Artists: Do you find it harder nowadays to make a living as a writer, painter, photographer,

[Mike 03]

inventor, musician, or whatever craft you do?

Regardless of how amazing the internet is, you have to admit that it has a downside, which is how easy it is to reproduce someone's art for free and spread it all over the place, so that everyone can read/download/view/listen to it without paying a cent.

I hope this post doesn't sound like a "sorry sport" whining post.

[Deja Q]

1. Which is why I support DRM.

And dislike any big company that claims to support it, but then encourages piracy elsewhere...

Especially when I read stuff like this:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howell/?p=245

:(

[RoyGBiv]

22. DRM doesn't stop this ...

It never has. It never will.

[slampoet]

39. DRM didn't save LeadBelly.

[woo me with science]

2. Sad stats on earning money from art

(from an art teacher on another board)

http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6647734#post6647734


"Here's how Eric Maisel writing, "A Life in the Arts" puts it...

25% of all working visual artists earn no money from their art. Another 25% earn less than $1,000 per year. Almost 90% earn less than $5,000 per year.

From another source I read that 90% of all artists earn less than $1000 per year, of that last 10% group, 80% earn less than $5,000 and the last of that 10% group earns a sustainable living..."

[NV Whino]

3. Yes.

In a bad economy, art is the first to go. I still earn money as a graphic designer, but I haven't sold any paintings of consequence since George Bush moved into the White House.

Most of my income comes from the caretaking of estates of the rich and (not so) famous.

[leftofthedial]

4. musician--WAY harder.

many factors--MADD, Internet, economy, music technology...

[Mythsaje]

5. It's never been easy...

And on one level I'd be happy to hear people are pirating some of my stuff just because it would mean they were interested. In another, of course, it just sucks to be the victim of theft.

[xenussister]

8. Yep, better to be heard than forgotten

That's how one of my favorite artists sees it (the woman in my sig). She has 11 albums and at least 70% of her music is downloadable for free. Plus ALL of her albums can be heard via streaming audio (http://rhodesongs.com/music). No, she's not making a living at her music, and brilliant music it is too, and she has a day job, but that was the case before she made her music so available too. Now she figures that she'd rather her music be heard than not heard, and getting fans one at a time via hearing the music is better than not ever getting any new fans at all because they don't know what she sounds like.

After 25 years in the music business, she has a small but dedicated worldwide following (she the cult artist's cult artist). If she releases another album she'll have enough fans accumulated that she'll make her costs and a little extra. That's good enough for her.

I had a moment of "what?" when I heard that entire albums were up on BitTorrent sites, but my second and most lasting thought was that, wow, it's a good way for people to hear her music. And when the old Napster existed, I was the one with all of her albums up. She knew about it, and was ok with it. It got her a lot of new fans. If people fall in love with her phenomenal voice and interesting music, they'll support her. If they don't fall in love, they wouldn't have supported her anyway. Getting them to fall in love is dependent on them hearing her voice and music, so it all works out.

It's not "theft" if the artist has no problem with downloads.

[Mythsaje]

10. Well, I'll bet my publisher has a totally different take... LOL

It's one of the reasons I do offer some of my shorts for free sometimes. The only person that owns them is ME.

[Greyhound]

13. I don't know your stuff, but assuming it's good, stop trying to play the label's game.

Embrace the new world, play and sell into the tech. Like the tide, if you fight it, you will lose just like they are. They have the billions to hang on while they die, I'm guessing you don't.

The internet already changed the world, adapt or die.

An LA marketing guy put it best over a decade ago when Napster was news, "We had seventy thousand people in the same place, at the same time, with the same interest, and instead of exploiting it, we fragmented it and forced it underground. These assholes have missed the greatest opportunity of a generation. We will never see another like it"

[Mythsaje]

15. Actually I'm with the fastest growing publisher in the business

that expanded while NY was cutting back. Electronic format is the first run, with print following roughly six months behind. I chose the publishers I did because they didn't require print submissions (something I think is stupid in this day and age--stupid and wasteful).

[Deja Q]

6. On the plus side, we still have manufacturing, IT, and service for our economy...

:sarcasm:

[L. Coyote]

7. Google adsense income down 50% in recent years, photo stock is way off

perhaps due to everyone having a good digital camera now?
Art sales have never been this slow per my best location gallery.

But, these are just hobbies with income.
Real estate and construction are not a pretty picture either.

[spinbaby]

9. I had a writer tell me...

I know a man who's been writing for many decades. He tells me that in the 50s he sold a story to Playboy. He and his wife lived a month off the income from that sale. Almost 50 years later, he sold another story to Playboy and it paid not much more than he had gotten in the 50s. I think they paid the phone bill and went out to dinner on the proceeds.

[Hannah Bell]

24. i can get the same story looking at the old sci-fi writers like ray bradbury -

they were *living* off their story sales to cheap sci-fi mags, even if not very well.

can anyone do that these days?

[girl gone mad]

11. Art has never been an easy way to earn a living.

In a sense, we're back to where we were before the big media conglomerates came along and centralized entertainment. More people can earn some money for for their art, but fewer will be getting wealthy off of it. I think it's a good thing overall.

