A short break between
Hello everyone,
Today I’m in Broken Hill, a large town that’s pretty much the start of the outback in Australia. North or West from here leads you to fairly sparsely populated rugged country where you’ve got to think about things like ‘am I bringing enough water?’ and ‘how will I navigate when I’m out of phone reception?’. I’m staying in the home of a local journalist who’s become a friend and the last few days have been fairly relaxed.
From tomorrow I have a bunch of photography lined up. I’ll be meeting with a local woman who has many dingoes on her property (as well as camels, ostriches and a bunch more), on Friday I’ll head north to stay with a park ranger who’s a dingo researcher and on the weekend a few folks and I are camping in a National Park and driving along the dingo fence. Then Sunday I start winding my way home, arriving midday Monday. It’s about a 13h drive from the National Park home.
I can safely say that I am sick of the road, road trips and the car. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last five years exploring the backblocks of Australia in my car and have generally enjoyed it. However I think my time as a car-reliant roadtripping artist is coming to an end, or at least a pause because, my god, am I so sick of driving! My next art project I hope is like based around walking, or riding or swimming or anything other than driving for years at a time. Australia’s a big place!
As I’ve been traveling I’ve been thinking a lot about three things, and one of the nice things about being away from home is that I have much less on, so my mind tends to just churn through and crunch through meaty questions and problems.
The three things I keep thinking about are:
How can I run a more financially profitable business?
How can I travel less and do the same quality of work?
What would I like to do outside of work?
One of the things that’s crept up on me is that I’m spending a lot of my thinking and down time thinking about my freelance work and business. In a lot of ways that’s not different from anyone - everyone thinks about work a lot. I think what is different is that a lot of my goals and where I’m trying to improve or grow as a person is directly tied to the business. Which is ok, but has started to feel a bit one-sided. It’s very healthy to have things on outside of work, and maybe some projects, hobbies or passions that have nothing to do with income.
I’ve been learning to make coffee this year, which has been really fun, and I’d like to keep getting better. There are a few little ‘home barista’ courses at local coffee spots and I think I’ll just keep nudging that minor interest along. I love making delicious things for people. I also have been finding a lot more time to exercise than I was last year, especially running and lifting weights a lot more. Last year I walked to and from work (1.5-2h per day) and that was great, but I’m getting older so I have to be more attentive or I lose fitness fast.
I think those two things are sort of enough to think about outside of work, one is something I can work on a bit each day, the other is something to make time for a few times a week, clear the head, feel a bit better.
Traveling, to come to my second question, feels like a constant reset. For example, I was having a really nice routine with jogging at home, but on the road I never jog. I feel, increasingly, that I dip out of my regular life, the momentum that it has, and end up sort of having to reset. At the same time, I don’t like missing the social side of my life nor do I like leaving my girlfriend for so long. It’s one thing to go to a book fair for a long weekend, it’s another to be on the road for two or three weeks.
But the reality is that there’s just too many opportunities for me to not travel. Later this year, for example, I’ll work in Perth - that will be a big pay day for me, perhaps around 5-6000 in one week. So that’s essential. Or heading to LA for the book fair next week, that’s also likely to be a multi-thousand dollar weekend, but that’s nice, it’s 4-5 days away, it’s straightforward. I don’t know what the cut off is between ‘short, sharp trip’ and ‘this feels like I’ve left my normal life behind’, but perhaps a week all up if I’m on my own, and maybe 2-3 weeks if I’m with my girlfriend.
So - how can I have a comparable level of opportunity without relying on as much travel as I’ve done since July 2024? To refresh your memory, since July, I:
a) Went on a roadtrip photographing Dingoes around NSW and QLD (10 days away)
b) Travelled to Kalgoorlie and Perth teaching workshops (3 weeks away)
c) Traveled to Singapore, Amsterdam, Paris, London and Taipei - hitting up three book fairs and lots of friends along the way (4 weeks away)
d) Went to China with my girlfriend (2 weeks away)
e) Am in the outback now (2 weeks away)
f) In May I’ll go to Tokyo (1 week away) and LA (5 days away)
g) In June I’ll be in Broken Hill again (1 week away), then my girlfriend and I are heading to Europe for a wedding, a book launch and a book fair (3 weeks away)
f) In August I’ll be in Perth for a week (1 week away)
g) I’m hoping to go to NYC in October (10 days away)
It really adds up, doesn’t it?
But, if I’m to sell the books I have, make new connections and make lots of art then some amount of travel is required. Traveling to Perth (other side of Australia) once a year is always worth it. Traveling to a few major book fairs, especially in Asia and the USA where the flights are direct, is worth it. Europe is a harder sell, roadtripping I think needs to take a break - I’ve got two more this year and then I’m calling it, my little car has earned some rest.
Finally, the business side.
I’ve decided to spend the rest of this year working towards having a fixed amount of money in the business - a portion of that will be held in the stock not yet sold, a portion in cash in an account and a portion spent on things that haven’t happened yet. I think that this figure being around $40-50,000 is what I’d like to aim for and then the intention is that the business is never worth more than that, any extra money comes to me for paying bills, buying clothes, saving for other things, etc.
It seems a bit simple, but I think that being more meticulous and specific with this will be important.
So for example, if I have $30,000 of unsold books, $4000 spent on plane tickets/fairs that haven’t happened yet and $6000 in the business cash account then I can’t spend $15,000 on a new product until some books sell, or we do a big pre-sale or something like that.
In my quest to balance being responsible financially and develop systems for monitoring my business’ health I think that this is a good next step for me.
What this allows me to do is track, much more simply, where the money in the business is and, specifically, control how much of it is in unsold product. After all, if I have $50,000 of unsold books and $0 cash in many ways I have $0.
I remember when I thought about this and started sketching it out I really felt empowered and like I’d found a smart next step for me. As I type it out now I’m like ‘so I’m just making my budgeting more detailed and specific, is that very impressive'?, and that’s the thing about learning something new, isn’t it? Once you learn it, you feel like ‘how did I not know this?’.
When I come back from my travels in May that’ll be a good time to do a big stocktake, set up some new accounts and build towards this more robust and structured type of business.
ANYWAY, some quick links:
A book I published a few years ago, Site Specific (which is about how artists can exhibit and meant as a visual reference guide for any artists) is down to its final 10 copies. Speak now or hold your peace.
Some of the workshops I’m running have one or two spots left. If you want to join the Publishing Masterclass, 60 page artist book or Mentoring classes these have only 1 place left. The mentoring one is taught online so if you’re not in Melbourne or Australia feel free to sign up.