July Retrospective: Back in July 2014, I wrote a daily series exploring the realities of navigating the creative economy. Twelve years later, looking back at these entries (and my original awful hand-drawn illustrations!), I’m struck by how the core truths of a creative career remain completely timeless. Each day this month, I’m opening up the archive to share these foundational lessons—with a few modern reflections layered in. 

If you’re a new creative graduate looking to find your footing in the creative economy, a Gen X looking to pivot into a creative business, a side-hustler or someone who just wants to up their creative business game, there’s something for you in this series. Just don’t judge my drawings 😉

Make Your Work Available

So here’s the thing: you’re a great artist, I’m sure of it. Why? Because if you didn’t care about your art, you wouldn’t be here. You obviously care about what you do, and caring about what you do is almost always linked to being capable at it.

So you’re good. That’s fantastic.

But are you ‘hiding your light under a bushel?’

So many artists (myself included) find it hard to put our work out there. It’s embarrassing, we fear that people won’t like it, or we will somehow embarrass ourselves, so we keep it to ourselves. We produce great work and then hide it from the world.

This is no good.

Not only are you robbing yourself of an audience and a chance for your work to have an impact (and maybe earn you a living), but the work is also robbed. See, artistic creations aren’t finished until they are put in front of an audience. An external viewer is the frame around a piece of art – until that point it is still a work in progress. It’s still germinating. But the moment we expose it to an audience it becomes something else – it lives.

Your work needs to live. It needs to be seen and evaluated by others for it to mature. And for you to mature as an artist.

You have to risk failure to achieve success.

You need to be prepared that not everyone is going to like it – and that’s okay.

There’s a saying in sales that ‘every no gets you closer to a yes.’

You need to expose your work to as many people as possible. Some of them will reject it, or at least not be interested in it, but that is part of the path of getting closer to those who will love it and say yes.

‘Build it and they will come’ only works to a certain point. If they don’t know about it, if they can’t see it, if someone doesn’t tell them about it, there is no hope of them coming. Yes, build it. But then you’ve got to put it out there, make people aware of it, invite them to come – then you stand a chance of people actually coming. It doesn’t happen on its own.

I want you to start putting your work out there. Start daring to share it with the world. Sheild yourself from any criticism and keep on going.

And ask people to help you. Invite people to view your work and ask them to share it with people they know. You need their help and in most cases they will want to help you. Empower them to do it.

That’s part of the process of making art: put it out there, ask people to view it, and ask them to tell other people about it.

That’s the hardest part about selling – getting your work out there.

Action: List 3 places (online or offline) where you could make your work available. Come up with a plan (with deadlines) for when you will do this.

If you haven’t already done so, I’d love it if you helped me share this work with someone you think might value it.

Longevity in a creative career isn’t accidental—it’s built on strategy.

While the landscape shifts, the core principles of thriving as a creative freelancer haven’t changed. For deeper, modern frameworks on building a sustainable creative practice:

• Read the Book: Looking for a step-by-step field guide to building a resilient career in the creative economy? Pick up my recent book The Thriving Creative: Successful Freelancing in the Creative Economy available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and from my publisher Routledge.
• Stay Connected: Join my community and to receive the complete 31-day hand-drawn playbook as a single PDF at the end of the month. Sign up below.