Times are tough.
You don’t need me to tell you that. And when the going gets tough, the tough get pivoting. Which means you. And me.
We don’t have to buy into the idea of the starving artist, the freelancer begging for work. We all have a right to be paid for our creative work.
We are offering something of real value, something the world really needs, right now. Our work entertains and educates. It reminds us that there is beauty all around us, allows people to dream, gives them hope, makes them dance, or laugh, or cry. It brings people together. And in these times of division and hate, there is nothing more powerful than that.
Art is important. You are important.
So in this post and in next week’s post, I’m going to run through some ideas to make an extra £1-£10k.
Work from the lower sums to the higher ones, if you can. The lower sums are more about mindset shifts. I know an extra £1 (or dollar, Euro or whatever currency you work in) won’t make a difference. But learning or remembering how to ask for what you want, how to negotiate a better deal – these are skills that change everything.
How to make an extra £1
Just ask. This is an exercise from Noah Kagan’s book The Million Dollar Weekend. The title might suggest hustle/click-bait, but it’s actually a very useful guide to starting a new income stream from scratch.
He challenges you to find someone willing to invest a single dollar in your new business. I’ve adapted his template email:
Hey [first name]
I’ve just read a post about building new income streams, and the coach who wrote it told me I need to get £1 from someone. You’re the first person I thought of, and it would mean a lot to have your support. Can you send me £1 right now?
[your name]
A variation on this:
If you’re already making something of value, ask people to support it. Every Friday, I send out Making It, my newsletter for creative professionals. At the bottom of each issue, you’ll see a link to buy me a drink.
I did this using a built-in widget from my newsletter platform, Kit. But Ko-Fi is one of several who enable you to add this to your website, emails, etc. It takes minutes to set up.
At the moment, Kit costs me £440 per year. In the first four months of the year, readers donated £220 to help with that. And I’m grateful for every £1 of it! But the point here is not the £1. Or even the £200. It’s getting used to asking.
It’s uncomfortable. I’ve squirmed every time I’ve added it to a newsletter. Nonetheless, it feels good to be paid a little for the hours I put into creating it every week. It’s great to be appreciated!
How to make an extra £10
Whatever you’re buying in the next few weeks, ask for a discount. Do it with a big smile, but without apology or explanation. I guarantee you that if you ask often enough, someone will give it to you.
This is also uncomfortable, but it gets you in the habit of negotiating. The exercise many suggest for this is asking for free coffee, or for a discount on your drink.
Personally, I find it hard to ask an overworked, underpaid barista with little control over the prices for a discount. But I often ask for a better price when shopping for high-ticket items. Staff often have more flexibility and are allowed to negotiate to close sales. I always ask for a better deal when I’m renewing my phone or cable plan – and I usually get it.
Recently, I helped my mum buy a new armchair. They didn’t give me a discount, when I asked. But they did agree to waive the delivery charge, and take her old chair away for free. It all counts!
How to make an extra £100
Some of these suggestions will make you money this month. Others are slower burns that might eventually turn from income trickles to regular income streams.
1: Sell something you no longer need
Go through your home, your wardrobe, your bookshelf, your cupboards, and look for things you don’t want, need or use. Sell them. Have a garage sale, or put them up on eBay, Vinted, FB marketplace.
Check if any of your obsolete electronic devices, chargers or phones have a recycle value, too. There are lots of sites online helping you check this quickly.
Your trash is someone else’s treasure. The space you’ll create for yourself by getting rid of clutter is an added bonus here!
2: Ask others what they need
Contact some friends, ask what you could do for them that they’d be happy to pay £25, £50, £100 for. Or just make them an offer. Walk their dog, sell them a sketch or print, babysit their children, do their accounts, bake them a cake, write some copy or take a portrait for their website – whatever you want to do.
This isn’t about the money. It’s about approaching people, asking what they want or need. And deciding what you want to give, in exchange for money. You might find a new business idea. But you’ll certainly get used to looking for them.
3: Raise your prices
On your next job, up your fee a fraction. Or if the client suggests a fee, ask for a little more. Here’s my favourite phrase for this.
4: Create an upsell.
If you offer a service, is there something customers often ask for or need, that you could offer as an extra? Once you’ve booked the job in, offer this as an additional service. If there’s some kind of regular scope creep – clients asking for more than was agreed – don’t grin and bear it. Tell them you’d love to do the work, then explain what these extras will cost.
5: Use your assets.
Anything you created, and own the copyright to, is yours to use, repackage and resell. I often repost articles like this one on the blogging platform Medium. It attracts new subscribers to this newsletter, but it also pays me £20-200 a month. I’ve also earned over £30k in the past few years by republishing my out-of-print books independently. I used Amazon print-on-demand, so the upfront costs were tiny. And a lot of my old magazine features are now with syndication agencies. This no longer earns huge sums, but it occasionally brings in a little.
Musicians might sell snippets that never became full songs as samples, library music, jingles. Artists, illustrators and graphic designers can upload their work to pattern libraries where they can be licenses as anything from fabric and wallpaper to greetings cards. Get creative, here.
No one will get rich quick this way, but you might create new trickles of consistent income that will add to something more substantial, over time.
6: Sponsorships/affiliate marketing
If you have any kind of following and people ask about what kit you use in your job, make a list. Software; equipment; paint, brushes, materials. This could be a page on your website, and each bit of kit could be a repeating post for your social media. Or you might make it into a useful PDF that you sell for £5-10.
Once you’ve created your list of tools, you have opportunities for paid sponsorships, free gear. Many brands also have affiliate/partnership programmes: they give you a unique link to share online; every time someone buys using your links, you get a commission. If you’re using their gear or software anyway, why not get paid for recommending it?
If it’s on sale via Amazon, their Amazon Associates scheme is easy to set up, and gives you a tiny payment every time someone buys using your link. I use this when I recommend books I’ve read. This generates about £20 a month. But if you’re recommending more expensive items, you’d lift a lot more pennies out of Jeff Bezos’s pocket and into your own.
My challenge to you.
Using one of the ideas above or one of your own, make at least £100 in extra in the next month.
I’d love to hear what works for you. Did you try any of the above ideas? Do you have other ways of pushing up your income when you hit a dry patch? Do let me know in case others here can adapt it Ito their field.
Next week, I’ll talk about how to make £1000, and £10,000 more: sums that really would make a difference.
What do you think?