'm confident that through free marketing methods that I've researched I can grow my following, I just want to ensure that I'm giving them the best content that I can. SO that they're veritably excited to pay for it.

My current plan is as follows:

-Generate tutorials based on research, feedback, and every other factor that I can implement to determine what subject people want to learn about the most.

-Market the tutorials through blog posts, youtube videos, facebook, deviantart, twitter, tumblr, and any other vein I can crack open.

-Devise plans for testing other means of income generation, such as E-books, direct mentoring, Onine-Workshops, etc...

-Read every relevant book I can on generating wealth, Increasing my artistic caliber, and marketing/advertising psychology.

-Go to conventions one year to network with other artists and hand out business cards for PowerPainters. Go to the same conventions the next year except with enough money to purchase a table for power painters Merch and promotion.

-----------------------------------------

My plan in the interim is to continue to freelance as I have been, and aim for even more prestigious clients as my artistic abilities grow. Once I have done work for these big-name clients, my name is attached to well-known heavy-hitters in the industry, and marketing is done for me. This is one beautiful by-product of maintaining a strong freelance profile....Plus I get paid for providing them the value in the process.

essentially, I consider this about a 2-4 year plan, as the seeds I plant in many of these gardens will take some time to grow.

Anyway I'd love to use this thread to document my journey. I'm very, very open to critique and opinions as I humble myself in all areas of generating revenue and creating financial models that will provide value and last me for years to come.

Thanks for reading! I'm off to work on more premium & free tutorials. I'll be checking back and updating as regularly as I can.

**EDIT** I'd also like to note that as of right now, I have made NO sales thus far. Not disheartening, as I know it's only a matter of time. I just wanted people to know just how rudimentary I'm starting out.
 
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Lexauton

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Hey everyone! Quick update.

So things haven't been going ideally, but until one is proficient at their endeavors when can we ever hope for the ideal? haha.

I've not been able to generate much traffic despite having a good deal of content getting pumped through all of the social media I can muster. For reference purposes, here are my accounts and their stats:

Youtube - 20 subscribers - 11 videos
Facebook - 38 likes (I need to post my content on facebook groups more, I've only been hitting up forums lately)
Tumblr - 23 followers
twitter - 5 followers - 10 tweets

My mailing list (after doing a free giveaway of premium content) is at a whopping 10! ;P

I've not been able to get more than 300 unique visits per month to my site www.powerpainters.org since I started in August.

I decided I'd buy a $20.00 ad from deviantart.com to test out my demo graphic, here's my ad, and the stats it's gotten so far:

2,149 Impressions 5 Clicks 0.23 CTR

I get 20k impressions total, but at this rate that's only 45 clicks, and unless those convert it's not worth my $20 thus far. This is the FIRST ad I've ever purchased/designed though, so I plan on doing better after I get the final stats. Here's a picture of my ad for those who wish to critique it: POWERPAINTERSAD.jpg

And that's been it thus far! I've tried emailing a couple heavy hitters to see if they're interested in being interviewed for my channel, but since I don't have a large following to direct to them It's hard to provide value in that respect.

I've been leveling up my art like crazy, and I'm definitely at a professional level as I've been freelancing regularly. I'm just a couple steps of away from getting some reputable clients that already have a large following.

So that's my update for now, I'd really, REALLY love some feedback as to actions I can take to grow my mailing list, sell my products, and build my following. I love providing content to artists everywhere, so any help would be vastly appreciated. Thanks for reading!
 

DennisD

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I think you need to "level up" your art a bit more before making a monetary grab with this.

Going to your site and seeing free tutorials, and then seeing that you offer them also for cash is a turn off. I immediately want to leave.
I feel that the tutorials you're giving away for free aren't worth my time... If you have free ones and then paid ones, the free ones clearly don't tell me everything I need to know.

Additionally I don't think your tutorials are good enough to make me want to pay for 'more of the same' or whatever. It's one thing to showcase your speedpaints... but you should spend more time structuring your tutorials. Learn how teachers create lesson plans and work from that.

I also think that selling information is a lousy business to get into.
VideoCopilot teaches After Effects, but they make their money by selling tools that motion graphics designers need. I create video tutorials on video marketing, but I make my money selling stock video assets, not selling information.

I'd consider giving away more for free lessons... and then finding a way to sell related projects. Maybe sell tablets, or texture packs, or brush packs, or presets, or actions to artists who need it. Come for the free tutorials, stay for the products.

