Art and Money. The grand illusion, and the great mind fuck. We need to stop trying to put them together. Money is made by a lot of things, but art isn't one of them. It's by demand. You wanna chance at making money? Be popular. Of course you can't decide to be popular. You are chosen. Popularity by itself does not even guarantee financial gain. Hence, the mind fuck. Artists should just try to make good art, art from within, truth or anti-truth, make their own way, and acknowledge art is for people. Money may or may never come. That is the true fact.
The idea that good art will bring you money is wrong. We all know a lot of bad art makes huge amounts of money. The idea that hard work will bring you money is wrong. Full time artists and coal miners can attest to this fact. Pure popularity alone will not bring you money, but it helps. The reality is that when the light shown upon an artist making him or her known to the populous, them being accepted and demanded by others increases the artist's worth in the monetary sense. Demand. Build demand and they will come. Pure economics.
Economics tell us that too much supply makes a lower demand and short supply makes a higher demand. If we go further...it's not just the amount of demand but the amount people are willing to pay. That's why some people see subscription service as the future. Small amount to pay but huge amount of people. Verses the other model of high amounts sold to fewer people.
However you wanna play it, it comes down to demand. That is the mysterious quotient, the hidden ingredient, the mystical mumbo-jumbo that is just what it is, like Nature, we don't have any control over it. Some people say you can, but these are the same people who will tell you about it for $39.99. *laughing*
If we as artists can just accept this like we do about many other things in life, we can get back to doing what we do, let the people decide what they want, and finally see who the "man is from behind the curtain".
You'll find it's your Uncle Vito, your niece Petunia, your neighbor Mrs. Feldman, and that damn asshole who almost hit you when you were crossing the street.