Side hustles for photographers, artists and music lovers

We are always on the hunt for new side gigs that offer engaging work and good money. Several of these newly discovered side gigs fit the bill.

Whether you’re an artist, a photographer or just an extrovert, here are a few online platforms worth considering.

Field Day

Field Day enlists freelancers to provide in-person marketing on behalf of big brands. Each job varies in time and activity, but assignments generally involve familiarizing a local community with a particular brand or product. You might, for instance, be talking to local businesses about a new Panera location that does lunchtime catering. Or you could be pitching the small business services offered by a neighborhood Staples store. Some jobs involve going door to door. Others are done over the phone.

Although every project is different, all jobs require a single freelancer to work several hours on a single mission. That means you’re likely to earn several hundred dollars per gig. Freelancers considering new projects are told about the brand they’re representing, the number of hours required to complete the project, the timeline and the hourly pay.

Hours are flexible, but you’re expected to complete the job within the agreed-upon timeline. A 15-hour project, for instance, might need to be completed within two weeks. Jobs generally pay between $15 and $35 per hour.

ProxyPics

If you have a smartphone camera and you’re older than 18, you can sign up to take photos for ProxyPics, which works with appraisers and property managers to get visual updates on real estate.

ProxyPics pays freelancers between $10 and $125 per job. The cheaper jobs involve taking a photo or two from the street outside of a property. The more lucrative work involves setting up an appointment with the homeowner or property manager and taking indoor shots.

The site has few requirements for freelancers taking outdoor pictures. But if you want to be considered for the more lucrative jobs taking photos indoors, you must pass a background check. Freelancers pay for their own background check but at ProxyPics’ preferential rate of $3.

Similar jobs can be found at Ivueit. However, ProxyPics appears to pay better.

Spoonflower

Spoonflower is a print-on-demand site specifically geared for artists who want to create wallpaper and fabric designs. (Print-on-demand sites invite artists to upload their designs, which the company will use to decorate products such as draperies, coffee mugs and T-shirts. When these items sell, the print-on-demand company makes and mails the product and pays the artist a royalty.) Spoonflower works closely with interior designers, providing them discounts and sample books with swatches of the various fabrics sold on the site to encourage sales.

Artists get a 10% royalty on most sales but can earn bonus royalties of up to 5% when sales of their products are brisk.

There are a wide array of print-on-demand companies that are worthwhile if you want to create art for puzzles, coffee mugs and T-shirts. These include Society6 and FineArtAmerica. However, for artists who create repeating patterns, Spoonflower is your best bet.

Sound Campaign

SoundCampaign helps new recording artists improve their songs and get them heard. It does this by paying people with large and active Spotify playlists to “curate” new songs for payments ranging between $1 and $14 per song.

Potential curators must have Spotify playlists with at least 1,000 real followers. (The site will monitor and kick you out if your followers are bots.) If accepted, curators will be sent new music that matches the stated genre of their playlist. They’re then asked to listen to, review, and potentially add, the song to their playlist. For someone who likes music, this can be easy money.

However, SoundCampaign’s music genre matching system appears flawed, and the site penalizes those who refuse to review the songs it sends them.

In our view, the better site for music curators is PlayListPush, which works much the same way but has a better system to match curators with songs.

Kristof is the editor of SideHusl.com, an independent website that reviews moneymaking opportunities in the gig economy.