[hyphenate]

12. No

It's not harder, but there are a lot smaller venues that need help, and for a lot less money. As far as intellectual properties are concerned, there are ways to combat outright thievery, but there will always be someone who finds a way. (Watermarks on images, putting a lower quality up instead of the actual art, leaving out pages of documents, or have a "preview page" as opposed to the whole document.

The best way to deal with an audience is to talk at the level of your average audience member, and tell them the truth: you would love to give them something for free, but it's not possible at the moment. Most netizens get that, and they respect it. I've always thrown a little cash to some websites that provide me with something, and you get respect from them as well.

Some people even give something away showing good faith, so that their "good stuff" is appreciated.

My own experience is with graphics, mostly, but when I was running a few sites years ago, I'd do a search engine search about once a month to check to see if any material was showing up elsewhere.

[Greyhound]

14. ID sortware made millions doing just that.

Only an estimated 8% - 12% of their customers ever paid anything for their stuff, but they all got rich anyway.

I think it comes down to this; do you do what you do because you love what you do, or do you do what you do for money?

[NashVegas]

31. Artists Need To Eat. Period

[Greyhound]

36. Your point? n/t

[bridgit]

16. I'm on the performing side so it's harder to replicate what I do w/photoshop but yeah...

The arts have been taking hits for some time now, Symph Orch peeps we know have had musical services cut back

[abq e streeter]

17. Absoulutely--gigs are way down, although I do have some friends still playing regularly

but many like me who are playing less than they have in quite a while. Mainly the economy; more parties /weddings etc springing for a 250 $ DJ than a 1,000$ ( and not so long ago , a good bit more than that), 7 piece R&B band...

[tomreedtoon]

18. DUUUH. Writing will no longer be a paid profession.

It isn't simply the Internet. It's that words, literally, have no value. Look at the volume of words written here on DU. Have any of you made a penny for them? Even though they are the expression of your hearts and souls?

Pretty soon, not even Steven King or J.K. Rowling will get anything more than a warm handshake. It'll all be worthless and they'll have to go back to flipping burgers, or in Rowling's case, flipping fish 'n' chips. Writing will be a hobby for everyone.

And anyone who tells you otherwise is either whistling in the dark or lying to you.

[ContinentalOp]

19. Storytelling will always be valuable.

Journalism maybe not so much.

[tomreedtoon]

20. Emotionally valuable, maybe. But not a paid profession.

Why should you pay for what you can rip off the Internet for free? Because you're an exceptionally moral person? HAH!

Well, at least when writing becomes a hobby instead of a paid profession, works may be graded by their intrinsic quality, not because somebody is famous or well-paid. That may be small comfort to a person who was hoping to make a living, but hell, the way things are going, NOBODY will be able to make a living who isn't already rich.

[Liberal_in_LA]

21. I'd imagine that the market for used books on the internet make it harder also.

[tomreedtoon]

23. It wouldn't...IF there were new books people wanted to buy...

...which they couldn't get as PDF's from the Internet days before publication.

But then, the book companies don't re-publish some great books, which you can only find used. The classic science fiction books of my youth (Asimov, Gordon R. Dickson, James Blish) are not reprinted. You can only find them used.

It would certainly make more money than the crappy military science fiction written today, which could all be grouped into a section of the bookstore called "Kill the F***ing Sand N*****s...IN SPACE!" (They are that militaristic, racist and fascist-worshipping. Take a look sometime.)

It doesn't matter, though. Nobody's reading anything. Nobody has to buy anything. Writing will soon be as financially unrewarding as learning how to work on a GM assembly line.

[dysfunctional press]

30. writers will still be getting paychecks for many many years.

copywriters, screenwriters, authors, journalists, etc...

and even if stephen king and j.k. rowling never wrote another word- they'd HARDLY have to resort to 'flipping burgers'- they're both pretty well set for life on their past accomplishments.

btw- does anyone honestly expect to get compensated for posting on an internet message board? :shrug:

[tomreedtoon]

34. Lies, all lies. You weren't paying attention.

As you say, "does anyone honestly expect to get compensated for posting on an internet message board?"

What do you think you're doing now?

You try to make a living with what you're writing, or the arts you perform. Before you die in the streets, wave so I'll recognize where you collapsed.

The whole reason writers were paid (and not very well paid, especially the screenwriters you mentioned) was because it was always considered grunt work by the final producers - the book publishers and the movie studios. The real money for the producers involved marketing, promotion, sales. The raw product doesn't matter to them - and the raw product is what writers contribute.

Who needs opinions from Newsweek when they can read the same words here on DU? Why should they pay for Harry Potter and the Unnecessary Sequel when the book came out on the Internet in PDF form? What? You want to fairly compensate the writer? DO you think paying the middlemen, the guys who produced the book, will give even a dime to the author? What is your street address in Cloud Cuckoo Land?

You will have to accept an axiom that will shatter your tiny, fragile, undoubtedly university-educated world. You will have to accept that literacy and the ability to write has NO VALUE. It is not a skill for which you will be paid. You will have to flip burgers on the grill next to Stephen King to make a living, and then use your off time (assuming you get any) for writing to try to impress people with your wit and intelligence. But your wit and intelligence are not a skill for which you will make a single freaking dime.