My girlfriend is making ~1.5K/month doing part time digital art. She has a few thousand followers, runs 3 or 4 different groups with a few thousand followers. Her fanbase grows every day.

One thing in particular that's worked is doing daily livestreams. Interacting with the audience, taking suggestions as what to draw, having fun. She probably does 2 hours, 2-4 times a week. You can similarly use a grassroots organic method yourself. Fans of you ARE fans of your site... don't be afraid to put in the manual unsalable work NOW so later you can go fastlane with the whole operation.
 

Lexauton

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Thanks for the criticism and direction. I'm always looking to "level up."

Based on your feedback, I'll restructure my approach. I'm learning all of this as I go, so if I make some big, gaping, stupid mistakes then by all means it's just concomitant of where I'm at with all of this...Art and business that is. Ignorance is painful (like thinking info-products was a good idea...)

One of the hardest things for me is to constantly dredge through when there isn't much yield, or the feeling I get that I'll be a beginner forever. I know that these are just my own thoughts trying to make me fail in my endeavors though...As difficult as it is I have to remain positive. This journey isn't easy or everyone would be doing it.

Anyway, my revised game plan is as follows:

-Make all of the tutorials free

-Start livestreaming daily or nightly, posting my links on forums and social networks.

- Begin creating assets as opposed to info products (brush packs, actions for painting FX, textures, etc..)

- Teach free lessons in a more structured fashion, not just showing what I do and explaining it.

- Find a way to become a Wacom affiliate and sell their products on my site.



Once again, I sincerely appreciate your feedback, as I've been spinning my wheels for months. I need to go hit the motivational videos on youtube, brew another pot of coffee, and get to work.
 
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DennisD

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You don't necessarily have to ditch the infoproduct idea entirely.
I'd make the tutorials free (for now) and then sell a collection of your best stuff once you have 50-100 up.
Many bloggers sell books which are just blog posts... you can do the same with tutorials.

As for your 'premium' tutorials... since they're already 'worth' $10, give them away as an opt-in incentive.
The rate I acquired new emails jumped by 400% after I added an opt-in bonus.

Another tip: Ditch the word 'learn' in your ad. Learning implies work, people don't like to work. "Free Professional Secrets Of Digital Painting" will get more clicks.

The livestreaming will certainly help you out. It works on the same principles that webinars work.
While you're painting, keep some sort of message open at the bottom of the screen encouraging them to sign up. "Get free premium tutorials (a $10 value) by signing up for the email list at www...."

Keep it up and let me know if you need any help.
 

Lexauton

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Man, can't thank you enough for the pointer thus far, Dennis! I've been streaming, acquiring more followers, and pumping out content (free and premium.) with a renewed sense of purpose. I've been listening to a lot of Frank Kern and taking notes-- which definitely isn't hurting.

Anyway, Here's an update on my progress:

-I've managed to acquire 355 followers on tumblr! This permits me to spread my free and paid content much better. Also works well for advertising livestreams.

-Made 2 brush packs for two different kinds of photoshop artists, you can see the preview button for buying them below. They're $5/each

-Got up to 10-15 people watching my livestreams when I host them, but there's an issue holding me back when streaming. Idk how to watch the chat and stream at the same time. I could just talk to people on the chat, but I have to use a super small window when painting otherwise I can't even see it, some advice on this would be nice!

Got 20 subscribers to my email list.

-Set up a shop where people can buy tablets from the Power Painters' store.

----------------------------
GOALS FOR DECEMBER:

Build my email list to 500+! (I will do this by holding a tumblr contest, as I have no money for ads right now)

-MAKE A SALE. I don't care if it's a tablet or a brush pack, I need to start getting people to engage with my premium content. plan on doing this by promoting offers to my mailing list.

Have 1000 Tumblr followers (this is easy w/ the technique I'm using)

Get 30-40 people watching my streams (congruent with tumblr following)

-Start working on my premium artist's course (this is an idea I had that combines info products and assets into a veritable bundle of value) I'd charge $53.13 for this package, and start marketing it once I get my mailing list up to snuff. I plan on taking 2 months to create this as I need to compile many things and generate a great deal of it my self.

--------------------------------

This is the part of the post where I restate that I am COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY OPEN TO FEEDBACK/CRITIQUE ETC!

