Looking back at 2015

2015 was a busy year and 2016 is probably going to be busy as well.

The end of the year is a good time to reflect on what has happened last year.

I did not set any new year resolutions or any goals for 2015 for myself or the website. I just sort of drifted along. There are no targets to meet, no stress. Works well for me so far.

Below's a list of things that happened in addition to the usual artbook and art product reviews I've been publishing.

Urban Sketchers Symposium

The most exciting thing that happened for me was the Urban Sketchers Symposium that was held in Singapore in July 2015. It was a fantastic experience to be able to meet many wonderful sketchers from other countries. Sketching outdoors is my favourite hobby and the energy I felt during those few days was exhilarating. I also made a series of posts and videos covering the event as a correspondent.

2016's symposium location is going to be in Manchester, UK. I'm not sure if I'm going. I'll apply as a correspondent as see what happens.

Patreon

In March, I set up a Patreon page for Parkablogs. That was able to provide some funds to the website and it was great. But from amount pledged by generous supporters, it's clear that it's going to take decades in order to make a full time salary. It's certainly not easy asking people to donate money! That's a reality check #1.

Youtube

After the positive feedback on the Youtube videos I put out during the Urban Sketchers Symposium, I decided to focus some time on creating videos on Youtube. The main motivation was to try something new. That has been going well. The sketching and art product videos are well received.

The most interesting part is most of the audience on Youtube has not heard of Parkablogs before. So I'm getting a whole new group of audience with Youtube. I also learned a bunch of other interesting stuff too.

The other motivation to get on Youtube is to explore whether it is possible to make money on the platform. It does make money. Look around online and you'll find that the industry standard that ads pay out is about USD $1-2 per 1,000 views. Most of my videos have only 500 to 1,000 views with only a handful of exceptions.

To make a full time salary on Youtube is going to take a long time and I have to make a lot more videos going forward. Making money through Youtube ads is just not the right strategy. Reality check #2.

While studying Youtube's potential, I found this website called Socialblade where you can find out how much any channel is making approximately (it's a wide estimated range).

Anyway, I've been spending quite a lot of time on creating content for Youtube. Like a lot. Before I started creating for Youtube, I usually spend the day reviewing books, looking for new books. With Youtube, now I dedicate the morning to coming up with ideas on what videos to make. Book reviews are written in the afternoon, and by evening time I leave for work (I work at night for a newspaper). So I basically spent less time looking for new books and also surfing Amazon and Facebook. In a sense, time is now more productively spent.

E-books

I made a few e-books from my travelogue sketchbooks as rewards for my Patreon supporters. They are also available for sale. The whole e-book idea was not as successful as I had expected. I think people still prefer a physical copy when it comes to an artbook. I know I prefer a physical copy as well.

Internet marketing for artists

This is a series of articles that I wrote to help artists with internet marketing. I still think it's one of the more helpful artists on the blog. You can find the articles at https://www.parkablogs.com/tags/internet-marketing-artists

Video courses

Going forward into 2016, I plan to make some sketching video courses. I looked at the Craftsy courses that I've featured so far and they are doing quite well on Craftsy. There are courses launched within a year that get more than 1,000 students.

The best part about such courses is they don't incur much cost after they have been made and should continue to provide a source of income as long as you market them well and let people know they exist.

Always be creating

As artists, you should always be creating art. That's what I intend to do, on top of putting out content on the blog.

What were you goals for 2015? Were you able to achieve them?

Happy New Year!