I'm Becoming an Artist

Dear Best Friends,

I have decided to become an artist. Specifically, an artist who makes money for doing art. I’ve heard this is “hard,” but I’m up for the challenge. And lucky for YOU, I’ll be documenting the process along the way.

I used to publish a blog that was sort of about running, but was largely about nothing at all. Some stats on its performance:

• Exactly zero people ever told me they hated it.

• Some people even told me they liked it.

• Maybe one or two people have said they miss it.

This essentially can be translated to mean that everyone I’ve ever met was obsessed with my blog and thinks daily about how they wish I would bring it back. And so, this newsletter is for you (and hopefully many other people who will all want to pay me $4-ish a month to subscribe to it).

I won’t be talking about running anymore (probably), but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find I have maintained my ability to ramble excessively about any topic at hand, and perhaps you’ll recognize that any underlying theme of content I put out is just an excuse for me to write forever about nonsense. Like when you are eating a cooked vegetable and you tell yourself it’s for the fiber, but actually it’s because you love butter (there is butter on top of the vegetable you’re eating, by the way).

In case it’s not clear:

• The topic of my publication = vegetable

• Me writing nonsense = butter

Which one of us is eating the butter? That’s hard to say.

In an attempt to illustrate my above point, I recruited Ideogram, a current favorite image generator I use at my side-hustle (oKAY! At my “real” job), and made this image:

It’s horrifying, right? And definitely not because I provided a vague and directionless prompt that resulted in this terrifying illustration; the real takeaway is that it’s more critical than ever that I become an artist to help safeguard our world against this type of thing (while simultaneously finding excuses to make/show you these pictures).

But to make it right, here’s my own drawing of what I was trying to convey:

Okay, this one got away from me - I realized I didn’t actually know how to portray the concept I’m describing, so I asked ChatGPT to take a stab to create a reference image, and I drew the first thing it gave me. Not necessarily less weird, but I do think it’s less creepy than Ideogram’s images and I’m kind of proud of it, so I’m calling it a win.

You’re probably wondering if in all my time since starting my running blog, I learned how to write more concisely and to the point, and the answer is YES. In fact, I started out with a very concise, to-the-point newsletter, which I am now “editing” by reading through it and adding long, pointless commentary throughout. This is the opposite method I use when writing for my “real” job.

However! I am compensating for my inane rambling by adding more line breaks and bullet points than I used to, so please notice and appreciate those elements.

Now that I’ve proven that I can still write terrible nonsense, here’s what you need to know as you consider whether you want this to continue showing up in your inbox:

What this newsletter will include:

1. My personal artistic efforts: what I’m practicing, ideas I’m brainstorming, and projects. Probably in the form of pictures, videos, and rambling commentary.

2. My efforts around turning this into an income-generating practice - both from selling the art itself as well as related content (like this newsletter).

3. Goals and next steps I’m working on.

4. Tons of sponsored ads (I assume).

5. Numbers - whatever metrics I decide I need to keep me on track. Probably things like how much I’ve spent/earned, hours I’ve put into this, number of outreach and positive/negative responses received, etc. Stuff that’s probably embarrassing to share but helpful to track.

6. AND - I’d really like to share as much as possible about other artists and creatives, particularly those who have added on an artistic side-hustle or pivoted full-time to creative endeavors mid-career. TBD on what that looks like, but that’s a big part of what I’d like to do here.

Some of this will be free, and some of it will be for paid subscribers.

Who this newsletter is for:

• Creative hopefuls who want to be inspired by vulnerable yet ambitious content about someone taking a stab at this.

• Nosy people who want to see whether or not I make any money or can actually do art.

• Anyone curious about how artists create revenue streams and make art a viable income.

• People who want to participate in holding me accountable for all of the things I claim I’m going to do (I’m highly motivated by embarrassment, so announcing my plans to tons of people is usually at least somewhat effective in making me do… part of those plans).

Who this newsletter is NOT for:

• Artists seeking technical guidance or art lessons. This is… not that.