I know I'm a fledgling when it comes to marketing, so I graciously humble myself and allow those with far more experience and success than I to pitch their wisdom kindly unto my endeavors. I'm not doing so well financially at the moment, but I KNOW I will provide a ton of value and make power painters a remunerative and comfortable project...It's just a matter of profiting from my failures.

Thanks for reading! back to grinding.







 

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Lexauton

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Hey everyone! Still hustling. I've been reading into some Dan Kennedy and taking lots of notes. I've also created some ads for my niche that I can release once I get some $$$. I'm excited to start using my authority site to start converting in terms of affiliate goodies.

just ONE QUICK QUESTION: I'm trying to get a free squeeze page on my WP site that has MailCheat(Chimp) integration and allows me to edit it graphically. I don't know if there's a plug-in or anything like that, but I've been searching for an hour or two and testing many things that just aren't working.

I just want a splash page with my custom graphics and copy convincing them to join. Bonus points if I can edit the "submit" button and give it better copy.

Thanks in advance!
 
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Lexauton

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Couldn't find a decent way to get squeeze page going, so I started a Tumblr contest instead in hopes of getting leads.

http://powerpainters.tumblr.com/post/69903738868/power-painters-mega-contest-cue-lightning

Life stuff:

Man, being where I'm at financially feels terrible. I absolutely hate having to trade my hours just to get by. My main motivation is financial security to pay down my student loans slowly while growing my business and revenue (plus time to do what I truly love, get better at art).

I've been hustling down freelance leads but NOTHING has landed so far. Trust me when I say that if I wanted to focus on the negative aspects of my financial pool, I'd have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning.

I have the feeling of loneliness and inadequacy stemming from almost no one around me supporting my business endeavors and everyone constantly telling me to get a real job (I work for my landlord for $15.00/hr doing administrative tasks.)

It's darkest just before dawn, I'm hoping. I don't even have enough to pay this month's rent yet, I will have enough but then I start at next to $50 come next month...I'm sick of this cycle. No savings. College was a poor decision.

My only financial goal is to be pulling 4-5k a month in affiliate and premium content sales. I'd save 1-2k, spend $250-500 on ads, and then just live off the rest. I'd be set for a while if I can just HIT THAT POINT. My monthly expenses don't exceed $900 (until my grace period ends on loans, then it's probably going to skyrocket).

Once again, if anyone can help me in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER I'd be really appreciative. I know I will make it despite feeling alone, but there's a lot of people here who can help me expedite my progress..I don't want to sound desperate, but with my current financial troubles It's hard not to.

Any advice/council/mentorship is appreciated. I've been educating myself on many, many aspects, and applying everything I can that doesn't require monetary investment.

I'll be looking around for people to PM for advice if this thread doesn't get enough eyes.

I can always provide graphical compensation as I'm a wizard with Photoshop and I can animate in Adobe After effects and flash.


Going to keep fighting forward I keep learning lessons and making mistakes, just have to keep failing upward and adjusting my course.

/rant

Thanks for anyone who takes the time to read this, and an even larger thanks to anyone who can provide some form of guidance.

For reference, here's my current store for affiliate products: http://powerpainters.org/store-2/

Not dropping links to get people to buy anything on this forum! I'm just looking for input on how to optimize it for maximum conversions, I could also use assistance in driving traffic for free or inexpensively. I have time to trade but no $.
 

avispa

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Just a thought, have you considered using Instagram?


A platform where people are constantly posting their amazing drawings, and their friends are constantly lamenting they wish they could draw.



Create a account, post daily (use Textgram Plus) and people with a passion will follow.


make sure your website is mobile ready- and save a link to your site.



I spent two weeks trying my darnedest to get people to click on my link, and wasted $40 for twelve clicks.



I took two minuets a day, and posted pictures relevant to my niche, and grew 65 interested people in four days.



Might work for you too :D



←- PS- information is NOT a bad thing to sell. If you know how to use it :p
 

Lexauton

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Hey y'all, long time no update.

More than 2 years it would seem!

A lot has happened since I opened this thread. Most of my time has been spent conquering my internal struggles that have kept me from reaching my goals, and slowly building my skills artistically and otherwise.

Other aspects have been educating myself in an ongoing manner spanning a wide range of subjects. These range from psychology, neurology, philosophy, theology, marketing, music, cosmology, health, investment, and a few others.

