Category: FEU Training Blog

By novelist, trainer, and journalist, Sue Walker

CVs - the ultimate writing challenge?

‘I’ve got too much to say’; ‘I’ve not done enough’; ‘I don’t know what I’ve got to offer,’ are just a few of the typical responses I get when running CV workshops for freelances.

It’s true - producing a CV that stands out from the crowd can be a time-consuming challenge for anyone including those of us who write for a living.

But whatever creative field we’re in, the ability to use words to maximize the chances of obtaining work or the opportunity to get through the door and make a pitch is essential.

And, CVs are sometimes the only way of letting people know that we exist, so it’s worth putting time and effort into creating CVs that grab attention immediately.

What skills do I have that they need?

This is a must-ask question when thinking about how we write ourselves up. If, like me, you’ve had a variety of jobs and linked careers in the creative sector, the temptation may be to try to tell prospective clients everything that you’ve done.

But, no matter how interesting your life story might be to you and your granny, it’s important to remember that people are only interested in what you can do for them and they just haven’t got the time or inclination to wade through reams of information to find out how your skills match their needs.

In fact, most decisions on CVs are made within seconds of reading, so you need to present your key messages up front to avoid the discard pile.

Get to the point

To do this, it’s crucial to tailor your CV by picking out and prioritising the skills and experience that you have that you think most suited to the job brief – one size does not fit all.

Or, if you’re not applying for a specific job, highlight those attributes that you think the potential client will be most interested in.

This does not mean that you have to write a brand new document each time but you must ensure that the most relevant information for the particular employer/client/organisation you are targeting is clearly emphasised. It also means that you can have many versions with different content and length.

Less is more - be simply beautiful

Layout and style can heed or hinder the immediate impact of your CV. If in doubt, keep it simple and uncluttered.

Beware of using too many design features such as fonts, boxes, pictures and colours to catch the eye. They can backfire and appear visually confusing and thus off-putting. Also, bearing in mind that most CVs will probably be sent by email, check how it looks on screen and how it opens up. Send it to a friend and let them see what happens.

A cautionary tale – I have seen horrifying CV examples (due to software/PC mismatches) including a perfectly decently presented CV by the writer, emailed to me and looking utterly unreadable in text and layout - as if it was written on a manual typewriter last century! So watch out – looks can be everything on first impression.

If nothing else...

Remember one thing: whatever you produce, it has to meet this crucial benchmark – it must be a quick and easy read, giving the employer/client an immediate indication of how you meet their requirements.

Want to learn more?

FEU Training is running a number of CV development workshops around the country this autumn. If you would like to attend, look out for updates for workshops coming to your region or register your interest by emailing [email protected] and letting us know what workshop you are interested in and where you are based (if we have sufficient demand in your area, we’ll come to you).

More info:

• More details on workshop content
• Quick tips for CV writing

 

By actor-writer Kate Willoughby

Coworking: from little acorns...

From what I've seen, coworking is well suited to creative freelances. It gets you out of the house, enables you to meet like minded freelances and encourages you to be productive. No wonder it’s going from strength to strength across the globe.

However, there's plenty of room for more, so if you can't find a group in your area and you like the idea, why not set one up yourself?

Over the last few weeks I have been in touch with several exponents of coworking. Here's some of their practical advice about how to get a coworking event up and running and links to further information.

Alex Butler from @KindredHQ shares her tips in this clip. These include:

• All you need to do is to persuade an organisation, a coffee shop or a venue that you may already use to give you enough space for 10 to 15 people on a regular basis.
• Make sure that the venue has reliable access to free WiFi.
• People generally look after themselves. If you are hosting it helps to encourage people to be as collaborative as possible.

