Income avenues for bloggers, writers, artists and other creatives

Posted on by LittleFears

Jordan tweeted me today asking for some advice for a comic creator. I came back with a few suggestions, but one thing sticks in my head whenever creators, bloggers, writers, artists and even photographers ask me for advice. Aim to have multiple revenue streams.

The problem with having one revenue stream is if it ever collapses, you have nothing to fall back on. In addition to that, a single revenue stream is often limited. Even if you make it big time, how many t-shirts do you think you can sell per month? There are common-sense limits here.

So, in this post, I aim to give you some ideas on how I make a living from different revenue streams.

Print on Demand. The obvious starter. Tees, posters and phone cases on Society6, RedBubble and Threadless.

Books. Self-publishing is easier than ever. Try KDP, Smashwords or CreateSpace. Got a comic? Try Comixology.

Affiliate links. I know some people invest heavily in affiliate links, time and advertising wise and see a good return. I see maybe £20 a month from Amazon book links and Skillshare premium sign-ups. Though it doesn’t help I give everything away free, so, a pinch of salt.

Teach. Practice making videos, upload them to YouTube or Vimeo. See how you feel about them. Then get onto Udemy or Linda and start teaching properly and earning from your classes.

Stock images. Urgh, pennies. The pay for stock images is piss poor now Unsplash and Pixabay exist, but, there’s still a demand. Try Shutterstock.

Online product sales. Etsy for Americans, Folksy for the Brits. Make stuff, sell it online.

Digital products. Although Etsy sells digital products, check out Creative Market for selling your graphic designs and photograph packs.

Patreon and Ko-Fi. Ko-Fi is nice to have. People can tip you $3 at a time for your work. Patreon is also awesome. But if you want to earn from Patreon, you need to make it the main platform for your content.

Spec work. This shit is hard. I tried it, I hated it, I left it. But I know some people earn a living from Design Crowd, 99U and Fiverr.

Sponsored posts. Got a social network account or blog? Check out websites like Buzzoole, TBP or Brandbacker.

Write articles for websites. Every major website that takes submissions will have a submissions button at the bottom of the page. Keep an eye out for them.

Paper and digital magazines. Earning a living entirely on the net is hard as feck. So take it to real life. Photos, comic strips and articles required. Even if you’re a gardening blogger. Don’t just look at major magazines. Check out the little local circulars, too.

Freelance work in the real world. Photographers, ask car dealerships if they need a hand with their photos. Writers, they may want you to write something for their catalogues or websites. Artists, ask them if they want a poster designed. Visit your local businesses. Someone will need you for something.

Real-life teaching. Teach your skills in real life. One on one tutoring pays well. Ask your local craft shop if they’d like you to teach customers in-store how to use spinning wheels for a day.

Shows and exhibitions. Either get a stall to sell your wares or speak to event organisers and find out if they need someone. Photographers for event photos. Writers offer a write up of the event. Spinners, you’ll need the spinning wheel again and do some demonstrations.

Shows and exhibitions (part 2). Got a service to offer vendors? Beauty blogger visiting Afro Live or Hair? Visit first thing in the morning. Make sure to say hello to everyone on every stand and that every brand there has a copy of your media kit. Again, photographers, writers, artists, visit these events. Hundreds of potential clients in one place. Make sure they all know who you are, and what you can offer them.

Market stalls. Got a local Sunday market? I make more in a day at one these than I do in a month on Etsy. Sell prints of your photos, art, comics and books.

Phew, OK, obviously there are hundreds of ways of earning a living doing what you love. You are not just a writer, condemned to writing your blog and hoping for a book deal. Or an artist who can only draw comics and sell tees. You’re a creative. Get creative with your incomes.

If you have any other ways of earning as a creative, leave a comment below and help a fellow creator out.

Speaking for myself, I can’t earn a living entirely online. I need to get out into the real world to earn a living and I need to take incomes from different directions. It’s hard work. Certainly harder than a 9 to 5 and longer hours. For those that knew me a pre-Fears, you know how big that statement is from me. But I get to pay the bills doing work I’m always psyched about. That’s always a great thing.

Do you know what else is a great thing? This segue into all the great ways you can support me if you love this post and my daily stories.

Check out my tees on Threadless. You can buy me a cuppa over on Ko-Fi. Want to support me monthly? Hit me up on Patreon for as little as $1 a month. I also have an Etsy store and a book series on Amazon.

As always, shout out and thanks to my $10 Patrons, whose support helps me bring you daily tales of groan-inducing terror. Bruce, Badger, Kathy & Warren.

Cheers, gang.

55 thoughts on “Income avenues for bloggers, writers, artists and other creatives”

  2. This is great advice. CreateSpace has shuttered and was replaced by Amazon. You can still publish with Amazon/KDP, but it is very tough to write and make a living. Most successful self-published writers take ten years to generate decent income because several books create more than one stream, so diversifying is better if you can.