Learning and growing for fun and profit-- in short.

Last but not least, I've been able to amplify my freelancing abilities to the degree where I'm able to pull in $1k+ jobs- meaning I can comfortably support myself while working on my endeavors.

The business I call Power Painters (as of yet still not an LLC) that I started is still running strong.

I've had intervals of activity and promising growth during them... Though my tendency to get discouraged with a lack of growth would often lead to pursuing another area of my ever-growing pool of interests-- meaning my numbers would always suffer.

Whatever you CARE about will grow. Care is the generative principle. When I care to better my art, I do. When I care to grow my numbers, I do.

Still, I'm not discouraged. I've been able to diligently gain the discipline necessary to work on making sales and growing/serving my following.

My youtube channel is almost at 4k subscribers, and I have another 2k on tumblr. My mailing list is at 700 and I've got another 2000 I can reach via the messaging function of my sales platform, Gumroad.

As far as products go, I've created 3 different ones for $47/each and to date I've made about $3,200 total. Seeing as how I'm running this operation solo in a niche that isn't known for its heavy market share, I feel like i'm doing alright.

Still, I am impelled toward more achievement and greater service. I have personal, creative, and altruistic dreams that I want my business to fund.

All in good time though.

For now, my main focus is to educate myself on how to grow my mailing list (as more than 1/3 of my profit has come from my tiny little list)

I've also got ideas on how to take my info-products and elaborate upon them by creating price differentials for even more profit.

If I just keep growing my followings and ameliorating my products I'll be in good shape. Of course I supplement all of this with reading books on sales and marketing as well. The psychology of sales is fascinating to me-- I want to become an authority in my niche, and potentially a celebrity later down the line.

My financial goal is to hit $98,800 this year. When I crunch the numbers it feels tough, but achievable.

So now whoever's reading this post/thread is up to date with where I am. I'll do my best to cultivate the habit of contributing to the forum as MJ's book was what got me started on all of this years ago. Returning to my roots feels good.

Stay classy folks-- I'll be implementing some new tactics and returning with the results.

C&C is always appreciated too!
 
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Lexauton

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Magical update time.

The muses of Art and Music lead me off into the forest of creativity again-- and thus I spent the past few months growing my artistic and musical abilities, and not my business, haha.

One of the hardest things in the world for me personally, has been choosing to laser-focus on ONE thing until I make it happen. I've always been more of a flood-light. If I didn't have to worry about cash, I'd spend my days drawing, painting, and making music with friends.

Still, the time has come. I can feel that my level of maturity and mental focus has grown-- I used to be afraid of my skills rusting up and going away, but now that I've become a seasoned autodidact, that's not a chief worry anymore.

I don't feel that I'll lose my abilities in Art, Music, Acting, etc...When you know how to learn, life opens up beautifully-- it still requires discipline though.

Anyway, I'm OFFICIALLY turning my laser-mode onto making serious money through my online business. Because of my previous distraction, the 98K doesn't seem as feasible this year, however, I still have confidence that I can start generating a nice sum.

Here are some current metrics:

Youtube Channel: 5000+ subscribers

Mailing List: 800 Subscribers

Tumblr Account: 2.5K Followers

Mailing list of my sale platform: 2.8K



These past 3 years have taught me just how difficult it is to generate a list using free advertising methods. I'm now re-opening the PPC funnel (something I was previous afraid to do) in order to generate some quality leads and hopefully make a few sales.

I've started with a budget of $10/day on Bing and $5/day on Yahoo.

I'm targeting very specifically for one of my proven products that has had the most sales already.

My time in my niche has taught me what most people are readily seeking, and their hunger has been quantified.

My free content has been getting raving comments and reviews- I know I'm capable of serving my niche beautifully. It's just a matter of figuring out these things I've been putting off or unaware of.


MONTHLY GOAL:

Spend less than $500 on ads while growing my list to 1500.

Make $500 or more through product sales via these PPC games.

As previously mentioned, I'll be picking up freelance gigs to fund my living and marketing. I have everything I need, so I can save quite a bit and reinvest.


Any guidance at all would be welcomed, other than that I'll just be back to report what i'm learning along the way!
 
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Lexauton

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Alright, so here are some first-week reports!

PPC went alright for my first time doing it. I experimented with Facebook, Bing, and Yahoo.