Rob McDonald from @NewcastleJelly gives more helpful advice including:

• Find a decent venue, preferably one which is relaxed, quiet, and spacious. We use Bar Loco which is a bar/restaurant/gallery and far more welcoming than a regular office, serves great food too.
• Get yourself a Twitter account and Facebook page, you'll need a dedicated twitterer to spread the word.
• Persevere. It took us a good couple of months to get regulars. Don't be disheartened if co-workers don't return — it's better to have a small friendly group than a stream of one-timers.
• Jelly coworking days are meant to be relaxed and come-along type events, but it really helps if one of the group (or as a team effort) can keep things ticking over, I've been to a few meetup type events that eventually folded due to lack of organisation. It can be tough though, as all freelancers are busy doing their own thing.
• Being a free event you're always going to get lots of interest, but it's converting that interest into reliable regulars that's the hard part — without that, it's tough to keep the momentum going. Hence the need to keep plugging away and promoting it.
• On a side note, we've found most creative freelance types tend to be late starters (like me!) so it generally doesn't fill out until after 12pm. Business types are earlier starters, so it depends who you're aiming the days to.

More info

• Newcastle Jelly on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/NewcastleJelly
• KindredHQ on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/KindredHQ
• UK Jelly’s Find a Jelly webpage:  http://www.uk-jelly.org.uk/find-a-jelly/
• UK Jelly main website:  http://www.uk-jelly.org.uk/
• UK Jelly on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/UKJelly
• Listenupnorth:  http://listenupnorth.com/
• Eventbrite website:  http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/
• Youtube KindredHQ tips:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCdqp3CIQUE
• Bar Loco, Newcastle: http://www.barloconewcastle.com/
• Judy Heminsley website:  http://www.workfromhomewisdom.com/

Further reading

• http://www.workfromhomewisdom.com/work-from-home-events/how-to-start-your-own-jelly/
• http://www.workfromhomewisdom.com/work-from-home-events/how-to-start-your-own-jelly/press-release-for-jelly/

Tips

• http://www.workfromhomewisdom.com/work-from-home-events/jellyquette-whats-that/

 

Coworking: an example

By actor-writer Kate Willoughby

As part of my research into coworking for freelances I wanted to get some firsthand experience of an existing coworking event.  I therefore signed up for one of KindredHQ’s  Jelly events, which took place recently.

In my opinion, the location was perfect (London’s Centre for Creative Collaboration) and the time was also ideal for many freelances (1.00pm to 5.00pm).

The Jelly took place in a light and airy room with a large table and access to free WiFi. Refreshments were also available.

Participants at this event included an app developer, a journalist, an illustrator and an artist. The atmosphere was relaxed and positive. Whilst some people stayed fixed to their screens, others discussed a variety of topics, including a debate about the use of unpaid volunteers in a now internationally renowned theatre production.

In this video clip founder of KindredHQ Alex Butler gives an insight into coworking and why she started the Jelly events.

Having already experienced a positive introduction to coworking via the Devoted & Disgruntled roadshow, the Jelly event also demonstrated that coworking can take on different forms and work for a diverse group of freelances.

Alex Butler also gave me some excellent tips for setting up a coworking event, which I will share with you in my next blog.

BY ACTOR-WRITER KATE WILLOUGHBY

Working as a creative freelance often means spending many hours alone – creating. While this can be productive and joyful or at least a necessary (if painful) part of freelancing, too much isolation can have a negative impact on our working and personal lives.

From my experience, it’s a good idea to have access to outside stimuli when we need it. Whether we want to bounce an idea off a colleague or just have a laugh to break up the day, company – especially with our peers – often boosts our creative juices and our confidence.

With this in mind, this month I’ll be looking some ways of informal group work that is advantageous to everyone involved.

Jelling with others

"Coworking" is nothing new. It has been in operation since the dawn of time. Without it hunter gathers would have gone hungry. More recently the idea of working together in an informal setting has proved popular with freelance Creatives across the globe.

