Beyond The Freelancer: Creative Careers Without The Self-employed Hassle

When we think about what to do with our lives, when we're young, we don't limit our dreams and ambitions. But as we get older, we feel that we've got to make concessions so we can live a “regular” life with a regular wage. If you're someone who had a creative flair but now you are working in an office, performing mind-numbing tasks, and you just want to get out of this existence into your ideal creative career, usually the freelance option becomes the first port of call. But if you're someone that's been used to a regular wage this can be quite a shock, so with that in mind, are there any creative industries out there where you can earn a regular wage?
Marketing
One of the most common ways to harness a creative ability is to go into the marketing industry. Yes, the overriding ethos is concerned with sales but there are so many different sectors within the marketing industry, especially in relation to content creation, there is pretty much an opportunity for everyone with a creative bent. On metmarketing.co.uk/jobs you can get an idea of what is out there in the marketing industry. You will see that there are so many options, and as marketing is so heavily reliant on the ability to push a product or a business, there is so much creativity that comes with that.
Journalism
You could argue with marketing and journalism are two sides of the same coin now, especially as so much of the old-school paper format has now gone online and is heavily subsidized by advertising. There are many ways you can break into journalism. And while the classic degree or masters qualifications provide an in, don't underestimate your ability to break into journalism through the numerous apprenticeships and training schemes. Journalism is one of those areas that is highly creative, but if you're used to writing a high amount of quantity, when it comes to the research associated with a story on average you may find yourself writing around 500 words every couple of days. The great thing about journalism is that it focuses on the text, but now, there are areas of online newspapers that focus on stories in real-time, by drip-feeding information into something digestible online obtained via social media posts.
Online Publishing
For those out there looking to establish a career in fiction or nonfiction, there are numerous publishing houses out there that cater to the online markets. You could go down the well-established publishing houses route, but if you want to break into this with minimal experience in publishing, the best approach is to go via the online freelance websites. To begin with, it is only achievable as a side hustle, but the more experience you get looking at manuscripts, the more you will develop a niche in a specific genre, and on occasion, full-time jobs in publishing houses come up. Another added benefit is that a lot of these are remote positions.
Self-employment and freelancing is a very stressful arena, theguardian.com/money highlights just how anxiety-inducing it can be. Understandably, a lot of people want comfort and security, but these type of jobs don't always come with a creative angle. But if you look a bit further, you will see there are.