If you’ve read the last four installments of this series, hopefully this has helped set some ground rules so you can not only make money but have a career as an erotic artist. Let’s recap some things.
One of the most important concepts to get straight with is, knowing your nature. YOU KNOW if you are more comfortable being an entrepreneur or a freelancer. You’re either comfortable with the risk of being an entrepreneur or you’re not.

If you are the entrepreneur type your focus shouldn’t be on you, it should be about creating a team. The number one mistake entrepreneurs make is trying to do it all. And usually you have to in the beginning but the secret to long term success is quitting tasks as fast as possible. Unless you’re a good programmer, you will need to hire one. If you are not a strong writer, inker, etc. you should considering hiring out for those tasks as soon as you can. Here you get paid for the vision that you bring to the world, not for writing, penciling, inking, and coloring every single page on your website.
If you want to be a freelancer, get on the Internet and not only look for publishers, but start working on assembling your tribe. Taylor Swift had a great quote. I can’t remember it verbatim but it went something like this. Back in the days artists got signed to record deals and then they got fans. Today artists get signed because they HAVE fans. When you apply for a job with a publisher be sure to let them know about your social media numbers.

If you have thousands of people who follow you on Hentai Foundry—great. If you don’t, get to work! Everyone starts at zero so don’t get discouraged. Make a promise to start today.
So you’re probably thinking, “Moose, I’m just supposed to draw and post all this free art to attract people who may or may not be into my work?” Well, yeah. If you aren’t killing your financial goals right now as an artist, that means not enough people know who the hell you are. There is a distinct correlation between the amount of prospects that you have and the amount of money that you make. Don’t take my word for it, check with your friend Google.com.

Seth Godin said, “the Internet reward relentless generosity.” If you keep putting yourself out there, sooner or later it’s going to happen for you. You can use Seth’s advice, you can call it karma, you can call it the law of sewing and reaping. Whatever you want to call it, it’s real. You want another example? You ever open a Marvel or DC Comic and see shitty art? Back in my late teens I would open a book and think, ‘I’m better than this guy’. Everything made sense in our teens, right? So I kept making sandwiches thinking I could never work for Marvel and the guy that drew that comic kept drawing.
And let’s not forget, you’re drawing porn cause you love it, right? If it feels like an obligation or if you’re only doing it because you’re trying to find fans, just quit now while you’re ahead. Keep working in that office or delivering pizzas or whatever you’re doing right now. If you’re drawing because you love what you do it doesn’t matter because you’re going to draw anyway.

If you are a freelancer at heart but would like to be an entrepreneur, hope is not lost for you. The solution is you need to get a business partner. Find someone who is an entrepreneur and who is comfortable with taking risk and who will do the all the promotion and business type things so you can focus on being an artist. Like an agent you shouldn’t have to pay this person upfront, he should be working for a percentage of the profit that you make together. Make sure you get a contract or a summary of terms in writing so it’s clear what you both expect out of each other.

I know I threw some big concepts out at you. You may even have more questions now than you did before you started reading this series. If you have questions or if something here still makes no sense, give me your questions or comments at moose at dirtycomics.com or @Dirty_Comics on Twitter. I look forward to your success.
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