A long time ago, at a Spectrum far, far away, Marc Scheff and I presented our first Art Business Bootcamp as a series of 3 live talks all about Getting Found, Getting Hired, and Getting Paid. After years of portfolio reviews and answering artists’ questions, we realized most art schools were really failing artists by not providing a more firm foundation in business knowledge. And whether an artist attended school or not, the art business info available by google searches was contradictory and incomplete.

Wouldn’t it make the most sense to learn Art Business directly from the Art Directors who are hiring artists every day? And at that moment, Drawn + Drafted and the Art Business Bootcamps were born.

We first released these in PDF form, then worked for almost a year to get Getting You Found and Getting You Hired online so every artist could access them (not just the ones who could get to conventions). There was much rejoicing! We watched many of our Bootcampers launch amazing kickstarters, gain the confidence to approach their dream clients (and, to their surprise, be offered commissions), and overall feel more in control of their career path.

Then, like the caterpillar, we seemed to fall into a deep slumber. Bootcamp 3 was a long time coming. Money, contracts, paperwork, copyrights — this is all incredibly complex stuff. Getting it right took time. However, like the caterpillar in their cocoon, our outward appearance belied the incredible transformation happening just below the surface. The Getting You Paid Bootcamp was nearing completion.

And now, through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered, we have launched a new online platform for our courses, and have now launched our Art Business Bootcamps online, for the first time complete with all 3 modules, each a critical part of forming the art career you want.

Registration has been open the past 2 weeks and we already have a ton of new students pouring into out Art Business Bootcamp Facebook Support Group.

But we wanted to make sure no one missed the opportunity to check out these courses, so we have extended our registration through Friday, in part so I could give the MC community a reminder here in my monthly column. 

We’ve got the new students digging into Bootcamp 1, before the live sessions start Monday, and we’ve already got some success stories:

“The class is ALREADY getting me results. As part of my Bootcamp homework I went to my local gaming store and flipped through all the books. This was a dead match for my art style so I introduced myself to a few people from the company on LinkedIn.

Not a heavy sell or anything, just, “Hey, love your products, this is me.”

And this morning…I already got a response from them saying they were interested in talking about working on a project together!

Bam! How cools is that?”

—Sarah Dahlinger

 

So here’s what’s been going on behind the scenes:

If you’ve been reading my posts here on MC, you know that Marc and I started Drawn + Drafted to fill the void left by art schools around art business knowledge. People needed and wanted to know more about contracts, invoicing, how to approach art directors, how to network—everything you need to know EXCEPT how to make the art. We knew the information was out there, but it wasn’t organized or even in a single place. Art schools were failing students in this area, and artists were getting all kinds of information, and wasting a lot of time sorting the signal from the noise in the vast vast internet. Marc and I were answering a lot of the same questions and saw a set of common gaps in knowledge that we knew how to put together. We knew there was a way to save everyone a lot of headache, and us a lot of time. (Selfish, but true — the more artists that are trained in proper art business, the less time I have to spend teaching them on the job.)

We knew that an art career is only 50% making great art. The other half is getting it in front of the right people, getting those people to work with you, and getting those people to pay you. We were spending more and more time helping artists with these three things.

So, we decided to take all the resources we could, and all the knowledge of our Art Director community and build an uber-resource—a Voltron of art business knowledge. The Bootcamps are just one aspect. We write weekly blogs on Art Business and Artist Therapy on our Make Your Art Work site. And we have a panel of Art Directors answering your questions on Dear Art Director on Tumblr every day.

We have seen how artists take off once they have the right knowledge, and their successes have made us even more dedicated to getting this info out there in as many channels as possible.

“I had a fair bit of confidence in the worth of this course going in, despite having never had any previous interaction with Marc and Lauren – their Drawn and Drafted videos spoke to their knowledge and commitment. I had no previous art business experience outside of what I could glean in bits and pieces from artist blogs. I knew that access to the community of like minded artists motivated enough to take part in this course would be extremely valuable in and of itself.

That has absolutely been the case—I went from having zero friends in the industry to a plethora just via taking an active role in this experience and FB community and then building on that. The modules plus the active encouragement of the group has pushed me out of my comfort zone and into a lot of events I would have previously been too shy to attend, with confidence and insight into how to make best use of those opportunities. The effect has snowballed, and I can only say that taking part has been a huge success for me professionally.”

—Bruce Brenneise

We ran our first online Bootcamp as a beta in 2016. We saw artists take off, finally knowing how to get their work seen by ADs and fans. We saw personal projects go viral on social media. We helped kickstarters raise over 100k. We saw people jump start their business literally within days of implementing the homework from the course.

And that was with only the first two Bootcamp modules.

We also found something we didn’t fully expect: a thriving online community. We started an FB group thinking “We have to have one, people will check in, ask questions, but it probably won’t be too active when the Bootcamps aren’t in session.” Little did I know! I’m really excited to have been super wrong about that. This group is on fire. People are in there every day, sharing information, asking questions, and adding to our resource docs. It took on a life of it’s own and the community has become a go-to resource for many of us. Heck, I’ve taken plenty of notes for ideas that came out of the threads there.

Now we’ve got all 3 Bootcamps running straight through for the next 6 weeks, starting Monday. And we are so excited to get Bootcamp 3 in everyone’s hands.

 

 

Getting Paid is more than just sending out an invoice. There are steps to take even before you engage with a client to make sure you’re getting projects that pay and pay well. Every interaction with a client, even before you ever meet them, can guarantee or tank your shot at success. And we cover that.

All the info on getting found and getting hired gets you bupkis if you can’t get paid and keep your books. We want everyone reading this to succeed, we want to see you succeed, in your art/creative career! We are thrilled to finally have this module put together on our new online platform.

TL:DR, here’s the stuff you get when you become a MYAW bootcamper:

  • You will get all the course material, homework, and videos from Getting You found and Getting You Hired
  • Our brand new module, Getting You Paid. This will be an extra 2 full weeks to cover even more about Commissions, Contracts, Entrepreneurship, and Soft Skills.
  • Each module will feature 2 live Q+A sessions, one every two weeks, giving you plenty of time for the homework.
  • Yes. There’s homework. You’re welcome.
  • You also get access to all 4 Q+A sessions from last time.
  • And the best part. You’ll immediately be welcomed to the exclusive FB community for life, full of artists all pooling information and sharing support for each other’s projects.  

 

This has been a lot of work in the background. Between Marc’s tech wrangling, my own writing here and on our blog, and the growth of everyone in our community, the Art Business Bootcamp is back and stronger than ever.

And we did extend registration through Friday, but we can’t extend it any further, the first Live Session for Bootcamp 1 is Monday! Great time to join us.

Hilarious gifs aside*, we are psyched to finally have this on the calendar and excited to work with you!

 

You can read more and register here.

 

If you have any questions, check out the FAQ at the bottom of this page, and feel free to shoot us an email at info@makeyourartwork.com

 

See you in class!

 

*Just in case you were worried, you don’t need to know anything about Supernatural to take the Bootcamps. But we’re not promising we don’t answer questions in gif form in the FB group from time to time…