The Modern Starving Artist

Most people who have any kind of creative skill have found a way to make money from it. Typically, there’s two kinds of people like this; those who do what they do because they love it (left side), or to earn a living (right side). Of course there’s those who fit in the middle who love what they do, but earn a good living from it. I fit in the middle.

I think there’s a problem with those who sit on or lean to the left side. That problem is having a lesser knowledge and willpower to run the business side properly. Mainly, it’s money. Coming up with ideas for marketing and the like is not hard, but as soon as the subject comes to asking for money, we fall into a couple traps. Charging too little for fear of loosing work and not being a hard-ass when it comes to making sure you get paid on time.

There’s many amazingly talented designers, developers, artists, musicians and authors out there that can’t seem to manage the finance aspect of freelancing properly. This results in late payments and lack of profits (you are a business after all, not a charity).

I’m going to call these people, myself included at this point, a ‘modern starving artist’.