Gigging and Juggling

I had a quick phone chat with Dave Cool today that got me thinking about his post on diversified revenue as key to indie survival, and I had so many reasons to second that emotion it seemed blog-worthy. Elran and I definitely have had to work the many angles to be able to keep developing Indyish on our own terms. Having other gigs, skills and sources of income has it made it possible for us to keep an objective detachment on opportunities, including some different financing deals that I am pretty confident would have been a mistake.

Fortunately, something always seems to come along: Elran and I develop website concepts together, in fact we’re just finishing one now with amazing Indyish artist, George Blott. We’ll show you guys tomorrow, when the site goes live, but here’s a preview of George’s work:

by george blott

Beautiful, and highly satisfying to be able to hire artists we know are crazy talented and reliable through Indyish. That’s really part of the dream for us. Gigging is a part of how we do Indyish, if you know what I mean.

We officially do our web development and search engine consulting under the umbrella of Touchbasic, and somehow, maybe because of the diversity and size of the Indyish network, these contracts have a way of popping up right when we most need them. Hence my zen attitude in the face of event stress (as Franco describes hilariously). Things turn out, and if they don.t you probably won’t die. I also teach acting and write on a freelance basis, and El does lots of different kinds of web and computer consulting. In other words, we juggle professionally. I think it’s pretty much the norm for people in the arts, especially the Indies.

It can be stressful, and it can be super liberating and fun. For me one of the best parts is feeling that my mind remains independent of any one business culture. Gigging keeps tossing you into new contexts and so you have to keep learning, it used to scare me but now I love it (ok, still scary, but like, love scary). It requires hard work to keep multi-employable and a leap of faith that there are avenues in front of you you just can’t see yet, but it’s endlessly interesting. If you’re considering it, here’s my number 1 tip: keep steady and be kind and the indie community will take care of you. Nothing is as rushed as it seems and being nice now will pay off tenfold later, where being inconsiderate will kick your ass. Number 2 lesson I’ve learned, while I’m at it: it is easy and possible to recover from mistakes, because everyone is making them all the time. Thank gad!