What is the hardest thing you have faced as a modern day creator?

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21

Taxes and time management.

Taxes — setting that money aside and not touching it until it’s time to make the next quarterly estimated payment. It’s brutal. I didn’t do very well at it last year. I’m doing better this year.

Time management — I left a full-time day job in 2012 to work on comics full-time. After several years of working 17-hour days so I could build up my career enough to support switching to full-time, I now find myself working 17-hour days so I never have to go back!

The irony, though? Time management was way easier when I had to use my time more ruthlessly. Back then, I had only a finite amount of time between my family responsibilities (wife, kids, house, etc.) and my day job. I did a 5-day-a-week comic strip, wrote books, maintained websites, did side projects and much more in those precious hours because I had to. Today, I have a much more relaxed schedule. But that has proven waaaaaaay more difficult to navigate!

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22

Being your own time manager is tough. The boss is usually super-tough or super-nice and either can be a detriment.

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23

Trying to make any source of income and dealing with unemployment is the biggest issue for me.

24

Being a musician in the world [music for free, piracy, etc.] and in Portugal [bad paid gigs, a lot of musician playing for free - and people who give $5 for a starbuck drink but feel that giving the same amount to see a show is very expensive], is definetly my challenge as a creator. Of course, there are few musicians that can make a living but they are an exception nowadays. Most of my collegues pay to work.

I believe that, more than a source of revenue, Patreon is an amazing way of education for audiences [AND ARTISTS]

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