What did so many of us turn to in order to get through lockdowns and Covid? Online art and content. (art by wildhearts.com)
Covid proved to the public that online art and content has value.
Art appreciation went from this...
to this...
PSAs everywhere recognized essential workers. Jobs from cleaners and maintenance workers, to teachers, trades persons, truck drivers and delivery services, grocery store workers and especially support staff in retirement homes and hospitals -- so many occupations we all depend on were finally appreciated. (little people toys by Fisher-Price)
Mental health. Self-care. These "luxuries" became indispensable.
Art by Kate Allan (aka The Latest Kate) https://www.thelatestkate.art/
Jobs moved to online/at home situations. Or jobs were lost and pivoted careers to self-employment opportunites. Gig work introduced more people to hiring freelancers. News stories followed efforts to get gig workers and all freelancers more competitive pay.
How can we survive all these changes? Taking care of ourselves and each other.
Let's keep these lessons going.
You can make a living as an artist. Educate yourself. Build your brand and your fan base. Social media companies thrive thanks to online images freely shared and posted. They built the false narrative of "free art" by not linking images back to creators. They profit while artists go uncredited, and uncompensated. Here's the truth -- art and content posted online is never free. ArtWORK is the product of time, expertise, supplies, persistence. All these are expenses paid for by creators. Teach your followers why creative rights are vital. They can help keep content coming by being pro-active about sharing links and credits as well as images, and fighting back against counterfiet works and copyright infingers. Don't exhaust your time and money chasing imitators across the internet. Use the internet's worldwide reach. Connect with followers old and new who will spend about $100/year on your art. Make it easy for them. Share your pay platforms every time you post on social media. Have an online store. Use platforms like Patreon, Ko-fi, Kickstarter, Fiverr, PayPal.You can thrive.
Here is a long excerpt from "Six figures from freelancing? This platform makes gig work lucrative," a 5.15.21 article by Kathy Kristof in the Los Angeles Times. (AP photo)
Excerpt:
Carrie French earns about $125,000 annually writing product descriptions. Beau Vallis earns a similar amount remixing music. The one thing both have in common? Fiverr, a side hustle platform that used to urge sellers to list their services for just $5, increasingly delivers six-figure incomes to the freelancers doing the work.
“It’s been very lucrative,” says Vallis, who first posted a digital profile on Fiverr in 2015. “You don’t have to do any marketing. You wake up and there are your jobs.”
At a time when freelancers who work for other gig economy giants, such as Uber and Lyft, say that the legacy companies are becoming increasingly exploitative, Fiverr has gone in the opposite direction. The site boosted its customer service staff; cut its fees; and created special designations for “pros,” or freelancers with advanced expertise or skills. While some sellers still list their services for less than $25 on Fiverr, “pros” are compelled to charge more….
….While not all freelancers earn six-figure incomes on Fiverr, an increasing number say they can easily earn a living wage. Some say that their biggest problem is turning off — or down — the work spigot when they need a break. “I have to buffer clients by going into out-of-office mode,” says Vallis.
Freelancers who work with Fiverr say the platform has certain advantages that are hard to find elsewhere. It’s a broad-interest platform offering hundreds of services where you can post your availability to provide, for example, almost any lawful service, including some off-beat ones, such as reading Tarot cards or casting spells.
You
also are in complete control over your pricing and the limitations of your
offer. For instance, you might create advertising jingles for $25 each.
However, for that price, you can stipulate that the jingle will have 25 words
or less. And, if the customer doesn’t like it, they only get one revision….
…The idea is to make purchases so transparent that clients can buy without having to talk, much less negotiate, with the freelancer, says Arnon.
Importantly, too, the funds for every job are put in escrow when the gig is ordered. As long as the freelancer delivers what was promised, they don’t have to worry about getting paid. French says it’s rare for a client to find some sneaky way to avoid payment. She’s made thousands of dollars through Fiverr’s payment guarantees over the eight years she’s worked through the site.
Fiverr pays for its service by charging freelancers a 20% commission on every booking.
Freelancers on other sites say that a lot of their time is taken up by project bidding and providing work samples to potential clients. That doesn’t happen at Fiverr. Clients view your profile, the work samples that you’ve already posted, and reviews. There is no negotiation, auditioning or bidding before purchase. They either select you or they don’t.
Melissa Harlow, a voice-over artist, says this is the primary reason she stopped freelancing through other voice-over job apps. “To get one job, you’d end up doing 50 auditions,” she says. “On Fiverr, if the client likes your work, they buy. If they don’t, they move on.”
That said, with thousands of freelancers from 160 countries offering more than 500 services on Fiverr, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. Harlow says it took eight months before her Fiverr profile started drawing work. Now, she earns $40,000 to $50,000 annually, working part-time.
Vallis says it took him roughly two years before he got regular work.
Fiverr’s management understands the difficulty freelancers have with getting noticed, Arnon says, so the site has a number of initiatives to help. These include tutorials that explain the system’s algorithms and the activities that can help you get noticed.
There’s
also a team dedicated to helping platform newbies. If you do great work, for
instance, you might earn a “rising star” badge. Have years of experience in
your field? You can apply to be a “pro” seller, she says.
That puts your resume in front of a Fiverr team, who will evaluate your work and determine whether you qualify to be a premium freelancer. If so, they’ll slap a “pro” designation on your profile. This signals to clients that you do premium work and must be paid a premium price….
…The site has some nagging issues that continue to bedevil sellers. Specifically, freelancers are rated on the number of jobs they’ve accepted; the number they’ve completed on time; and customer reviews, among other things. Failing to deliver, delivering late, canceling orders, or getting bad reviews can kill your business and even get you booted from the platform.
Some customers know this and use the knowledge to pressure freelancers into doing more work for less money….
….French says she’s had customers threaten bad reviews if she won’t cut her rates or provide some work for free. Her strategy for dealing with this is to solely communicate in writing through the platform.
In every message, she reminds clients to read her FAQs, so they know what’s included and what’s not. If a client insists on giving her a bad review because she refused to provide more than what they bought, she takes it up with customer service.
“For
every one bad experience, there are four where the platform has protected me,”
she says. “Customer service has really backed me up.”
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