I have read a lot of good advice here and what it comes down to is the courage to try and the willingness to work-and work hard. I have done longarm quilting for only 3 years and know my limits--I don't do custom work yet because I haven't practiced it enough. I do pantos and have quite a few regular customers. I live in a town of about 50,000 mostly middle income. My prices reflect what is reasonable for this area. My customers come from recommendation at our LQS, people from my guild and those that have seen my work either in the quilt shop, at someone's home or in a quilt show. Pantos are not as intricate as custom work therefore they take less time and the results are still very pretty. Some people do not want heavy quilting but there are many pantos that are fairly intricate-a panto is not just meandering. I thoroughly admire custom quilting and have noticed that those are what usually win ribbons at shows but I think the majority (OK to say here) of quilters are making quilts for themselves or as gifts to be used. They bring their tops to me and they are finished quickly for using or gifting. I'm happy and they are happy. There are 4 LA quilters in this area (2 panto, 2 custom) and we are all friends and gladly share information and recommend customers to each other if necessary. In discussing the pros/cons of custom vs panto we have realized that if broken down to an hourly rate the two of us that do pantos are ahead money-wise even though we get less per quilt we can do more of them. I want to try my hand at custom but have only done simple backgrounds so far and it was stressful and time-consuming but rewarding in the end. Start with what you can do well and work from there. Following the panto came very easy to me but I can see that custom will be practice,practice, practice. I don't know if many people "make a living" just quilting for others but I do enjoy it and do bring in some extra cash. It is a tough decision to make for all the reasons given by other posts, but if you can afford a machine that may not pay for itself very quickly then you should try. Other than the cost of the machine you also have to have supplies and upkeep of the machine--that cost comes into play also. In closing "if you have the chance to dance or sit it out---I hope you dance".