Once upon a time (2003), I was thrust into the world of freelance writing when I lost my job. Through connections I’d made on the job, I was able to start working independently the very next day. This freelance stuff was going to be easy.
Yes, I was that naive, my freelance friends.
What followed wasn’t an onslaught of clients and projects, but a journey that most resembled hungry dog trying to climb an icy hill with no guardrails. It was ugly. I took work that didn’t fit. I took low-paying gigs. I worked temp jobs. I took anything that anyone threw at me with promise of payment. My targeted income goal: anything that paid.
I never worked for free intentionally. I say intentionally because when you work with new, low-paying clients and you’re too green to ask for a contract, you’ll wind up working for free because that money is never coming.
Fast forward six years.
By 2009, I had some solid clients who paid without argument, who signed contracts willingly, and who funneled some good-paying work my way. I had a target goal of $4K monthly that I hit with some regularity. Still not solidly hitting beyond my target or landing the bigger clients, but I was in much better shape than in 2003.
By 2019, I was regularly surpassing my monthly $6K goal (well into a six-figure income) and landing ongoing work from household-name clients and global corporations.
Which brings me to the point of this post:
How has your freelance career moved beyond those lean times? Or are you still wondering if freelance writing really is dead?
Let’s take a real-world example:
Mary (not her real name) is a freelancer who has a background in finance and in equestrian care, having written fairly frequently on both topics for small outlets and clients with equally small budgets. She moved to a remote area of the Northwest where she continued to write on these topics, struggling to make $3,000 monthly. She has a book credit to her name and a resume that suggests that Mary is writing about everything and not really trying too hard to find a niche, which is fine in some cases. When her spouse died, she sold articles about the experience. These days, Mary writes family histories.
While I applaud writers expanding into new areas, what I see happening with Mary is that she’s chasing rainbows. She’s not expanding into higher-paying areas but possibly expanding into some of the most unlucrative work imaginable, for families are not necessarily going to have deep pockets or ongoing needs. She is not actively taking steps to improve her income stream or level of clientele.
It’s an easy trap to fall into. You seek out work you know you can do, you know you can secure. You have a new client and maybe the potential to make a little bit more. Or not. Maybe you think this is good interim work. Or maybe you think, “Hooray! I can make $150 more every month!” and you’re celebrating a little victory.
But friend, what if you can do better? Let me show you how it might not be so difficult for you.
Look to your background.
There’s Mary, dripping in experience with the financial market at a time when everyone and their uncle is looking for financial content and advice. Her background could be basic home finance 101, but there’s a bigger market for that than a low-paying client. She could leverage that experience and reach out to companies that provide financial guidance, financial institutions with newsletters, websites that offer consumer-facing advice …. and she could be making $1500 per piece. Two of those and she’s met her $3K target.
Market upstream.
How I made it beyond the low-paying clients may help you understand how you can do something similar. I started out piecing it together. Then I used the clips to get better-paying gigs. Then I reached out to industry magazines and introduced myself, which got me assignments that paid $1K to $2K each. That in turn got me more name recognition in the industry I’d focused on. Then I realized that I could market/network with a larger swath of these clients if I met them in person in a work setting, so I created a plan to do just that at an annual trade show. That got me clients that I’m still working with today.
What I didn’t do — sit back and wait for the work to find me. Work doesn’t find you without a ton of networking, marketing, and building trust and your good reputation with people who are able to hire you.
Market to ongoing needs.
Mary made the possibly unrealized error of transitioning her career into working with people who will hire her one time. Her other clients, possibly magazines or websites, have a larger chance of hiring her for another project — families, not so much. If you’re looking to climb out of an earnings rut, look for clients who aren’t offering one-off projects, but an ongoing need. My current clients have been with me for over a decade — one of them since that first day.
Consider the overall impact of each client.
I have a client who will never make me rich. But when I see that 1099 every year, I realize that they contribute a nice chunk to my annual income. One client I had gave me work that amounted to just above $9500 annually. However, with special projects, that total came to closer to $20K. That’s nothing to sneeze at. So, if you’re considering whether to keep that lower-paying client, look at the total picture. Factor in how easy/hard the work is and decide based on what it’s worth to you overall.
Lose the fear.
What I think is Mary’s underlying issue is that she doesn’t believe she’s ready for a larger, more lucrative client, so she sticks to the lower-tiered clients and the easy-to-grab projects. Been there, right? That household name walks up and asks for your rate, and you choke. I get it. But someone has to write for them, and why not you? It’s no more work to get it right for a high-paying client than it is to do the same for a low-paying client. Get out of your own head.