Would you ever work as a professional reader?

MandMaud

seven stars said:
(BTW thanks for the comics shout-out Ace hahaha....I do the Tales From A Street Reader comics).

And they are BRILLIANT. :grin:

Also, I've learnt some serious things from them! Because I've never read for strangers, and because it's obvious that these are in-jokes: all professional readers recognise the situations in your cartoons. So I'm like a child eavesdropping on the knowing conversations of grown-ups, and it feeds into my "collection" of ideas about the practice. You've given me a more realistic idea of what to expect if I DO ever go into it than I'd have got from reading a hundred threads filled with advice from those with experience.

But they're LMFAO funny as well.

You give a load of practical help in that list!

Just one thing though - it's unrealistic for anyone to think of writing a book as a means of income. It is very much a case of only write if you can't not. (Like divination!) A minority manage to make a living, or even a little extra, from writing but it's a market flooded by wannabes. I got to the semi-professional level before my health collapsed; I have a good idea what's involved in online publicity, and making any money from writing these days is more about selling a brand (=yourself) than about writing well.

Write because you want to write, yes definitely! Improve at it if you love learning a skill, an art, and if you love to do things well. Don't ever start writing as a means to any income.

(I consider it one of my own maybe-one-day income threads, only because I already know I can produce good work, I've done my long apprenticeship, and I got on great with the networking / marketing thing. Don't cite me as not practising what I preach.

)

seven stars

MandMaud said:
Just one thing though - it's unrealistic for anyone to think of writing a book as a means of income. It is very much a case of only write if you can't not. (Like divination!) A minority manage to make a living, or even a little extra, from writing but it's a market flooded by wannabes. I got to the semi-professional level before my health collapsed; I have a good idea what's involved in online publicity, and making any money from writing these days is more about selling a brand (=yourself) than about writing well.

I wrote a book on Spirit Boards, it's only 20 pages, it's just something I did because I needed a hard surface for my spirit boards, so I filled the pages with just literally everything you could ever want to know about Spirit Boards. Summoning spells, stuff about evil entities, where to read or not read, poems about spirits, interesting ouija board trivia, all sorts of stuff. I printed it myself with a little company called Picaboo. The book quality is great but because these are normally what they sell as "photo books" they're ridiculously expensive. I just had no control over that. I sold QUITE A FEW of them, though. If I ever find a place to make them & drop ship them cheaper I'll use em.

I have several ideas for books that eventually I'll pen down, and even if I sell them by making xerox copies & binding them with a needle & thread it really doesn't matter - it will be something new I'm working on that I think others might like & I'll sell it & it will be just another little part of my trying to make a living off Tarot or related subjects - my point in posting that was, you don't have to ONLY read cards. Other things like writing a book are like a natural progression into something more to further yourself. And who knows, if I really put enough time & energy into the book I might publish it & go on a book signing tour. There's a girl in Omaha who wrote a tarot book & apparently a movie producer picked it up & is going to do a reality TV series on her now. You just never know.

=)))

MandMaud

seven stars said:
my point in posting that was, you don't have to ONLY read cards.

That was my point too! No it wasn't... not the one I made, anyway

but it is another one I often make to people.

After I posted, I did worry that I'd been clumsy - wasn't intending to put you or your ideas down AT ALL and if it came across like that, I'm really sorry.

In fact I intended to reinforce what you said: "Basically what I'm trying to say is, I think it's unrealistic for most people to think they can just sit at home & make a living off reading Tarot cards." but I was saying it about writing, because I know about writing far better than I know about tarot and that world.

seven stars said:
might publish it & go on a book signing tour. There's a girl in Omaha who wrote a tarot book & apparently a movie producer picked it up & is going to do a reality TV series on her now. You just never know.

=)))

Oh, true! but that's the dangerous kind of thinking... My son had a phase only last year of being serious about going into acting. High IQ, used to being self-employed, realistic about the trials of making a living in the arts - but he was serious about this for a few months, thinking mainly of income. :bugeyed:

As a career, because you can earn hugely. 'Such-n-such famous film star was only trying to be a guitarist and then he was talent-spotted...' etc. I can't say it WON'T happen but no one should say the odds are good.

(And all professional writers are completely fed up with people saying, "Oh, yes, I've always thought I'll do that..." as if it was so easy that anyone could do it.

)

seven stars said:
I have several ideas for books that eventually I'll pen down, and even if I sell them by making xerox copies & binding them with a needle & thread it really doesn't matter - it will be something new I'm working on that I think others might like

You see, you're one of the ones who already would write - create, anyway - whether or not there's income to be had that way.

However, with the marketing skills it is far more possible now that everyone has access to selling outlets, Amazon etc. Things have changed hugely. Self-publishing no longer has the 'couldn't get anyone to publish it' stigma that it used to have, it's just a sensible way of doing things now - if it's the right choice for the circumstances.

Oh, and by the way:

seven stars said:
I just had no control over that. I sold QUITE A FEW of them, though. If I ever find a place to make them & drop ship them cheaper I'll use em.

