RE: How do you artists do on Steemit?
I've been on Steemit for the last two months and to be honest I am not seeing the return of the investment of my time.. I've spent many hours on some posts and I barely make cents on them.. I do understand it takes time to build community though, and I guess getting seen is the most difficult part. I've always had a hard time selling my art because not many people crave my style, and it doesn't have a solid concept like other art. And not only that, I live in one of the poorest countries of the world (Honduras; 65% of the population lives in extreme poverty). I don't specifically blog for the money, but y'kno.. if I spend more than 4 hours a day on this, I need a little to money to get through my passion... Last and definitely not least, I haven't showcased my art enough, so basically I got things to change.
I used to do my art as a hobby, but I would like to step it further. It's hard because I'm also growing plants and trees which consumes most of my time and energy. I'm trying to do more than I can, I believe (working on changing this). I thought that Steemit would pay at least a little bit of my expenses but I've only made about 2SBD so far, which is totally lame for the amount of input. I've never been too social and haven't known how to promote my art (I even set up a shop in Society6 more than three years ago and have sold like 20$ which is also lame). Sorry, I don't want to whine or be negative, I've honestly had no clue of how to move about with my not-so- popular work jajja My time has come to change this, though, and I'm taking steps.
This is where Steemit has helped me, but not because of its features, specifically, but because I was pretty excited in the beginning and started to make contact with others and have taken more time to promote my stuff, which are things that I hadn't done too well before. I do have faith that Steemit will one day rise and make things better. I believe in the blockchain and in Steemit. I just published my first entry to a contest and I will try to stay more active and also stay consistent, which has always been one of my weaknesses.
I think I don't have any valuable info. for your questions (at least not as to any method or anything, because like I said before, I'm starting out, but I will still share my opinion with you)
How do you think Steemit is good for your promotion? (now and in the future)
I Haven't had any sales, commissions or decent work opportunities through Steemit yet, but I do plan on diving and promoting my production services somehow.
How do you think things might change when (if) more artists and musicians will be on Steemit?
I think this will be good in general, but will make it even harder to stand out. More people will come looking for music and art, but there will be a lot of which to choose from! :) So the struggles are the same. I really like that I can earn some money posting art process, sketches, designs, and any other thing, really. This has kept me motivated to share my stuff, make connections, and become a little more social with other artists. By the way, it's cool that we can share our opinions.
Sorry if my post is a little negative, I know I have work to do. Hope we can find ways to make our experience better here, and that we can fix what's broken here. I do feel we have a lot lot of work to make this fetus grow strong and healthy.
Hey thank you for participating @doodledanga! Hey, it's fully ok to be (or sound) a bit negative :) I am also very often :D, and getting frustrated is part of this job wich makes it not the dream profession like many people tend to think. What I do is a niche (SF) within the niche (Comics), not sooo much people care about it neither but with internet I can more or less find the ones who are interested.
If you think you can't bring answers here, no worries! At the contrary I believe you can grab some here as you can see (and mentionned) the community is rather supportive. There are "tutorials" about everything on the internet (just adapt to your thing and be yourself as there's also no magic formula)!
Of course (and I can only imagine) if where you are people are poor, it can be difficult to impossible to sell. Then internet might be the only way.
So, if you really want to sell your art online, first, try to stick to a project that is attainable (and go to the end, just finish it, to pass to the a more difficult one) and indeed, steadily post about it to build a solid follower base, set up an artist page on Facebook, Instagram.... set up a Patreon page and there are websites specialised in selling originals .. and spam evryone gently :D . And for exemple if you want to organise an exhibition or print your art in a book, try crowdfundings (they all need a minimal fan base before tho), crowdfundings are great because you also create a community of people which will support you. Don't forget to network in real life and find a way to stick your works nicely in front of people and be tough about your prices! Make contracts to set up things clear with clients if opportunities are showing up.
Evidently, selling original art that goes over hundreds of $ or € is very difficult so try cheaper products/copies, books or posters.
I'd say, do not concentrate on Steemit for the promotion as most people seem to agree that at the moment it's not the best platform but still, put your links to S6 (I also have an account there with nothing happening -> you need to share that link everywhere) or other selling pages. You can still create interesting post here and share them on Facebook, just be consistent, qualitative and regular, like 2 or 3 times a week (time you post is also important). Try also what @shortcut explains as he seems to have a different approach. But yeah, do not focuse on earning micro-dollars here, I think you'll end up whining :D
Well, there's many things to say and to do, can't do it all in here and above all I am not an artist coach as I probably need one too, you need to dig your own space and like @har5h says, try to make your stuff to stand off and grab attention.
I also believe in blockchain for many things but I don't believe it'll give us a basic income or anything like that in the society we live today, people will always make you pay for everything.
A strong will is your best ally! (I've seen many people with litterally NO talent going much further than people who thinks they have one).