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How to build multiple income streams

For creators, security is having as many income sources as possible. Here's how to start.

By Sheryl GarrattPublished 2 years ago 12 min read
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We live in a time of rapid change and disruption.

I’m not just talking about the pandemic, here. The world of work has been changing for some time now. There’s no longer such a thing as a job for life. Soon, there may be very few full-time jobs at all. I can see a not-too-distant future when almost everyone will be freelance, and we’ll all need to be agile, adaptable and endlessly flexible to earn a living.

There is much to be said for this. We get variety, flexibility, and much more control over our lives, the work we choose to do and who we choose to work with. What we lose is a sense of security, of knowing where the next job, the next payment is coming from.

The biggest insurance against seemingly constant change is having multiple incomes trickling in. Then if one source of money dries up, you still have the others. Even small sums can add up to something substantial, over time.

I learned this lesson the hard way.

For many years my anchor client as a writer was the Telegraph magazine, the weekend supplement from one of the UK's biggest newspapers. They had a brilliant editorial team who gave me a steady stream of interesting features to write. It was comfortable, familiar, fun. And as it was enough to live on, with a few other publications giving me less regular work, I stopped pitching ideas elsewhere.

Then suddenly the magazine’s editor resigned, her replacement bought in her own team, and I went to the office for a meeting in which I was assured I was a precious asset, and that nothing would change. And then: crickets. No. Work. At. All.

So I started sending out ideas to editors on other British broadsheets, only to find that all my old contacts had moved on and been replaced by new, younger editors who didn’t know my work. I was starting again, effectively. Only with far bigger bills to pay, and more responsibilities.

It was a humbling experience. And a huge lesson. No matter how fantastic your main clients are, no matter how comfortable you feel and how much you’re enjoying your current run of work, always have other options. Continue to develop new outlets, to build new income streams.

Luckily, it has never been easier to diversify. The internet makes it easy to recycle the same content in different forms (blogs, books, videos, products, e-courses, webinars, talks…). And there are so many ways now of building an audience, and communicating directly with people who like our work, instead of having to first convince the gatekeepers.

So where do you begin?

Start with what you’re good at. With what you love to do. And with anything that interests you, or that might be fun.

I’m don't like terms like ‘side-hustle’. Hustle sounds pushy to me, slightly seedy and definitely exhausting. To be clear, I am not pushing for you to be productive every waking minute, or to monetise every hobby. We all need down-time, and things we do just for fun. You’re aiming to earn more, and grow past always exchanging your own time for money so that you can have more free time, more choices.

See it as a set of experiments you are running.

You’re exploring. Setting up play projects. There are no failures here, only learning. Then continue to invest time and money in the ones that really work, or that you enjoy. My personal rules for any new income streams?

  • Keep it simple.
  • Make it fun.
  • Don’t get overwhelmed: launch only one idea at a time.
  • Done is better than perfect.
  • It’s also important to note that it often takes time to establish a new blog, podcast, course or product. The results are rarely instant. This is both depressing and liberating. Your early attempts don’t have to be perfect, because no one will be watching. You really can put out a Minimum Viable Product – the most basic, flawed version of whatever it is you’re trying to build. Then learn, and improve as you go.

    Some ideas to get you started.

    Use your existing assets

    If you have work space, storage or equipment you don’t always use, can you rent it out? Anything from a parking space to your studio to your professional equipment can now be hired out fairly easily and seamlessly online. I even had one client who realised the yurt she owned for summer festivals could also earn its keep at weddings and parties in between.

    Are you exploiting your archive/past work/back catalogue to its fullest extent? If you own the copyright on your work (and really do fight to keep this at every stage), it’s yours to use.

    Writers: Make themed collections of old articles/short stories you’ve written and self-publish them as books. Recycle material into podcasts. And unless the publicity will benefit you directly in some major way (ie if you’re promoting a book), always ask to be paid if you’re invited on the TV or radio as an expert. It’s your time, and your knowledge!

    Podcasters: Recycle your podcasts into books. Tim Ferriss has done this brilliantly with Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors, for instance.

    Photographers: Regularly pitch ideas to publications using pictures from your archive. Find new hooks: the anniversary of a big news story, for instance. Upload prints to art sites, add a shop to your own website.

    Artists/graphic designers: License images to a greetings card company (or get your own cards printed and sell them online, or through local shops). Upload patterns, fonts and images to platforms like Patternbank, Minted, Crella, Zazzle and Spoonflower for a trickle of passive income. Or create low-content books such as blank notebooks with beautiful covers using Amazon’s print on demand service.

    Try teaching

    Could you do a few hours private tuition in what you do? Better still, could you run workshops or masterclasses, or make an online course to share your knowledge?

    With teaching, once you've honed your methods and know it works, look for ways to scale up, so you’re teaching large groups, or moving away from exchanging your time for money: teach groups online, record your teaching and package it as a digital course or write it as a book. For inspiration, check out my interview with Ayana Webb, who took her income past the $100,000 mark in 2021. By selling piano lessons, online.

    Understand that you don’t have to be a world-class expert to teach a skill. You just have to be more proficient than your audience, and able to show them what you know in a clear and easy-to-digest way.

    Explore every way to earn money from your skills

    Don’t be snobbish about this. If it supports you in your art and gives you more choices, it’s worth considering. The trick is to ring-fence it, to do it as well as possible while restricting the time, energy and focus you give to it. It’s there to financially support your creative work, not to become it.