• Friends/families/acquaintances who want to support me but actually have no interest in any of this. I don’t want your pity subscriptions!! Okay, maybe I do… but more importantly, I don’t want you to resent me for sending you regular emails that annoy you and you feel obligated to read when you really just don’t want that.

The newsletter will be going out weekly on Wednesdays because I want to send the first one out on New Year’s Day, and that’s a Wednesday. Today I’m giving everyone the full newsletter, because as I write this I haven’t even set up the newsletter platform or figured out the paid subscription part of this yet. But after today, I will have figured that part out and you will be welcome to sign up for the paid version! And I will likely have more information on the difference between free and paid subscriptions for you at that point as well.

I haven’t nailed down any particular format in terms of exactly what I’ll share. But in the spirit of taking you along for the full adventure, here are my personal next steps in this process - that I will, by nature of this newsletter, need to have completed before you receive this:

• Sign up for a newsletter platform - I know about both Substack and Beehive, so I’ll do some digging to figure out which one I want to use (i.e., I’ll ask ChatGPT which one to use).

  • Update: I’ve decided to go with Beehiiv, which feels risky because it costs about $40 per month if I want to have the option to have paid subscribers, and this means I’ll need like 10 whole people to be paid subscribers every month if I want to break even here. On the other hand, if I want to make any real money on this, I’ll need a lot more subscribers than that, and Substack (the main other one I considered) takes about 10% of that, which hopefully will be more than $40/month at some point. If I get a ton of subscribers, Beehiv eventually raises prices, but that is definitely not something I’m worried about just yet.

• Figure out how to set up a paid subscriber situation, in case anyone wants to pay me for this (I’m counting all of this as part of my “art” income… because this is art).

• Look at the Instagram post where I off-handedly mentioned I’m setting up a newsletter and grab the dozen-ish (optimistically) wonderful friends who asked to be included in this silliness, and add them to the subscriber list.

• Set up a link to the newsletter on my website. Did you know I made a website? Right now it’s mostly a placeholder for… something (nobody knows just yet). But I impulsively made it and spent way too much money all at once on annual subscriptions to things involved, and the only thing I added to it was a link to a (at the time) non-existent newsletter.

• Post on Instagram again in case anyone else wants to be added before I send this out.

• Send an email to people I love and respect and tell them about my newsletter in case they don’t check Instagram.

• Figure out how to get someone to sponsor the first few issues of this newsletter. Likely by offering a very low rate or make it free. Subsequently, ponder whether it’s friendly to both request that people pay for it and put ads in front of them, and if I need to pick one or the other, and if so, which is the better option.

  • Create a running list of questions to ask smart people in the interviews I am imagining I’ll do one day for this newsletter.

Now that you’re receiving this newsletter, you can assume I have done all/most of the above!

Next time, I plan to share:

• Why I’ve decided to become a (paid 🤞) artist.

• What I’ve done so far.

• A breakdown of how much I’ve spent on this endeavor so far.

• My initial goals, and progress towards meeting them.

If you enjoyed reading this newsletter, please share it with 3 people you think might enjoy it as well!

If you don’t like it, please:

1. Continue subscribing for at least several issues.

2. Create a document or note titled “What I dislike about Colleen’s newsletter” and note every aspect that you think could be improved on.

3. After a month or two, run the newsletter through ChatGPT with the prompt: “Distill this feedback into several specific action items that can guide the author of this newsletter in improving the newsletter, framing the feedback in a kind and loving way that lets her know that even though her newsletter isn’t the perfect fit for me yet, I still support and appreciate her and wish her nothing but success.” If you think you can effectively do this without ChatGPT, that’s acceptable as well.

4. Enter the feedback anonymously into the contact form on my website.

5. Continue subscribing and consider upgrading to the paid version to closely monitor whether or not I enact any of your suggested changes.

6. Pat yourself on the back for participating in a productive and helpful market research exercise.

Either way, I’m so excited to have at least a few people either nice enough or interested enough to come along for this ride. I hope that this newsletter is both entertaining AND teaches us all something, but I’ll be happy even if it’s just one of those things.

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!