It was only very recently that coworking first came to my attention, when I attended a Devoted & Disgruntled open space event at the Arc in Stockton. The supportive environment created by Phelim McDermott and his team provided an excellent forum for sharing ideas, interests, hopes and fears. It also enabled me to complete an important funding document for my play To Freedom’s Cause. By simply picking up on the energy in the room, I took some time out and completed a task that had worried me for weeks.

One of the other participants, Selina, a Yorkshire-based recent theatre graduate, said that she wanted to start a mutually supportive group who would meet regularly, bring their laptops and simply work in a shared space. This in a nutshell is what coworking is all about.

As a freelance actor/writer I have sometimes found it tough to stay motivated in order to complete a daunting or mundane task. The positive experience at the D&D road show made me want to find out more about coworking and to share this information with you.

The now global phenomenon first took off in the United States, where small groups of likeminded freelances began to meet up on a regular basis. If you ever struggle with staying creative or keeping on top of essential freelance office tasks, then coworking is something you should consider getting involved with.

There are regular events held all over the UK (including Colleagues on Tap in the North East and Jelly run by KindredHQ in London) or you could set one up yourself with friends.

The most successful coworking events share the following

• A regular meeting place with free access to WiFi
• A mutual respect within the group
• An informal space, rather than an office

One thing that I’ve learned whilst researching coworking is that lots of work can get done, but these events are essentially sociable. It’s time well spent with other freelances from the same or a multitude of disciplines.

"It's very specifically about creating a community … It's like the difference between a coffee shop and a restaurant. At a restaurant, you're there in your own little space; you may have a friend with you, but you're not there to meet people. People at coffee shops are a little more social."

Brad Neuberg, an open-source programmer in San Francisco who is said to have first created the term “coworking”.

I will be attending the next Kindred HQ Jelly on August 15 and will let you know how it goes.

www.katewilloughby.co.uk; www.katewilloughby.posterous.com 

 

By writer-director and author Brendan Foley

Writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint. That makes the difference between the thousand people who think about writing a book and the one that does.

Then, out of every thousand who actually do finish a manuscript, there are usually just one or two who make meaningful money out of it. And most of them say that they have to have a constant stream of books at various stages of the life cycle from ideas to remainders at the bargain store in order to make a living. And yet…

And yet many of us have that yearning. We have something to say that won’t fit in a tweet. We have had an experience or built up a knowledge we want to share. Or maybe as time passes we just get keener on the idea of leaving something behind that might last longer than an evening performance, a recycled newspaper, or a footprint in the sand. I was fortunate enough for one of my books to become a best-seller, but more important than that, writing it was one of the most satisfying creative experiences of my life, and that spans work in newspapers, magazines, TV and film.

I’ve run a course for the NUJ and if there is enough interest will run a similar one for the FEU on ‘Writing Your First book’. The course is designed to use our existing skill set as freelances in the creative industries as a unique advantage – a head start in the very competitive and uncertain world of publishing. The good news is that in just the few years that course has been running, there are at least three successful books in the world, written by those who attended.

Apart from all the good reasons mentioned above, there is one compelling reason for any creative freelance to consider tackling a tome. Being the author of a book can be very good for your standing with both peers and prospective employers.

A book, and even more so a successful book is a very powerful qualification that you are an expert in a particular field. For a musician it might be a collection of rock ‘n’ roll stories from the road, or a guide to new groups trying to break in to the fickle world of demos and online sales. Or for a writer it might be a novel or a factual book on a person or historical event. For a journalist it might be a memoir of the early days of TV News or a contemporary fact-filled account of the war in Afghanistan. Whatever your skills or interest, being a published author can generate more work or interest and that is often both commercially and critically more rewarding than the often modest amounts in royalty payments.

But just like running a marathon, it is not those who hare off from the starting line with the most enthusiasm who stagger across the finishing line a long time later. In the world of authoring books, it is those who do the best preparation who tend to stay the course. Having a detailed plan – a core theme, chapter headings, contents of chapters and sub chapters, right down to 1000-word sections of a 100,000-word book, can break it down into manageable pieces.

