D*rn, the comment below turned out be longer than I anticipated and is more serious than I wanted, but still, I like to give you the experiences I gained over the last 3 decades or so with respect to the electronic music side of things.

Though am not an artist, not earning anything with my hobby drawings, I have a few friends in the music business, ranging from DJs and electronic music artists to people supporting artists in form of bookers and managers. What I learned through them, as well as my decades full of attending 'dance' events (clubs, festivals and all) is that music is an industry, a business.

Back in the early 90s when I went to my first 'rave', electronic music was in the underground for 100%. Lots and lots of possibilities for many artists, but the gig payments were low, most artists could not make a living out of this, artists fees were affordable for many promoters (most of them tiny little fan-based businesses). Since the end of the 90s and early 2000, this electronic music section started to climb out of the underground. The events became bigger, gig fees increased, production costs increased, entertainment levels increased. All this was driving the mass to start attending these events and embrace this music genre. And everything since then builds from there.

This whole sector became a business. And as in any business, a few earn a shitload of money, a handful+ make really good money, the 'middleclass'+ earn good enough money is much larger in numbers (worldwide), but compared to all those who are at the bottom half of the pyramid, they earn very well. The bottom half of this pyramid earn no to little money.

The money earned by the artists in the top, attracts new artists, resulting in the enormous growth in numbers of electronic music producers in last two decades. Most of them want a breakthrough, want to play at festivals and in clubs. Though in several places in the world (such as in my own country) gazillion club nights and festivals are happening, and a super large part of the younger generation are attending one to more of these events annually, there is simply not enough room to provide all these artists with a stage.

And because it's a real business by now, organising an event costs a lot of money, promoters start to play 'save' and book at least a few big names costing them shitloads of money, but more or less guarantee them to cover the costs and hopefully make a profit.

This leaves even less room for those artists that are not well known by the public, the mass.

This whole transition in the electronic music side of things, I've seen with my own eyes unfolding over the last 3+ decades. This showed me what art means and what it means for an artist when the art segment becomes a business.

While when art is not a business, the art is in the underground, giving a stage for many artists, the money sucks, those who attend to the art, the people, are true fans, the minority by far in our society. While when art is a business, only the sub-top to the top in the pyramid of all artists, make enough money to pay for their lives, while all the rest need additional revenue streams.

Is this fair and correct? That can be debated. But it's the natural effect for everything in a free world, therefore also for art and artists. No matter how cool some art is, art is only truly appreciated by a small number of people, the mass doesn't care. When art is a business, then the only way for an artist to make decent money is to treat art as a business and run it as a business. This means investing in time and money. For many artists, this means: Paying others to handle all the business tasks, because of their networks, their knowledge, their focus or whatever that can help to push the artist up the ladder. In electronic music, many artists are producing, not to earn money with it (since many don't; ie nothing to just tiny bits) but purely for marketing purposes; Purely to be able to get the next gig. Only a very very few earn good money with productions.

I don't know how you go around with your art. But I know that when publishing and trying to sell music through Bandcamp, it is not enough to publish it over there and run some campaigns on other social media platform (must at least be paid ads, otherwise the reach is next to nothing anyway, but even paid ads will very likely not do the trick). Its also not enough to be here at HIVE blogging about and sharing the art. In the end, the income through these channels is peanuts in the grand scheme of life and the number of dollars needed to sustain at least a basic life. I can only advise you: When not doing so already, start treating your art as a business. Give yourself a timeframe with goals. Invest where needed. Get people on board supporting you to step higher up the ladder. When you see progress, set new goal's, invest even more,.... repeat repeat repeat.

Anyways :) I do hope you have a wonderful 2021