As a lifelong thespian, a career in the arts has always been blinkered for me by the endless warnings of the dog-eat-dog world of the entertainment industry. Anecdotes of struggling artists putting on shows and exhibitions in cramped basement studios for a few close friends and the odd passersby are numerous. Time spent waiting tables is nearly inevitable.
So, in this world of diminishing big breaks and one-shot opportunities, it’s easy to ask why we’ve not yet given up. Is a career in the arts worth it anymore, and if it is, how on earth can it be possible? Well, fellow artists, read on.

The Sad State of the Arts

It’s fair to say that the arts have been a penalized medium for a very long time. I imagine I wasn’t the only one who was warned away from my controversial career choices and advised to take a more “sensible” option such as math or science.

Art education all over the world is rapidly declining at an alarming rate, and what once was seen as a prestigious area of learning is now cast aside as a mere hobby. Pure arts funding for graduates has practically vanished, and those lucky enough to get a grant will find venues hesitant to work with new and unknown talent.

Finding a job in the arts also has an age-old catch-22. Every position requires experience, but to have experience you need to be offered a position.

Overall, it’s not looking good, and so I believed as I set out as a fresh-faced graduate, waitressing job already secured, to follow my dreams. Yet when I went looking, what I found shocked me.

Internet Artists

It’s true that if you look for a job in the arts in your local area, you probably won’t find one. Arts communities are long established, and getting a foot in the door usually requires committing an unsustainable amount of volunteer hours to the cause. However, when a friend pointed me online, I found the exact opposite.

Scrolling through Upwork (formerly Odesk), one of the many freelance websites, I could not believe my eyes. There were jobs for artists of every kind: filmmakers, designers, photographers, videographers, musicians, illustrators and even wordsmiths. They were paid, they were contracted, and there was something for everyone.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Working online allows you to share your art all over the world, and you don’t have to worry about the expenses of renting a physical space or becoming a part of the local prestigious arts community.

Finding Work 

Aside from Upwork, there are endless websites that allow you to link up with employers and find work, but this isn’t the only way to become a successful internet artist.

There are countless platforms, such as YouTube, Flickr and Instagram, which offer a free way to showcase your work. Think about it: you may not be able to fill a gallery, but you can easily share your work online. Many modern celebrities and professionals have risen to fame through social media, so the potential for success is out there.

Alongside this, the great thing about working online is that you don’t have to be famous to be successful. The variety of work out there is limited only by the imagination. You could secure an ongoing design contract for someone’s business, make music for indie film projects, create your own video series or even just simply start your own blog or site. The potential for earning is there and ready to be taken!

The Digital Artists Toolkit

You might think it difficult to set yourself properly up as a functioning online professional, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. As more people move away from location dependence and into working online, more tools are being released to aid this pursuit.

Staying secure is an essential factor of any online career as contracting a virus could result in lost work, unmet deadlines and extremely unhappy clients. Fortunately, there are plenty of installable apps to help, including anti-virus and firewall software and a solid VPN to encrypt your data so you can work on the go.

There are countless programs available for artists so you can transform work done by hand into digital formats. There are also plenty of free versions of photo and video editing software for those who can’t afford to make big investments just yet.

The Future of Art

Justin Bieber was spotted via YouTube. Kerby Rosanes began sharing his doodles on Facebook, and his “Sketchy Stories” brand is now known worldwide. There are countless singers, dancers, songwriters and animators who are skipping out the middleman and promoting and distributing their work straight through the internet.

It seems as if the days of major labels, production companies and pitiful royalties are coming to an end. Young creatives everywhere are turning their back on the exclusivity of the traditional arts world and taking their careers online. It’s an exciting time for aspiring artists anywhere, and it is bound to change the face of the arts as we know it.

So if you’re feeling disheartened about the lack of support, funding and constant warnings about your career choice, do not fear! You haven’t reached the end of the road yet. The age of digital content is just beginning and now is the perfect time to get involved!

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, there are sons and daughters everywhere wracking their brains to come up with the ultimate gift. While a bottle of wine and box of chocolates may be a great instant hit, giving your loving mother a piece of literature that she can enjoy for years to come is an unbeatable and classic present; plus it doesn’t break the bank. However, with so many great stories on offer, it can be hard to choose the perfect book. Fortunately, we’ve compiled a list of five that delicately handle the beloved mother/child relationship and will remind your mom just how much you mean to each other.

