Working for a Living

It’s end of the year roundup/predictions time again at The Beat, but one pretty safe prediction is that we will likely hear of many more creators, in all sorts of media, exploiting new distribution channels to connect directly with fans. As Michael Wolff points out at leading tech blog GigaOM, “Everywhere you look, artists are taking more control over their own economic well being, in large part because the Internet has enabled them to do so.” Citing some well known recent examples such as comedian Louis CK, author Barry Eisler and comedy podcaster Marc Maron, Wolff sees a growing trend of artists cutting out traditional middle men and presenting their work unfiltered directly to customers, and especially in the case of Louis CK, profiting handsomely from it. And Wolff doesn’t even mention a number of other recent examples of the artist as entrepreneur trend, from multi-platform musician Cee-Lo Green to the Humble Indie Bundle video game collection.

Last year Dean Haspiel kick-started the creative juices of the new year with an essay called "Dear Content Maker" that confronted some of the excitement and uncertainties of the new horizons. Since then he's launched a new website -- Trip City -- and kept juggling all the balls a creator needs to. This year, he has a similar call to arms that surveys the current landscape called "Publish or Perish", named after a tweet by Jimmy Palmiotti:

Warren Ellis takes a stab at Five Predictions About The Immediate Future Of Comics. It's brief -- just go read. A couple of main ideas: * Roll-your-own digital available to creators creates distribution opportunities and chaos * Creators will continue to explore Kickstarter and other methods to get paid for their work * DC and Marvel in diminishing returns. And this classic Ellis observation:

In as unstable job market as we have today, three men have decided to give their art their full time attention, their all. Writer and artist of Let's Be Friends Again!, Curt Franklin and Chris Haley respectively started their witty webcomic on the print comic world and what it means to really be friends in 2008. Eugene Ahn aka nerd rapper Adam WarRock quit his career as an attorney in 2010 in order to follow his heart and let his mouth fly. Today they announced the joining of their two ventures into LBFA!, Inc.

Always outspoken creator Joe Casey has another crack at pissing people off with his take on marketing, surviving in Hollywood, and his own brand of career advice in this exclusive interview.