On being an artist in the age of the internet

I want to rant a bit right now, and I'm trying to reel it in so that I'm not too out of control on here. I won't lie to you, though, sometimes being an artist is ridiculous. I'm thinking in particular of being an artist and on the art of how much to charge.

Now, I know that most people are looking for a "hook up." They know that art doesn't always take a long time, though that's not always the case, and they know that I "just use markers" to color my pieces. What most people don't understand, however, is that each little thing adds up in cost and if I ever want to even break even on utilities, I have to charge what I do.

In this instance, each marker that I use is about $8 for the marker, plus the ink refills depending on how large the piece is. I probably use about 9-15 markers for each and every piece. I may not use an entire marker, but I probably use enough ink to justify one marker completely gone for each piece. So there's $8 spent on my end already.

Then paper. Because of the types of markers these are, I can't just use any paper I come across. I use Bristol. Not crazy expensive, and sometimes I can even get it on sale, but its still about $20 for a pad of 50. That's $.40 per page, plus a few pages in my sketch book getting it all together, and figuring out what I'm going to make the piece look like.

The ink pen is $5 each, and I probably go through 1 every other piece, so let's say $2.50.

Then I have to factor in the cost of prints, of paper for the prints, of packaging, of marketing, of table rent at shows, of gas and food for being at the shows, of making the necklaces, of bookmarks and keychains. Every single piece I make has the propensity to make a lot of money in merchandise, but each thing also comes with a cost of getting started.

When you ask me to "hook you up" it makes me feel like I'm not worth anything. It makes me feel like I don't deserve to at least break even on this endeavor of mine, and I just wanted to share that with you all.