Equally important is having a good idea of how and when you will write. It is no good setting epic deadlines to ‘finish in six months’ if you don’t have a regular writing pattern and an understanding of how much you can write in a week. This is particularly true if you are writing in your spare time.

A realistic timetable and writing structure can not only result in a finished book, it can save you from losing all your friends or having things hurled at you by your nearest and dearest if they find themselves playing second fiddle to a book obsession. Have a look at these tips from a successful freelance on how to stay on track.

So the rewards are uncertain, the journey is long, but if you are willing to pay for the ticket, writing a book can be one of the most interesting road-trips of your life.

Do you want to learn more?

If you would like FEU Training to arrange for Brendan to run his successful ‘Writing Your First Book’ course, please register your interest at [email protected] (subject matter: book) stating where you are based. If we have sufficient demand, we will look into to running this course asap.

BY WRITER-DIRECTOR AND AUTHOR BRENDAN FOLEY (NUJ/WGGB) WWW.FILMFOLEY.COM

Writer's block itself is just one ailment in a whole family that is more accurately called Creative Block. Dancers lose their creative spring. Musicians lose their groove and writers extract sentences like Victorian dentists pulling teeth without anaesthetic.

It's an odd thing, but journalists rarely complain of writer's block. Screenwriters, yes. Authors, yes. Actors fed up waiting for someone to write them a decent part who decide to write it for themselves? Most definitely.

The reason for the difference between the journalists who seem immune and the others who stare at a blank page or white screen, or a bare stage or blank canvas until steam comes out their ears, may help to explain the nature of writer's block.

So why are journalists immune? One word: deadlines. Journalists are moaned at by editors. In most cases they are writing short articles and they are due on a specific day or at a specific hour. By and large journalists are not overly bothered by perfection. It is about cranking something out. Something that will fit the bill.

So when I became a screenwriter, I had a very dim view of anyone who grumbled about Creative Block. Whiners and slackers the lot of them. Until I found myself staring at a blank page in the middle of Act Two. It took me years to work out the difference and devise ways to avoid it. In a nutshell there are three root causes:

1. Wanting perfection

The drive for perfection is a double-edged sword. Voltaire described Perfect as the enemy of Good.

Nobody wants to turn in crappy work, but it may be that a short article for a technical newsletter does not need the same level of polish as the novel of a lifetime.

Perpetual dissatisfaction can be soul-sapping and sometimes it is better to get something down and hope to return to polish it later. There are 100 first chapters of books for every finished novel. And there are no prizes for first chapters. Though there is an award for the worst opening paragraph - the Bulwer Lytton.

The problem for a lot of us in the creative industries is that it is damn hard to make a living at the best of times and to have any chance of our work standing out or attracting attention it has to be pretty special. Keeping motivated to do our best work while not beating ourselves up for not attaining perfection is a tightrope act, but most sufferers from creative block err on the side of perfectionism rather than pragmatism and should try tacking over to the other view to see if that helps. When you find yourself churning out unalloyed rubbish, it may mean you have tacked too far.

2. Not knowing what comes next

This Block-bringer is most common in the craft side of the creative business - screenwriters, commercial composers and suchlike: not knowing what comes next. Almost always this is down to a lack of structure in a story or piece of music. Structure is not always cliché or predictability. It can be the recognition of a creative skeleton that holds your story together.

Planning out the structure, whether acts and scenes on stage or chapters and sub chapters in a book gives a very specific freedom. It enables a creator to jump over a problem and come back to it later, because they know what comes before and after it. Much better than hitting a brick wall and head-banging until it or your forehead wins.

3. Not having a short-term deadline

The third head of the Block-monster is the lack of a deadline. Much of our work is carried out under our own steam, at our own expense in the hope that someone else will buy the finished work, record the song or produce the play or publish the novel.

