Words on the Page

Dear Freelancer: It’s Not All About You

Posted on by lwidmer

Dear Freelancer, You may not know me, but I know you. You were the one who showed up on social media with one goal in mind: to get some clients. It’s a good goal. It’s why most of us head to social media. But what happened next, well, that wasn’t so good. I saw you…

How Freelance Fails Can Save You

Posted on by lwidmer

Weird title to this post, right? But I read something the other day that created one of those lightbulb moments. I’ve been around this freelancing block a few decades, so if it can impact me (the eternal skeptic), I’m thinking it might do others some good, too. It was a motivational snippet that had popped…

3 Easy Freelance Value-Adds (that boost your earnings & reputation)

Posted on by lwidmer

When I wrote the title to this post, my finger accidentally hit the Caps button. Freelance Value-ADD is not a disorder, but man, what an appropriate Freudian slip. Why? Because we freelancers tend to have attention deficit when it comes to marketing ourselves. We jump from the tried-and-true last thing that got us hired to…

The Freelance Grab – A Cautionary Tale

Posted on by lwidmer

Totally different topic today, but one that some of the more established freelancers have had to deal with. Someone (a female) in my orbit is right now dealing with a grabber. The grabber in question has adjacent property to hers, and in every interaction over the last year has started with an ask. Each subsequent…

The Ultimate Freelance Marketing Survival Guide

Posted on by lwidmer

In my travels over these last few decades of freelancing, I’ve realized there really are two types of freelancers — Freelancers who put excuses in the way Freelancers who have more ideas than time What kind of freelancer are you? Ironically, both of these freelancers can have careers that go off the rails pretty quickly…

6 Things Freelancers Should Give Up (that will boost the career)

Posted on by lwidmer

There are so many things freelance writers can do to improve their businesses and their careers: take classes, raise rates, network more…. Yet sometimes the things we freelancers give up do the most to boost our potential. The list is a familiar one. Nothing I list here will be unique or even new. What is…

Freelance Writing and Why Rate Isn’t Everything

Posted on by lwidmer

Here’s a freelance fact that may be somewhat unpopular (though no less true): Your freelance career outcomes are more important than your hourly rate. That’s right. I’m saying that while what you charge matters, it matters equal to what you’re getting out of that client relationship. Confused yet? Let me explain myself. Suppose your lowest-paying…

4 Ways to Build Success into Your Freelance Writing Business

Posted on by lwidmer

Freelance writing blogs are chock full of “here’s how you’re screwing up” posts. I know because I’ve posted plenty of those myself. Just look at this, this, and this from the last month. Okay, they all had a positive, actionable message in the end, but the point is there are plenty of things around on…

Broken Website = New Theme

Posted on by lwidmer

What happens when you mix a writer who doesn’t have the WordPress experience with updates that she doesn’t make? Broken website. Thanks to Paula for pointing it out yesterday. A few things happened: Seems my theme was retired by the company I’d bought it from. And it would have been okay to know that and…

Free Advice Friday: Tough Love, Freelance Style

Posted on by lwidmer

You learn a lot about people by what they say and do. You learn even more by what they don’t do. But I’ll get to that in a minute. A friend of mine moderates a writing group. One of the posts in the moderation queue was asking a basic question: Does anyone else know if…

Paula Hendrickson

I always came at freelancing as the only option because I didn’t want to be an office drone or write about the exact same topic over and over and over. I needed variety. (Oddly enough, Variety wound up becoming one of my core clients.)

What I hate seeing is people at any stage of freelancing who are relying on third-parties (like Upwork) to find clients. Why pay a significant percentage of your hard-earned income to an algorithm? Get off your butt and seek out, research, and contact potential clients directly. That has always been a key part of freelancing. Relying on a third party is lazy. And expensive.

1. lwidmer
  
  I see you took that “variety” stipulation really seriously, Paula. 😉
  
  Lazy and expensive. Wow, great insight.
  
  The only site something like those Upwork sites I ever worked for was some site that had separate channels. I was writing on a certain topic “channel” and I was making $250 an article. Not ideal. Still, I did NOT have to pay to write there, and I could pitch ideas. The articles were about 500 words each and followed the site’s template, so they weren’t difficult. But they weren’t going to make me rich, either. The clips helped me move upward, so I didn’t stay there long at all.
  
