Every creative dreams of being able to quit their day job to pursue their craft full time. And Zen Pencils creator (and Artist Shop owner) Gavin Aung Than managed to successfully trade his corporate design job to pursue his passion of cartooning. But while Gavin managed to turn his passion project into a successful career, his story is also humbling and realistic. It took more than simply posting a comic and gaining success – getting to where he is nowRead more
Posts tagged: #marketing
5 Ways to Support Your Cause
In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need events to raise money for causes – people would just donate! Luckily there are a million different ways to raise money and awareness for your cause, charity, or movement. Here are 5 ways to support your cause in the form of events, swag, and some important organization tips. . . . 1: Don’t create an event, create an experience Sometimes, the draw of a charity or cause alone just isn’t enough. Consider throwing anRead more
How to Make a Creative Cover Photo
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Threadless Artist Shops may all be pretty different online outlets. But the one thing they (and most social media outlets) have in common is that you can add a cover photo to the top of your page. Cover photos are a relief for those of us who are indecisive when picking out our profile picture. But besides being fun and cool-looking, cover photos can also be a great tool to uniquely advertise your art! Here are aRead more
9 Ways to Get Your Art Noticed
“How do I get people to see my art?” – that is the question. Because let’s be real – there’s a lot of art out there. Not all of it is good, buy-worthy art, but the whole artistic industry is pretty saturated, and it’s easy for art to get lost in the fray. So how do you make yours stand out? Here 9 ways to get your art noticed: 1. Posters for Local Events Try starting local! If your town has a regular FarmersRead more
How to Launch and Grow Your Artist Shop
With e-commerce making it easier to reach a global audience, actually setting up an online shop shouldn’t feel like a virtual Rube Goldberg machine. That’s why we created the Artist Shop platform in the first place – to make your online store as easy as possible so you have more time to make awesome art and less time spent doing this: Artist Shops aim to make e-commerce as easy as scrolling through “confused John Travolta” gifs on Giphy. But as easy as it is to set up a shop of your own,Read more
What Rewards Should I Offer for My Kickstarter?
Kickstarters, Indiegogo campaigns, and all those great crowdfunding tools are fantastic ways of garnering some funding and attention for your passion project, and have proven to be super successful! Setting these up is super easy…but deciding and planning what rewards to offer your backers? Surprisingly hard. So if you’re wondering, “damn, what rewards should I offer for my Kickstarter?” here are some tips. . . . Video or printable tutorials This is a perk that LoishRead more
How to Promote Your Comic Book
With comics becoming more mainstream and more alternative comics being sought out, it’s a good time to be in the industry. No longer are comic conventions tiny, niche, intimate gatherings – now, they’re full of A-listers and attract hoards of crowds. They’re the new cool and it’s more important than ever to learn how to promote your comic book or webcomic. 5 Ways on How to Promote your Comic Book 1. Crowdfunding TO PROMOTE YOUR COMIC BOOK Don’t underestimate the power ofRead more
How to Network With Other Artists
Imagine this – you’re waiting at a bus stop with a couple other folks, super tuned into your Spotify playlist, and as you look toward the direction of the bus, you spot a person doodling in their notebook as they wait. You tap them on the shoulder, compliment their style of illustration, get into a conversation about your favorite illustrators, and this conversation carries onto the bus. Cue the business card swap as they get off the bus at theirRead more
Tips to Create Effective Promotions
There’s more to creating effective promotions than just getting a wacky inflatable tube man…especially since we’re talking about online shops here, so wacky inflatable tube man will probably not help you. There are a lot of factors you might want to think about – type of sale, how much you can afford to discount an item (literally), planning out sales and promoting them on social, factoring in how much you have to make to break even with that wacky inflatable tube manRead more
How Google Analytics Can Help You
“Google Analytics” is kind of one of those terms we throw around a lot, but still don’t understand. Kind of like the Cloud. We all talk about the Cloud all the time, but do we really know what it is? Before showing you how to sign up for Google Analytics, let’s talk a little bit about what Google Analytics actually does and why it’s an important tool. WHAT IS IT? Google Analytics is very basically a tool that gives you moreRead more
What is SEO and How do You Use it?
Whether or not you’ve heard the three-letter-‘word’ “SEO,” there’s one question we can all relate to: “WTF is SEO…” SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Which also kind of begs the same question: “wtf is search engine optimization?” Search engines like Google and Bing have always been tools to gauge the popularity of sites. SEO kind of leaves a trail of crumbs for ants to follow, if you will, or a trail of Reese’s Pieces for ET – it sets up a path for searchRead more
How to Get Press Around Your Online Shop
The process of getting press around your shop is such a double-edged sword. On the one hand, in the world of publications? There are so many options! On the other hand, there are so. many. options… It’s one thing to even just filter which publications would be the best ones to cover your shop and you as a designer. It’s a whole ‘nother thing to, y’know…get them to actually do that. Here are some tips for how to figure out what publications to contact, how toRead more