The journey is often measured in months or years rather than days or hours. The secret is to set self imposed deadlines - not just "to finish by Christmas" but a series of sub deadlines.

For a book it might be a chapter a month, a quarter of a chapter a week or a specific number of pages a week. Daily deadlines are tough but great if you set a realistic minimum rather than something that just makes you miserable when you don't achieve it. Monthly deadlines are too long as a first line of defence - missing one is demoralising and missing two results in many abandoned projects. Self-imposed weekly deadlines, like Baby Bear's porridge, seem just right for many freelance creatives, giving enough impetus but also the ability to mend our ways after an off week.

The key seems to be to have large, medium and small deadlines with appropriate self-rewards along the way. I know one author who rewards herself with a trip to the cinema or a meal out each time she finishes a chapter and a holiday each time she finishes a book. My strongest word of warning, whatever micro-reward you choose each time you finish a page, or a verse or a few bars of music, make sure the small unit of reward is not a chocolate biscuit.

One last tip. If you are writing, try not to finish on the end of a chapter. Such Hard Finishes sometimes make it difficult to start again. Leave your work in the middle of a section. Next time you start you will easily get back into the swing finishing the previous section and then be on a roll into the new section. I even know some people who stop in mid sentence for the same reason. And another thing...

More info

For another perspective on creative block, check out these 10 types of writers' block and how to overcome them.

 

By writer-director and author Brendan Foley (NUJ/WGGB) www.filmfoley.com

Like many of you reading this, I have a Facebook page with a smattering of friends and acquaintances. I also have a Twitter account languishing with not a single chirp, tweet or utterance to its name. I’ve even been dubbed the ‘Facebook groundhog’, for emerging once a year to say Happy New Year before sinking back into my offline burrow.

My reasons for not posting more have been to do with getting asked to read too many people’s screenplays; also not feeling my lunch ingredients are cause to alert the global media, nor being overly interested in the equally dull minutiae of others.

So when seeking someone in the entertainment world who has used social media to great effect, I decided to start with the person who called me a cyber-groundhog – my nearest and dearest, social media queen Shelly Goldstein. Shelly is a writer, performer and pop culture commentator. She is very funny and has a mighty online following.

Why do you think most people in media and entertainment don’t make more use of social media?

I think most of us start out being a bit afraid of it. We don’t want to look like the idiot describing their lunch in lavish detail, and we don’t see how social media can in any way relate to our professional lives. But over recent years, I’ve discovered the opposite is true. Social Media is like broccoli - it’s not as bad as its reputation and it can be good for you. If you serve it up right, it can even prove quite tasty!

You use Facebook and Twitter. Are there other media that you choose not to use?

I don’t do much on Linkedin. As a concept it seems well intentioned but most requests I get on it are from people who live on the other side of the planet who seem to be phishing. That’s not to say it mightn’t be useful for some. Social Media is not a single glass slipper. Different sites are more of a perfect fit for different people. Facebook and Twitter work best for me.

So tell us about Facebook in terms of its usefulness to you.

Building a base on Facebook takes time and energy. You have to decide to allocate that time daily as opposed to doing something else to generate enjoyment or income with the same time. But Social Media is also a place where you can measure progress. It started paying off for me within days of my starting regular posting. People came out of the woodwork who I had not heard from in years, including many fellow professionals in entertainment. It really is awe-inspiring software in terms of its ability to create matrices of people with shared friends or interests.

But isn’t that more like a social use as opposed to a professional one?

To use social media well, you have to shake off some of the old definitions. It may be that your professional work will benefit simply by more people knowing about your interests, talents or character. Just as most of us who are freelance do not stop working when a whistle blows at 5pm, not everything has to be divided into work or fun. Hopefully most of our lives can involve both.

Yes, but you can’t pay the mortgage with funny-money, grumbles the Groundhog. Tell us about how interest translated into progress in your working life.

