lwidmer | Words on the Page

Freelance Follies: This Job, Not That Job

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Last week I wrote an article for a client: 600 words, $600. I thought I’d preface this month’s This Job, Not That Job by telling you that. It’s proof that yes, you can make more for your efforts than what you’re offered in some job listings. This particular listing came from writer and chum Sharon…

Freelance Guide to Marketing Your Way

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I make zero money from this blog. That’s on purpose. And it’s the reason why a lot of great marketing advice that’s been given to me over the years was never adopted. I do this because I love it. I have made some very good friends on this and other blogs, and I’m happy to…

Freelance Game Plan: May

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Author’s note: Apologies for the earlier truncated post. Thanks to Covid brain fog (yes, it’s real), I managed to write this post in its entirety and somehow save just half of it. As of this moment, the post is all there, unlike how I was when I wrote it a few weeks ago.) Whew. Glad…

Bad Freelance Deals (and how to spot them)

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About four months ago, I was contacted by someone on LinkedIn regarding doing some writing for their company. I had a conversation with the owner, which I thought went quite well. I heard about their needs, gave a price estimate, then we agreed to talk further. A month later, I heard back from the company….

How Freelancers Can Find More Time

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We are well. My mom and I are now COVID negative and at or close to optimum health. It was a bit of a rough ride, but so much better than so many other people had it. My mom was hospitalized and put on oxygen, but it was for other conditions unrelated to COVID. And…

Freelancing Through an Aging Lens

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Why I think I have the best friends: When I came down with COVID, my writer chums reached out. Some offered to help with the site, others with material. And they all asked how I was and checked in regularly. Since I’m better but not quite 100 percent, Cathy Miller is providing today’s post. And…

6 Sh*tty Tricks Bad Freelance Clients Pull

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I love every one of my clients. I bet you love your clients, too. But before any of us found such great freelance writing clients, we had to wade through some fairly questionable people who tried a lot of different tactics to get more work for less cash. That’s just sh*tty behavior. Fortunately, such people…

1 Habit Pro Freelancers Have

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It’s been an interesting, COVID-filled few weeks. You read that right. I have COVID. I contracted it from my mother, who’d fallen and broken some bones, ended up in a rehab facility, and contracted it from someone there. We’re both mending, but this post isn’t about that. It’s about the expectations you set with your…

Freelance Game Plan: April

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So you’re sitting there with a few gaps in your workweek. Nice, but how big is that gap? And how long do you think it will last? That long, huh? It’s the start of the second quarter of 2021. If you’ve been waiting for something to gel, it’s time to stop waiting. Seriously. It’s not…

The Six-figure Freelance Mindset Gap

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I had an email conversation with a writer friend last week when one of those “a-ha!” moments occurred. In conversation with someone on LinkedIn, she was delving into why places like Upwork, Fiverr and other bidding sites are not a great starting point for anyone looking to make a living freelance writing, how they don’t…

DAVID D GEER

“If you want it done right,” build your writing career yourself. I was growing my writing business when there was not an Upwork to be found. As soon as I found out the pay was so low, I stopped looking into work at those sites.

There is one exception. If a client agrees to pay my rate and says they administrate everything through one of these sites for payment, that’s OK. I’ve done that, and it was fine.

1. lwidmer
  
  That’s how I started too, David. Not a bidding site to be found. Not that there weren’t lower-paying sites that needed articles on a particular topic, but they didn’t bid the work out. And they operated like any other client of mine. And I knew when to pull the plug (as I scored higher-paying stuff).
Gabriella

Very interesting, Lori. You got me thinking way back to when I began my own business, in 2005. I’d been in publishing, left to practice law, then came back to combine the two. I’d contacted all my previous co-workers, but that was just a start, so I didn’t immediately launch into having work to keep me busy full time.

I remember one of my friends saying, “You could supplement your income with a part-time job at Starbucks or something.” And I remember internally looking at her like she had two heads (I hope I didn’t show her how crazy I thought that was.) I remember saying, “But I think my time is better spent marketing, networking, and reaching out to build my writing business rather than earning $7.50 an hour….”

Somehow, I knew from the start this wasn’t going to be a gig and it wasn’t going to be handed to me. I had to build it. I’m so grateful I knew that, and I’m grateful I found your blog early on.

On another note, I recently created a trend line of my income from 2005, and that first year, I started in August and didn’t make much money from Q4 writing. But I’m happy to say that my trend line has gone up every year, except for a weird drop in 2011. I can’t remember what happened in 2011, but my guess is that my business didn’t suffer. I believe that was the year I sold a property at a big loss, so I had more losses to push down my gross income.

Anyway, I found that helpful in understanding where my business came from and where I am today. I recommend it for all writers as a way to further think of yourself as a business owner.

1. lwidmer
  
  Gabriella, you had the right mindset from the start. That’s a gift!
  
  I love the idea of a trend line. I know I was scraping bottom at the outset — I’d lost my job and had to piece together an existence. And I made the mistake of relying on temp jobs. Once you give yourself a safety net like that, you ease up too much.
  
  But another writer told me something that sticks with me still; “Treat freelancing like it’s your only option.”
  
  Once I removed my palm from my forehead, I never looked back.
Paula Hendrickson

Amen, Gabriella.

Your reaction to the friend saying you could supplement your income with a part-time job is the same thing I feel when I come across low pay rates. Why take an assignment that pays 5-cents/word or maybe $15/hour when it will take your time and focus away from INVESTING the same time in seeking out better clients?

It’s always better to invest in yourself than to help a low-paying client profit off your skills.

Liz

Had to comment about this post tonight after catching up today on a discussion list from a “professional” organization I belong to. Where several members have spent four days—4!!—discussing how they make these sites “work for” them. While a couple do use them basically for the easy payment/escrow process, more than one poster is thrilled they don’t have to market or do other administrative tasks. Hey, I don’t love marketing either, but I do like to eat and eating requires marketing, so …
I’d been debating letting my membership expire. I think this discussion just made my decision.

1. lwidmer
  
  Liz, it sounds like you have a strong work ethic. And I love that you know these sites are big sinkholes.
  
  I don’t think I’d be too eager to remain in a professional group that has that mindset present and is doing little to quash it.