How to make a living as a creative
Whether you’re an independent designer, photographer or a video editor; Here’s a few things that might help you meet your monetary goals
The problem:
Creative people need to output creative work. Without it, we wither and die on the inside. If you’re like me, it makes sense to pursue a creative career, but it’s usually hard to monetize. Why is that?
Before we dive into the subproblems that inevitably leads to money problems (and therefore poor mental health and overall life quality); keep in mind that the following abstractions are, well, just that. Abstractions. Some of which may be affected by culture, personal network, etcetera. The following is not a list of scientific facts. These are life lessons.
Here’s the shortlist:
- Customers don’t want you. They want an outcome.
- Prices can seem arbitrary to non-creatives.
- Globalization doesn’t care about your living costs.
- Creatives often employ other creatives, and they’re just as broke as you.
- It’s usually more profitable to pursue problems as opposed to art projects
The solution:
The following are a couple of principles and ideas that can help ease ones pain. Every item on the list deserves its own article, but for the sake of brevity; here’s are some thoughts on each point, respectively:
Customers don’t want you. They want an outcome.
Quentin Tarantino recently appeared on Joe Rogans podcast, where he talked about how his unwillingness to compromise has played an important part in his success. That’s great for Quentin. You’re probably not Quentin.
Which means that you sometimes have to contend with the customer’s (often flawed) perception of what a good result should look like. If you’re relatively young, inexperienced and looking to build your portfolio, i would suggest you pander to your clients a little bit — regardless of how skilled you are.
I think Kenny Rogers said it best:
You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ‘em
Prices can seem arbitrary to non-creatives.
If the core of your business revolves around selling ice cream, it’s easy for business school graduates to imagine what your cost of operations are; but what if you design company logos for a living? Why does it take two days for you to produce the logo? Why not 4 hours?
One way to ease the pain of your clients is to document the process. This is neither art, nor a science; it’s just documentation. If the client objects, you just have to keep your cool and emphasize how the process is messy for most professionals, and remind them of your success with previous clients (if any).
If you’re struggling to land the project, you can always ask the big questions:
- What is an authentic and appropriate logo worth to you?
- How long should it take and why?(Spoiler: there’s no right answer)
Globalization doesn’t care about your living costs.
People living in India aren’t paying San Francisco -like amounts in rent. That’s a problem if 100% of the work can be delivered and evaluated digitally. I’m not saying you should move to India, but you should probably not expect comfortable housing in the middle of LA; especially if you’re just starting out.
I’d highly recommend living with your parents for as long as possible while getting your feet wet. A lot of us unfortunately don’t have that opportunity, so you’re going to have to keep a steady job until you can figure out how to bring in clients. In terms of getting your feet wet; there are freelancing sites out there like freelancer, upwork and fiverr. Just be prepared to compete with prices until you’ve found your niche and achieved a good portfolio.
Other creatives are broke too
wooooah sick pictures, dude! hey can you snap some pictures for my band?
The whole “working for exposure”-paradigm seems to trickle down. Promoters don’t pay their musicians, so the musicians don’t pay for the artwork, which leads to photographers cracking software, etc.
I know it’s tempting to help out your buddies. After all: other creatives get you on a level that the normies don’t. However, this is time and energy you be spending making money. For photographers in particular, this could mean taking wedding pictures, baby pictures, you name it.
Your landlord doesn’t care how you make your money. Don’t get it twisted.
Problems > art projects
Not reaching the desired amount of people on social media is a problem. Social media brimming with trashy content is NOT a problem. It’s an opportunity as far as your wallet is concerned.
Here are some examples of creative problems businesses are usually willing to pay for you to solve:
- Our website isn’t achieving what it’s supposed to.
- Our videos aren’t being watched by anyone.
- Our logo doesn’t look right.
- Our articles are being dismissed as hacky
- Our customers think our product is “difficult” to use
… So what now?
So now you know the truth. Or rather, a fraction of it. What’s important is that you give your passion a fair shot and try to learn some lessons along the way. As for motivation; I personally like to visualize myself going back to selling nuts and bolts (yikes) whenever i catch myself being lazy!