The tools to sell your creative work directly to fans have never been more accessible or more affordable
A friend told me in junior high that I’d never be able to sell my cartoons.
The next day I rode my bicycle to the local newspaper and asked if they’d buy them.
I ended up meeting with the publisher. He told me to polish them up and bring them back.
A few weeks later I was a published cartoonist getting paid for my work and even wrote about me a few years later.
I was maybe thirteen years old and I had no idea that wasn’t how it was supposed to work.
I didn’t know enough to be scared, which I’m convinced is the only reason it worked.
Looking back, I think the publisher saw something in a kid who rode his bike to a newspaper and walked in off the street.
It certainly wasn’t my cartoons.
It was probably my nerve.
I continued drawing for them for years and the exposure opened up an incredible amout of doors for me as well as teaching me some valuable lessons.
Most adults wouldn’t do what I did that day without overthinking it into the ground.
That was my first lesson in what happens when you put your work in front of people.
Since then, I’ve had hundreds of complete strangers buy my cartoons - many from outside the United States.
I even sold a cartoon directly through Chat GPT, which is something most businesses can’t say yet.
Every single time a stranger trades their money for something I made, it still surprises me a little.
It’s a feeling not everyone gets to experience.
And proof that selling what most consider a hobby is possible.
I always wanted to be a syndicated cartoonist, but that path has pretty much closed with the decline in print publications - especially newspapers.
Going out on my own was the only option, and it turned out to be the better one.
However, none of that would have happened if I had stayed home that day.
You have to put your work out there.
If you don’t, the customers, the opportunities, the fans, none of them can find you.
And the good news for anyone reading this right now is that putting your work out there has never been easier or cheaper in the history of creative work.
During the pandemic, nearly 60% of Americans picked up a new hobby, and about half of them turned it into a side hustle for extra income.
That’s not a coincidence.
People finally had time to sit with something they were good at and ask whether it could become something more.
A lot of them found out it could.
New research from Squarespace analyzed more than 30 hobbies and found that creative pursuits like writing, graphic design, animation, and crafts are generating real annual income for people who pursued them seriously.
Graphic design freelancers average over $50k/year.
Animators average over $80k/year.
Writers are close behind.
Print-on-demand and merchandise design has seen search growth of over 600% in the past four years alone.
That last one matters specifically for creatives, and it’s the thing that has changed everything.
Years ago, if you wanted to sell your art on a product, you needed a syndicate, a publishing deal, a gallery, a physical location, expensive equipment, and a lot of money you probably didn’t have. Those barriers (and gatekeepers) kept most creative people out.
Now, all you need is a computer and an internet connection.
Print-on-demand platforms like Printful (what I use), Printify, and Redbubble let graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, digital artists, and writers put their work on products and sell directly to customers anywhere in the world, with no inventory, no upfront cost, and no minimum order.
You upload the design.
Someone buys it.
The platform prints it, ships it, and deposits your cut.
You’re not in the business of manufacturing.
You’re in the business of making things people want.
That’s a fundamentally different world than the one I started in.
I’m not going to be like everyone else out there promising millions overnight.
Although if you strike lightning, it could happen.
Even if you can earn $300 - $500 a month from work you’d be doing anyway, that’s a car payment.
That’s a utility bill.
That’s a little breathing room.
And for some people, it becomes a lot more than that.
More than the money, you’ll be building something.
Every platform you set up, every product you launch, every customer you reach is a business skill you’re developing in real time.
Those skills don’t stay in your side hustle.
They make you sharper, more valuable, and more independent no matter where you work.
The kid on the bicycle didn’t know he was learning any of that.
He just wanted to prove his friend wrong.
Turns out that was enough to get started.
Go ahead - prove someone wrong.
Even if it’s yourself.