Managing creator burnout, How much do creators actually earn, Writing a book in public
Managing creator burnout, How much do creators actually earn, Writing a book in public
Growth Currency⚡ 0️⃣3️⃣5️⃣
Welcome to Growth Currency’s 35th edition ⚡
A special hello to the 24 of you who subscribed over the past week, including Greg, Caroline, Brian, Sean, Laura, Chris, and Stacey!
Grateful for you being here. Thanks for giving me a few megabytes in your inbox 🙏
📢 FREELANCERS: LISTEN UP!
[#Sponsored] - Freelance Forward is the latest course from the freelance pros at Ventursom. And you’re going to want to check it out.
Create immense clarity, gain confidence, & build momentum for your new freelance biz in just 30 minutes a day—for 10 days!
You'll receive…
→ lessons
→ strategies
→ tactics
→ stories
→ insights
→ prompts
…all created to guide you in designing and building a freelance business that empowers you to live your life, on your terms.
Sign up to be notified of when the course is live!
🔥 HOW TO MANAGE CREATOR BURNOUT & FIND BALANCE
Last week I posted about balance + burnout.
I admitted to you I was feeling the challenge of burnout and balancing creative pursuits with my 9-5 and personal life.
Several of you were kind and generous enough to share your feedback with me. Thank you for that 🙏
Leigh wrote:
There are 24 hours in the day. I dedicate 8 of it to sleep, so I have 16 other hours to get everything done. I learned the hard way what overwork can do to you (I ended up in the hospital due to chronic stress), so I insist on setting boundaries and limits with my 'second chance'.
1. Flexible work situation (I can work from home or from the office)
2. Ability to flex my hours. Absolutely crucial to picking kids up from school/to activities and also when I need to work on my side gig.
3. Acceptance of my side hustle.
Ayush shared a tweet about quitting his job with 24 months of savings:
Matthew wrote:
Know the hats you’re wearing (ex. dad, 9-5, freelancer).
Know the roles and responsibilities affiliated with each - because they marry purpose with execution.
Make time to step back and review the hats and corresponding roles and responsibilities to look for leverage.
When you’re burning out, it’s like being in the wrong gear on a bike (in a car, whatever makes sense to you). You either have to stop altogether or change gears. The hats, the roles and responsibilities, and the leverage points can help trouble shoot this.
From there, it’s all about setting some high bars to reach for and corresponding safety nets for each. That includes “if I start burning out here’s what I cut first” and “if I discover free time here’s where I want to default place my focus.”
These responses were greatly appreciated, and although I’m still struggling with balance, it’s helpful to see I’m not in this alone.
This is an important topic that affects many of us and I hope to expand on it in a longer post as I gather more information and feedback. Feel free to share your experience with me by replying to this email — everyone is welcome to share!
📖 WRITING A BOOK IN PUBLIC
#Ad - Creators who dream of building six-figure businesses → check out this book that’s being written in public. The author, Daren Smith, is a career creative of 15 years who is helping creators like you learn the principles, mindset, and framework to build successful businesses.
Check it out and subscribe to get new chapters for free as they’re written.
CREATOR SPOTLIGHT 🔦
🔦 WELLY MULIA || Welly’s built Birdsend.co to help marketers. He has a helpful & FREE 7 Day Email Mistakes Challenge. I’ve signed up to make my emails better. You should too!
🔦 ANDREW KAMPHEY || Andrew’s the BetterSheets guy: helping you grow your business with Google Sheets. He’s also building a Gmail CRM product called Pigeon—which JUST MIGHT be featured a little further down this email… 👀
THIS WEEK’S GROWTH CURRENCY ⚡
Knowledge is the currency of growth.
BTW — I curate the links below each week to help you grow as a creator and go from learning to earning.
Got a link that fits that description? Reply to this email and let’s talk :)
📩 The Ultimate Email Marketing Guide for Creators by Welly Mulia
Get this [FREE] guide if you’re a creator building an audience (that’s… most of us). In other words, you should probably get this guide.
(BTW, got this from Janel Loi’s BrainPint newsletter)
💲 Creator Earnings Benchmark Report by Influencer Marketing Hub
Creators looking to make a living online should read this for motivation—or maybe not…? From the article ↓↓
“46% of Creators who have been building an audience for 4+ years earn over $20k annually across their monetized channels.”
→ My take: this isn’t worth it the full-time effort. Instead, maintain a “safety net” with your 9-5 and after 4 years, I’m positive you could earn $20k of annual side income.“Of the surveyed Creators that considered themselves full time Creators, ie. content creation is their main source of income – 78% make more than $23,500 annually.”
→ My take: this is more positive, but the first words that come to mind are “I sure hope so!” I wouldn’t be able to pay bills and survive very comfortably for $23,500/yr. Millennials living rent free in their parents’ basement? Sure. Not for the “older” (hi 👋) creators who are hoping to pay a mortgage, feed a family, etc.
The good news? Stick with the Creator thing for 6+ years and your odds at earning 6 figures go up significantly. Patience is not only a virtue, it’s a must.
(BTW, I got this from the #CreatorSpaces weekly newsletter)
🏘 Community DAOs by Patrick Rivera
(DAO = Decentralized Autonomous Organization)
Imagine building a community where the members are literally invested. Instead of joining a community being a transactional relationship, it’s a partnership. This is precisely what The Tilt is doing along with MANY other creators on Rally.io and other networks.
This is Web3 and as a creator, I recommend learning as much as you can 💡
(BTW, I found this in the Idea Economy newsletter)
✍ The 4 Stages of Copywriting by Julia Saxena
Julia’s Twitter thread hits on the 4-key points below—but check it out for additional high-value insights & tips 👌
4 Stages of Copywriting
Researching
Writing
Editing
Testing
🛠 Timeless.so — a free app to re-post old tweets, curate Twitter, & build a following. Luke Cannon is the founder and built this as a side project. His full-time gig is with AppSumo 💪
🛠 Pigeon + Sponsor Gap Package1 — this offer just came on my radar! For a limited time, get a year of BOTH tools for $148, that’s over 50% off! PLUS—you get a 1:1 call with both Andrew (Pigeon) AND Tobi (Sponsor Gap) 🤯.
Who’s this for?
This is the perfect tool combo for podcasters, newsletters (👋), bloggers, YouTubers, and influencers looking for sponsors & advertisers for their content.
About Pigeon: Anyone using Pigeon can do more with email - get more replies w/ auto follow ups, personalize at scale w/ mail merge, and keep all your contacts organized w/ a CRM without leaving Gmail.
About Sponsor Gap: SponsorGap is where newsletter and website creators
find their next sponsor, post their open ad slots and brands publish their open sponsorships.
Thanks for hanging out with me this week! Don’t forget to reach out if you have any experience with managing the creator life burnout and tips on how you balance it all.
I’d love to hear from you :)
Lastly, what could I do to improve this newsletter? Is it too long? Too short? Are the curated links helpful or… not really? Thanks in advance 🙏
If you want to support me or show a token of thanks for putting this together, you can buy me a cup of coffee — a little bit goes a long way.
This is an affiliate link for this exclusive and limited deal. Full admission: I’m a new user of Pigeon but I haven’t used Sponsor Gap—yet. The biggest value in this offer is in the 1:1 calls. I’d recommend this product based on that alone 💪