  I get that it’s easier for newbies to just find someone who will give them fast clips, but there are so many other options. Newspapers. Regional magazines. Blogs that don’t pay you in traffic or clicks or likes or whatever. Small publications that are legitimate….
2. Paula Hendrickson
  
  Exactly. And then use those clips to break into bigger and better markets. The trick is to find a connection between your clips and a potential market.
Kirk Petersen

My dear friend Lori… As someone who has “already failed” at freelancing, it’s hard to read your final paragraph. I get that it’s under the banner of tough love, and perhaps it may jolt someone into trying harder. I also get that you’re writing to people who are or want to be freelancers, and so of course you are focused on building an attitude that will support success.

As I look back on the wreckage of my recent career, I don’t think I needed more encouragement to get outside my comfort zone. I needed help realizing that comfort is not inherently a bad thing. I’ve come to believe that if my comfort zone is a safe and honorable and reasonably productive place, maybe it’s OK to take refuge there.

1. lwidmer
  
  Dear Kirk, it’s actually quite hard to read your commentary. That you lump yourself into the “already failed” category is disheartening. You, who have so much talent.
  
  There is nothing wrong with a “safe and honorable and reasonably productive” comfort zone. That’s actually success. My comfort zone is my specialty. I’m regularly hired, respected, and paid well. There are freelancers who make more than I do. There are freelancers who make less and who are in their “good” comfort zone. That’s success, isn’t it?
  
  I think you misunderstood my final paragraph — I said if a writer is unwilling to do any of the above, not all of the above. Trying is succeeding, in my humble opinion. If you try, you’re doing something positive for your career.
  
  It’s when people cling to what they know won’t work and isn’t serving them well that they fall behind.
  
  Hang in there, my friend. You’re trying. That’s what matters.
2. Kirk Petersen
  
  I’m not sure what prompted me to write such a downbeat message. I’m actually in a better place professionally and emotionally than I have been for a long time. I’m working a full-time job on a part-time salary, writing for The Living Church and tending the website, livingchurch.org. I make about a fourth of what I made at the peak of my career, but I like the work, I like the people, and I’m going to ride this horse into retirement if they’ll have me. I am *done* hustling for work, freelance or salaried.
  
  I admire the work you do, the community that you’ve built here, the wisdom you share with your readers. I can’t do what you do. I don’t have the self-discipline. I need a boss and a steady paycheck and a set of tasks I’m expected to perform. And because I’m old, and I’ve been bouncing around between unemployment and underemployment and driving for Uber for more than a decade, I can’t compete for jobs that will pay anything like what I used to make. I’m lucky to have what I have.
  
  And I think I’m OK with that. Writing all of this is partly an exercise in coming to terms with it. I’m sorry to have been disheartening.
  
  Be safe.
lwidmer

Kirk, your honesty with yourself and with this blog community is wonderful. I’m happy you’ve landed in a good place. And I’d bet even with the disparity in income level, you’re much happier and less stressed. That’s a gift right there.

This freelance stuff does take discipline. That’s the larger point of this blog post, in fact. That seems to be my word of the week — our meditation group talked a lot about discipline in our Zoom session yesterday. But there are so many levels of discipline, it’s not as though we can’t do it. It’s whether we want to, as well. You’ve drawn your boundaries, and they sound perfect for you. Ride that horse, bud! I’m counting the days myself. We have similar timeframes to retirement. And I don’t call it “old.” I call it “experienced.” 😉

1. Kirk Petersen
  
  Thanks, amiga.
Devon Ellington

Arthur Miller once told me that I would never be the writer I could be if I had a non-writing day job to fall back on. He was right — and I’m still striving to be the writer I “could” be with every project. Don’t know if I’ll ever get there — but it’s the same thing as being the “only option.”

What I never realized as part of that, was how often one has to say “no” in order not to get stuck in something that underpays and undervalues, and how often, even when you work your way past it, there are jobs trying to suck you back in to being underpaid and undervalued. It needs constant vigilance.

1. lwidmer
  
  He was right, Devon. As long as there’s a safety net, there’s no real leap of faith, is there? There’s no “try” in it if you think “I’ll always have that temp job if I need it.”
  
  Great point — “No” is as important in the process as trying is. It’s so damn easy to get stuck in something, and it takes a good bit of courage to turn it down when you’re struggling. But you and I both know that once you get to a certain earnings point, “no” becomes so much easier to say.