This is a free art business course made from 12 of my YouTube videos, in the order I’d watch them. Five modules: your first $1,000 and a plan, the money (paying yourself and taxes), what to sell, content, and selling and launching. Watch one a day and you’re done in under two weeks.
I took oil painting classes in college alongside my political science degree. Zero minutes on how to sell a painting.
So I taught myself the business half, mostly by getting it wrong (I once owed the IRS $10,000 I didn’t have). I started my YouTube channel in May 2020 and had 547 subscribers by the end of my first year. Six years later, these are the 12 videos I’d send you first.
Why I teach art business for free on YouTube
Honestly? I don’t know if there’s ever been a time in human history where education is as accessible as it is today. You can learn basically ANY skill for free on the internet.
Business is a skill. Pricing is a skill. So I put the strategy out there for free.
But after every video I post, the same question lands in my inbox: okay, I watched it. Now what?
Part of the problem is the order. You end up collecting business advice from forty different YouTubers (hi), one random video at a time, and none of it connects. So this is my answer to “now what”: the videos I’d send you, in the order I’d send them.
How to use this free art business course
- Watch in order. Your first sales come first, then the plan, because your income goal decides how much you need to sell, and how much you need to sell decides how much you need to post.
- One video a day (or one a week, honestly, I’m not your boss).
- Read the written version if you’d rather skim. Every video below links to its blog post, which has the math and the examples written out.
- Do the homework. A few of these come with a free worksheet, calculator or flowchart. Use them.
- Fix one thing at a time. The biggest mistake I see is trying to fix everything at once. Find your bottleneck, fix it, then move on.
Module 1: Where do you start? (your first $1,000, then the plan)
Before you build a website or pick a logo, you need a few sales and a number to aim for. These two come first.
1. How to make your first $1000/month from your art in 30 days
If I had to start over, I wouldn’t build a website, make a logo or open an Etsy shop. All you need is your art, your phone and an internet connection. Then it’s step by step: short-form video, content for customers, selling in your stories, and an email list. Written version: how to make your first $1,000 from your art.
2. This 10 minute business plan will make you $100K in 2026
Once you’re making sales, make a plan. Pick a specific income goal, divide it by your price, and check honestly whether you could sell that many. If you can’t, you raise your prices, grow your audience or add products at different price points, then break it into a monthly sales quota. Written version: the 10-minute creative business plan.
The 10-minute business plan
Is 250 realistic for your audience? If not, change the price, the audience or the products. Run your own numbers with the free Creative Money Map.
Module 2: How do you handle the money? (paying yourself and taxes)
The boring part that keeps you in business. I learned both of these the hard way.
3. Money rules you NEED to follow to hit $10K/mo (for small business owners!)
My business hit six figures in 2023 and I was still barely paying myself. This is the four-account system I use now (with automatic transfers so it basically runs itself), plus the three questions I ask before I spend money in my business. Written version: the money system that finally let me pay myself.
4. Small Business Taxes for Beginners (LLCs and S-Corps explained for artists and creatives)
The moment you make your first dollar, you’re a sole proprietor and the government expects a cut. I forgot that and owed the IRS $10,000 I didn’t have. Sole prop, LLC and S corp explained, the math on what an S corp can save you, and when I think it’s worth switching (talk to a CPA first, I’m not one). Written version: do artists need an LLC?
Module 3: What should you sell, and how much should you charge?
5. How to grow ANY creative business to $10K/mo FAST
If working harder isn’t growing your revenue, the problem is probably your business model. I break down the three most creatives cycle through (retail, education and services), what growth looks like in each, and why the strongest businesses mix them. Written version: the three creative business models.
6. If you want more sales, STOP UNDERCHARGING
Undercharging feels generous, but it makes you cut corners on the experience you wanted to give people, and eventually you start resenting your own customers. You’ll learn why charging more is a favor to them, and how to hold the line when people push back. Written version: the reason your business feels like a chore.
Module 4: Where should artists post, and what should they post?
7. Your business isn’t growing because you’re posting on the wrong platform.
Your business only needs two platforms. One discovery platform, picked by what you make (there’s a free platform flowchart for this), and an email list, because there’s no algorithm standing between you and someone’s inbox. Written versions: how to pick your two platforms and email marketing for artists.
8. Content creation is 10X EASIER when you know this. Seriously.
If content feels way harder than it should, you’re probably trying to create like someone who doesn’t think the way you think. The four creator archetypes (the intellectual, the analyst, the visionary and the adventurer), and how to build your workflow around yours. Written version: the four creator archetypes.
9. Copy this content strategy to BLOW UP your Instagram (I have proof)
People won’t care about your work by default. Bond content connects your work to something your ideal customer already cares about, and the bond, believe, buy strategy behind it works on any platform because it’s built on buyer psychology. Written version: bond content.
Module 5: How do you get consistent sales and launch your work?
10. Copy this marketing strategy to BLOW UP your business.
For years I lived in a feast-or-famine cycle: one good month, then nothing. My skills weren’t the issue. My relationship with selling was. These are the three systems that made my income predictable: lead generation that runs in the background, an email list that builds relationships automatically, and a sales approach that feels natural. Written version: the 3 systems that ended my feast-or-famine months.
11. Copy this marketing strategy to BLOW UP your online store.
The easier path to more money is selling more to the people who are already buying. You’ll learn what average order value is (total revenue divided by the number of transactions) and three ways to raise it: bundles, order bumps, and an offer after they buy. Written version: sell more to the people already buying.
12. How Artists & Creatives Should Launch Products In 2024
A breakdown of my first live virtual workshop launch: close to 100 attendees and $10K in revenue ($8,300 of it direct product sales). It was my most successful launch at the time, and I walk through exactly what I did so you can use it on your next one. Written version: how to launch a product as an artist.
Once all of that is running and you’re stuck at the same revenue anyway, read your creative business only has three problems next.
When you want feedback, not just videos
I feel great giving all of this away for free, because I know for a fact that real transformation takes more than just knowledge.
You can watch all 12 of these and know the strategy. Congrats! But you probably won’t implement it on your own.
I learned this in a glassblowing class, of all places. I spent maybe forty five minutes of three hours actually on the bench, and still left knowing more about glass than five weeks of ceramics had taught me about clay. Because I got to watch everyone else’s piece go wrong, and then watch it get fixed. We learn best by doing AND by seeing others do it too. (The whole story is in things caught on fire and my instructor didn’t care.)
A YouTube video can’t look at your sales page. It can’t tell you the price you’ve been going back and forth on for three weeks is too low.
So I built a paid version where somebody does. I run it, so take that into account. It’s live lectures in order (so you stop collecting business advice from forty different YouTubers), hot seats on your actual business, and a feedback team that reads your drafts. You’ll learn just as much watching everyone else’s hot seat as your own.
The group coaching calls are a guiding light. It’s very easy to say ‘I don’t know what to do!’ Well, Kelsey can tell you what to do.
Alley Painter · artistYou can see what members have done with it on the student wins page, or read more about my art business course and group coaching for artists.
for when you've watched the videos and want someone to look at your work…
The Creative Accelerator
The paid version of this course: two live lectures and two hot seats a month, a feedback team reading your actual drafts, co-working, and every course I make.
Learn moreAnd if you’re not there yet, that’s genuinely fine. Start with lesson one.
Talk soon,
