For the Soul

In a lot of artistic fields, most of the financial spoils go to a few highly successful artists and the businesspeople who support them. There are plenty of stories in the media about hugely successful writers, actors, DJs, singers, models, fashion designers, photographers, and others. That's because it's not interesting to write about artists who have been only modestly successful, earning a decent wage, saving for retirement someday, and living in a regular house with a regular car, just like their neighbor, an accountant.

For every musician with a top 100 hit, there are thousands of talented musicians who will never get that lucky. For every writer with a debut novel that becomes a best seller and a Hollywood blockbuster, there is an endless stream of writers who will never be a guest on late-night television shows or be interviewed on the radio. But there are writers, actors, DJs, singers, models, fashion designers, and photographers who get up every day, do very good work, and take enough money home to live as an artist and not work at something less fulfilling to them. They are a modest success.

Let's say you could give an all-knowing crystal ball to your teen. Ask your teen if that crystal ball told him right now that he would never hit the big time, never be famous or win the big awards or become rich from his art, but that he would earn an average wage for his whole life and have only modest success, would he still do it? The answer to this question should be revealing. If the answer is no, then what is more important: doing the art or becoming “successful” through it?

Of course, there are big stars who will tell you they were driven by a desire to be famous, but that doesn't mean a drive to be famous is a healthy thing. It just means they made it through a gauntlet that countless others with the same drive did not. Does your child enjoy practicing her art form every day as an ordinary part of her life? Does it feel to her like something she always wants or needs to be doing? If not, then will she be able to sustain her career if she does not achieve big-time success?

To achieve even modest success within an artistic field requires very hard work. Can your teen live with doing that work and have the only reward be that he got to live a life pursuing his artistic passion? Obviously not every musician or writer will be even a modest success. Some people are not talented enough, and some people are not willing to put in the work to learn and hone their craft. Luck plays a role as well. But we think it is healthy to have an orientation first and foremost that the pursuit of art full-time will be a career—dare we say it, a job—and if your teen feels completely deflated by that idea, then he needs to give some hard thought to why.

For the Sale

If your child thinks she can approach her artistic pursuit with a career orientation and will not be dissuaded even if she never reaches the pinnacle of her field, then she should spend some time thinking about the practical questions of how much money she can realistically make and how she would structure her work.

Working for Others

Let's first explore practicing art in a more traditional 9-to-5 position. There are plenty of full-time opportunities to practice art as a salaried employee of a larger organization. Many students have great careers working full-time for a company as a designer, animator, writer, or photographer, for example. There can be a lot of benefits to this approach. Their income will be much more stable, they likely have access to decent health care, and they can save money for retirement through a company-sponsored 401k plan. If they are sick or just need some time off, they can take that time away from work without losing pay because they did not produce anything during that time. Instead of being alone all day in a studio, they likely will have colleagues who provide them with feedback or even help them develop and grow as an artist. The company may pay them to attend professional development conferences and workshops, so they get to hone their skills at the company's expense instead of having to reach into their own pockets. They may be able to establish a network of potential mentors and customers, which could be vital if they later decide to strike out on their own as a freelancer. They may also have the opportunity to work on projects that millions of people will see. Designing a new product for Facebook or working on digital art for a Marvel movie will expose their work to the entire world. And the pay can be very good. According to Glassdoor.com, the average annual salary for an animator at DreamWorks Animation is over $116,000.

There are some challenges to this approach as well. The main downsides depend very much on your child's personality and artistic passion. Not a lot of companies will pay someone full-time to produce hip-hop music. That's a field where most people have to hustle to sell their work independently. There are also industries that used to employ full-time artists, but they have undergone tremendous economic changes and can no longer afford to employ artists at the previous level. Examples of this are writing and photography. Many magazines, newspapers, and similar organizations have had to greatly reduce full-time staff in these areas because of declining growth in their revenues and competition from online media. The Internet did create new opportunities in some of these professions but often at much lower pay or freelance only. As a result, the competition for certain well-paying full-time artistic jobs at established companies has increased greatly. Also, an artist's work in these full-time roles can be subject to a lot of meddling by managers, colleagues, and corporate agendas that may conflict with the artist's creative impulses. Sometimes in exchange for security, you must trade autonomy. That may apply even to the artist's schedule. If your child does her most inspiring work at night or works only when she feels the creative juices flowing, this could be a problem in a business that needs to integrate art into a bigger corporate process that has a lot of other dependencies and time constraints.

