Skip to main content

Creating a Mobile Independent Artist Business - Part 12: Pitfalls to be Wary of

By now you should have enough information to begin setting up your own Mobile, Independent, Artist Business. Last post I looked at pricing your art, this post I'll look at some of the pitfalls that can bring you unstuck or just slow your business down.

This list is by no means exhaustive but it does cover issues that I've personally had to navigate running my own Artist Business.



Work/Life Discipline


Working for yourself it's easy to think you'll just work when you want and have more time to enjoy life as a result. Certainly you can be more flexible with your time. For example, if you're not a morning person, start work later, that kind of thing, but make no mistake, you will need to schedule a lot of your day around doing the actual work.

Try to develop a routine based around the times of day you're most receptive to doing specific types of work. You might handle administrative tasks, like book keeping or invoicing, better earlier in the day whilst you're mind is still fresh. Later in the day you might relax into more creative tasks like making your art because it's less like work and easier to deal with (perhaps it's even like a reward for getting the more 'business-like' tasks done earlier).

Whatever routine you settle into, stick to it as best you can. When you work for yourself there is always something you can be doing to work on your business.

At the same time it can be easy to fall into the trap of working all the time. Your business is with you no matter where you are. If you have clients you can easily have your time taken up just with back and forth communications. Sometimes it's hard to shut down.

It's not unreasonable to take breaks on weekends and holidays like the majority of employed people do. Clients will understand that you don't work at these times because, more than likely, they don't either. If you have an urgent deadline, it doesn't hurt to work through a weekend or holiday occasionally, just don't allow it to become a regular occurrence.

Be just as disciplined about taking time away from work as you are working on your business. Remember, you are the boss, one of the perks of working for yourself is choosing when you work.


Over Commitment


If you're in the fortunate position of having more work coming in than you can handle then great, that's an exciting time for your business (I'm assuming you're supplying a creative service here, such as illustration or Graphic design). However it can be tempting to just keep taking on work so as not to lose business without thinking if you really have the time to do the actual work.

Unfortunately taking too long to complete jobs, and especially over running deadlines, can make for bad business where you'll not only lose potential repeat business but could also develop poor word of mouth.

One way to combat this is to just explain your circumstances to clients before accepting a job so they can make their own decision on whether to wait for your service or to go with someone else. Even if they do go with someone else this time they may come back to you next time for the same reasons that drew them to you in the first place.

Another option is to still accept the work but hire your own, trusted freelancers to do the actual work in your style, with you acting as Art Director and Client liaison. This way, you still get the client but earn less money on the job due to having to pay your freelancer. In this case you'll still want to make a profit so, typically, your freelancer will earn less for the job than you'd pay yourself. Reasonably justifiable since you're taking on the role of art direction and client liaison. You should be getting paid something for that role.

If your artist based business is creating a product or things (paintings for example) you should always know your production times and only accept orders within the limits of those times. Particularly if the art you create is reliant on you actually creating it (original artworks, commissioned art etc.).


Following the Money and not the Passion


It's said that if you enjoy what you do you'll never work a day in your life. If the art you create feels a lot more like work to make it and is not something you're passionate about there's a good chance you're following the money. Creating art simply because you know that particular art makes money.

It's perfectly okay to follow the money but if it really is starting to become a daily grind don't be afraid to change direction. To create art that you enjoy again and then finding a market for it.

In my own freelance career I started out doing product illustrations, moved on to selling my own original art in a local market center, then got into website design, moved back to selling my paintings (online this time), started taking on commissioned artworks of people's pets, then transitioned into creating animated explainer videos.

If you're not enjoying the work don't be afraid to change. You don't have to drop everything immediately and move on to the next thing, a gradual transition will help bridge that gap until the next thing starts earning money you can live on.


Working for the 'Exposure' instead of getting paid


This is probably one of the most recurring traps fallen into by artists just starting out. You're approached by a person or business that isn't going to pay you but claims their project will be good exposure for your business. What they mean is, if you work for free, we'll make sure our audience knows you did the work.

