Ignore anyone who says you’re wasting your time chasing your dreams. Choosing a creative career doesn’t mean you’re going to end up struggling, starving, and unemployed. Despite what the skeptics warn you, your art is a viable career option. You can make a true living from your artistic endeavors if you put in the effort. Here are a few ways you can pursue your passion and pay your bills on time:

1. How To Turn Your Writing Into A Successful Business

If you have experience as a writer, you can host seminars online or in person. You can teach students who are interested in a writing career how you cope with creative blocks, how you give your characters depth, and how you juggle your career with your personal life.

If you would rather work on your own than start teaching, you could get into freelancing. You could create content for magazines and lifestyle websites. You could even create your own blog and grow your audience until advertisers pay to have their ads plastered across your page.

Eventually, you can produce books. You can choose between self-publishing them or getting them traditionally published and start marketing yourself.

2. How To Turn Your Photography Into A Successful Business

The best way to earn a living as a photographer is to sell your prints. You can start by posting them on your social media in order to grow your audience — but you can eventually work up to exhibiting your pictures in galleries. People will pay to take a look around at your greatest pieces of work. Some people will even pay to take a piece home with them.

If you aren’t interested in selling your work, then you can hold workshops on a campus or local library. You can teach aspiring artists everything you have learned from your years of practice. You can become the teacher you always wished you had.

3. How To Turn Your Modeling Into A Successful Business

You can post your best pictures on Instagram as a digital portfolio. You can partner with photographers who will pay you to tag them in posts. You can work with brands who will pay you to wear and advertise their items. You can even create a YouTube series about modeling or makeup or fashion.

Outside of the internet, you can attend auditions in order to follow a more traditional modeling path. You can do runway modeling. You can do print modeling. You can do fashion modeling. You can make a living by landing auditions.

4. How To Turn Your Drawing Into A Successful Business

As an artist, you have unlimited options. You can create and monetize animated YouTube videos. You could get a remote job at a website in need of graphics. You could train to become a tattoo artist who gets paid by the hour.

If you would rather work from home, you could create a website where your audience can request commotion drawings. You could set your own prices and set your own rules. You could even post your finished products on a popular shop like Etsy to sell.

5. How To Turn Your Acting Into A Successful Business

If you’re hoping to become an actor, you can continue pursing your craft in between auditions. You can write and star in your own, monetized YouTube videos. You can act in local plays. You can perform at dinner theaters. You can teach your craft to students who are trying to break into the same industry as you.

If you’re an actor, you aren’t going to star in a blockbuster movie early on. If you’re an author, you aren’t going to write a bestseller overnight. Until you reach those milestone moments, you can make a living doing what you love by getting creative. Pursue your passions on a smaller scale and you can work your way up to your ultimate dream job.