Working Independently

The alternative to working as a more traditional employee is to work for yourself. This can seem like a rewarding way to work and your child may imagine being able to live freely wherever in the world he wants and not be subject to a 9-to-5 routine. That is the dream, but the reality can be very different. Those who work for themselves are not just doing their art. They are also running a business, and the lifeblood of any business is sales and marketing. Even if their art is high quality, people need to be exposed to it, and that doesn't magically happen just because the art is good. They will need to spend a significant amount of time hustling for clients, marketing their work to potential buyers, or promoting themselves within online communities like YouTube. If they are marketing themselves, there will also probably be a period when they start out during which they are working extra hard to build up their customer base. It could be months, or more likely years, before they earn enough to live on their own and establish a regular client base. It also means they may have to deal with customers who have very different needs and expectations than they do. Let's say, for example, that you are a talented glass blower and get an inquiry from a chain of local high-end restaurants that are willing to place a large order that would really help you financially. But they may make demands about the size, color, consistency, or the cost of the glass products that are unappealing from the artist's point of view but make good sense from a business point of view. They may also want to negotiate cost, which is a business skill, not an artistic skill.

Marketing your art also means facing potential rejection, which can be demoralizing. Is your child prepared to hear the word no many more times than the word yes? Even established and famous actors get rejected for movie and TV roles if they are not a good fit for that particular project. And all the time spent on these myriad practical matters is time when they cannot be doing their art. Whether it is freelance writing, designing websites, or writing background music for commercials, artists can expect to spend as much as 50 percent of their time doing work other than actually creating their art. Do they have the fortitude to stick with these tasks so they can make room for the tasks they actually enjoy? Maybe an agent, a manager, a record label, or a studio can offload a lot of this work from an artist, but they then take a cut of the artist's earnings, sometimes a quite substantial one, to cover their costs. And those people are trying to make a living as well. They don't earn money unless the artist earns money, so just like the corporate client we mentioned earlier, they may be frequently pushing the artist to do projects to pay the bills, not because they truly fit with the artist's real passions. Big stars make enough to cover these professional costs and still make out well, but remember that we are encouraging your child to think through his future as if he became a modest success, not a big star. If the only way the economics work out is by being a big star, that is a highly risky and speculative approach to establishing a career. Either way, your child is not very likely to be successful as an independent artist without self-discipline and a strong work ethic. He should spend some time thinking about whether he has that level of commitment. Independent artists do not get paid unless they produce something, and it can feel very different to work as an artist in a mode where you must constantly produce or not eat.

To ease this pressure, a lot of independent artists have “day jobs” or side jobs as they are getting started so they can support themselves financially while they build up their client base or work toward a bigger break in their industry. This is a well-established tradition, and some artists take this approach through their entire life. We've all heard Oscar-winning actors talk about waiting tables or moving furniture, but this approach has its downsides. Working as a waiter, a house painter, a receptionist, or any other side job for that matter can leave you tired and wanting to tune out and take a break. Will your child have the discipline every day to carve out time in the early morning or after work in the evening to focus on art? How much of a side job will she need to pay her bills compared to how much effort it will take to break through as an artist? Can she carve out enough time for both? And if she decides she will paint houses for the rest of her life to support her artistic profession, what happens when she hurts her back or gets older and less interested in physical labor? How will she pay for health care or save for retirement?

We are not trying to discourage anyone from following their dreams. These are just realities that aspiring artists need to consider, and by considering them early on, they will be more likely to establish a realistic plan to navigate them. Sit down with a spreadsheet if you can and talk to your teen about what he might earn for his work, how much of it he would need to sell, and how much he could earn from side jobs that he imagines doing. Then see how this adds up, and compare it to the costs of renting a small apartment; paying for a small car, utilities, and groceries; and possibly paying off a student loan for art school or a specialized training program.

