One of my coaching clients reached out to me this week regarding a task that she and I had discussed at length during a session a couple months ago, and she confessed to me that she hadn’t done it yet. What’s more, she wasn’t really sure why she hadn’t done it. There wasn’t anything stopping her or getting in her way. She told me, “I’m just not doi…

Every creative has moments in their career that are moments of celebration, moments of pure excitement. And usually, when I talk to artists about those moments, they think about the big career milestones: that huge award that they won or were nominated for, the incredible review they received, the prestigious fellowship they were awarded, the amazi…

Last week’s podcast episode was all about the importance of acknowledging the hard things in your life as a creative entrepreneur, but if you stop there, you’re only seeing part of the picture. Yes, much in the life of an artist is really difficult, but so much is amazing as well. We get to create for a living! We get to share our artistic ideas wi…

Our interview with writer, performer and producer Tavia Gilbert visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com https://taviagilbert.com/

The life of a creative entrepreneur is a difficult one. From a culture that doesn’t value our artistic work, instead telling us we should starve, to the difficulty of dealing with business administration tasks that many of us were never formally educated to handle, the reality of being an artist business owner is not an easy one. You’ve picked a ha…

I know you’ve been there. Your task list is overflowing, and you’re overwhelmed. You’ve got more to do than you can possibly complete in the time available. Perhaps you’re in a feast period in your creative career, meaning your project calendar is jampacked full of fabulous projects that you’re excited to work on. Which is great, except that it mea…

Our (second!) interview with Senior Executive Producer Kelly Gildea visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com

Our interview with audiobook narrator Erin Bennett visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com https://www.erinbennettvo.com/

Our interview with narrator and coach Scott Brick visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com https://scottbrick.com/

Our interview with narrator Bob Souer visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com https://bobsouer.com/

Our Spotlight on Non-Fiction interview with Hachette producer Melanie Schmidt visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com

As this episode is originally being released, it’s the day after Christmas 2023. Last year, for the podcast episode between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I narrated a Christmas story for you, and truthfully, that episode is one of my favorite podcast episodes of the entire first season! I’d like to make that holiday storytelling habit a tradition h…

It’s Tuesday of the last workweek of 2023, and it’s a time when lots of us are thinking about what we’ve done over the past twelve months and what we’re looking forward to in the coming twelve months. Those kinds of looks backward and dreams forward can be really exciting! But it can also be really difficult to think back on the year gone by. If I’…

As this episode is being originally released, it’s less than two weeks before Christmas 2023. In another four days, my husband, Arturo, will be off from work in his corporate job for the rest of the year. Yay for holiday vacations! And all over the world right now, people are making plans for the holidays and thinking about their New Year’s resolut…

Our interview with Editor and Founder of AudioFile Magazine Robin Whitten visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com

When you picture someone who is a successful artist or creative, what image does that bring to your mind? Perhaps someone who has won lots of competitions or awards in your creative industry. Perhaps someone who is very prolific in their artistry, so you see their work all over the place. Perhaps it’s someone who takes on really high profile projec…

We’re getting toward the end of the year, when people employed in corporate jobs are completing their yearly self-assessments in preparation for performance reviews in early January. My husband, Arturo, who you heard from in last week’s episode, turned in his 2023 self-assessment last week, just before Thanksgiving. And yes, I am a self-employed cr…

Last week’s podcast episode was all about how to think about change in our creative work. Change is inevitable in life, so we may as well find ways to think about it positively. After all, in many ways, when we think about it from a mindset of joy and abundance, change can be really beautiful! But what about change that has the potential to be incr…

Our interview with narrator, producer, and owner of Mosaic Audio Amy Rubinate visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com https://www.mosaicaudio.com/

I don’t know what the fall weather is like where you are, but here in Cincinnati, things have turned decidedly autumnal. Arturo and I spent a few hours about a week ago, on Saturday, raking the leaves from our driveway and the paths around our house. And when I flew back from the LoveNVegas book con about two weeks ago, seeing the fall colors from …

You may have noticed that this episode is marked as the first episode in Season 2 in your podcast player. That’s right – this week marks a full year of the Starving Artist No More podcast! For an entire year, I’ve been coaching creative entrepreneurs and helping them create workable strategies for businesses that actually work and that meet their n…

Mark Twain once said, “The secret to getting ahead is getting started.” Sometimes, taking those first few tiny little steps can be the hardest part of getting a new project off the ground. If you’re embarking on a new artistic venture, how do you decide where to begin? If you’re preparing to tackle something unfamiliar on the administrative side of…

Our interview with narrator, performer, storyteller Vikas Adam visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com Link to quotation shared in the episode: https://qr.ae/pvORn0

A few weeks ago, I woke up to an email from a creative entrepreneur that I’ve been coaching over the past few months. This wonderful artist had recently faced some pretty big obstacles in their creative business and was feeling really discouraged. They had wanted to start a new thing in their creative work, but they found themselves completely unab…

Over and over again, in my work as a creative entrepreneurship coach, I hear some variation of the question, “but what if it doesn’t work?” Fear is a natural part of trying anything new, and for most artists and makers and creatives, focusing on the business side of their creative enterprise is indeed a new thing. Much of what we do as creative ent…

Our interview with Scholastic Audio Producer and Weston Woods Production Manager Melissa Ellard visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com