It sounds really great on the surface but you really need to weigh up their offer and do your research on who their audience is. What are the odds that the exposure you get will convert into additional work/sales?

It's very tempting for me to say never do any work for the exposure but in some cases it may actually be worth it, so I'm recommending you review on a case by case basis. One example might be, say you create T-shirt designs for a local rock band to wear during their performance. The band gets the T-Shirts free so long as they allow you to sell the T-shirts to their fans.

You'll get the same exposure if the client pays you for your work (remember that). Is the kind of exposure they're offering worth more to you than getting paid for the job. If not then, decline the job and don't look back.

In my previous example of the rock band, if the band paid you for the shirt designs and the license for the images, you then wouldn't be able to sell the shirts to their fans but the band could. You'd still get the same exposure though.


Not Paying Attention to Legal Issues


There's not too much to be said here. Always, always pay attention to legal issues and work within the laws of your country. Particularly make sure you have all the correct licenses (if you need them) and pay any tax that is a legal requirement.

Many businesses have come unstuck for doing the wrong thing (even unknowingly) and ended up paying heavy fines or worse as a result.

Staying legal is not hard. Mostly it's research and maybe filling out forms, etc. It may not be the most exciting thing to do but, because you're working for yourself, it's your responsibility to make sure everything you do is legitimate.


Spending all your Profits


Any full time, independent artist will tell you that, starting out, keeping the money coming in wasn't always consistent or a sure thing. They may also tell you that it still isn't depending on where they're at with their careers.

By all means you should enjoy the money you earn. Reward yourself for your successes however you like with a fun purchase. A gift to yourself for being successful in your business. Just do so within your means. In other words budget. Plan ahead. Make sure your business has money to cover the bills if you have a lean month of few sales.

It's not a good look to reward yourself with an expensive meal in one of the best restaurants in town if it means your business is going to tank due to a lack of cash a few weeks later.

If you are going to reward yourself, spend proportionately to the money you've earned and always make sure your business can survive a few months into the future with few or even no sales.


---o ---o--- o---


I'm sure there are other pitfalls to be wary of. Many can be avoided if you just take a step back and think about your next steps instead of blindly moving forward before understanding what impact doing so will have on your business.

Which is probably the most important point. Don't just work in your business, make sure you also work on your business. Keep an eye on how things are going overall and that you're taking the business in the direction that is the most fulfilling for you.

Next post will be the final one in the series where I'll look at how you can expand your mobile business in order to work less and, ideally, earn more.





This post is part of a series called Creating a Mobile Independent Artist Business. Read earlier parts at the links below:

Part 1: Introduction and Equipment
Part 2: Business Software
Part 3: Creative Software
Part 4: Social and Marketing Software Plus Your Website
Part 5: Documenting and Sharing Your Work in Progress
Part 6: Photographing and Preparing Your Art for Printing
Part 7: Maximizing Your Art By Creating Variations
Part 8: Legal Obligations and Employee Care Plan
Part 9: What to Create and Finding Your Market
Part 10: Opportunities to make money (Part A)
Part 10: Opportunities to make money (Part B)
Part 11: Pricing Your Art

Comments

Buy Gifts and Apparel featuring art by TET.

Popular posts from this blog

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices.  My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe?  Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

Second Sunday Skateboard Session Ep 2 - Some Improvements

TET heelflip - looking better but still not a land. A s of writing this I've stuck to my plan of filming myself skate every second Sunday. By the time this post goes up I will have three episodes done. As part of that goal I am also skating more between episodes, about every second to third day for an hour, practicing Braille's Skateboarding Made Simple, Volume 1. That said, I'm not posting these videos here immediately after they're posted to my @TETLife YouTube Channel because I only post an article once a week, and that would make every second article a Sunday Session post. These posts are really so I can add some additional thoughts after the fact, and, of course, because this blog is about all things that interest me, of which skateboarding is one of them. In episode two I had intended to speak to camera more than I do but my driveway is right next door to my neighbor's shed/workshop, and I get a little self-conscious if I'm not too sure whether he's th...