In particular, aspiring artists should look at a realistic time frame for how long it would take to reach the point of selling enough of their art to cover these costs. In many cases, it will not happen overnight. There will be time required to build up their work, market themselves, and eventually break through to a sustainable level, so talk to your child about realistic strategies for getting through these early and more difficult days.^1,2

We understand that this exercise might seem totally alien to aspiring artists, as though it were almost disrespectful to imply that the money side of things would matter enough to pour cold water on the artistic passion with colorless math. These types of analyses are not what motivates kids to do what they love best. You may need to remind your teen that there are plenty of artists in midlife who wish they had paid more attention to numbers and contract details when they were younger and starting out. Artists who understand the business side of their industry are empowered to negotiate better, make more money, and ultimately have a better chance to be a full-time artist.

What can an actor, freelance writer, musician, or glass blower earn as an independent artist? The range is almost infinite. A quick Google search shows a single piece of blown glass made by Dale Chihuly, an iconic and ground-breaking glass sculptor, that is currently on sale for $28,000 (shipping not included). Another search on Etsy, an online marketplace for independent artists and makers, shows a lovely hand-blown glass lighting fixture for $225. According to Billboard magazine, a songwriter with at least one hit on the “Hot 100” could make anywhere from $100,000 to $2 million a year, while a cover band playing at smaller venues around the country can make $1,000 to $2,500 per appearance, which is then split four or five ways among the band after expenses. A good freelance writer could make between $200 and $500 for a blog post on a highly trafficked website. A freelance photographer can make anywhere from $15 to $50 per hour or charge between $2,500 and $10,000 to shoot a wedding. These are just general ranges that you can find with a simple online search, but clearly they vary widely depending on a number of factors. Here are some good resources for getting better information that may help you and your child draft a spreadsheet of potential earnings and think about ways to increase those earnings:

• Blogs, online communities, and online databases. Many artistic professions have blogs, online communities, and independent consultants who post articles about how to get ahead in their industry. Often these sites conduct surveys of their members or do research and report back on how much people are earning. Search for topics like “How much does a freelance photographer make?” or “How to earn more as a freelance writer” or “Tips for making money as a hip-hop producer” or “Average earnings for a freelance graphic designer.” Often schools also have online resources that provide more in-depth information about careers and may feature profiles from people discussing their earnings or the challenges of working independently.
• Marketplaces. Look for online marketplaces where artists are selling their work so your child can get a better sense of how much similar artists are getting paid for their work. Sites like Etsy.com allow artists to sell their wares, so go there and search for products similar to what your child would sell. If your child produces music, go to Spotify and look up royalty rates. If your child wants to be a freelance mobile app developer, go to Upwork.com and try to find a top freelancer who does that to see what the going rate is. Search for terms like “freelance writer needed” or “looking for wedding photographer” or “music production gig” or “band seeks drummer.” Often there are ads on sites like Craigslist.org that indicate pay rates for freelance services.
• Talk to other artists. See if your teen can reach out and connect with other artists in their field. You can search online for local artists in the area or potentially connect with artists in online communities. For example, a lot of music producers put their work up on Soundcloud.com. If your child follows a few up-and-coming producers who are not very famous yet, he could try to reach out through their public profile information on that site to see if the artist would do an informational interview, which is just a way for your child to learn more about how that artist earns a living.
• Workshops. One way a lot of artists earn extra money is teaching their craft to others. If you can afford it, sending your teen to participate in a workshop within her artistic field can be very valuable. It provides extra training and development of craft, and it creates a connection within the artistic community to someone who could be a mentor, provide information on how to better earn a living, or connect your teen to other members of that community who can provide the same benefits.

Ideally your teen would do research using all of these resources to get a more complete picture of their earnings potential. At the very least, kids can learn a lot more about their field and feel more confident in themselves if they have a strong commitment to their art.

Clearly there are pros and cons to both working independently and working full-time for a company. If your teen is serious about pursuing art as a career, it is worth talking through the differences and making an honest assessment of what jives well with his talents, personality, and lifestyle desires. As we discuss in chapter 11, there are ways to “try on” a career and learn more about it before making a big educational or career decision. Your teen can conduct informational interviews of freelance artists in her chosen field or possibly find an internship with a company that would expose her to the corporate side of working in her field. Contests are another great way to get some early exposure and feedback, and some companies like Disney even scout for talent through these.