The Joy Luck Club By Amy Tan

Amy Tan is a writer who commonly explores mother/daughter relationships through her Chinese heritage and culture. Her debut novel follows the life of Chinese American immigrant families in San Francisco. As the Americanized children begin to grow, their mothers ponder identity and what it means to be separated by culture. Until one day, the death of group leader, Suyuan Woo, forces her daughter to come to terms with her forgotten heritage and fly to China to meet with long lost family to tell them all about the mother she realizes she never really knew.

Handle With Care By Jodi Picoult 

Like the ground- and heart-breaking My Sister’s Keeper, Picoult’s 2009 release, Handle With Care, is another tear-jerking story of a mother, and the increasingly difficult choices she has to make for her extremely sick child. Willow, the daughter of Charlotte, suffers from severe osteogenesis imperfect, meaning a lifetime of painful accidents and traumatic treatments. Struggling to cover Willow’s medical expenses, Charlotte has to make a controversial decision that will tear apart friendships, ensue huge court costs and, worst of all, break the heart of her precious daughter.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Transport yourself halfway around the world and find another doting mother, faced with hard choices, heartbreak and unfathomable stress. Hosseini’s second novel, after his best selling debut Kite Runner, looks at women growing up in Afghanistan and the pressures they face. The first half follows the story of a girl, Miriam, who is the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy businessman who had an affair with her lowly villager mother. Rejected and alone, mother and daughter do the best they can to survive out of wedlock or the protection of a family. However, things take a drastic turn for the worse, and Miriam’s life is transported far away from her humble village beginnings.

The Great Mother by Erich Neumann

This philosophical analyses aims to express what we associate with the idea of “the Great Mother.”  It tracks the idea of the feminine right back to prehistoric man and the cave paintings on the wall, before moving forward in time and following how this idea has developed through mythology and monotheistic religion. Alongside this, it explores how living within a patriarchal society has affected what womanhood means and how it is perceived. Neumann himself was a student of Carl Jung and has an in depth psychological and philosophical background, so his take on the topic is truly fascinating. Although not a novel, it’s the perfect gift to help your mother understand the true depth, beauty and history of her place in the universe!

Beloved by Toni Morrison

This heartbreaking tale looks at what happens when the supernatural is brought into a classic mother/daughter story. It follows the protagonist, Sethe, who is forced to make a terrible, terrible decision. She kills her young daughter rather than forcing her to face a torturous life of slavery. However, years later, an unexpected visitor suggests that maybe the relationship is not over. Perhaps the ghost of the murdered child is not yet finished with this earth? It shines a harrowing light on post-Civil War America and is a truly a gripping tale from cover to cover. The book was the 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner and is known, worldwide, as a true classic.

Any of these books would make an ideal present for your mother this year, and there are so many more epic novels that we haven’t even mentioned. If you know of another story that should be on the list, or have a different great idea for the ideal Mother’s Day gift, then be sure to leave a comment below!

Calling all readers! Whether you’re a fan of the classics or more modern pieces, this month you’re going to want to delve into the latest free eBooks available. Between army agents, Washington operatives to mustachioed sleuths and ghost-chasing widows, this month’s 5 best free picks will take you on a rollercoaster adventure into literary nirvana and beyond.

 Any Means Necessary by Jack Mars

For people with a taste for thrillers and international intrigue that can form a habit for delving into issues that are plaguing the news, then Any Means Necessary by Jack Mars is the download for your next read. Beginning with nuclear waste stolen by jihadists and leading down endless roads of conspiracy, ultimatums and political trysts, this first chapter in the newest series built around Agent Luke Stone is going to leave you grappling with the knowledge that what you see may not always be what it seems, and most of all, leave you begging for the next Stone adventure.

Ghosts of Tsavo by Vered Ehsani

If you can’t decide what you love best, a good mystery or a heartwarming tale, something exotic or something with a little bit of a British humor twist, Ghosts of Tsavo is definitely the next read for you. Set in Victorian times but traveling to the culture shocks of Kenya, Beatrice Knight takes in her newly widowed status, her best friend’s charming godfather and her safari guide’s likelihood to feed her to roaming lions, in an attempt to get to the bottom of a most difficult ghost story.

Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Classics like Sherlock need no introduction, but in this installment of the famed sleuth, Doyle captures the minute details of Baker Street cases in segments that zip a reader through the fast paced world of the detective in his native Victorian England. From start to finish, this rendition of Sherlock’s adventures into murder and mayhem will satisfy any big fan hoping for another taste and definitely become a quick favorite for new readers.