Figuring out your strategy to make your creative business work is much easier said than done. You might think you know how things work in your creative industry, and you might be doing all the things that should be the right things, and yet nothing is working for you. Perhaps you even see things working out for one of your creative colleagues, but …

I’ve said before that your beliefs about what is possible for you and your business will be the limiting factor in how your business grows, which is absolutely true. But your beliefs about the possibilities available to you and your business do more than impact your big picture. Those beliefs touch every part of what you do, from that big 10,000 fo…

The life of a creative entrepreneur is a busy one. There is a lot on your plate on any given day! You need to do the creative, artistic work that your business is built on. But you also need to reply to emails, manage your marketing, handle your business finances, and deal with project management tasks. Like I said, it’s a lot! In that mess of task…

The life of a creative solopreneur is one of constantly being pulled in two different directions. Direction 1: the creative stuff! The reason you’re a creative entrepreneur in the first place! This is the creative, artistic, innovative, unique work that you do and that brings you joy and fulfillment and that fills your soul. Direction 2: the admini…

Our interview with producer Sara Pagluica visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com Dual POV title Jennifer refers to in this episode: https://www.audible.com/pd/What-a-Wave-Must-Be-Audiobook/B0CLL8P15F

Our interview with Linda Korn, Senior Executive Producer at Penguin Random House visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com

What habits do you have? What are the things that you do automatically, on a regular basis? When we talk about habits, often the first place we think of is at bad habits we have – smoking, doomscrolling social media, staying up too late. But today, I want to talk about good habits. Epictetus, a Roman Stoic philosopher, wrote that “if you want to do…

In almost every artistic training program the world over, regardless of the specific creative discipline, the pursuit of perfection is a driving factor in the training. I spent hours in the practice room during my conservatory training practicing the same passages over and over to get closer to that ever-elusive “perfect” ideal. Lessons and masterc…

I have a bit of a controversial thought to share: Hustling isn't a good thing. Allow me to explain why I say that. Hustling is all about working harder than everyone else and doing everything imaginable to get the job or gig or project or whatever. It's about sacrificing everything else on the altar of getting ahead. Hustling is what the "starving …

This episode is originally being released on July 3, 2023, meaning that as I’m recording this, it’s the midpoint of the calendar year. Recently, on The Half Marathoner substack (which is an awesome newsletter if you’re a runner, like me), Terrell Johnson wrote, "This time of the year … has always felt like second base to me. As if you’re on a baseb…

Funny story. I’ve had this topic, being a good boss, on my list of upcoming podcast episodes for months. Literally. For week after week after week, I’ve had this episode marked down as the next episode I was going to write and record for this podcast. And I kept pushing it back. I kept saying to myself, “No, I want to talk about this other thing th…

The life of a creative entrepreneur is one of gig work. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “gig economy.” For workers in many industry, this gig economy is a totally new thing. In decades past, engineers and computer programmers used to always work as employees of a company. They didn’t have to jump from project to project on their own. My grandfath…

The feast or famine cycle is a vicious thing. If you’re not familiar with that term, “feast or famine” refers to the awful roller-coaster-like situation when your business vacillates between months with tons of work, and tons of income, to months with almost no work and almost no income. There’s no doubt about it: riding the feast or famine roller …

The feast or famine cycle is the bane of every creative business and every creative entrepreneur I know. “Feast or famine cycle” refers to the stomach-dropping ride that you experience when your business flip flops from months with so much work you can’t handle it and stress out like crazy (even if the resulting payday is pretty nice) – these are t…

Do you have any friends or colleagues who just seem lucky? Who appear to have great opportunities fall in their lap all the time? I know that, from the outside looking in, it can sometimes seem like other people have all the luck! Well, I’m here to tell you, my friend, that the appearance of luck is just that: an appearance. It doesn’t match realit…

Imposter syndrome. I’ll bet that you have a visceral reaction just to hearing me say those two words. Every creative that I’ve ever known has dealt with imposter syndrome at some point during their artistic career. Imposter syndrome is virtually impossible to avoid. But it’s not impossible to overcome. You are not helpless in the face of your impos…

Our interview with storyteller Gail Shalan visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com gailshalan.com

Our interview with producer Zane Birdwell visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com

Our interview with Senior Executive Producer Kelly Gildea visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com

If you could go back to the very beginning of your journey as a creative entrepreneur, what would you tell yourself? What pieces of advice would have made your journey to this point a little smoother if someone had whispered them in your ear at that early stage in your career? Or, what pieces of advice were whispered in your ear, but you ignored th…

One of the most common pieces of advice that business coaches give entrepreneurs is to outsource. A lot of discussion in the world of entrepreneurial coaching deals with how to build a team around you, how to delegate tasks to employees or contractors, how to work as a leader within that team. This is all excellent advice for entrepreneurs in more …

Our culture tells us we need to hustle and go! Work work work, busy all the time. That’s what we’re supposed to do right? That’s what we’re supposed to be. And I don’t want to deny that there are elements of that mental framework that are helpful. If you’re a self-employed working artist, like most of the people who listen to this podcast are, then…

Our interview with actor and narrator January LaVoy visit us at JenniferJillAraya.com & SarahBethGoer.com https://www.januarylavoy.com/

How do you use your time? During your work days, are you efficient and focused with your time? Time is one of our most precious and most finite resources. As artist business owners who sell our time and creativity energy, time is incredibly valuable to us. So how can you use your time effectively? Are there strategies that can help you get more don…