Should You Monetize Your Creative Hobby?
Turning your creative pastime into paid work comes at a cost. But it might be worth it.
Welcome (or welcome back!) to Multifaceted, a newsletter about finding delight and direction in a creative life made up of many different interests.
Hi, all — Today I’m reissuing a piece I originally wrote last summer, back before I started sharing my articles with everyone here. I’ve updated it with a few tweaks and a new collage illustration. See you next time with more newness. 😊
If you’re a multifaceted creative like me, you’re juggling an endless stream of creative curiosities.
Sometimes, you’ll pick up one activity, try it out, and ultimately set it aside in favor of something else that offers new opportunities for learning and exploration.
Other times, you’ll fall deep into the rabbit hole with one creative practice. You might even stick with it for a while.
If you reach that point, you may start toying around with the idea of turning it into a business. Building a brand. Selling your work. Setting aside everything else, once and for all, to make this your “thing.”
You’ve heard many successful people sing the praises of finding something you love and making a living out of it. But you've also heard the other camp of advice-givers who caution against monetizing your creative passions. So, how are you supposed to know what’s right for you?
Before you get too carried away and quit your day job, it can be helpful to think carefully about why you’re interested in generating income from your hobby.
Do you really have to sell your creative work or skills? Do you even want to? Will this shift ultimately help you reach your goals – or could it box you in and stifle your growth?
My main answer to those questions: You don’t have to monetize your creative hobbies for them to hold value. This isn’t a message we hear all the time. And it can take some time to really believe your work holds worth without a price tag.
That said, there are 7 common scenarios where it makes good sense to try monetizing a creative practice. I’ll get into all of those in more detail below.
Of course, everyone has their own reasons for going into business or staying away from the transactional side of things. You might even take a stab at capitalizing on your creativity if none of the following apply. But hopefully, by reviewing some of these reasons, you can get a better feel for whether or not they apply to your situation and goals.
If none of these click with you, you might be more content if you put that business idea on the back burner for now, ease off the pressure, and just focus on your creative practice.
Either way, let’s get into some of the top reasons why you might try leveraging your creativity as a source of income:
1. Because you want to make a living using an existing skill set and resource pool
Everyone has to make a living one way or another. If your skillset, network, reputation, and/or education point in the direction of pursuing creative work as a career, that might be a suitable path.
Additionally, if you’re creating work that’s already garnering attention – the kind of attention that comes with questions like, “How can I buy one?” – why not start selling and see if this can sustain you?
That might offer a more direct route to steady income than a career pivot toward something else.
What if you don't have a very well-developed skillset, network, or resource pool yet? Well, it may not be the best time to monetize what you're doing. You might find more stability in opportunities that are adjacent to your creative practice.
There's a reason creatives gravitate toward jobs in art galleries, bookstores, and B2B services. These gigs can sometimes provide the right balance of stability and stimulation, even if they’re not entirely centered around making original work.
2. Because you want to share your work with the world
No matter what you create, your “stuff” needs a home. If you ramp up your output, you can’t always keep it all. It can feel liberating to rehome your beloved projects. And sharing your work with others can provide some creative closure and catharsis.
Of course, you can certainly put your creations out there for free; you don’t necessarily have to sell them. But not all practices lend themselves well to this.
For instance, digital work is really easy to store and share. But extra-large canvases can take over a small workspace pretty quickly. Your friends and family can only absorb so many oversized oil paintings as gifts, after all.
At a certain point, your next avenue for pairing your work with people who’ll appreciate it is to start selling.
3. Because you want to fuel and regulate your creative cycle
People who sell their creative work sometimes begin doing so to finance their activities and replenish their supplies.
They might also start selling to clear out the items they don’t want hanging around to make room for new creations. (Case in point: Those oversized canvases.)
This can turn a creative hobby into something that looks and acts like a business. But success might look very different in this scenario. Sales figures and scalability may not be as important as keeping up the creative momentum.
One of my sewing teachers used to make crafty hair bows and other accessories with buttons and ribbons. She just loved creating them and eventually started selling them around town. Why? To clear out the older stock, play into seasonal trends, recoup the cost of supplies, and get her handmade items into loving hands. It was more about the creative enjoyment than the cash.
4. Because you want to continue doing the work you love
Even if your creative practice doesn’t take up much space, it might not be possible to sustain – or even start – as a hobby.
Imagine you’re an aspiring event planner. You might throw the most incredible parties for your family and friends, but those opportunities are few and far between. You can’t exactly walk up to strangers and offer to plan their baby showers and corporate receptions just for fun.
If you want to do something like that more often, you might consider setting up a business to bring legitimacy to what you're doing and help you secure exciting opportunities.
5. Because you can’t actually follow your creative passion without owning a business
You can try countless creative activities on a shoestring budget, but some projects are simply cost-prohibitive to carry out for free. And, in some cases, you may not even be able to get going without a business license.
Take my own jewelry business as an example. A few years ago, I wanted to develop a collection of fine jewelry. But I couldn’t contract the services of gem vendors and gold casting houses without owning an LLC. So, I formed one and brought the collection to life.
For me, it was always more of a passion project than a sales-driven side hustle, although I wouldn’t have been able to get started without establishing a business.
6. Because you want to find your community
One of the easiest ways to find like-minded creatives is to seek out people who are doing it for money. Creative leaders are constantly putting themselves out there to improve their visibility among potential customers. That means they’re a lot easier to spot out in the wild than hobbyists.
Art fairs, conventions, networking events, daytime meetups, industry conventions, local business groups – all of these attract working creatives. If you want to mix and mingle with those folks, you may decide to develop a creative brand of your own.
7. Because you want another way of valuing your work
Plenty of people donate their creative energy all the time. Making handcrafted gifts, doing creative favors for friends, sewing quilts for a cause, posting illustrations on social media, stepping up at open mic nights – the list goes on.
But not everybody wants to give everything freely, all the time. When so many creatives are faced with unpaid internships, lowball offers, and messages around “doing it for the exposure,” it can feel a little punk to make boatloads of money from your creative work.
Here’s an example I like to think about for this one: Meow Wolf. It started out as a collective of starving artists making quirky installation art. And then those installations became viral must-see experiences.
If you’ve ever seen the queues of people waiting to get into one of their ticketed locations, you’d safely assume the artists behind it all are making decent money.
In a documentary charting Meow Wolf’s success, it had grown to a point where one of the co-founders talked about setting his sights on making it a billion-dollar business, even though that was lightyears away from the group’s original aims.
But he wanted to push the envelope and see if it was even possible to grow a billion-dollar business around weird, immersive art made by misfits. (Turns out, it was.)
Monetizing your creative passion: Is it the right step?
I’m curious – do any of these reasons resonate with you? Or are your goals completely different from what’s listed above?
If you’re a multifaceted creative, you might prioritize play and exploration over focusing on one commercially viable craft. Maybe you’re better off making than monetizing.
Or, you may be searching for community and a way to close the creative loop by getting your work out there. In that case, setting up shop could help you reach your goals.
There’s no right or wrong way to do it, as long as you stay true to yourself and follow the path that will bring you the most creative joy possible.
I think reason #2, sharing your work with the world, is most compelling. But in this type of "sharing", others are prepared to lay down their hard-earned money for your work. This communicates that the work has genuine value to the purchaser; a very fulfilling transaction for both parties.