For the past couple of years, I've been building a YouTube channel focused on myself as an artist and my passion for photography. This has always been on the side and has usually ridden shotgun to my main gig. It was basically started for fun, as a way to help other people with their craft, and that part of it has been super fulfilling.
This year I decided to go for it and see if I could transition to generating my income full-time from my photography online, in the form of YouTube and other online work (courses, affiliate links, etc.).
I've been seeing pretty good progress, revenue, and growth (2000 subs a month on the channel, great engagement, connections, relationships with camera brands, channel sponsorship opportunities, etc). Not enough to survive off of full-time, but the signs are there that people like what I'm doing and if I keep going it will grow at a good rate.
I've always 'followed my passion', and made a living doing video and photography work for the past ten years, but there have been so many times where it's almost killed my love for the craft, and also ate up a ton of my time and energy. I'm starting to feel that now with this YouTube channel, especially when I'm so emotionally and creatively attached to the final products and end up labouring over them for long periods of time to make sure they're perfect.
For example, I just spent two days working on a new video that I forced myself to go out and shoot so I could stay on schedule, but I hate the images I created in the video, so now I'm thinking about ditching it... whereas if I wasn't trying to make this my business, I may have waited a week and posted a video once I had an idea I felt really good about.
Up until this year, my mindset for my entire career has been to make a modest comfortable income doing something I love... that's it. "Follow your passion. Do what you love!"
But reading TML was a wake-up call, and it really got me thinking about the possibilities of running a business in another niche with more potential, generating more freedom, and then being able to do my photography and the YouTube channel for the love of it. Basically, running something as an entrepreneur, not as an artist.
I guess I'm just struggling right now to make the decision as I feel quite connected to it.
I'd love to hear some thoughts on this. Anyone else out there been in a similar situation?
This year I decided to go for it and see if I could transition to generating my income full-time from my photography online, in the form of YouTube and other online work (courses, affiliate links, etc.).
I've been seeing pretty good progress, revenue, and growth (2000 subs a month on the channel, great engagement, connections, relationships with camera brands, channel sponsorship opportunities, etc). Not enough to survive off of full-time, but the signs are there that people like what I'm doing and if I keep going it will grow at a good rate.
I've always 'followed my passion', and made a living doing video and photography work for the past ten years, but there have been so many times where it's almost killed my love for the craft, and also ate up a ton of my time and energy. I'm starting to feel that now with this YouTube channel, especially when I'm so emotionally and creatively attached to the final products and end up labouring over them for long periods of time to make sure they're perfect.
For example, I just spent two days working on a new video that I forced myself to go out and shoot so I could stay on schedule, but I hate the images I created in the video, so now I'm thinking about ditching it... whereas if I wasn't trying to make this my business, I may have waited a week and posted a video once I had an idea I felt really good about.
Up until this year, my mindset for my entire career has been to make a modest comfortable income doing something I love... that's it. "Follow your passion. Do what you love!"
But reading TML was a wake-up call, and it really got me thinking about the possibilities of running a business in another niche with more potential, generating more freedom, and then being able to do my photography and the YouTube channel for the love of it. Basically, running something as an entrepreneur, not as an artist.
I guess I'm just struggling right now to make the decision as I feel quite connected to it.
I'd love to hear some thoughts on this. Anyone else out there been in a similar situation?
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