Storytelling as a Side Hustle

Do you know India has one of Asia’s largest community of Storytellers?

Not the kinds you see on #LinkedIn, consultants, marketers, public speakers, communicators, leaders. I am talking about the kinds you may NOT be connected to. I am talking about the kinds that make up oral storytellers, artists who work with children and communities.

Most of them are women, many who have either chosen it as a second career. Or are hustling on the side to follow their heart’s calling.

You probably didn’t know about them before today.

Some work as freelancers or solopreneurs, some entrepreneurs. They live in the big cities and small towns of India, sometimes the only storyteller in their cities.

There are a few who have never worked in a professional space and yet have carved their identities as a #ChildrensStorytellers If you look up LinkedIn, you will find some of them here, only a handful have found work or a bankable network on the platform.

I am one of them.

When I set out as a Storyteller, my biggest challenge was to convince people that it IS a profession. I started calling myself a “Professional Performance Storyteller.”

How can a ‘hobby’, something that our ‘grandmothers’ do qualify as a profession?

Didn’t cooking become a profession too? Or didn’t your grandmother not cook?!

So why would anyone, a school, a parent, an organisation hire a professional storyteller when much of the work can be done by done by volunteers, amateurs, untrained teachers?

That’s a question I have grown to answer in the past 8 years, for myself and every other woman who has come to me to learn the skill and become a Children’s Storyteller at Your Story Bag

In these years I have trained more than 150 people in Children’s Storytelling. Only 2 have been men. It says something about this profession, doesn’t it?

Every time we open up a cohort, I take time to speak to applicants about their expectations from storytelling. It looks easy. It looks like a fun thing to do. It is an easy vocation with no strict office timings. Yet it is challenging. Finding work is tough and sometimes the odds are against us. You have to be deeply motivated & resilient to continue storytelling.

I call my community, YSB Tribe of Storytellers, a safe space for the members to share their highs and lows. We come together to perform, to cheer each other and ideate on ways to make storytelling work for each one of us. There is no competition here, only an everlasting spirit of collaboration.

This weekend, as I sat down to write this article, I decided to speak to a bunch of storytellers, members in my tribe and some outside it. With varied number of years (3 months to 7) in the field of children’s storytelling, I asked them to sum up their own stories and tell me if they’d recommend storytelling as side hustle or a full time profession.

There are some members like Uzma Bootwala who are still trying to figure out their way. She said, “Due to personal reasons I couldn’t take up IT job . Then after my son was born I discovered storytelling and YOU happened to me. It’s been two yrs but still I haven’t been able to get much work so it can generate regular monthly income. I feel because I have a 10 yrs gap i lack in using my skills to its full potential. I am still searching for my calling where I can put my storytelling skills to use and convert into a full time job.”

There are some like Monika & Shazia who started a side hustle and gave it up.

Monika Chopra – “I tried to build a side hustle from 2017 to 2019 but failed. I started making storytelling a part of teacher training but not much success. The need for stable income pushed be back into corporate.”

Shazia Parveen -“I couldn’t sustain for even 6 month. Then pandemic broke the base. Therefore to breathe and eat I came back to salaried employee but idea of Udta Panchie is still alive. I need to yet start as a side hustle but the fear of drowning again with proper planning and mapping the vision is holding me back.”

When Shivani Kanodia came to me to learn storytelling 2017 she came with a PhD in Biotechnology and a career in it too. A few months after the course she called me one day to say, “ Rituparna, I quit my job last week. Now I want to concentrate on being a professional storyteller!” Shivani had played it safe, she had tested the alternate space of children’s books and storytelling as a side hustle before she transitioned full time. “So technically when I quit my job, storytelling was a side hustle and I was still exploring. However once I started on the journey the curves and the roller coaster was fun and the path kept unfolding and it’s full time now,” she said.

Meher Gehi and Meenu share two opposing views on Storytelling. Meher quite naturally advises caution when she says, “while it is my full time profession..It’s my ambition & intention to make it a lucrative profession. To be honest, if my circumstances would have permitted I would have probably taken up a job by now after 6 yrs of storytelling hustle. There are days when I really miss the corporate money badly.” Meenu says, “ If someone is passionate about the art, one should get into it full-time coz it’s a creative field and it’s an art. I believe one cannot do complete justice to it by doing it as a hobby or part time. It needs one to soak into it, be there and keep working on it.”

A couple of months back one of my favourite tribe members called to say, “Rituparna, I am going back to a full time job. Storytelling is unsustainable for me.” It broke my heart. I have been there, in her shoes, many times. I wouldn’t hold her a grudge, or blame her for being unable to make a side-hustle a full time job. I could sense the disappointment in her voice and so I comforted her by saying, “With a full time job, you can take the stress off storytelling and do it over the weekends.”

After speaking to her, I redrafted my advice to women starting off as Children’s Storytellers – Consider it as a side hustle before you make a start.

1. Begin as a side-hustle: If you have a job, stay with it as much as you can. Find your gigs over the weekends and keep working on your craft. Do NOT let go of that job that pays your bills. It’s best if you save up sufficiently before you transition. I never recommend storytelling for free! Instead fix a fee, even if its a small one and make sure you know how hard you have to work to get paid.
2. Have cheer leaders: From your family, to your colleagues, make sure you have cheer leaders who support you and your side hustle. You will need them to show up and keep your morale up. As you craft a new identify for yourself you will need people who have known you before you started your journey.
3. Network: Whether you are new, or have been in the space, build a network. Invest in getting to know your peers and build connections. As an unorganised sector, we need to watch over each other. I believe in collaboration over competition and so must you!
4. Invest in your Skills: You may be born with storytelling genes, or may have the flair for it. Don’t depend on it. Invest in your skills, from technique to new skills in marketing, negotiation, pricing, business, there are additional skills you need to find work today.
5. Have a Plan: Even if you are working solo, create a bouquet of services. Who do you work for? How much do you charge? Where will you find your customers? How will you reach them? The more you plan, the better it is for you.

The LinkedIn Creator Accelerator Program has brought me closer to the platform and I want to encourage my fellow storytellers, especially the ones working in the children’s space to optimise their presence here.

In the past 8 years I have worked towards building Your Story Bag for myself and the community of storytellers who begin their journey with me.

Have I been able to make it sustainable for everyone? Not yet, the journey is on.

Walk along, I am with you. Until then keep up the hustle and Happy Storytelling!

#ChildrensStorytellers #StoriesforChildren #Storyteller #ProfessionalStorytelling #StorytellingWithRituparna #YourStoryBag

Rituparna is part of India’s first cohort of top 200 creators in the LinkedIn Creator Accelerator Program 

This blog was originally posted on Rituparna’s LinkedIn Profile