https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog Weekly letters on business and marketing for artists, makers, and illustrators. en-us https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/how-to-start-an-art-business-with-no-money https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/how-to-start-an-art-business-with-no-money Mon, 09 Nov 2026 00:00:00 GMT All you need is your art, your phone and an internet connection. Here's what I'd skip, what I'd spend on (and when), so your first sales pay for everything after. https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/art-business-math https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/art-business-math Fri, 06 Nov 2026 00:00:00 GMT How many sales, views and followers your art business actually needs, worked out the way I do it with my students (and the way I did it for myself before I went full-time). https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/free-art-business-course https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/free-art-business-course Wed, 04 Nov 2026 00:00:00 GMT Six years of business videos on YouTube, put in order like a syllabus. Five modules (your first $1,000 and a plan, money and taxes, what to sell, content, selling and launching), 12 videos, and the written version of each one. https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/how-to-sell-art-with-no-followers https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/how-to-sell-art-with-no-followers Mon, 02 Nov 2026 00:00:00 GMT No logo, no Etsy shop, no website. Here's exactly what I'd do (in order) to make my first $1,000 as an artist starting from zero. https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/bond-content https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/bond-content Tue, 27 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Bond content connects your work to something your ideal customer already cares about. Here's the whole system (bond, belief and buy content), the real examples behind it, and how to make each kind. https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/go-full-time-in-4-months https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/go-full-time-in-4-months Tue, 13 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT A student left his job with four months of runway and asked what I'd do in his shoes. So we ran the numbers on exactly how often he'd need to post. https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/i-had-to-go-to-the-er https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/i-had-to-go-to-the-er Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Two weeks of fever, IV steroids and a red-eye home, right in the middle of a live cohort with 100+ students. It turned into the biggest stress test my business has had. https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/things-caught-on-fire https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/things-caught-on-fire Thu, 13 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT I spent 45 minutes of a three-hour glassblowing class actually blowing glass, and left knowing more than five weeks of ceramics taught me. The difference is the step most of us skip. https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/instagram-vs-youtube-numbers https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/instagram-vs-youtube-numbers Sat, 08 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT A YouTube video costs me $350-500 in editing and brings in 100-150 subscribers. A 90-second Instagram story brought in 50. Here's what I'm doing about it (and why I'm not quitting YouTube). https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/why-you-arent-getting-views https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/why-you-arent-getting-views Thu, 06 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT My student Ellice went from 500 views to over 2,000 overnight without changing her work or posting more. She changed how she packaged it. https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/posting-on-instagram-again https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/posting-on-instagram-again Sat, 18 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT I bought a camera, made a bet with myself, and committed to posting on Instagram twice a week for three months. Here's the plan, the two carousel formats I'm testing, and why I'm doing it now. https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/stop-trusting-your-gut-on-content https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/stop-trusting-your-gut-on-content Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT The video I agonized over for two weeks flopped. The one I threw together in an afternoon took off. Here's the ten-minute exercise I use to train my intuition instead of trusting it. https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/why-you-should-never-sell-an-online-course https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/why-you-should-never-sell-an-online-course Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT When I pivoted into teaching, I decided a standalone course was the worst thing I could sell if I cared about student results. Here's what I built instead, and the 77% number that tells me it's working. https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/how-to-build-a-cozier-business https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/how-to-build-a-cozier-business Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Most of the work in a creative business evaporates the moment it's done. The cozy version comes from work with leverage, like a video from three years ago that still brings in students, or a book that's made $50K. https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/may-morris-creative-empire https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/may-morris-creative-empire Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT May Morris ran her father's embroidery department at 23, then built a business out of commissions, kits, books, teaching and lectures, before women could vote. I think about her every time someone says this is a bad time to be an artist. https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/starving-artist-not-on-my-watch https://www.kelseyrodriguez.com/blog/starving-artist-not-on-my-watch Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT People love to bring up Van Gogh selling one painting in his lifetime. His problem was distribution, and the gatekeepers who controlled it don't hold that power anymore.