POD = print on demand. If you have total control (copyright etc) then you can leap straight into that.

I'm rather out of date with what's available but I can throw a few thoughts out: Smashwords is the first that comes to mind... tarotbear will know far more.

seven stars

MandMAud - absolutely no offense taken whatsoever! =)

I just never pay any attention to people saying "you can't do it", ever, with anything. If I want to do it, I just do it & I don't read the instructions or how others have done it. Same with doing street readings, I had never known anyone who read in the street, I didn't know how much to charge or what to do at all, I just did it. Like a Nike commercial hahaha...I DID check to see if it was legal, that much I did do. Everything else is just common sense, use your head, do anything you can think of.

And I'm an insanely happy person! XD

Ace

seven stars said:
I moved from Omaha late last year but while I was there I was a street reader. (BTW thanks for the comics shout-out Ace hahaha....I do the Tales From A Street Reader comics).

You are welcome, SS, I figured you KNEW about this stuff from Experience!

Barb

Ace

Seven Stars makes several good points, but like MaudMaud's son, if you can do it and live on little enough to manage to survive, you do what you WANT. It is a live to work situation that rarely becomes a real (good) living. All outsiders see it as "glamorous" but that is the definition of Glamour: an illusion. Those of us that have been inside, know better. But if you can do it, I say DO IT!

I met an artist, a world-class quilt maker who made very little money but this was her compromise. Live cheap and do her art. On the other hand, I knew someone who failed miserably: burned out at her job, she set up as a reader, staying home waiting for the phone to ring and people to seek readings. She ended up very depressed and broke. But even when you succeed in finding the balance between living cheap and doing what you love, the trade off can be painful, believe me!

Sometimes I still wish I had stayed with my old job and gotten a better pension. But I would have killed myself if I had... So I guess it comes out even. And deep down, I know I have never really regretted leaving when I did.

One thing, Seven Stars, not everyone finds the same way to be a Pro Reader, so all of your questions may not apply, but still the thought is correct: can you handle the lifestyle however it works out for you? And you are right, MaudMaud, never assume you can move into a bootstrap business easy and make lots of money...you may never. But if given a chance, should you try? SURE just get rid of all expectations.

One last thought: When I first went pro and started at Psychic Fairs, I was given a piece of advice. Don't quit your day job. I pass that on to ANYONE starting their own business. That and learn to live VERY CHEAP. But still, I say: given a chance to try for it? GO FOR IT!!!

Barb

MandMaud

seven stars said:
MandMAud - absolutely no offense taken whatsoever! =)

I just never pay any attention to people saying "you can't do it", ever, with anything. If I want to do it, I just do it & I don't read the instructions or how others have done it.

And I'm an insanely happy person! XD

So cool to hear you talk like that - great start to my Wednesday! :thumbsup:

I love how we're agreeing on everything AND saying opposite things. Life does that, throws opposites at you, self-contradictory stuff, and makes perfect sense.

Ace said:
Seven Stars makes several good points, but like MaudMaud's son, if you can do it and live on little enough to manage to survive, you do what you WANT. It is a live to work situation that rarely becomes a real (good) living. All outsiders see it as "glamorous" but that is the definition of Glamour: an illusion. Those of us that have been inside, know better. But if you can do it, I say DO IT!

Actually my son's thoughts of acting were an example of what NOT to think :laugh:

but then, he's a gifted musician and IS making a living from that. Almost enough to live on :laugh:

but it's very early days, and he is incapable of a day job, just can't stay in them. However the acting... he'd never shown any interest, all his life. He had a period of writer's block (composer's block?) and began to fear he'd lost music altogether. Suddenly he read one of these rags-to-riches stories and was going to be famous and rich. The thing he suffers from in life is wishing to be rich. :neutral:

The only "feedback" he'd had was a friend who'd done an acting course and said my son acted better than him. I narrowly stopped him paying the train fare to Leeds (would have been £100+) for an audition for a TV lead. With zero CV... no experience since being a camel in the school nativity at the age of five.

(Very like the writing novices who don't understand that it's a craft as well as a gift, and you don't send off your first draft without cutting out all the cringefully bad bits, without noticing that your ideas are the same as everyone else's (so many retired people writing their memoirs!!), and get a three-book deal that way... I've "helped" friends by critiquing their novels - a real struggle to get through the first 50 pages because nothing happens except description, the main character's past history, and repetition. But they still don't see that they may be writers, as in: they write - but they're never going to be paid writers.)

(I have lost the skill myself - or my posts would be more concise apart from anything else! But I was there, and would get back there if I decided to.)

I think the acting is out of my son's system now...!!

BUT as i say, music is another thing you mustn't do unless you Can't Not. To make enough to live on is so hard, that the passion for the actual doing of it has to be there. Committing to a life of any of these activities = a marriage, and has to endure the fallen-out-of-love, for-better-for-worse times which WILL happen. A reason not to give up the day job!

And the other reason is that when you haven't got anything else to live on, it's hard to avoid that change of attitude to the "loved" job. It becomes something you measure, something you do thinking of the reaction it will get, rather than what it used to be to you.