    • A photographer might spend a couple of days a month taking high-quality portraits for people to use on their websites or even on dating sites.
    • A graphic designer might have a little side-line in T-shirts.
    • A fashion stylist or designer might have a great eye for vintage pieces that they can buy in charity shops and resell on eBay.
    • A set designer might dress the occasional party or wedding.

    Ask what else your clients need

    Connect with the people who already pay you. Get curious. Ask what their challenges are, what keeps them awake at night, what would make their lives easier. Then if you can offer them a ready-made solution, do it!

    This is not begging for extras. It’s serving, helping, collaborating. You’re saying: “Would you like me to handle that for you?” We sometimes wait to be invited, when what we really need to do is take the initiative.

    Always have a premium package

    Have something special to offer super-fans, or people who only want the very best.

    Some bands offer a special collectors edition of their album via their website or fan club, packaged in a beautiful box with autographed photos, an exclusive T-shirt or special access at one of their gigs. A small band could sell 100 of these at £150, creating a substantial income boost. Book publishers might try a limited edition of signed ones – especially art books – with a print/poster/T-shirt and bonus content of some sort?

    If you offer a service, have a VIP package that offers more. Perhaps you meet the client in person rather than online, you offer something more personalised, or give email access between sessions. If nothing else, it will make your standard package/fee look more affordable!

    Artisans/craftspeople can really benefit from this. Bespoke, commissioned pieces should be priced at a premium. As the British TV show Repair Shop shows, people will invest to save pieces they have a sentimental attachment to, even if they aren’t hugely valuable.

    Of course it would be cheaper to buy new than have your grandfather’s chair reupholstered, or a much-loved childhood toy made new again: but the price isn’t the point.

    Create a down-sell

    Have something to offer at a lower price point to people who aren’t ready to invest in your main product or service.

    • If you are an artist, select a few works to sell as limited-edition prints. And a few to offer as cheaper, unlimited editions. Reproduce some of your images on trays, placemats or coasters, T-shirts or bags – and then sell them on etsy, or better still via your own website. Print-on-demand makes it much easier to do this without needing to create lots of stock, sell it and store it.
    • Merchandise is a major source of income for anyone with a fan base, from T-shirts to babygros. Many bands now make more from this than selling their music. ­
    • Books are great for this, and it’s never been easier to self-publish. Writers, photographers, artists, designers: if you have any kind of following at all, think about making some simple books to give your fans another way of supporting your work.

    Find benefactors

    Look into bursaries, grants, government enterprise schemes, artist/writer-in-residence programmes. Sometimes the support you need is there, if you apply for it. Writing grant applications is a skill, like any other. It can be learned.

    And take a look at platforms such as Patreon and KickStarter: are there opportunities for you there? Musician/performer Amanda Palmer is a shining example of what can happen if you connect with your fans, serve them well and ask them for support. See her brilliant TED talk, read her book The Art of Asking, or just check out her Patreon page if you want to know more.

    There are also things like Ko-Fi which are simple to set up and give fans an opportunity to donate regular or one-off amounts to support your blog, podcast, or any other creative endeavour.

    Swap skills and resources with others

    It doesn’t always have to be about money. Consider skill/resource/time swaps, too. Get creative with this, and make it fun!

    • Walk a friend’s dog and keep it company while they’re at work, then sit in their empty flat in blissful silence and write all day.
    • Offer guitar lessons to your neighbour’s children, while they let your band use their garage to rehearse in.
    • Redesign your accountant’s awful website, and she does your tax return.
    • DJ at a friend’s party; they design your next club flyers.

    Consider taking a part-time job, at least for a while

    If you work alone all day, it might be fun to work in a bar a couple of nights a week, to be around people. If you’re just getting a business off the ground, it can take a lot of stress off to have some other income coming in while you establish it. And if you lack skills, it’s great to get someone else to pay you to learn them.

    An artist who lacks marketing skills might want to work in a shop or gallery for a while for instance. Working in a design studio/a shared space with other creatives can teach you a lot about your craft, but also about softer, less obvious skills such as dealing with tricky clients, presenting your work well, structuring your time.

    Build a following

    That’s where your power lies. It’s much easier to sell anything if you already have a social media following, a website attracting an audience or best of all, an email list which enables you to keep in regular contact with your audience, with the people who love what you do.

    You don’t have to be on every social media channel, all of the time. That way madness lies. Choose one or two that you enjoy, that you can use without falling down the rabbit hole every time you open it. Once you’ve found one that works for you, master it. Build a following. But don’t rely on it. Algorithms change. Accounts can be blocked. Big tech will eventually get broken up.

    It’s best to claim your own bit of digital real estate, a platform you own. A website is yours. It's a hub for everything else you might want to create or sell. So find ways of driving traffic to it, and work at building a mailing list. This gives you a direct communication channel with your biggest fans.

    The benefits are huge. Your website, podcast or newsletter works as a showcase for your products or services, a launchpad for books, courses or anything else you want to sell, and a way of building and keeping the 1000 True Fans that are all we need to earn a good living from our work.

    ***

    If you want to establish or grow your creative business, I have a 10-day course full of practical advice like this. (Building multiple income streams is actually Day 8). Interested? Sign up here. It’s free!

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    About the Creator

    Sheryl Garratt

    Sheryl Garratt is a former editor of The Face and Observer magazines, and has written professionally for more than 30 years. She is also a coach working with creatives of all kinds. Find her at thecreativelife.net

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