Create What You Love…But Also What Sells
The biggest thing that separates creating for a hobby and creating for a living, is that when you’re creating for a living, you actually have to “make a living.” While you’ll always have to create what you love as an artist, you may find it necessary to also create what sells to support yourself.
One of the biggest myths surrounding the creating community is that if you create what you love, the money will automatically follow. You’ll be able to make a living just doing specifically what you love. While it’s a lovely notion, it’s only true to a point.
Sometimes what you love to create and what sells happen to be the same thing and you find “artist bliss.” But other times, what you love to create, may not be exactly what sells well. In that case you may have to compromise if you want to actually make a living at your craft.
Evolve or Die
In business there’s a saying, you either have to evolve or die. That statement is very true when you have a creative business as well. While you’ll always be creating, you may not be able to create exactly what you want all the time, or you’ll starve.
To outsiders, the notion of a “starving artist” can be endearing. They seem find charm in the idea of someone sacrificing their own well-being for the love of their craft. The idea of creating art for art’s sake, as a labor of love. In truth, artists find nothing pleasant about starving just to create. If they can’t pay the rent, they don’t have a place to create anyway.
This doesn’t mean you have to jump mediums to make a living. If you’re a painter, you don’t suddenly have to try to teach yourself how to be a jazz musician. Rather you may have evolve within your own niche.
Create What You Love While Creating What Sells
For example, if you’re an author who loves writing westerns, but you’re writing in a time when westerns have lost out in popularity to romance novels, you may have to adjust your genre. Yes, you can keep writing those gunslinger novels, but you may have to supplement them with a romance story here and there to pay the rent. While it may not be exactly what you want to do, you’ll still be able to obtain the creative joy of writing. And you can still write your westerns, just maybe not as many as you’d hoped.
The perfect real-world example is that of The Rolling Stones. When disco became more popular than rock ‘n roll in the 70’s, they jumped on the bandwagon, and started releasing disco songs. Many people felt it was a betrayal and a “sell-out,” but in reality, it was simply survival.
Their popularity was waning a bit as disco fought to gain traction against rock. When the Rolling Stones released their disco song “Miss You,” it catapulted them back into top popularity. And they remain to this day known as one of the greatest rock ‘n roll bands ever. They evolved with the trends and were able to stay alive as a group.
Creating is Still Creating
In my case, I began as a crafter, but later found costume making to be more profitable for me personally. So I evolved. I went from predominantly crafting to predominantly costume making. I still craft, because I wouldn’t be able to live without it, but I now focus more on the costumes since they’re more profitable.
Even in costume making, I sometimes compromise. As a costume maker, I often get requests to make costumes for characters I’ve never heard of. While it’s always more fun to make costumes for the characters I know and love, sometimes the ones I don’t really like are actually more popular. While I might rather be making one of my favorite characters, I still get the creative joy that comes with making any costume. And I don’t have to starve while I’m doing it.
Creating is still creating, and it always “makes my soul sing,” even if it’s not something I’d choose to create myself. And the bottom line is, I can always make my favorite characters in my spare time, as long as I create enough of what’s popular to make a living.
Everyone Starves at First
It’s often said that making a living is what separates the creative life from the hobby. This is true. Yes, every artist goes through a phase where they make almost nothing as they find their groove (Lord knows I did too). But eventually, you have to figure out how you can make a living with your art, or it remains just a hobby.
So while you do need to create what you love, if you want to make a living, you may also need to create what sells. It’s not “selling out;” it’s just selling, and it sure beats working a job you hate just to pay the bills. It doesn’t mean jumping on every new trend that comes along, it just means being discernible. Experimenting to see which of your own work sells better, and focusing more of your efforts on that. And the upside is, once you’re making a living off your work, you may find it easier to also create exactly what you love.
By Amber Reifsteck, The Woodland Elf
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