I’ve dabbled with drawing ever since I was old enough to hold a pencil, but I never saw art as a viable career path. For me, it was always just a hobby.
However, that started to change a few years ago. I published the first novel in my sci-fi fantasy series in 2018, and over the next few years, I did local signings, author fairs, book expos, Barnes & Noble features, and even a small zine fest to promote my books.
Then, in 2021, I set up a booth at the Independence Day Celebration in Mishawaka, IN. It was the first festival I’d ever done, and to my surprise, I sold out of paperbacks for the first novel in my series! For my display, I had also brought some of my art prints, buttons that I’d designed for the books, and candles created by Old Soul Artisan as a collaboration inspired by the series.
After the positive reception of my art prints at the festival, I started expanding the art side of my business. Although my primary focus is still on the books, I’ve dedicated a full table to my art in my booth.
My business has sure grown over the last few years!! Below, you can see a direct comparison of my booth from the 2021 vs. 2025 Independence Day Celebration. I’ve added a lot more products ranging from stickers and postcards to bookmarks and handmade jewelry. Everything is my art or graphic design, and/or it ties into my book series (or reading in general).
I’ve learned a LOT along the way. This year’s Independence Day Celebration was my 186th event, and as you can see from the photos above, my booth has undergone a serious evolution… and it’s still continuing to evolve. Speaking to the artists now instead of the authors, here are some lessons I learned about selling your art.
1. Don’t be afraid to experiment with new materials and art styles.
Most of my art is a recognizable, somewhat consistent style. I primarily use mechanical pencils and work in grayscale, sometimes utilizing a white-out pen, charcoal, pen, or marker as well. I often draw animals and nature scenes.
At the end of 2024, I was inspired to play around with different ideas that ventured outside my norm. One was “Full Moon,” which combined my usual grayscale pencil style of a full moon with the clipart silhouette look of a cat, raven, and crescent moon overlaid on top of the pencil work. The second was titled “Broken,” and it featured a simplistic angel done in a much more cartoony style that was very different than anything I’d done. My goal, after seeing a glimpse of this art style on a bumper, was to try and capture intense emotion with minimal details.
I was a little nervous about how these outliers would be received compared to my usual art style. But they were both hits! A fan loved “Full Moon” so much that she messaged me and asked for permission to use the image on her birthday cake, and “Broken” became so popular that in 2025, I added “Consumed” (charcoal) and “Sorrow” (ink) as companion pieces in my angel series. I also played around with a pen-and-ink style with text saying “It’s a good day to read,” and that print has also performed well among the bibliophiles.
The moral of the story here is to not be afraid of exploring different styles and techniques if the muse is speaking to you! Expanding my collection to include a wider variety has been a positive. Some people still love my original style, which makes up the brunt of my collection. But others gravitate more toward the new ones, and that extends my potential audience demographic. I recently had a woman who was so moved by “Broken” that she bought my last artboard and all of my necklaces and magnets, then placed a preorder for more magnets so she could pick them up the moment I was restocked.
In my case, I experimented with different styles that still complemented my original vibe. The new prints are mostly grayscale and fit in with my overall display. If you’re going to break the mold and experiment with REALLY different styles, then you might want to reevaluate your booth and play around with how to showcase your art so your display doesn’t lose its cohesiveness.
Don’t be afraid to take risks! Maybe the new style won’t necessarily suit the tastes of your existing fans, but you might find some new fans that end up loving your experiments.
Are you looking for a professional printer to produce your prints? Read my review of Photo Canvas Land and watch my unboxing video.
2. Not every critique or suggestion is valid.
This can be a hard pill to swallow for the chronic people-pleasers. Art is subjective. And believe me when I say that once you display your art at festivals, markets, and other events, the amateur critics will come out of the woodwork to tell you what you should or shouldn’t be doing!
The unsolicited feedback I’ve received has been all over the place:
- “You should be a tattoo artist! You’d make WAY more money doing tattoos instead of selling your art like this!” (I hear this one ALL. THE. TIME. As if blending with a pencil is a similar skill set to injecting ink into human skin…?)
- “Your proportions are wrong on one of these drawings. Do you want me to tell you which one?”
- “You should stop drawing sissy, namby-pamby unicorns and draw eagles instead!”
- “You should draw this [very specific thing that I love]. You’d sell SO MUCH of it!” (Spoiler: you probably won’t)
- “You shouldn’t make your stuff look too ‘China.'” (Incorrectly referring to the Japanese anime-inspired style of the cat emojis I made for my Discord server)
Let me tell you, the number of “experts” who just have to tell you what you’re doing wrong is astounding. Occasionally, this feedback might be valid, even if it’s not fun to hear. But the majority of it is not. It can be tough for artists to weed out the valuable critiques from the much more frequent bullshit opinions, but remember to take any criticism with a grain of salt.