The Big Green Tent by Ludmila Ulitskaya

The Big Green Tent is another classic—but only recently translated to English for lovers of classic Russian storytelling to fall in love with. Set in 1950s Moscow, three school friends are marred in the middle of the Soviet Empire and grappling with the realities of everyday life, everyday dissent and the ideologies coming to power. Intimately showing the lives of a pianist, photographer and poet, this journey into the aftermath of Stalin and the rise of the KGB from an insider’s perspective will give you cause to rejoice your own freedoms while coming to appreciate the hardships of individuals in a society defined by unity.

All The Houses by Karen Olsson

Modernity never seemed so authentic or unsettling than in All the Houses by Karen Olsson, as the author takes her characters through the everyday of life of a family grappling with the effects of the patriarch’s heart attack and following medical care. The unsolved past is what meets L.A. transplant and Hollywood hopeful Helen Atherton when she returns to her home of Washington D.C. in the aftermath of her father’s illness, uncovering the painful truths that relationships must face as they grow, change and age throughout time.

For more ideas on where to get great picks for your next read, check out Kindle’s free 100 list—it’s got a great selection of classics that can perk up any reader dying for more adventures. Don’t have a Kindle? They have their app available for free download so you can get to reading straight from your phone or computer—no gadget purchase necessary!

Sometimes it may be hard to find some of your favorite comic books locally and perhaps you really don’t have the space for them or the cash to spare at the moment. Luckily, finding them online is possible! Whether it’s Marvel comics you’re looking for or some manga from abroad, the internet has you covered.

However, it can be quite risky to go searching around the internet for just about anything, especially if you don’t know where to look or how to protect your computer in the process. Before you set out on your venture, ensure the security of your data by using an anti-virus program and a Virtual Private Network (VPN). A VPN service allows you to unblock websites, safely surf the net over public WiFi, and anonymize your internet experience while also protecting your device from malware.

There are several different websites where you can read your favorite comic books online, many of which may not be well-known or particularly trustworthy. But now that you’re aware of how to protect your device, here are a few places you can find some of your favorite comic books available for your enjoyment 24/7.

Hello Comic!

If what you fancy is Marvel or DC Comics, Hello Comic! has just about the best selection of comic books for you. With ongoing updates and a huge list of comics available on their site, Hello Comic! offers high quality scans of a ton of great comics. The best thing is, all of their content is entirely free.

Walking Dead fans, you might want to make your way over to their page, as they have two pages worth of issues of the The Walking Dead right now and more to come.

Crunchyroll

Though a monthly fee of $6.95 applies, Crunchyroll is well worth it. Not only does Crunchyroll have a selection of manga to choose from, but shows as well. Like Hello Comic!, Crunchyroll also features regular updates, allowing you to stay current with some of your favorites.

The only downside is that the manga section is fairly limited in what titles are offered. However, Crunchyroll is still a great choice since they also feature a good amount of shows to choose from and you can even browse through it on your game consoles, such as the Wii U or Playstation 4. Forums, news, and an online store is also available.

GetComics.info

If you prefer to download comics instead of viewing them on the website itself, GetComics.info is the page for you! GetComics.info offers a wide selection of comics, including several from both DC and Marvel. They also have a variety of comics by other publishers, such as Dark Horse.

GetComics.info offers all of their comic books for free and even allows you to request specific ones if you choose. Their search feature on their site also makes it simple to find what you’re looking for. Just be sure that you have your security software in use when visiting their page, as all of their comics are available for download only and you will need a specific app in order to view them.

MyManga

For the manga lovers, MyManga is an appealing choice. Featuring a huge selection of manga titles and even new releases, MyManga offers something for just about everyone. There are no downloads required and on their website you can easily flip through the pages of each manga by using the arrow keys on your keyboard.

If you don’t have much time to spare, you can quickly find your favorite manga by using the search bar on MyManga’s page. And if you’re looking for something new or want to check out some of the most popular manga, it’s simple to do so. One unique feature of this webpage is that you can create a My Manga List, which will allow you to keep track of what you’re reading.

Read Away!

Keeping up to date with your favorite comics (manga included) doesn’t always have to cost you an arm and a leg. Of course it’s always nicer to have a physical copy, but for those times when you really can’t spare the extra cash or clear up any shelf space to fit any new additions, reading them online is a nice alternative. Let’s keep in mind too, that certain comics are really hard to come by and you might get lucky and find that rare issue on one of the websites mentioned.

Whatever your reason for seeking ways to read your favorite comic books online, always remember to protect your device before you begin visiting any new websites or downloading comics. You’ll be thankful that you did!

What are some of your favorite comic books and have you been able to find them available to read online? Let us know in the comments section.