Just a few statistics I dug up on the web concerning the salaries for creatives and their job prospects.
“… unemployment rates in actors hover around 90%, and that as low as 2% of actors are able to make a living out of acting,” (Williams, Oliver, et al, “Quantifying and predicting success in show business,” Nature Communications, 2019, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10213-0).
I guess the employed experienced actors have it better. The average salary for actors and actresses is $74,305 per year (Actor / Actress Salary in 2024 | PayScale, https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Actor_%2F_Actress/Salary). Let's hope you aren't in the 90% pool of unemployed actors and actresses.
“The median author income for full-time authors from their books was $10,000 in 2022, and their total median earnings from their book and other author-related income combined was $20,000,” (“Key Takeaways from the Authors Guild’s 2023 Author Income Survey,” The Authors Guild, 2023, https://authorsguild.org/news/key-takeaways-from-2023-author-income-survey/).
On a more general scale, the average salary for writers is $61,570 per year (Writer Salary in 2024 | PayScale, https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Writer/Salary). Now this figure may be misleading because it includes proposal writing, strategy writing, technical writing, copywriting, marketing, and many more skilled divisions of writing.
“In the U.S., musicians make an average of $21.5K per year, and the majority (61%) report that the money they earn from music isn’t enough to make ends meet,” (Clark, Brian, “How Much Do Musicians Make,” Musician Wave, 2022, https://www.musicianwave.com/how-much-do-musicians-make/ ).
The median pay for dancers is $24.95 an hour (1), the median salary for dancers is $37,011 a year (2), and the average salary for dancers is $38,583 as of June 27, 2024 (3) (1. Occupational Outlook Handbook, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/entertainment-and-sports/dancers-and-choreographers.htm#tab-1 ; 2. Career Basecamp, https://www.career-basecamp.com/careers/dancer/salary; 3. Salary.com, https://www.salary.com/research/salary/recruiting/dancer-salary).
In a survey on how much visual artists make, “the median income for respondents was just $20,000 to $30,000, with 60 percent making less than $30,000,” (“How Hard Is It to Make It as an Artist? A New Study Shows There Are Many Paths to Success—and Failure,” Artnet, 2018, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artist-financial-stability-survey-1300895).
Conclusion
If you are a creative in only one form, you may be in financial danger. The good news is that if you can branch out and combine other trades/skills, e.g. marketing, teaching creative skills, using the creative skill technically (as in technical writing), making instruction videos, computerizing/automating your workflow, or scaling up your work in some feasible way, then you increase your chances at making a good living doing something you love. If you are already wealthy or have a donor to help finance your work, you are obviously free to develop your expertise.
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