I have different facets to that working life – comedy writer, performer, pop culture pundit and avid news-junkie. I started posting various things: thoughts on news of the day, humorous observations, commentary on pop culture.

As a professional writer and comedy writer, I have to do this sort of thing anyway. I simply began making more of my observations a part of my Facebook page. Other people joined in the conversation. People began sharing my thoughts on their FB pages and re-tweeting what I’d been saying. Word of mouth started to factor into things. People recommended their friends to friend me. More people, more perspectives made for more interesting conversations. I got my first professional job offer via Facebook about two weeks after my page went up.

And it’s not just performers who can benefit. Here’s a terrific example of an author who has found a way to use social media to help promote her first book – which has sold half a million copies.

So why do politicians and journalists not have the most friends then?

I’m not running for office. I’m not doing critical analysis. I’m a pop culturist and comedy writer. Any insights I have come from a comedic perspective. I don’t think anyone wants to be preached to online. People want to converse. People want to share opinions. People want to laugh.

I hope I offer them a place to do all of that and I get as much out of it as the people I communicate with. Facebook makes it easy to see when you’re getting through to people – and when you’re not. People join in or they don’t. They “share” your comments or they don’t. You can buy shares in companies, but can’t buy ‘shares’ from one friend to another on Facebook. You earn them based only on what you write. It’s like an instant Nielsen rating - or people voting with their mouse.

Any of us working in media and entertainment these days have to have a profile. We have to be seen in order to reach an audience and also to reach more potential employers on the other side of that audience. A job interview today involves being Googled.  Producers, directors, employers check your work online. These days, people know you - or what they think is you - long before you meet in person. We all have the power to impact what people see or learn about us online.

Give us an example of how a single post can end up contributing to your working profile or income.

It’s usually a cumulative thing – people deciding you are consistently funny or observant or whatever, based on multiple small examples. But to give one in real time, I just read about the very talented comedy actor Fred Willard being arrested for, er, allegedly pleasuring himself in an adult movie theatre. I posted and tweeted that arresting the guy in a porn theatre for being horny was like arresting someone at McDonald’s for being fat. Within minutes that line was heavily re-posted and re-tweeted.

But does that really translate to income?

Honestly, if I only did this in the hope of getting paid, it would be a lot less fun.  I am a performer. Writing and posting is as much of an outlet for my performing as is being onstage. I live the life of a freelance. Every single day it seems like I’m working for someone different. And I can point to at least a dozen of my employers in the past year as coming from people who either befriended me on Facebook, followed me on Twitter or saw my videos on youtube. This runs the gamut from being hired to write a single original lyric for somebody’s cabaret act to writing an episode of a TV show, to being asked to bring my show to a brand new city.

Find the ways social media can best represent what you do. For example, I write a lot of comedy satire material including new lyrics to old songs. My first cabaret show was called, “Gay Man Trapped in the Body of a Straight Girl.” I’m passionate about marriage equality and wrote a parody of the Mary Poppins song “Supercalifragilistic…” called “Super Callous Homophobic Hateful Legislation”. A friend of mine with a video camera shot me singing it. We had one light. The production took less than two hours.

Within two days, the video was on my Facebook page. A friend of mine sent it to a political pundit who linked it to his blog. The next day 5,000 people had seen it. It was embedded on over 1,100 different Facebook pages. Within a month it had been viewed in more than 17 countries and had over 50,000 views. Without FB that never would have happened.

So there is an economic basis, albeit an indirect one?

Bottom line: social media is a fantastic way to get your work seen. Now there’s also a huge amount of online chatter and static that you have to break through, but if your work is good and you work hard to get it out there online, you can get further, faster than any time in history. Despite all the difficulties, I think there’s never been a better time to be in the entertainment business.

What is also true is that the American Idol Illusion of being discovered the first time you sing a song or crack a tweet is a ridiculous myth. In reality it takes lots of work on a daily basis to gain a following and a professional online profile. But if you are willing to put in the time, social networking lets you connect with your potential audience and potential employers.

