Guest,

A book that has helped me out over the years is "How you can make 30,000 a year as a musician without a record contract", by James Gibson, published by Writer's Digest Books. Great step by step advice on how to define what you want as an artist, define your market, and marketing strategies to achieve your goals. The sad fact is, a successful music career is about 20% talent, and 80% foot, phone and paperwork. (Oh, to be rich and famous enough to afford a manager)

The other side to being a successful musician was pointed out to my son by the commencement speaker at his graduation from Westminster Choir College:
There are two measurements of success:
How much you have,
or how little you need.
Since you have chosen the life of a musician,
I suggest the latter

Robin