Facebook charged me way too much per click, and Yahoo Gemini ate my budget within a few hours. I don't think I set the bids low enough.

Still, that deterred me from giving them another shot until I have a more reasonable handle on this game.

As for Bing, here are my stats. My main goal was to get people to subscribe and make a few sales, but I had very few for what I paid.

I believe either my keywords aren't targeted enough or my landing page just isn't sexy enough.

There was 1 sale and only 2 subs. (I Don't think the sale was from my ad, either...)

Here's some data after 7 days.

http://imgur.com/a/IffHF

I'm going to re-work my landing page, send out a subtle pitch to my mailing list to generate a few sales (for ad fodder), and try again this week.



In other news, I'm really trying to crystallize what it is I'd like to do as far as a definite major purpose goes.

The thing that will make the most difference in my life right now is to build wealth. I've never been able to overcome certain cash-flow problems.

I want a vehicle to fund the fun stuff that means a lot to me, like working on my music and art/graphic novel projects.

I've been making money with education in my niche thus far, but once I have this niche set to 3K/month on pretty much autopilot, I'll figure out how I can turn my entertainment-based works and projects into remunerative products and packages.

I keep asking myself: If I only got 1-2 things done today, what are THE MOST IMPORTANT 1-2 things I could do to reach my goal of living off a growing stream of fairly passive income?

I haven't quite found the answer yet-- hoping to do so this week.

Thanks for reading! Feedback/Help always welcomed.
 

Lexauton

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Update!

So for the past few weeks I've been thinking about what I could be doing to generate more cash flow aside from waiting on the tweaks of my PPC campaign to become profitable.

In the interim between trying to make more sales and gain more mailing list subscribers (which sadly, has been still been a fairly slow crawl.) I've opened up a Patreon page. I can always release what I create for my patrons to gumroad as well.

Thus far I'm only making $54 per two weeks with two patrons (someone went for my highest tier!) I feel that if I can just work in some sexy anime girls, I'll see my numbers go up at a desirable rate.

Part me struggles with the fact that unless an artist is very established in the industry, has a devoted following, and has done work for well-known companies (Blizzard, Wizards of The Coast, etc...) then it's rather difficult to move any kind of traffic around without paying for it.

The only options I've seen work for making good money with art are:

• Using fan art to gain an audience *I will be employing this strategy for a while*

• Being in the top 10% in terms of technical skill (I want to be here, but it takes time.)

• Facilitating some sort of community within the community. (I hate running forums.)

• Creating NSFW/sexy imagery. (Sexy? maybe. NSFW? No.)

• Selling digital assets relating to art ( My brushes and courses do okay)

• selling the artwork itself once you have a following from being in major publications (I haven't reached this point of followers and fans yet.)

• Creating some sort of project that blows up-- like Peter Mohrbacher's Angelarium series.


I've been reading through Poor Charlie's Almanac; That man has a ridiculous degree of academic power. His mental models permit him to solve large-scale problems and his discipline isn't unlike that of a great general.

He still seems like a pretty big curmudgeon though, haha.

A lot of what I've read up until this point wasn't so objective and concrete, so his worldly wisdom is doing wonders for allowing me to create new plans and make more sound decisions.

Logic is one of the most powerful forces at our disposal if we can get beside our own cognitive biases, we can solve our problems and the problems of the others readily.

My competency has always been with words and art. I'm fortunate that I like to read. Still, there are some issues that I'll only be able to solve be strengthening my understanding of mathematics and becoming much more numerically-inclined.

That's for another post though.

For now? My 1-2 things per day are going to be generating fan art and reaching out to financially successful people and appealing to their interests whilst asking how they got to where they are. I need direct advice from someone who can walk the talk-- because no one I know really has the kind of numbers I'm looking to ascertain.

Other than that, I'll just continue to test my PPC campaigns until they're profitable and growing my list.

Lastly, thanks for reading. I hope I offer even a little bit of insight into what it's like in this niche or making money using the strategies I'm employing. I've always been on the fringe of my peers and those around me in terms of how seemingly big my desire to be independently wealthy is. This is one of the few places I feel I can speak openly about my monetary goals and the struggles I'm facing to attain them.

The hardest part is maintaining the rigorous independence. I need to break down my own walls and reach out for help. Even though I have a solid intellectual prowess, there are those who know more than me, and can help me get where I'm trying to go. I need to stop being so afraid of reaching out.

