Easy Come, Easy Go

Freelance writing isn’t the carefree lifestyle some think that it is.  Some of my friends are under the impression that I can work when I want and for whom I want, but the truth is that I put in a lot of hours each week, 60 or more, to maintain what I do.

On occasion, I am able to take off during the week as I did last month to take my oldest son to the beach for the day, but I “paid for it” by working my tail off the weekends before and after our trip. The trip was worth it — a good father and son time — and an excellent way to conclude the school year.

With the first half of the year behind me, I’ve been taking stock of my work and trying to wrap my mind around what is coming down the pike over the next few months. No, I’m not laying out the remainder of the year, but the months of July, August and September are on my mind, including a conference I have later this month immediately followed by a family reunion out of state.

I have to figure out a way to get some extra writing and editing done before these two events come up — I’ll have little time to get on my laptop. Moreover, I don’t want to check e-mail or do any work while we’re on the road. Modern technology is great, but a constant tethering to the Internet isn’t conducive to relaxing.

Yesterday, I got the news that one of my clients was shutting down its online initiative effective immediately. The day before I submitted my last two articles for the month to this site, a weekly practice I had been keeping up since March when the project began.

Quite suddenly an announcement was made that the eight or so of us contributing to this site should stop our work with little more than that shared. This action was not expected, but it wasn’t too much of a surprise as the company had sold off a piece of itself earlier in the second quarter, thus some sort of further restructuring was likely. Easy come, easy go.

Following such news I always take stock of what remains. Thankfully, this client was a piece of a much larger puzzle, a good client to have, but by no means my main moneymaker. Still, the steady payments were nice and the exposure through this website with byline included was helpful.

At this point I usually put out feelers for new work, but given that we’re at the start of a long Independence Day weekend, the chances that I’ll be able to make contact with anyone are slim. That’s okay, because I’d prefer to wind down my work for the week instead of having to negotiate with a client and put together a contract that won’t arrive at his or her house until Tuesday anyway.

Instead, I’ll be heading over to the farmer’s market early Saturday morning, picking up some nice, sweet North Carolina corn and ruby red tomatoes in preparation for our cookout on Monday. Yes, I’ll be getting a box of fireworks too, setting those off after 9 p.m., thankful that here in America we can still choose how we work, where we live and understand why liberty must always be preserved.

Photo: MorgueFile

Fee Simple: What Should You Charge?

If you are a freelance writer, then you know that the rates you charge your customers will go a long way toward determining whether you can make enough money to survive in this business or go out of business.

Yet, getting a good rate for your work can be difficult, especially in these challenging economic times where the competition for work is stiff and the opportunities limited, at least the good paying ones.

I don’t have a magic number when it comes to what you should charge as every project or assignment can be so very different. Back in the day when print writing ruled, you could charge $1 per word for a magazine feature article. What most people don’t tell you is that those jobs were given to writers whose bylines were well known to the publishing community.

Most of us wouldn’t be able to win these lucrative titles on a regular basis, but we might win one occasionally. The most likely scenario has us writing for those regional publications paying 25-30 cents per word, but even those opportunities seem fairly scarce lately.

So, how can you survive during these tough times? And, is it possible to charge enough to make a living without working 60 or 70 hours per week?

I can only offer advice based on what works for me. I realize my writing path isn’t the way you may want to go, but it should serve as a model from which you can build your portfolio:

Write For Yourself — I maintain several blogs, each of which focuses on areas highlighting my writing expertise. I write about the automotive industry, aviation, college/career, consumer issues and business primarily.  Though you don’t need to maintain multiple sites, having a place where you can demonstrate to clients your writing prowess is as important as maintaining a clip file. A blog can do that for you.

Score Big — Welcoming one or two high-paying clients beats having six or seven moderate paying clients. Then again, never have all of your eggs in one basket — eventually that basket may be turned over and with it will go your only source of income.  In any case a big client can be a tremendous motivator, just the psychological you need to advance your career.

Tier Your Clients — This point may sound contradictory to what I already said, but there isn’t anything wrong with having various tiers of clients. What I mean is this: go for a few big jobs, those paying at a minimum 25 cents per word, but preferably 50 cents or higher. If you could snag five or six of these each month, then you wouldn’t need to do anything else. Trouble is, you probably won’t therefore go after those people who pay by the article–$25 to $50 per pop–and make these gigs your primary sources of income. And, if you can stand them use some content mill work to fill the gaps. But don’t write content stuff if the pay is below $10 per article and you actually have to do some research!

These three approaches have worked for me. Admittedly, I’m not getting as many big gigs as I would like, but I do have two steady print journals who offer decent pay. Most of my work is from the middle of the road clients with, you guessed it, some content mill work thrown in.

See Also — Will You Be Reaching Higher In 2010?

Photo Credit: excl-zoo