Australian Federal Election 2025 - The Australian Democrats (Please Like Us Again) and The Greens

Image: Reve AI T here's not much to be said about the current Australian Democrats other than in 2025 Australian election, in May, they'll be out there hoping they win a seat... any seat... 'please like us again!' The Australian Democrats For just over two decades, from the late seventies onward, the Australian Democrats were the third most important party in the Federal government (if you don't count the National party since they've been on that coalition ticket with the Liberals for as long as I can remember). In fact, once I moved away from the Labor party, they were my top pick until the party slowly imploded in the early 2000's from a series of unfortunate events like leaders defecting to other parties, and a highly publicised incident of drunkenness, bullying, and abuse from a male party leader to a female colleague. It's been two decades since then (and that guy's with the Greens now)... please like us again! That aside, the party is still t...

The Princess' Butterflies - Using an AI Image to Video Generator to Animate Art That Started as a 23 Year Old Rough Pen Sketch

B ack in October of 2023 I used Prome AI's Sketch Rendering feature to color a 23 year old rough pen sketch I did of a princess watching butterflies, sitting next to a waterfall in the forest. You can read more about that in my previous article,  The Princess' Butterflies - Using an AI Art Generator to Color and Enhance a 23 Year Old Rough Pen Sketch The three images I used to create my final image (bottom right). Notice how closely the AI has followed my line art sketch (top left) but in the first image (top right) has misinterpreted the waterfall as some kind of large tree stump. Prome's render of the artwork was pretty good but I did end up creating a composite image myself from two of the best renders, to get my final image. Since then AI Image to Video has come a long way, particularly when it comes to creating animation from artwork and maintaining the art style for the whole generation. AI still does much better with turning photographic images to video but I found ...

The Australian Federal Election 2025 Could Be a Win For Independents

Australian Democrats founder, Senator Don Chipp, embodied the role of minor parties holding the balance of power with his quote of "keep the bastards honest." Photo Manipulated Caricature by TET. A s of writing this, the actual Australian Federal Election date has yet to be announced, as our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, attempts to keep the focus on the fallout of severe weather events in Queensland, however it's looking likely that some time in May is the safest bet. Despite this, all parties have been hard at campaigning, with smaller parties, and in particular, conservative independent candidates, seemingly rallying together to make sure people know how much influence they can have just by preventing the two major parties (Labor and the Liberal/National coalition) from having a majority in either (or both) houses of parliament. They're also doing their part to make sure voters finally understand that preferential voting works in everybody's favor over one ...

Boom Crash Opera Born Classic But Not Again

Boom Crash Opera are an Australian Band that reached the peak of their popularity in the mid to late nineteen eighties. They are a band that I knew about at that time but was never really excited by until they released their ill fated double album Born and Born Again in 1995 (Album cover pictured). At the time of its release I was very much into emerging Australian musical acts and was also looking out for new sounds that were different and had kind of a futuristic/electronic sound. Artists that I was buying at the time included; Swoop , Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Its Self . As well as a really interesting release by David Bowie, the concept album, Outside . Born was a fairly radical departure for Boom Crash Opera (BCO). The first single, Gimme , was often compared to the sounds of Gary Glitter, particularly his single, Rock n Roll part 2 , because of the pounding drum loops. Watch the video below. My favorite single from the album is dissemble which probably went now...

Movie Review: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) *No Spoilers*

T his is another film that I would have liked to have seen in a theatre but, for whatever reason, didn't get to. Having now seen  Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga  (2024) almost a year later I'm glad I didn't. Which is not to say it's bad. Like its predecessor Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), which I enjoyed in a cinema immensely, this film would definitely benefit from being on a big screen for the spectacle and epic visuals of it all.  However unlike its predecessor there is so much going on, with back and forth between the waring parties, and Furiosa's story as well, you can't just sit back and kind of enjoy the ride. It's like writer/director, George Miller, wanted to cram in as many of his ideas as possible for the post apocalyptic world of Mad Max, because it's not likely he'll make another one, but whoever does, has a rich, detailed world of on screen source material to draw upon. The story begins with young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) and her journey from the ...