[baron_harkonnen]

There reason you don't hear about these transitions too often is because it's virtually impossible to have a "career" solely in the arts.

I've had many friends over the years who where all variety of artists/creatives working in the arts including performing art, visual arts, writing, musicians etc. Skills range all over the board from talented amateurs to highly trained/skilled professionals.

Nearly all of them, even the a few I know that played in professional symphony orchestras, needed another, non-creative full time job to pay the bills. Visual and performing (drama) artists in particular all needed another source of income. The only exception to this would be people living in extremely low cost of living areas, but even then all of them had some sort of major financial support coming from somewhere else (spouse/family).

The closest thing to a full time job that pays a living wage in the arts is to become a professor, but that is insanely competitive and many of my friends who went that route found it ultimately unfulfilling. Some visual artists will also work as graphic designers or in an area like UX, but that's still a full time job just using your skills for someone else, not really making your own art.

I would recommend you talk to artists of all sorts that you know (or reach out if you don't). If you're interested in visual arts go to a few gallery openings, chat with artist, if it's literature reach out to your favorite authors (side note, may Booker prize finalists will only every sell a few thousand copies, just to get a sense of the competition in that space) Many of the ones that are making a living at it are probably not doing the art they would prefer most of the time, and the income they are bringing in is very low compared to even poorly paying software engineer gigs.

My advice would be to find a low stress, remote programming gig and devote as much time as you can to your preferred art. Making six figures at your 9-5 and working in the arts is much easier than working at a coffee shop to support your arts. If you really want to do it full time, then I would recommend putting in a few years at a very high paying FAANG type job and finding the lowest cost of living community you can with an arts scene and see how it goes.

[fennecfoxen]

> There reason you don't hear about these transitions too often is because it's virtually impossible to have a "career" solely in the arts.

My little sister has a fine arts degree and has worked as an artist. She's had lots of write-ups in local and regional papers, and has sold at least one piece for about $10,000.

She describes being an artist like this: "No one wants to pay you for your work."

[chubot]

The closest thing to a full time job that pays a living wage in the arts is to become a professor

I think many people here are missing the career of a tattoo artist (though the OP was asking about literature, not visual arts).

They can get paid as much as contract programmer -- $30 to $100 an hour -- or even a dentist, e.g. $200-300/hour if independent and well known.

Ironically, tattooing is one of the few forms of art that's not economically affected by computers -- you can't download a tattoo :) Computers made every form of knowledge easier to copy and thus less expensive: software (open source), journalism, literature, music, and movies. But it didn't do that to tattoos.

I think they also follow Jamie Zawinski's law, i.e. write software that will help your users get laid. People will pay more for tattoos than they would pay for something they hang in their living room. (This isn't a negative statement about the art form; I don't think anyone who tattoos would disagree that it's often sexual)

[yann2]

wut? People are getting tattoos to get laid now?

[bikingbismuth]

This is great advice.

I am an amateur in a lot of different arts (music, painting, writing being the main focus). I have friends who are professionals in these areas and each of them of them has a day job they don’t care for to support their art. I was moderately close to making an attempt at being a professional musician in my early 20s, but playing enough local shows and only making $50-100 to split between 4 people dissuaded me of that notion. Now I have a fairly hard, but not stressful job in STEM that pays well and has good work life balance.

I find I have a couple advantages because of my reasonable stream of STEM based income: - I don’t ever have to care about selling anything I create, which makes it less stressful - I can afford almost anything I want to tinker with for a particular art

Consuming and creating art is a very critical part of my being, but given the realities of our modern economy and the insane competition in the arts, I am glad that I will be a “forever amateur”.

[IG_Semmelweiss]

I'm surprised this doesn't get mentioned more on this thread.

First, find synergetic fields. Parent post is a good example. I definitely think there's something to be said for you UX roles. You could make the switch.

A new suggestion is you have to leverage your current skills as a platform for your new skill / career. Once you know what that is, use your coding prowess to open doors.

For example, if your thing is history, you could go work as a dev at a gaming company that does historical simulations, such as paradox. Or you could do system IT for a museum or the like, to then jump in a job opening of your choice in your field.

There are game studios looking for music talent with tech background, so breaking into music should not be difficult. If your thing is public performance, this route may be interesting - since gaming live music is a very underserved market. Live performance is still going to be a gig for some time and you wont be able to to turn it into a FT job, but you will be both composing music as a FT job and playing it for audiences as a hobby. Thats as fulfilling as it gets

You have a big advantage of having a skill that most modern companies need. Best, the larger the company, the more needs they have in the arts (logos, marketing collateral, art, photography etc) Leverage your tech background to get a foot in the door.