Is there a difference between the sort of responses or results you get on Facebook and Twitter?

Twitter has much more immediacy. I’d suggest using Twitter for very of-the-moment comments on news or gossip. On the night of the Academy Awards, instead of making a comment to the person beside me on the sofa, I tweeted my thoughts about the people and the movies in real time. And that brought the biggest response I’ve ever had on Twitter. People know I write a lot of ‘special material’ for similar shows, so they decided to join me on the virtual sofa. It was fun going back-and-forth.

It all feeds into an overall online presence, and for people who want to follow that in detail, there are sites like www.klout.com, which quantifies your overall reach on the internet through a mysterious algorithm of all your online incarnations.

So, are there any downsides to the Brave New World?

Absolutely. The first is that you have to put in a great deal of time, thought and energy to maintain a connection with so many people. But you have to do it. It is no good thinking it is a one-way street, it is a direct relationship with a friend-base and sometimes an audience-base.

And another downside is that the more successful you are in raising your profile online, the more you open yourself to nasty anonymous comments. You have to just shrug it off as some modern form of jealousy and insecurity.

If I ruled the world anyone could be as mean or nasty as they liked, but they would have to have the guts to put their real name to whatever they said, not as ‘knobhead666’. Anonymous postings always pander to cowards. It is very important not to respond to idiots. However, I did break my own rule of ignoring one troll who objected to my being in favour of marriage equality and posted a comment calling me a “F%$&ing dike” (sic).  My response was to point out that since he’d called me a “dike” he wasn’t making an  (incorrect) assumption about my sexuality as much as he was making an assumption that I retained water.

Any last words for people seeking to get serious about their online presence?

Don’t post anything you’d be embarrassed to see on a poster on your high street. It will be out there forever. Don’t post drunk, and don’t post things just to be mean. That’s just dull and depressing.

But on the bright side, the online world really is your oyster, and it is a shame not to use such an amazing asset. You don’t need to let it take over your life, just fit it in to a routine and enjoy it, rather than worrying if any one tweet or post is going to bring you fame or fortune. And my last word? Hope you’ll friend me on FB (Shelly Goldstein) and follow @groovyshelly on Twitter.

By Brendan Foley (writer, producer and director working in books, film and TV)

One of the biggest battles for people who make their living in the entertainment and media industries is that they get little sympathy from nine-to-fivers as both sides struggle to make ends meet.

The underlying attitude is often something along the lines that: “I have to get up five days a week to go to a job I hate with a boss I hate while you just write/sing/prance and get paid for having fun. Stop complaining.”

And in a way, they have a point. For most of us, no one held a gun to our head and demanded we work long hours often for little recognition and sometimes for little remuneration in the tough world of 21^st Century media and entertainment. We do it because we love it. It is who we are. As Hyman Roth observes in Godfather II “This is the business we’ve chosen.”

So, does that mean we just have to sit in perpetual penury, tolling the bell and waiting for society to catch up with the true value of our genius? Not for a second. Studying virtually anyone who makes a decent living in our world can give clues as to how some people do much better than others in terms of surviving long term. Here are three tips on how to making a decent living out of what you love.

1. Develop more than one string to your bow

This is the single most important ingredient in a successful self-employed person in the media or entertainment business. Your career should be like a cooker with at least four hotplates burning away at any one time, and maybe a proverbial bun in the oven as well.

The easiest way to come a cropper in this business is just to have one product/service to sell. For a freelance journalist it may be that you need four utterly different areas of expertise – you may be able to write about Musical Theatre, Electrical Engineering, Trends in Dental Hygiene and Bog Snorkeling.

If you are in business for long enough you will be able to watch as one of these becomes, for a time, the dominant bread-winner and others barely tick over. Then there will be an economic or social change and you find yourself writing non-stop about one of the others.