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    1. Aha, I knew Amazon owned CreateSpace, I had a brain blank on them closing it. I think I even wrote a post about, haha. Doh.

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  4. None of my usual humor here. This is some really solid advice, including angles I hadn’t even thought of myself. Of course the first step to making money in anything is just getting off my butt and trying 😉

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    1. Getting off the butt mate, that’s the hardest part! I know what I’m doing and how to do it, and even I struggle with getting into somedays.

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    1. Cheers, Harry. Yeah, unless you’re one of the 0.0001% of artists who make it to superstardom, the best we can hope for is paying the bills. It’s a choice of how we want to spend our lives though, aye.

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      1. Life is more things. Jesus said, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses” (Luke 12:15 NKJV).

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  6. All Avenues I’ve tred and failed at for over 30 years, Mate. I think my emotional issues have always been a huge wall to prevent me from making a living as a creative. At 49, I’m officially contented exhibiting on and offline. But definitely avenues all worth persuing. You definitely nailed it.
    Cheers, Matt

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    1. That’s a shame, you’ve got so much going for you. You’re a multiple-media creative. So many people get stuck only doing one thing.

      I think the two hardest parts are organizing the time to do these things and motivation. Personally, I’m at a point where I’m getting $20 dollars a month from all different directions with passive incomes then the freelance work and market stalls make up over half my income. So I don’t get demotivated if I don’t get an article published or like last month, I didn’t get a single affiliate click. There’s always next month and I have something coming in from somewhere. But yeah, if your emotional condition isn’t up to snuff, every bad month with something is going to hurt so much more.

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      1. But, I’ve also had success in jobs related to the arts not necessarily my own. Trust me I’m not entirely disappointed by my life. I’ve done tv, film, animation, poetry, dance, music, theater, sound mixing, stage management, acting, directing, editting,photography, collage, painting, drawing, published zines and comics ect…just have never made a comfortable dime

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    1. Hands down, real-life freelance work and markets. If I can get a stand at a market, it’s usually £10+ petrol. I’ll sell prints at £12, no postage, plus original art I don’t bother selling online. On a good day, £200, on the worst day, £20. As for freelance work, it depends on what I’m doing. Basic consultation at my old workplace £200 for a 6 hour day, but that’s once every 3-4 months at best and it’s a long arse train journey from Scotland to London for that now. Local work, I can often push to £30 an hour for short jobs. Lots of little jobs suit me.

      As for the internet incomes, they all vary wildly but all hover about $50 a month. That sounds awful, but, between Webgains, Amazon, Skillshare, Udemy, Threadless, book sales, Patreon and Ko-fi, those $50’s all add up, you know? Then you get months where I’ll get a $40 Ko-Fi tip from one person, or $200 from Threadless, like back in May. The flipside, I earned nothing from Webgains or Amazon last month. Swings in roundabouts.

      If I were to take sponsored posts, I have a combined following of about 100k between here and social media. So I could charge up to £100 depending on relevance. I’ve just never found a good fit for sponsors and I don’t want unrelated products here. There’s not much to my posts so unrelated product placements would stand out like a sore thumb.

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  17. Thank you for the post! Interesting and different avenues to consider. Freelancing is something I am considering. Would you recommend getting some courses so as to be more appealing to those who consider hiring me? Or simply showing your blog activity and results might do the trick? Perhaps both, haha?

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    1. Blog activity and their results don’t correlate very well to freelance work. Unless it’s for a sponsored post on your blog, actual freelance work is usually picked up from you having a good pitch.

      A better suggestion on the Internet would be to go and find all the companies you like on social media. Get talking to them so they know you. If you have an idea for something you could do for them, pitch it. Thats how I pick up work with the Fears. I make myself known to companies, make sure they know me and who I am, then offer them my services for one-off jobs. Stats, follower counts and views don’t ever come into it. I could have just 7 followers on Twitter and I’d do it the same way and get the same results.

      Now, of course, I’ve said in comments above, most of my income is from real life markets and freelance work. But that’s largely the same thing. I make myself known to everyone. Exhibitions and trade shows are awesome for that. So many potential customers in one place. A real case of it’s not what you know, but who you know.

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  20. I guess dedication is my major character deficit, and that is why I never pursue very useful information such as this. I must change! Thank you for the time and thought you put into this post, which is really useful. I must try! I really must!

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    1. Dedication can be troublesome. I’d say work on your time management. My attention flips all about the place, so cn cause dedication issues. But I manage my time well into focussed bursts.

      I did a post on this back in February that had two free courses on time management. https://littlefears.co.uk/2019/02/25/getting-stuff-done/ They’re still free. Scroll to the bottom, it’s not a long post. The courses and links are there.

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  21. Thanks a lot for the list of possible ways of income through the Internet. Most of them I didn’t even know they existed. And, by the way, your drawing of a vulture at the top of this post is amazing !

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