For three years, I scraped by, homeless much of that time, selling my Sharpie drawings. In the process of actually selling 80 or 100 major pieces of art, I learned quite a bit about blogging, social media, and promotion in today's world. In 21st century fashion, I learned by watching how-to videos to get the basics, and then actually putting the ideas into practice. So that gives me several options.
I'm working on a small book, which I'll likely publish as a zine, to help small businesses start or improve their content creation and social media. Very few small businesses do this much at all, let alone really well. In the major recession that's looming, this will be critical. A lot of businesses, large and small, will soon get wiped out. In the same way that the wind in a thunderstorm trims the old, dead, and useless branches off trees, recessions and depressions weed out the poorly run businesses. In today's rapidly changing world, the businesses based on old, Industrial Age business models that are no longer valid, will also fall by the wayside.
I can sell the little book I'm working on to the small businesses who are interested. That's one option. It's inevitable that some of those businesses will ask me to do their social media, but I'm already doing that for one active business, and the small one I'm building, to help me build my own income in the meantime. But the going to rate to help people figure out how to best use blogging, social media, content creation, and get them going, is $20-$30 an hour, so there's another option. A few hours of that here and there would add up.
In addition to that, I recently learned there are job boards online, filled with businesses who hire people to do the menial work on Pinterest, which I'm doing a lot on these days. Instagram is for fronting and pretending. Pinterest is for selling. That's why I spend far more time on Pinterest. But I can sign up for those jobs, doing the same menial Pinterest stuff I do everyday, for $1,000 or $1,200 a month. One guy says he was doing as many as ten of those jobs at once, making $10,000 to $12,000 a month. So that's another option. I could probably handle two, maybe three, of those jobs, and keep doing most of what I'm doing now. Boring, but it pays well for a while.
The more appealing option, is to simply use these tools to build my own income with affiliate marketing, and selling my own writing and artwork online. Less money at the start, but far more interesting, and it's a long term thing. This would focus on some smaller drawings and written works. In any case, I need to find the combination of these ideas that will put at least $1,200 to $1,500 a month in my pocket, enough to get a room or apartment before too long, a cheap car, and a good bike to ride. And a skateboard, lots of good skate spots around here.
With all that going on, I've barely been doing any drawing in the last couple of months, my last days in Richmond, and my time here in Lancaster. So I'm going to go kind of underground with my Sharpie art for a while. Rather than keep drawing people's favorite musicians for $2-$3 an hour, I'm going to draw some ideas I really want to draw, and then have a little solo art show somewhere around here. I'm aiming on making that happen by the end of August. When I get to that point, you'll all be invited, if you're anywhere near Southern California, anyhow. The move back out here to California, though it's keeping me super busy, has given my life some basic stability, which is what I needed to take the next step, and begin to rebuild my life.
Oh, and I'm sitting on hundreds of little stories about taxi driving, homelessness, and other weird things I've experienced, so I'm going to start sharing some of those stories, as well as more ideas on creativity, art, the creative process, and using social media and blogging to promote whatever it is that you do. So that's the tentative plan at the moment. Things an change at any time, I know that better than most people. In that case, I'll adapt, and keeping moving on.
Here is the drawing I just finished, for freestyle friend Alma Jo Barrera, last night. This is her Project Bug, built as a tribute to other soldiers. It's followed by a couple more of my favorite Sharpie drawings. #sharpiescribblestyle
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