Jealous Designer Starts Popular Art Blog

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Let's talk today about the business model of operating a curatorial website. Curatorial website, curation, what do I mean by that? Well, there are a lot of successful blogs that have built a huge following by curating various content, various things or items that they found online. For example, thisiswhyimbroke.com has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers posting about cool gadgets. And that site earns affiliate commissions whenever visitors click through to purchase those gadgets from amazon.com and other merchants.

A few other examples of long running curatorial sites are brainpikings.com, swiss-miss.com, and kotkey.org. We'll link all of those up later in the notes. All of them rely on a combination of direct donations and advertising. In most sites like these, there's a mix of original writing combined with a lot of posts that are basically like, you know, hey, go look at this thing. Where the curator is simply passing on interesting items to their readers.

So we're gonna look at a detailed example today. By the way, welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau, so glad you're here. And in this story today, Jealousy leads to opportunity. When a bored graphic designer channels her love of artwork into an online masterpiece that celebrates artists across the globe.

It's a really great story. I love everything about it from the inspiration to the passion and dedication she put into it, as well as the ultimate success that comes from it. So stay tuned for Jealous Designer Starts Popular Art Blog. [Music]

No doubt you've heard the story of the starving artist. When someone loves the work they do, so much they'll do it despite financial hardship.

Well, Danielle Chrissa of British Columbia wasn't starving in the traditional sense, but she was eager to do something more with art. She'd always had a creative streak and hope that one day she'd be able to craft a career around her talents. But it can be tough to make money as a creative. On top of that, art can be subjective. The outside world determines if what you've built is valuable or not.

And some of the most famous artists in history were only appreciated after their time. So like many before her, Danielle hung up her smock and took the professional route of becoming a freelance graphic designer. Instead of creating art for art's sake, she began helping others realize their dreams. But she didn't always enjoy it. Although it paid the bills for many years, her heart had an artistic void that no amount of invoicing clients could fill.

The worst thing was that Danielle began to get bitter. She'd look at another artist's success and be overcome with jealousy. She'd pour so much time into comparing herself to other artists that she had no energy left for her own work. Not wanting to paint herself into a corner, she decided to turn her jealousy into something positive. At some point, she had begun following some rather successful blogs on art.

Some were posting artwork that was unique to them, but many others were actually passing the easel off to others, highlighting their work instead. This concept appealed to Danielle. After some initial reluctance, she rolled up her sleeves and got to work. At first, the blog was merely a blank canvas. There was no creative plan or grand vision for it.

Her goal was to showcase the work of other artists, the ones who braved the unpredictability of the art world, the ones she was jealous of. And just like that, the name of the blog wrote itself, The Jealous Curator. Since envy was the topic of the day, she even added a fun little tagline. I wish I'd thought of that. With the domain name selected and a $20 hosting plan purchased, Danielle now had a little artistic studio to call home, an online home at least, an online studio.

In no time at all, that blank canvas began to fill with color. She stumbled across an artist work she admired, she'd write a few words about it and publish it on the blog. Afterwards, she'd reach out to that artist to let them know that they'd been featured. Although she didn't realize it at the time, this small piece of outreach enabled her to build a community. Each time she shared someone's work, they'd share her write up with their own audience.

And then some of those people would subscribe and become regular readers of The Jealous Curator. In this way, she started to grow quite a following. In fact, her readership grew by leaps and bounds, eventually reaching more than 250,000 Facebook fans and 180,000 on Instagram. Her inspiration grew along with it. What started as a small project to get her out of a creative rut began to transition into a fully fledged passion.

At that stage, just one thing was missing, monetization. Danielle was now an artist in her own unique way, but she was still a struggling artist since she wasn't getting paid for it. She didn't want to run ads on the website, even after building enough traffic to make it worthwhile. She felt that it would take away from the aesthetic that she had created. Not wanting to compromise on her values, she did what she did best.

