Guest Blogger-Tiffany Fisher-Say Goodbye to the Starving Artist-Sherri Rosen Publicity LLC
Say Goodbye to the Starving Artist: 5 Side Gigs that Pay the Bills
Talent is rarely enough to make it as an artist. You also need time, materials, and networking opportunities to create and market yourself. Unfortunately, that’s not easy to do if you’re tied down working a full-time job to pay your bills. Even part-time work can be challenging, as it often comes with ever-changing hours set by a boss who doesn’t care about your creative schedule.
Rather than try to shoehorn creative pursuits around an inflexible job, artists should find work that gives them the flexibility to set their own hours. That way, they can hone their craft while their creativity is at its peak and work for pay in the off hours.
The emergence of the gig economy has made it easier than ever to find flexible work arrangements. When you’re an independent worker, you choose how, when, and where you work. If you need more money, you can pick up more hours without pleading with a manager. If you need time off, you can take it with no guilt-tripping involved.
Here are some gigs we think are perfect for the artist’s lifestyle.
Rideshare Driving
If flexibility is your priority, rideshare driving is the side gig for you. When you drive for a rideshare company like Uber or Lyft, you choose when and how much you drive. To maximize your earnings, you’ll want to drive at peak hours — but that doesn’t necessarily mean nights and weekends. As Ridester explains, weekday mornings are the best time to drive in many cities because it’s when professionals head to the airport for business trips.
Dog Walking and Boarding
Exercise and time outdoors both boost creativity, so why not pick up a gig doing daytime dog walking? You get paid to exercise and hang out with cute pups, and dog owners get the peace of mind of knowing they won’t come home to accidents and a restless pet. Once you build a dog-walking clientele using a platform like Rover, consider adding boarding or sitting to your services. Doting dog owners will pay top dollar to board their pets in a home.
Virtual Customer Service
As more and more businesses move away from brick-and-mortar shops and into online sales, there’s a growing demand for virtual customer service representatives. As a virtual customer service rep, you’ll answer phone calls, emails, and chats from customers to resolve their issues and answer their questions. There is a wide range of companies that hire virtual customer service representatives; to find a position, check listings on job search sites like Indeed.
Doing Odd Jobs
If you thrive on never doing the same thing twice, try picking up gigs doing odd jobs for people around town. When you work as a Tasker for TaskRabbit, you’ll assemble furniture, run errands, help people move, and complete minor home repairs. You get to set your own rates and choose the jobs you accept, so how much you make is up to you. Want to know more? Time explains what it’s like getting paid to do people’s odd jobs.
Teaching English Online
If you’re looking for something more stable than odd jobs, but still flexible enough that you have time to create, consider teaching English online. Most jobs require online teachers to be certified in TEFL/TESOL, but you can complete the certification online. Other than a TEFL/TESOL certificate, you don’t need any prior teaching experience to get started. Once certified, you can start teaching English to learners in foreign countries through paid video chat sessions.
These days, holding down a job doesn’t have to mean reporting to an office at 8 a.m. every day or slogging through a retail job. By picking up side gigs instead, artists can pay their bills without cramping their creativity. That means more time to create, network, and hone your craft — and that’s what it’s all about.
Image via Unsplash
Brittany Fisher
Tags: artists, author, brittanyfisher, earn money, film, finances, sherrirosen, sherrirosenpublicityintlnyc, starvingartist, theatre, tv, writer
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 5th, 2018 at 6:38 am and is filed under African American, Clients, Friends and Colleagues, publicist nyc, publicity nyc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
