Art, Inc.: The Essential Guide for Building Your Career as an Artist (Art Books, Gifts for Artists, Learn The Artist's Way of Thinking) - Softcover

Meg Mateo Ilasco is a designer, illustrator, and writer. A serial entrepreneur, she launched her first business in 1999 and is the author of several books on the topic, including Craft, Inc., Creative, Inc., and Mom, Inc. She is also the cofounder and creative director of home and lifestyle magazine Anthology. Meg lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Lisa Congdon first started making art as a hobby in 2001, and five years later began showing and selling her work. Today, Lisa makes a full-time living as an illustrator and fine artist. Known for her colorful and intricate paintings, drawings, and pattern designs, Lisa works for clients around the world illustrating books and stationery and designing fabric and housewares. She is the author of the book Whatever You Are, Be a Good One, and she has participated in numerous exhibitions, including shows at the Contemporary Jewish Museum and Bedford Gallery. Lisa keeps a daily blog about her life, work, and inspirations called Today is Going to be Awesome. She lives in Oakland, California.

Jonathan Fields is a writer, entrepreneur, and founder of Good Life Project®. He is the author of Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love and Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt Into Fuel for Brilliance. In 2013, Forbes magazine named Jonathan's website, jonathanfields.com, one of the top 100 websites in the world for entrepreneurs. He lives in New York City.

"Nearly everything an artist, aspiring artist, or designer needs to know to earn a living through making art is contained here. Rather than teaching specific drawing or painting techniques, Congdon (Whatever You Are, Be a Good One) describes how to have a successful business practice in support of one's craft. Chapters address the ways money can be made, including illustration, licensing, sales of original art and of prints, and teaching. Advice on a host of business and professional concerns not usually discussed in art schools is dispensed in an encouraging voice. Interviews with working artists of various backgrounds appear throughout. Most important, Congdon discards the myth of the "starving artist," replacing this tired notion with that of the thriving, successful creative person who is able to do what they love and get paid to do it. VERDICT: A useful resource for young adults, emerging artists, and creative people of all ages who seek a career change." - Library Journal, Starred Review

"Congdon offers those looking to make a career in a creative field, wherever they may be along the journey, the necessary tools for defining success by their own standards, then attaining it on their own terms. From practicalities like pricing, marketing, and photographing your work to psychological tussles like dealing with self-doubt, learning to say 'no,' and managing the ebb and flow of success, she offers a 360-degree map of the terra incognita that is the modern creative life-cum-living." - Brain Pickings

"Lisa Congdon began her fine art career in her late thirties and was able to draw on valuable work and life experience when it came time to build her fine art practice. Through hard work, planning and with plenty of drive, she's become a huge success and Art, Inc. is brimming with advice drawn from not just her life experience, but the experience of many artists within the contemporary art and illustration world. I was blown away by all of the practical, useable and easy-to-digest information and think I've pretty much found my go-to holiday gift for all the new and aspiring artists in my life." - Design*Sponge

"If you want to make a living as an artist, you better steal everything you can from this book."
-Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like An Artist

"Lisa Congdon has managed to debunk the outdated and toxic notion that making money and making art are diametrically opposed outcomes, attaining one of which invariably compromises the other-a primary source of crippling self-consciousness. She equips emerging artists with the necessary tools-from the psychological to the practical-for defining success by their own standards, then attaining it on their own terms."
-Maria Popova, founder and editor, BrainPickings.org

"Art, Inc. is a revelation. At long last, there is a resource to help creative people articulate their aesthetic values, successfully brand their business, and manage their artist's income. Congdon insightfully reveals everything it takes to create, build, and sustain a sound, strategic, profitable practice. If you are just entering the field, growing a young business, or nurturing a seasoned career, you will be inspired and motivated by this brilliant new book by one of today's most successful artists."
-Debbie Millman, president, Sterling Brands; chair, SVA Masters in Branding