Stop whining. Start selling your art.

It’s whiny to complain about having to sell our art. It comes from an entitled place, where we think we must be such geniuses that other people would be lucky to sell our work for us. We dream of creating in a studio, free from distractions, and anything we don’t want to do. 

“[Consider] how few people get to produce art for a living, and how much drudgery and ‘hawking’ is involved in almost every other industry and profession,” writes Ryan Holiday in his book Perennial Seller. “Who is going to sell your movie, your app, your artwork, your service if not you?”

Holiday goes on to ask if we aren’t willing to make the time, who else should be willing? He asks—rhetorically—who should be more invested in the success of our project than us?

Think for a moment: how few people alive on earth right now have the luxury of being able to spend as much time making art as you do? How few have the chance to make even just a little bit of money with their art? Fewer, throughout the course of history, had the opportunity we have today. The idea that you could, through hard work and smart marketing, make minimum wage with your work would be unfathomable to so many people. 

There’s a quote I’ve pulled a number of times on this blog, and it feels relevant to pull it again. In the book Daily Rituals, the author describes Mozart’s schedule as “a frantic round of piano lessons, concert performances, and social visits with the city’s wealthy patrons.” Even one of history’s great composers had to get out of the house and make money with his work. Even Mozart didn’t have the luxuries we dream of—the daydreams that keep us from sharing our work with people

Selling isn’t contrary to creating art. It’s part of it.