Clearly, they never taught you what was real; iron and coke, chromium steel.

[dysfunctional press]

38. try again once you've gotten your high-school diploma...

IF that ever happens...:eyes:

just because YOU can't write for pay, it doesn't mean that other people can't either.

[proteus_lives]

25. Pretty much.

The freelance writing jobs I get pay well, it's just that I don't get enough of the them! I also write grants and have a night job. Gotta make that rent.

[vadawg]

26. im not an artist, but my wife is, so far shes noticed a slight drop off in sales

but she still is making more than she did 4 years ago.

[old mark]

27. I'm nearly 62, have been making various attempts to make a living from

arts since I started playing in bar bands at age 15. I have played and written music, have done painting, sculpture, assemblage, published well over a dozen poems and news articles as well as news photos, sold art photography and even tried to set up a commercial photography business doing pets and animals. I lost money on every venture.
Evertually returned to college for a degree in Social Work, and did it till I retired at age 59. I now have a painting/sculpture studio again, and play guitar,bass and harmonica (somewhat)for my own pleasure. I remember reading that freelance writers earnings average $4000 per year, and that includes the big guys like Steve King.M photography business actually cost me over $25000 to keep going whild working full time to pay bills and eat. I talked to a guy who had a very nice portrait studio and found he was still working full time after over 10 years to support his business, and I gave up...I ran out of energy in a very literal sense; I was developing heart disease and diabetes, both unknown to me till ten years later.
I made a total of $60 from my writing (I started in grade school), about broke even on my painting, never made a dime on sculpture (was in an international show once, though...) and lost a ton on photography.
I feel fortunate just to be alive to do what I love today - I would not have had health insurance if I had succeeded in making even a marginal living as an artist, and I would have died from my heart disease in '03.
I was in contact with several artists organizations attempting to get group rates for health insurance, mainly through the old Peace Eye Bookstore in NYC, but their efforts failed, and I got a "real job".

This is not a nation that cares about artistic people unless you are a mainstream actor or pop musician. I respect every person who is so strongly driven by their gifts to make the attempt, and I wish all of you the best no matter what you are doing.

mark

[vadawg]

28. The way i look at it, is if you have something that people want they will pay

personally i understand people paying my wife for some stuff she does, but other stuff i dont get but if thats what they are willing to pay then i am not going to complain. I think the majority of people appreciate certain art but not others, if you want to be artistic and make genuine drink coasters from the palates of baby groundhogs knock yourself out but chances are no one is going to be buying, you have to appeal to the particular tastes in order to make any money i think.

[old mark]

29. I don't have to DO IT FOR MONEY at all any more - I have a small pension

from my "real job", my wife is on disability and I am beginning to collect my meager Social Security this fall at 62. We are not people who live very high on the hog, but we have a great little home and we are very content and happy just to be around.

I found I could no longer make "crafts" or similar stuff - I ran out of tollerance for it - I also tried drafting (as relating somewhat to drawing) as a way to make a living, but I can not tolerate the corporate life that is imposed on people who work in those situations. If anyone can find a way to make a living doing something that gratifies them, I believe they are fortunate and wish them well, but I was not able to do so. I feel very lucky to have made it through this far, and my wish now is to live to a great number of years and enjoy it.


mark

[vadawg]

33. wasnt really aiming the post at you mate, just more at the people who lament the fact that they are

not getting money for what they believe their creations deserve.

[Marr]

32. edit

[NashVegas]

35. I'm One of the Fortunate Ones

As a "media" worker, if you will. I made a choice, over a decade ago, to remain with independent companies rather than take a gig at a corporation. As a result, I've been untouched, so far, by all the job eliminations across my industry - but I always know that if my company owner decides to sell the business, I can kiss it goodbye.

A few of my friends are professional journalists. Those at newspapers, if they'd been there long enough to be senior editors, they still have gigs BUT they have almost zero support staff - copy editors, proofers, fact checkers, etc. Those who are freelance writers are spending more time writing, for less pay.

Some of my photographer friends are doing well, another, not so much.

The problem isn't just the internet, but the "Crowd sourcing" aspect.

One of my photog friends took a full-time job as a photo editor at a small mag, rather than bring his rates down. A shoot that would have nabbed him $500 pre- Web 2.0, he'd be lucky to get $250 for. These things take time and money.

People who are creative, but, rather than take the chance of risking their livelihoods in the arts went for that MBA or medical degree or whatever, have long been hobbyists. The internet has given them a free showplace for their talents where they, too, can reach a mass audience without having to dedicate their careers to low-paying work, without having to face the screening/filtering dedicated artists do or risk the type of public criticism a professional would and does every time they show. It doesn't make them jerks, that's just the way it is. I just wish they wouldn't go on public message boards and rip into what other people are doing. People who did take those risks.

Advertising and PR companies who need stock photos or other ideas, internet advertising placement agencies - including Google - are the greatest beneficiaries of Web 2.0.

[mitchum]

37. I sold "Study In Liver And Wax Lips" for 1.2 million last month

I'm living large!