Ace said:
your questions may not apply, but still the thought is correct: can you handle the lifestyle however it works out for you? And you are right, MaudMaud, never assume you can move into a bootstrap business easy and make lots of money...you may never. But if given a chance, should you try? SURE just get rid of all expectations.

Yes yes yes.

Ace said:
One last thought: When I first went pro and started at Psychic Fairs, I was given a piece of advice. Don't quit your day job. I pass that on to ANYONE starting their own business. That and learn to live VERY CHEAP. But still, I say: given a chance to try for it? GO FOR IT!!!

Barb

Don't quit the day job, exactly. All this waffle could have been said in those five words.

re-pete-a

I read at a shop run by a husband and wife team... for 2yrs...They received a commission.

My understanding was, any that came for a reading were there due to spiritual prompting or guidance...

He got a bee in his bonnet about his wife and I...so to get rid of me he used to corral the sitters outside either before or after the reading and try to defame me to them...deriding my readings for all his worth...it didn't work too well...

He was not correct about an affair either... Way off in fact...

I knew that he was doing it and didn't interfere ...His actions are his to deal with...Mine are mine to handle...

I try as best I can to be non resistant...and by being non resistant much has been gained in understandings....

I saw him as the catalyst that stirs up my deep hidden problems...forcing them to the surface...a good teacher ,really...
I was told to charge even for OFF readings ...which would happen occasionally...I would normally have returned any fees paid ....They wanted more... I wanted my integrity...

If the sitters were chasing free readings that's their burden to carry ,not mine... I read as best I could...I'm not the master,I'm the servant...

Then I left ,not due to him or her...just due to inner prompts to stop reading there...

Also at another time in a local fair ...I did readings for whatever the sitter decided to pay...I left it to their own conscious to decide...

One particular sitter pretended to put into container, but in fact by slight of hand, picked up more than went in...
I knew it...again non resistant... and I gave the reading as best I could...I was able to deal with the hidden personal problem later on...

It's amazing the different types that pop into our lives and the little lessons they present...

Which is why I have stated in a previous post that the reader tends to attract the clientele that they need ...

seven stars

Maybe I should write a book, "How To Be Insanely Happy Doing Only What You Love To Do". Maybe shorten it to Insane Happiness for Dummies hahahaha!

Anyway...MARKETING - there are actually some brilliant people on AT when it comes to Marketing. I think re-pete-a pretty well spelled out why sometimes it sucks to work for someone else....but if you're going to work for yourself you need a way of attracting customers. I myself have an ad on Etsy for my readings & I can tell you right now I would have starved to death had I depended on THAT (for readings alone). Craigslist, same slow trickle. I even put an ad in my niece's play brochure. Had them on eBay for a while, all with various wordings, various prices. Reading on the street, I could definitely survive on that - it averaged around $200 a day, but my god, it will sure wear you out after a few years. And my short term memory for names is gone - you greet people with name after name all day & talk about their deepest darkest secrets - and then poof they're gone & you never see them again (except for the handful of repeats). I have a bear of a time remembering people's names now, or connecting a name with a face - it's the craziest thing. So anyway, my point was actually, you just have to try different things & see what works, find your niche, so that you don't get discouraged & depressed. Before I did cards I painted & I put my art on Etsy - not a single freaking thing sold. At any price. I didn't get discouraged I just fine tuned what I put out until I found something people actually wanted.

lark

I have a lady right now who wants to put me on retainer...meaning pay me a fixed amount each month to be at her beck and call.
I keep saying no and will continue doing so.
I've worked fairs for many years, and parties, I now do phone consults out of my house.
I have a nice base of clients, new and repeat.
Word of mouth is all I use...most people if they like your readings will send other people to you.
We had fixed rates at the fairs...contracts for the parties and as for phone readings if you don't pay once "no soup for you!!"

You get characters that's for sure and some pretty out there questions.
When I was new to the fair circuit...and this almost made me quit...a guy came in, he was a truck driver, and he was real nervous.
He said he had done something real bad and he wanted to know if the police were on to it yet.
I said how bad...and he said the worst thing you can do.
I did the reading as best I could I just wanted him out of there, he had only bought 10 minutes.
And he only had the one question and the cards indicated no they weren't "on to him" yet.
After he left I scampered over to the lady who ran the fair and told her what he said she ran to the window and got his license number and gave it to the police later.
We never heard anything else about it, and I was never questioned, but it brought home to me how entangled you can get in something you don't want to be.
And how some people use readers as a kind of confession booth for all their dreg.
And yes, the cards did indicated the ending of a life....the room was a buzz with it after that and a bunch of readers got together and drew cards on it.
Never want to do a reading like that again.
Maybe the police didn't take the info seriously because it came from a reader with no real proof.
A lot of stories..I think every reader could write a book about working with the public.

Would you ever work as a professional reader?

MandMaud

seven stars

MandMaud

seven stars

Ace

Ace

MandMaud

re-pete-a

seven stars

lark