3. Functional art sells.
Original art might sell at galleries and fine art exhibitions, but if you’re a casual artist setting up at markets, festivals, fairs, and conventions, then you’re more likely to sell functional art rather than wall art.
When I say “functional art,” I mean your art reproduced on products that people will actively use rather than simply hang on display. I’ve offered my art prints on a variety of products, including postcards, notecards, mouse pads, keychains, magnets, buttons, necklaces, brooches, bookmarks, shirts, and even puzzles and cutting boards. I still offer artboards for customers who are interested in hanging my prints on the wall, but I’m much more likely to sell art in a form that people can actually use.
If you’re feeling frustrated that your prints aren’t selling, think about ways people could actively use your art on a day-to-day basis. Notecards and necklaces are two of the best ways to initially start branching out, and then you can grow from there.
For jewelry tips, read my blog post to learn about my trial-and-error methods for making necklaces with bezel trays and glass cabochons.
4. Value your time and skill, not just your base costs.
For a long time, I was notorious about focusing solely on the costs of the products I was selling without factoring in the added value of the art.
Working out your pricing can be tricky. Too high, and people aren’t likely to buy. Too low, and it undervalues your talent so your work doesn’t seem like a worthwhile purchase. Although it might seem like pricing too low isn’t as much of a problem, it can influence a customer’s perception more than you realize. I know multiple artists who actually saw an increase in sales after they raised their prices.
Finding your sweet spot can be tricky, especially depending on the types of events you’re doing and the demographic of the crowd in attendance. Are you setting up your booth in a wealthy area where customers have plenty of disposable income? Should you have lower-priced items for families with kids who are attending a festival? Are customers looking for fine art, or affordable art on functional products?
Just remember to value your art on top of the actual product. If someone is buying a keychain, they’re not buying just another cheap, mass-produced product that could be found anywhere online! They’re buying your unique art directly from the artist. That’s worth a few extra dollars.
5. Set aside dedicated time to practice and make new art.
Life gets insanely busy, and if you’re not a full-time artist, it’s way too easy to procrastinate. Next thing you know, it’s been months or even years since you blocked out some quiet time to hone your skills and create something new.
One trick that has helped me stay on track with my goal of doing at least one new art piece every month is having a dedicated art feature in my monthly newsletter. This is a fairly casual, self-imposed deadline that forces me to remember my art. Otherwise, that task can easily be buried under writing, editing, and publishing my next book; managing my event schedule; placing inventory orders; updating my websites; publishing blog posts; posting on Patreon and social media; sending out vendor applications; and a myriad of other business tasks.
Whenever I take a break from my usual hand-drawn style of art, I often notice that I feel a bit rusty when I get back into it. Translating the vision from my head to the paper is more of a challenge. This is always a reminder that practice is important, even if it doesn’t produce a result that you feel is good enough to display and sell. At the very least, you’ll build muscle memory.
In addition to improving your skills with practice, creating art on a regular schedule is also a great way to keep producing content for your followers. My Level 2 and 3 Patreon subscribers have access to timelapse videos so they can watch me draw a piece from start to finish. This type of content engages fans with exclusive behind-the-scenes videos while I develop a stream of passive income with subscriptions. It also gives me content for my social media followers, newsletter subscribers, and website gallery showcasing a portfolio of my work, all while keeping my skills sharp and encouraging me to continue growing as an artist with new challenges and techniques.
(Read my article about the pros and cons of subscription-based content for creative entrepreneurs.)
Keep making art, challenging yourself, and putting your work out there. It’s hard sometimes — believe me, I know! But the reward is incredible…
I'm an award-winning fantasy author, artist, and photographer from La Porte, Indiana. My poetry, short fiction, and memoir works have been featured in various anthologies and journals since 2005, and several of my poems are available in the Indiana Poetry Archives. The first three novels in my Chronicles of Avilésor: War of the Realms series have received awards from Literary Titan.
After some time working as a freelance writer, I was shocked by how many website articles are actually written by paid "ghost writers" but published under the byline of a different author. It was a jolt seeing my articles presented as if they were written by a high-profile CEO or an industry expert with decades of experience. I'll be honest; it felt slimy and dishonest. I had none of the credentials readers assumed the author of the article actually had. Ghost writing is a perfectly legal, astonishingly common practice, and now, AI has entered the playing field to further muddy the waters. It's hard to trust who (or what) actually wrote the content you'll read online these days.
That's not the case here at On The Cobblestone Road. I do not and never will pay a ghost writer, then slap my name on their work as if I'd written it. This website is 100% authentic. No outsourcing. No ghost writing. No AI-generated content. It's just me... as it should be.
If you would like to support my work, check out the Support The Creator page for more information. Thank you for finding my website! 🖤