Or if you are a musician, playing a certain sort of engagement, be it pub gigs or the Albert Hall, you may find that a totally different revenue stream forms a useful second-fiddle. And a third.  And a fourth. If one of your income streams takes a lot of time but brings in very little, put it on the back burner and identify a new one that brings in more for less effort. You don’t have to abandon what you love, but you do have to pay the bills and not starve to death along the way.

There are of course those people who just want to do one thing. Write one sort of book. Do one sort of dance. But the truth is, of those who really succeed in any specific business or art form, most of us have had to do what pays the bills, not just what we happen to love most.

The good news is that sometimes having three or four different revenue streams, always jostling for attention, can sometimes make life more interesting, or even make us better at whatever we regard as our core skill.

2. Be your own Publicist

Few of us can afford our own publicist. Those who can usually do employ one, not out of a sense of self-agrandisement but because having some level of profile among the people who can pay us means more work in the future.

So when times are hard, the best possible approach is to “accentuate the positive”.  It is a strange facet of human nature that we flock to success. This has always been the case – the adage: “Success has a thousand parents but failure is an orphan” rings true to those of us who have had a near miss or two along the way. But while bandying quotes, Shakespeare had a more useful one: “Nothing is but thinking makes it so”. If you have had even the most modest success, for example a writer coming fifth in a small competition may not be front page news, but on a blog or a tweet or rolled in with a few other honourble mentions it can set the writer apart from the herd enough to get a read by a decent agent.

One very successful entertainment colleague used to view Friday after lunch as his “publicity time” and for a few hours he devoted himself to trumpeting in print, online or just in email, about whatever small victories had come his way in the preceding week.

A word of warning – this is about thanking people who help you succeed much more than just tooting your own horn in an obnoxious way. You want to be known as a positive person and success, not a blowhard. Just one of a million examples of self-promotion without being obnoxious is comedian Mark Malkoff who developed his own ‘brand’ and made sure the world knew about it.

3. Spot economic trends

Hindsight, it is said, has 20/20 vision.  But many writers and performers have survived past economic downturns by identifying skills that are growing in demand just as some of their other expertise seems to be on the wane.

One actor friend, fed up with the lack of TV or film roles and irritated by the constant requests to be in shorts for free (“it’s only a few days”) spent some time making it clear that they would gladly work in shorts if not busy, but only if paid some sort of modest fee upfront. No exceptions. What this did for them was to modestly increase their income on one hand, but more importantly allowed them to channel previously wasted energy into a concerted PR campaign that eventually landed them their first well-paid TV ad work. That blossomed into a living and held body and soul together until he eventually got a regular TV drama role, in turn because someone had seen his face on an advert.

If you can identify a future trend early on and become an expert in that field, you can effectively invent not just another “string to your bow” but a string that may become a significant revenue generator and yet allow you enough time to still nurture whatever core skill you want to pursue.

Life is not always an either/or. Sometimes this requires understanding parts of the business that may seem very far from what we do. For instance for a film actor, it is important to understand what, if any, of his or her future revenue may come from DVD sales versus people downloading films online, so an article such as this one may give a clue as to which way the economic wind is blowing. For the actor, or for a union, such changes mean changes to contracts and ultimately to income.

Sometimes, to make the most of such an opportunity, you will need to polish your own skills base. The difference between a freelance journalist waiting for the phone to ring and one able to ring a commissioning editor with a great idea to boost circulation may be as simple as you brushing up your skills on a course. It might be on feature writing, building your first personal website, using social media to get your name out there. The ultimate thing that successful folk seem to do is make a plan and put in the work to make it real, rather than waiting for the cavalry.

Lastly, if it doesn’t sound too glib, it is important not to get bitter about how damn hard it is. Enjoying the bumpy journey is probably a better bet than always squinting towards some far off destination. After all, it has never been easy, as this interview with Dustin Hoffman attests.