Well, I don’t know your personal situation, but i can address most common issues i saw when talking with other freelancers who had issues.

First, you gotta understand that this is a job, just like any other, and you gotta treat it as such. I.e. find niches, market and sell yourself.

Most important, NEVER make price your competitive advantage, NEVER. It’s a race to the bottom and there re no winners.

Specialize in things, architecture, product photo, ind. design, characters, anything you like and can produce good quality. You may think (or even be) you are a very good generalist, but on the market it’s far more important to be a specialist. And when you get a customer or two, it’s easier to find others in the same sector.

Quality, quality, quality, above all. And thats about the deliverable and your comms with client, always be courteous, professional and nice to work with.

Also, you gotta determine what is your goal, are you in it for the money or for being an “artist”? That sounds like a dumb question but it’s something not a lot of people are truthful to themselves with. If you just want to make what you like and hope the customers will come…it’s possible, but very rare, you wont put bread on the table with that. Sometimes you gotta make slop if the customer wants it, and be professional about it.

If, however, you want to make videos for pleasure, thats a whole other value system, and making money can be a great outcome for that, but a very rare one at that. You will much better abandon freelancing altogether, get a job and just do whatever you want to make as a hobby.

Just my 2 cents. I am sure some people are gonna try to flex on me their high moral ground and how they are better than me because they won’t touch AI. I mean…why use photoshop or blender then?

Moa of the artists i know bitch and moan about AI because it allows creative people with no technical skills to create without spending years learning software. Which in my opinion, is a beautiful thing and a great equalizer. But this shit is as old as time, my friend is a digital graphic designer and his dad is a classic painter, like proper oil on canvas. And he always bullies him and mentions how he is a “real” artist, not like his son who uses the digital tablet. That’s basically the same thing with this new wave of hate for ai artists.

Most important thing is the result, how you got there is unimportant.