Free Options Are Amazing Until They All Of A Sudden Aren’t

When my hustle started I was all about saving money in my pursuits of greatness. 

For a while in my 20’s, when I was coming to the end of my struggle years, this made sense. Webcam videos and other projects built around experimenting sufficed in an era where cell phone’s weren’t quite mini movie studios.Then the affordability of “quality” dropped to time and effort and all of a sudden cheap moves stopped hitting the same.

Inevitably I got older and somewhere along the way the expectations started to change.

Making a nice video was too easy to justify the static images and PPT slideshows with lyrics on them of yesteryear became real cringe, real fast. 

Sound engineering was cheaper than ever and at the end of the day the threshold of minimum viable product increased. 

The more technology makes access possible, the better the end result has to be.

Work with what you have but you need to show improvement over time

When I started all my cheaper content efforts were okay. 

I was a younger artist in my hobby phase. But then one day my ambition got bigger and I started creating better music. When it came to marketing I realized I was nowhere near prepared for the assignment.

To work around a lack of funding, I did whatever I could. This was a great way to get my feet wet and introduce my brand to the world. As time went on I invested, but never to a point where things were fire. 

It was always just good enough. 

At first people can forgive things like bad sound or weak visuals. However if you aren’t taking the time to improve on those fronts, there starts to be a mismatch. Your talent as an artist starts to be too good for the BS quality you are producing.

Most of the time this is where artists get blocked. 

It’s complicated to figure out how to pay/produce everything you need.

Time is unfortunately a limited quantity 

You will probably try and take on the self-produced challenge.

Here’s a list of things I should not be allowed to do having tried them and not being passionate enough to get good.

• Thumbnail design (let’s be honest, these substack thumbnails suck)

• Podcast clip selection (I really can’t identify good clips with me in them)

• Sound engineering (I can barely hear the difference in the nuances)

Here are things I’m actually pretty good at that I discovered via DIY things that will actually save me money to do.

• Recording engineer (I can place every syllable where I want, then ship it to be mixed)

• Video editor (I’m slow AF, and pretty amateur, but I learned a lot vlogging and for certain types of short content I’m the best option).

• Organizing events and other planning

If the thing you are doing ends up being bad in quality, then you are not the right person for it.

I know people, myself included, who’ve put insane hours into producing some super mid results. Taking some more time, to find more money in your life, and throwing that at more talented people, creates a better product. Your time is precious and you need to think about how you use it.

I’m not telling you to stop trying new things. You need to try them so you can discover if you are the right person for the job. The experience of performing the actions will help you find the right people. 

Don’t let ego stop you from achieving your goals.

Sometimes it’s okay to stop your art projects to go make the money you need

Art is expensive to produce.

To create commercial, competitive art, you need to be willing to spend what it costs.

You need to be willing to take however long it takes to create the best possible product. In all of my songs with the exception of Lose Weight, there’s something I believe I can do better. Lose Weight, is the song that is the best received in my catalogue.

The music video is trash though. 

It was during COVID and I was broke. If I want this song to take off, I need a really clever video, probably focused on exercise. Maybe doing stuff like having everyone at a table eating giant B12 burgers and I have a skimpy salad. 

It needs an edge. 

The current music video will never go viral and get me fans. 

I believe it’s one of my better visuals, but to this day I haven’t invested in a proper music video, a promo site would really want to push. For 2025 I need to really up my visual content game.

That will likely mean paying a lot more people to make much better stuff.

I’m way past the point I can coast by on free.

Free work will always, and I mean always, come with strings

The main thing that free means, is you no longer control the timeline.

When you don’t pay for something, literally any opportunity for money is more appealing than what you have to offer. 

Giving people money, more money than they can get elsewhere, makes you a priority. 

I know that with the right production, and time put into finessing every detail, I can write songs we can sell for like 5000$ via sync licensing. If it costs 2500$ to make the song, but you pull 5000$ plus royalties, where’s the loss?

Rinse and repeat that cycle and one day those quarterly cheques will be a pretty penny.

Anyone doing the best work you can get, will come with a price tag. If they like you, it may not cost as much as other people pay, but it won’t be free. This is the way of the world.

At the same time, you need to figure out which of those skills that saved you money earlier can be used to generate the revenue you need. 

There is something you do worth paying for to someone out there. 

Anyway, the next time you are considering the free route, think about getting your money up and pursuing the project later.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone