When I started as an astrologer, I was an extremely frustrated millennial who always felt like I was getting the short end of the stick. I bounced from job to job, getting $10/hour or half of what the white people made, or internships that barely paid me.

Part of my desire to become an astrologer was to say “fuck it" to the idea of having to establish a career in some industry or institution that wasn’t built for me and didn’t value me. Astrology seemed eccentric enough to do the job. I felt that, if I could become an astrologer, that I could prove to myself that I didn’t need outside qualifications to tell me that I’m good enough.

I’m very glad I decided to do this. I’m in a place where I’ve been living off astrology (and one teaching job that’s a day a week for the last month) since last spring. That means, making enough money on astrology to pay my rent, bills, and buy food. So, while I definitely don’t have everything figured out, there are also definitely some things that I’ve learned in the past four years of doing this.

I want to share with you some of these things, not because they will be the same for everyone but because becoming an astrologer has been super empowering for me, and if you have been thinking of doing it as well, whether it’s to give yourself some purpose, agency, self appreciation, or whatever, I want to inspire you to do it.

And if you don’t want to become an astrologer, but are a person who is interested in starting your own business doing something else because you have an idea and don’t know how to do it, then we are the same. Maybe this article can also help you. I’ll share some things I learned here and maybe you can email me with some things you learned and we can grow together :)

1. Have a strong purpose

You have to be excited about becoming an astrologer because no one else will do it for you. There’s no companies that are hiring astrologers just willy nilly, so it’s something that you have to do on your own. That means that you have to have your own reason for doing it.

Your purpose may become your lens that you view astrology through. It may change a lot and that’s okay. It’s okay to have a different purpose than when you started, but it’s not okay to have no purpose.

2. Think of marketing as connection, not branding

I feel like, when we think of who a good marketer is stereotypically, it’s some really savvy individual like Don Draper from Mad Man or something. However, that’s okay true if the people that person is trying to market to is exactly also like Don Draper from Man Man and not even then because Don Draper types don’t really play well with each other.

I’ve realized that’s the wrong way of approaching it. You don’t need a logo, you don’t need an aesthetic, and you don’t need an image to be a good marketer. That’s because marketing is about connection.



A guidance counselor or mom can be a really good marketer, for their cohort of teachers or to their students, if they’re the ones who listen. You don’t need to be cool, you don’t need to be psychologically analyzing people, and you don’t need to be unapproachably scary. Actually, you need to be the opposite of that.

What you do need is enough self awareness and self respect to know who you’re comfortable around and who you make comfortable. And you need to have enough self love to appreciate the people who already appreciate you. Marketing is not a popularity contest or about appealing to the cool kids. It’s about showing up to anime club every single week because you love anime, even if you’re socially awkward, and eventually creating lifelong relationships. Understand that, and you’re literally ahead of every “brand" out there.

3. Sociopaths don’t make sales. You do.

If the stereotype of a marketer is a little glib, than a salesperson is even worse. We easily think of conmen, like Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me if You Can or charismatic cult leaders or something.

Now I had a little sales experience before I decided to become an astrologer. A lot of that helped me. My former boss was a badass individual who made his own way to a 6 figure job by being really good at sales without a college degree. He’s a Capricorn, so we were very different people. But he taught me a lot.

Mostly, he taught me how to hear “No” when someone says it. Most people don’t say “No” outright, but will say they’ll come back or that they’ll think about it. Sales is about finding the people who already want to book you. If someone doesn’t want a reading, nothing you do will ever change that. Honor their “No" and they’re more likely to approach you when they are ready.

Something I’ve found to be really important is to set up the interaction how you want it. If a lot of your interactions are through social media, people will treat you as disposable not because they’re bad people but because of the nature of talking to a stranger on the internet. Don’t be afraid to move the interaction to email.



Always take the first step of reaching out to someone. Ask for their email instead of giving out yours. Not only is establishing contact work, but you should be able to set the tone for your encounters. Talk to people respectfully and thoughtfully, and very rarely will people be rude to you, even if you’ve never met in person. Leave your phone number in on a public poster that says “ASTROLOGY READINGS” and people will probably text you “how much” or people trying to get stuff for free.

You need to be able to reach out to someone first, in order to set the tone for how you want to be treated. Sales is mostly about respect and boundaries, of yourself and the other person. There’s no mind reading involved and no sizing up of the customer. It’s about creating a social dynamic that is respectful to everyone. It’s way better to do one reading for someone who honors your practice than field off 25 weird messages from cyberbullies. Make it clear what you do and have a place for people to leave their email, so you can reach out to them and control the interaction.

With astrology readings, more than anything else, this is especially important. That’s because you cannot help anyone, as an astrologer or just regular person, that is not willing to help themselves. Consultations require work, not just from the astrologer, but the person getting the reading done. It’s important for you to communicate to that person that they need to come into the reading as an active participant, ready to talk and ask questions alongside you, to get the most out of the reading.

4. Never let your Instagram follower count stop you from doing something

You don’t have to be an influencer to have a great idea. You don’t have to be an influencer to make a living off your great idea. Instagram is a platform that will eventually go the way of blogging and Livejournal. Don’t invest too much into it. One algorithm change, and it will no longer be supportive to small businesses (like Facebook, which it is owned by).

I published my first book this year and, when I decided to do so, I only had just over 1000 followers. That’s not a lot at all. I had no idea how I was going to get the word out. I was intimidated by other astrologers who have a lot of followers and thinking that I’d never reach their level.

After I self published a book, my number of followers on Instagram tripled. I know that professional marketers are probably thinking “Well, you still don’t have that much clout” and they’re right about that. However, it was a wake up call for me. It made me realize no one cares about what you do until you actually do it. If there’s nothing to support, people won’t support you. If I thought to myself “Well, I’m not an influential person so there’s no way for me to sell a book without a gatekeeper” I never would have made the book or I would still be trying to find a publisher.

Remember, when you try to become an astrologer, you’re not trying to become an influencer. Influencers make money by creating ads for companies, which may or may not generate sales. You’re here to be an astrologer, for whatever purpose you decided on in step one. You literally just don’t need influencer level followers to fulfill that purpose.

5. Learn the boring stuff

What I mean by boring stuff is when you talk to machines and not to people. Put your zip code in the meta data of your website, if you have one. Get a listing on Google Maps. Put that same address on your social media pages. Create a Yelp page but ignore their mafia like advertising. Create a sitemap not for people but for Google’s spiders. If you host your own website, use alt tags on all images.



This is very simple SEO stuff that you don’t need a computer science degree to do. It won’t make your website the most popular astrology website ever, but will make the people in your neighborhood see you at some point. All of the above will take only half a day to do.

Remember that, when you share content, you’re only talking to the people that actually find it. The rest of the time, you’re talking to an algorithm.

6. Do everything the easiest way possible

You’ll still be working everyday. If you have a strong sense of purpose, you already manage to find more work to do. However, it’s also good to have boundaries around work and rest. Your energy is like a coil. If you don’t allow yourself to relax, you have no potential energy to spring from.

If you don’t know how to make a website, just make a tumblr. Or dreamwidth. Or insanejournal! And link your domain name to it. Copy someone else’s hashtags instead of making up your own. Don’t make the perfect logo. Just take a picture of a cutout of a star.

7. Make sure you learn something from every reading and know your limits

This is a big one. I’ve given where people have brought things to the table that boggled my mind. I’ve given readings where I felt like I could have been better.

If you don’t learn something from every reading, you will burn out fast. If you’re just rehearsing a script that you’ve written before over and over, then stop and rethink. This is a reminder to myself, too, because sometimes it’s much easier to spew out a bunch of astro information in a session. A lot of the time, people ask for that specifically, even if you know that will not benefit the reading.

You’re not here, as an astrologer, to overwrite someone else’s emotional narrative. Not only is that a questionable thing to do, but it’s repetitive and boring for your own practice. It’s boring for the client at best, can be annoying, and toxic at worst.

I understand how to be present for people dealing with job loss or change, with gender issues, with racism, with sexual trauma, some mental illnesses, and with break ups. I don’t know how to be there for people dealing with death, anti-blackness, with other types of mental illnesses, I don’t do couples counseling, and I don't do ancestor work for people. If I were facing a client dealing with something I’ve never personally experienced, it can be easy to fall on astrological stereotypes instead of facing the actual issue.

This is another reason why it’s important to establish a clear line of communication with your clients, know other astrologers, and refer when needed. Astrology is not a zero sum game because we’re all working from our own experiences and all our experiences are necessary. When you learn from every reading, then you’re constantly feeling your limits.


In conclusion, I hope that, if you’re starting out as an astrologer, this article has helped. I understand that it’s a messy article with some things about dealing with capitalism and not enough about the actual astrologizing or conducting a reading. I think that, a lot of the time, people pursuing astrology as a field of work have a strong purpose for what they want to accomplish during the readings and we try to figure out this starting your own business stuff after.

Also, I’m only writing this article’because I felt that I needed a reminder of why I do what I do, so I definitely don’t have it all figured out. I’m only successful by my own metric of making a living on this work in the way that I do. I would love to read an article like this by someone else who has done things differently than I have with different insights to offer.

Happy surviving and thriving as an astrologer! <3