More to come, going to take as much action as I can muster. I'm down to 2.5k Savings so I'll have to hunt for freelance very soon if I don't see profit within the next 1-2 months.

Here's to destroying more psychological fallacies and achieving these dreams! All I want is freedom to grow, express, and help others. I just have to get more traffic and devoted fans who are willing to buy.
 
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Lexauton

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Update.

So, nothing great to report, unfortunately. Still making a very modest income, still trying to grow my list. made $400 from Black friday.

I know not to feel all deserving and such, but sometimes I just get incredulously depressed with the lack of results and feel like I'm beating my head against the wall.

It seems like I need to find something in my niche that allows me to accelerate my growth. The ads from bing weren't converting, so I switched to FB a few days ago. Just recently began getting impressions today.

Found Alex Becker's YT, and listening to a lot of Tai Lopez too. Trying to learn the fundamentals of making money. If there's one thing I need to solve it's my earning ability.

A lot of my money goes to capital expenditures. I just need to find that vein that actually makes things profitable. Got a couple more books to hopefully do that.

I've made a Lead Pages account that I'm directing the FB traffic to, my automation is all set up, and I'm making enough sales to keep advertising and pay my bills, but my overall level of happiness is very low.

I make income by freelancing as an artist, which I hate.

For myself, it's easy to love art, talking art, teaching art, and doing my own art, but when it comes to commission work I just get depleted psychically and emotionally.

I have a $97 product I've sold a few copies of, and that's kind of nice. After I'm able to scale I'd make enough to just focus on the business and stop making art I hate for people. It just kills it for me.

A positive is that I have found a local group of like-minded people who want to make a lot of money as well. We're sharing resources weekly in person and that's helped me start working on my business again.

At the moment, I still feel like I'm not on the right path for my life. I'm 26, single, having to support my mom, and living in an apartment building wherein the rent just keeps going up.

I know none of this matters unless I let it matter. It's just so hard to get up and going some days. I sleep more than I should due to overwhelming thoughts and sadness.

I really don't know what I want out of life anymore other than more freedom, more balance, and more peace of mind. I'd like to get up every day and be excited to work.

Maybe I need to be more contrarian? meditate more? Find a shrink to talk to?

Who knows, man.

I know I can't just hope that things will work out, I have to get out there and make things happen. Stop all this learned helplessness. I grew up with anxiety disorder and now I'm verging on depression. I keep looking for a way to catapult myself into a new life, as I'm still doing some of the things I was doing when I was 14 years old.

I know sometimes people blow all of their money once they make it, or they're homeless, and my story isn't all that sad in contrast. I just need to beat this poverty BS so that I have more room to work with.

I'll keep people posted on how the ads + lead pages work. Other than that? I don't have any other ideas except to improve my products and invest in myself. Trying to beat these paradigms that have held me back for so long.

Oh yeah, patreon failed. I don't have a big enough following. Didn't plan the tiers well enough.

Until next time.
 

FastNAwesome

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I sleep more than I should due to overwhelming thoughts and sadness.

Don't do this man. In my experience, it just increases. A morning workout - or a morning walk - or morning anything as long as it's away from the bed where you can not know what to do next, but at least feel warm and comfortable - mixing comfort and sadness is maybe not the best idea.

When I'm off to the gym, or a simple walk in the morning, instead of staying in bed, my entire day becomes different.

It's a chance to get some fresh air, but fresh perspective too, and also to chat with someone or meet someone new.
 

Lexauton

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Don't do this man. In my experience, it just increases. A morning workout - or a morning walk - or morning anything as long as it's away from the bed where you can not know what to do next, but at least feel warm and comfortable - mixing comfort and sadness is maybe not the best idea.

When I'm off to the gym, or a simple walk in the morning, instead of staying in bed, my entire day becomes different.

It's a chance to get some fresh air, but fresh perspective too, and also to chat with someone or meet someone new.

You're 100% right. I've been able to overcome a good deal of this lately, and a lot of it is due in part to changing my habits like you mentioned.

Now when those thoughts become invasive, I work at a friend's house or the coffee shop. I lift 3-4 times a week and I'm finally starting cardio, so I feel that will help me to pump enough positive chemicals into my brain not to fall victim to that behavior anymore.


UPDATE:

I've done some calculations And found that I only made about $2000 this year from my products. Most of that came from my Drawing Course and my Course showing people how to get work as an artist.