She got creative, featuring all those other artists inspired her, and she began creating more art of her own, writing more, and putting new and exciting things out into the world. And the world noticed. Although she was still working as a freelance graphic designer, opportunities began coming her way because of the block, and because of the huge community of envious art lovers she had grown. She was offered a book deal to write about the dreaded creative block that often prevents artists from working. True to form, she went out and interviewed 50 other artists for the book.

That book led to two others through the same publisher, and she began receiving speaking opportunities to share her unique insights. She was featured on podcasts like "Being Boss," and even landed a spot on Oprah's show and magazine. And here's the interesting thing, through those books and speaking opportunities, she was beginning to get paid. The money was still such a by-product of enjoying herself that she didn't even keep track of it. It wasn't until Danielle and her husband were doing their taxes in 2016 that she realized she'd made $40,000 from projects related to the jealous curator that year.

That number was all the proof she needed to go full-time. The way she saw it if she could bring in $40,000 without trying to make money, what heights could she reach if she did? She wrapped up her freelance gigs and put all of her focus into the jealous curator. Since making that decision three years ago, Danielle has published another book and significantly increased the number of speaking engagements. There have been so many opportunities that she's managed to triple her income and has no plans to slow down.

In hindsight, she says that she might have jumped from her day job a little sooner, but other than that, there's not really anything she would go back and do differently. As Bob Ross might say, we don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents. Now that she's found a way to make a living with art, Danielle has some advice for anyone else out there with the same aspiration or anyone who wants to write online about any topic. She says if you start a design blog because they seem popular, but you don't live and breathe design, it's not going to last. Write about what you care about.

Write about what you love. If it's rock gardens or cats or vegan recipes, write about that. You'll find your people and you'll be more excited to write tomorrow's post. So for Danielle, 2019 is all about two things. She's pitching a kid's book and focusing on her own collage-based artwork with a solo show coming up in Toronto.

And of course, through all of it, she'll still be posting daily to "The Jealous Curator." [Music]

All right, great project. Fantastic, I love this so much. I think I've seen it a couple of times online, but now I'm definitely going to go and follow it on Instagram. Now, a couple of key points here though. To do this right, like to truly build this kind of business, it absolutely can become a sustainable revenue source, a community that stays with you for years and years, but it's not going to happen without work.

This is definitely not a get rich quick plan. One of the most important things you need to do is in addition to choosing the topic that you're passionate about, she highlighted, like it has to be something that you love because you're going to do it over and over, but also you have to post often and you have to post consistently. You want people to keep coming back to your site over and over. You want them to see it as this like flagship resource. And for that to happen, most people who are successful with this kind of curatorial approach, they are posting daily.

Sometimes they're posting several posts a day, and it's not necessarily an overwhelming task because what you're posting is essentially discovery. Like, oh, I found this thing, go and look at it. Here are a couple of sentences about it. Maybe here's a paragraph or two about it. And sometimes it could be more, sometimes less, but it is somewhat about volume.

It's about finding your voice, the right topic, et cetera, but then just doing it over and over. And the second key pathway, something that I mentioned briefly in the story, each time she shared someone's work, they would share her write up with their own audience. And then some of those people would subscribe and become regular readers. So that is absolutely the right strategy in this approach. I would just caution you and say, it's not always so simple.

Like not every feature you do is going to share with their audience and bring in those subscribers. It's the kind of thing that increases and ramps up over time. For a long time, you really just need to be focused on doing the work. And so it's not so much, if you build it, they will come, but in this case, you have to do a lot of building. That's my only caution, but I think it is a wonderful business model and it does still work.

There are still people doing it in lots of different ways. So I will leave you with that today, more to come tomorrow, of course, and every day from there on out. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. I hope you're taking action on something that you believe in. Today's show notes, including links to the sites I mentioned in the introduction, as well as Danielle's work, of course, will be at sidehustleschool.com/818.

That is for episode 818. We are rolling along, posting daily, posting consistently, because I believe in this mission and because I care about you. I want it to be helpful and useful to you. All right, that's all for now. Thanks so much.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

from The Onward Project.