What is Reddit's opinion of How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist: Selling Yourself without Selling Your Soul (Seventh Edition)?

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Don’t judge your own process by likes. That’s not accurate or even relevant. You should judge your progress not by what random strangers think, but by your own improvement.

As far as starting an art business, that’s a very hard thing to do. Not impossible, but it takes work. Plus making art for a living may not be as fun as you’d think. Bonus round there are a lot of ways to make a living as an artist, well beyond sharing work and doing one offs as an artist only making their own work.

I would suggest you read this book which is a decent primer for art as a business.

And don’t shit-talk your own work. At least not In public. It always plays off as false humility, looks unprofessional, and well.. if you don’t like it, why should I?

I'd read a few books. There are some great guides out there on how to market yourself more traditionally (like to gallery owners, etc.) like How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist

But I'd also read some books on social media marketing and how to build a following. The more of a built-in following you have online, the easier it will be to market new pieces. You only have to do the dirty marketing work once really, and then it takes care of itself.

So... what do you want to do with your art?

If it’s making money. You can, it’s possible. You have to produce a lot, produce consistently, and produce stuff that is in demand. There are audiences for all kinds of works, some big, some small, some easy to tap, some hard to find. If that is the game you want to play, learn about the industry you want to get into. Work on making art, you can’t sell yourself or your work if examples of it don’t exist. There are lots of different ways to make money as an artist. Most people here are probably thinking of selling one painting at a time, but it’s way more diverse than that. You can do the vending circuit, go to art fairs or conventions that fit your subject matter, you can look into how to publish your work online and sell your work on products or license it out to companies that will use your work to sell products. You can become a production style artist and interpret your clients visions, or you can try to sell your own art you make for you.

it’s very common in our culture to see success as equaling an income, and to only see the value in art with how much you can get someone to pay for it. And... that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with making money.

But let me give you a different approach.

They call art a practice for a reason. The way I phrase is it is that art making is a journey that you take. Each thing you make or do informs the next thing you make or do. Mistakes and failures can hint at a better idea to make the next thing you do wildly impactful and amazing. All artists whether commercial or fine go through growth as they continue to make work. We are constantly learning about mediums, design, techniques, and ways we can apply them.

I have come to understand that success doesn’t always mean financial success. Lots of artists, and I myself, have fallen into the trap where you make a thing and people love it and come to expect you to always make that kind of thing... and while it sells and makes money, you can be very dissatisfied and unhappy. Because making the same thing for some artists is stifling, what was once fun becomes a slog. Working in the studio becomes a painful exercise, not a joy of experimenting and discovery. Don’t get me wrong, some artists are very happy at being production artists. Perhaps you will be. It’s just that in my experience many people who want to try the artistic lifestyle burn out quickly because they find what they enjoy does not correlate to mass producing work tailored to other people’s expectations or in making the same thing over and over again. They get frustrated and they quit, in part because it’s not fun anymore, and often because success in the art world in regards to recognition takes time, and people get upset that they don’t get a lot of attention and followers right away.

You’re asking if you’re too old to create. No. The only time where it becomes too late to create is when you are dead. I would however advise that you focus more on the journey of becoming an artist and less on commercial success and recognition. This is your life, you decide how you want to live it. Coming from experience, if you are only making art to please other people, or so that you will be liked... you’re not going to end up happy. You won’t really be expressing yourself, you’ll be falling into that trap in telling people what you think they want to hear. Instead I suggest you develop your craft. Get involved in your local art scene. Meet people, make friends, volunteer for art orgs (great way to get involved). If you can afford it once the plague lets up, take some workshops. When you’re practiced enough, or have enough consistent work, start looking for ways to show and exhibit. Find the venues that are right for you. This will take a lot of self education and time, and there are a lot of books about this topic so I hope you enjoy reading. Keep making, and keep finding ways to get your work out there. Look at the careers of artists you admire and look at how they manage their practice.

So.. yeah. If you’re in your 40s like I am, you got potentially another 40+ to be on this creative journey if you’re lucky. That’s a lot of time to explore and develop your art practice and to see where it takes you. No matter what or how you define success, it all comes down to making the work. So do that, keep exploring, keep learning, keep making. Learn about the different directions your work can take you, and think about what success really means to you. There are no wrong answers, but knowing this will help you set clearer goals.

For reading material, I suggest starting with this book . And don’t think about it so much. Just make shit. Don’t worry about age or making money at this, decide what kind of person you want to be, and be that. Life is too short to be anything else IMO.