Since I know that these two are my best-selling products, My aim is to triple down on them for 2017. This means all my content creation/marketing will be focused on these areas.

I'm also going to be improving both of those products and making different versions of them with different price tags. I am generating plans to make my first $179 sale within a month.

Another thing I've done is begin working on a high-ticket item, which will likely take 6+ months to gather enough value to by worth the price tag. I write a couple pages of copy vividly describing the product and how it will help my customers, and this allows me to simultaneously lay out a plan for what I need to include and do.

I've turned my website into an E-commerce store with wooCommerce, you can check it out at www.powerpainters.org - I don't know if it will convert, but if it doesn't then I'll just have to reformat the site again. I should probably be focused on gathering leads.

I've been reading FLOW and The ONE thing, and trying to distill everything I've done down to the most important aspects, and not be so focused on the outcome for my emotional well-being.

Next on my list is "Succeed and Grow Rich Through Persuasion." and "Managing Oneself" by Peter Drucker.

It's amazing just how long it feels like I've been at this, but my efforts have been so scattered. these past 3 years have taught me so much, but the bottom line is that my revenue stream is still very humble.


Actually, after going to the bathroom and re-reading all of this, I realize I'm still super scattered.

I need to be a laser, not a floodlight. Yet I'm always hopping from piece-to-piece.

It's great for learning, but bad for results. I feel I have a solid understanding of many aspects that before had eluded me, but the amount of capital I've been able to procure thus far is telling of my behaviors and modalities.

*deep breath*

I've set big, lofty goals, and even formulated plans for their attainment. The problem, however, is still the fact that I'm all over the map, running to side quests instead of actually finishing the damn game, haha.

I've been setting goals for years, and few of them have come to fruition. I think big, but then I start weak.

It's better to push for something I KNOW I can accomplish. There are many things I'm good at, but my attention span for a singular purpose is underdeveloped. I'm afraid to be or do just ONE thing.



Okay. Let's try this again.


If I could only do ONE THING every day to make $1000 in a month through my business, what would that thing be?

Well, I know my two best-selling products.

I also know that most of my sales came from youtube and my mailing list (yet I've been posting to tumblr...derp)


So the ONE THING I can do to make $1000/month through my business is to create content that I can use to update my course, upload to youtube, and send to mailing my list.

This way I can stay active and relevant to my following, build up my best-selling product, and keep growing my list.

So what's the action I need to be taking daily?

Recording myself drawing and syndicating that content to the appropriate channels.

I've found hundreds of actions that don't produce the results I desire, time to get back to the ones that actually have a solid effect.

I'm not short on ideas, I'm short on focus and appropriate execution.

Hopefully I'll build up a system around this notion too, I know how important it is to that have a well-oiled process to make things easier.

I'm going to follow this process for 66 days to see how it works, refining it along the way. I have a really manageable amount of freelance and all my bills are paid, so there's no excuse not to kick a$$.

Stick with it. Stick with it. Stick with it. No more "experiments." It's time to actually make that paper.

Update next Monday with the ongoing results.
 
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Lexauton

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Okay, so a bit late on the update!

I'll keep it brief - Here are some current metrics and notes:

Youtube subscribers: 6.5K
IG followers: 1.9K
Mailing list: 833

Sales from dec 19 - now: $546.75

Notable things:

- uploading content to my channel twice a week (Monday and Thursday.)

- collecting research based on the most popular youtube channels, as well as
other psychological principles I can leverage to ensure that I'm capturing targeted attention.

- Sold my first $127 product last night. That felt really good. It's pretty much an amalgam of all my current courses and tutorials.

- I've been extending my most popular course as well, from 8 to 12 weeks. Once I get it to this point and start the marketing campaign for it, I'll try reaching out to some influencers in my niche to see if I can strike of up any JV or affiliate deals. No pre-orders yet, but I haven't hit my mailing list with it either.


Going to spend the rest of tonight creating content for my course and channel, and planning out my week in terms of further execution.

Things I need to configure:

- My brand ( Logo, colors, mission statement, etc..even working on a mascot)

- My website (thinking of going from Wordpress to Squarespace so I can collect sales directly to my paypal easier, and have a sexier layout) This means I can also cancel my subscription to leadpages as I feel it isn't justified at this point when I can generate more attractive pages for free.

- Setting up a bot-free forum.

More updates as progress is made. C&C welcomed!
 

Lexauton

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OKAY - So it's been a bit. I admit, I got side-tracked again. Shiny object syndrome. Playing music, hanging out with friends, taking gigs for modeling and commercial acting, etc...Even doing freelance for art instead of working on my educational and entrepreneurial endeavors.

HOWEVER - I'm going to try once again to stick to this endeavor, assuming I can use the models I learned from finishing UNSCRIPTED (I read the last few pages tonight!) to turn this business into more than just a bill-payer. Gotta make enough to reinvest!!!

I've been able to root out a great deal of the negativity and depression you see past me spewing in previous posts. I used to smoke a fair amount of weed and fap nightly - I found this contributed greatly to my lack of ambition.

I can't say it's been lollipops and apple pie since quitting those things, but I definitely like myself enough not to spend 12-16 hours of the day sleeping anymore.

Lately there's been a realization regarding some supremely negative influences in my life. I may have to cut them out entirely in the future, but I hope it doesn't come to that.

BUT, let's get back to the topic at hand - Online Digital Painting tutorials.

Over the past few 30 days I've been able to generate about $800.00 in revenue with less than 15 hours worth of marketing and content creation. These are the two sales platforms I use - gumroad and cubebrush - cubebrush used to do marketing for me, but went in a more 3D direction (I'm a 2D artist) and then stopped throwing my products in the mix. Screen Shot 2017-11-25 at 10.00.59 PM.png Screen Shot 2017-11-25 at 10.02.13 PM.png

My plan at this point is to continue adding value to my highest-priced product ($137.50) by narrating and editing tutorials I recorded from creating the following images:

Anna_Autumnal_Illustration_Final(hi-res).png Aquarium_BG_04_final(lowres).jpg
I know that I have dreams of being a potent musician releasing albums and exploring music, and to illustrate and narrate the fictional stories I have brewing in my imagination, but I also want the creative and financial freedom to actually do those things.

Most artists who do this work slavishly in the industry for high-profile clients like Wizards of the Coast, Prada, Disney, Etc...They spend time earning skill and honing their chops while being paid a decent living.

Still, it's mad competitive, and if you're giving 100% of yourself to those companies, you can rest assured that your ideas are banished to the back burner.

I used to think I wanted to go that route (for one, it really helps your credibility for educational content and builds a following of artist who want to do what you've done.)

But truth be told, I have a very hard time mentally and emotionally when it comes to providing art as a service. I want to use it to create products for the market-mind, not to keep building the visions of others.

I aim to create value directly for customers. Right now it's growing my own abilities while teaching other artists how they can better harness fundamental principles and see gains in their art.

If somehow I were to ascertain work from Blizzard, WOTC, ILM, or some other high-tier client, I'd take it. But chasing down those things doesn't seem like the best plan at this point.

instead I plan to grow a sizable E-learning empire that I can liquidate by age 30-32 (turned 27 last month.) If this endeavor proves to be a dead-end in terms of generating 500k/year or more in revenue, I'll start exploring other options, but as for now this is my best shot.

So - actionables:

- Make more content for the YT channel - It's at 11k subs now

- Narrate aforementioned tutorials and release them into my product line (unless demand for a new and disruptive product really skyrockets, I'm going to focus on marketing the ones I have after this.)

- Set up a lead-capture page and optimize my site for grabbing more emails. My list is stuck at 950 subs and I should be shooting for a 10,000+ email list.

- Continue finding new ways to market existing courses - affiliates, relevant storefronts, paid advertising, etc...

That's plenty for now. I've made enough money to pay my bills for December, so I'll have 30 days more to hustle if all goes. well. I'm trying to have my first $2000 month soon. 'Tis the season.
 
Last edited:

Lexauton

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Within minutes of posting my last update, a revenue stream I'm testing that involves lower cost and recurring income had it's first enrollment.

The conclusion I've come to from a lot of my YouTube comments is that while some artists can afford my $47, $57, $67, $77, or $137.50 courses, many just don't have the funds.

So my solution was to allow artists with less capital to stream ALL of the content without being able to download it for $6.99/mo

We'll see where this leads - I've only promoted this at the end of one YT video. Could be a nice stream if I get 100+ students into it and just keep adding tutorials and such (like an art-based Netflix?)

Screen Shot 2017-11-25 at 10.56.26 PM.png
 
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