freelancing advice

Read more about the article What I Learned in my 6th Year as a Freelance Writer

What I Learned in my 6th Year as a Freelance Writer

(Welcome to my annual post about what I learned as a freelance writer this year!)

Six years! Six years of working full time as a freelance writer, folks. I can barely believe it — it doesn’t seem like that long ago I was trying to figure out how to even find a client.

Lately when I’m feeling frustrated with life, my husband likes to remind me that I literally made my own job, and have been doing it successfully for longer than I’ve worked anywhere else.

And I’m like, right. That is pretty badass.

I’m saying that not to brag. Because the reason I write these yearly wrap-up posts (you can read about Year 5 (2018), Year 4 (2017), Year 3 (2016), Year 2 (2015) and Year 1 (2014)) are because I hope to inspire writers who are a step or two behind me. And if that’s you, I want you to know that it’s entirely possible to build a freelance writing career from scratch — and have it be sustainable.

One thing about freelancing is that it can feel like you’re stuck on a treadmill — always running, but never actually making progress. That’s one reason I love these yearly check-ins! They’re an opportunity for me to take a deep breath and remind myself just how far I’ve actually come.

So without further ado, here are my lessons and successes from my 6th year as a freelance writer.

2019: A year of books!

The six books I released this year: From Earth and Bone, Deviant Flux, Pressure Point, Crossfire, Double Edged, and From Chaos to Creativity.

In last year’s post, I mentioned that 2018 had been a year of writing books and stocking them up for release. The result? This year I put out six books:

It was a wild ride! Along with learning the ins and outs of marketing all these books and going on a mini book tours to support From Chaos to Creativity, I also kept writing. I turned in the fourth Bulari Saga book (Heat Death) last week, and am already hard at work on the fifth and last Bulari Saga book (Kill Shot).

The more I write, the faster I get. Plus, my husband and I have been developing a system where he beta reads the books and offers me feedback as I go, which has been crucial in helping me spot big problems early on. Even as the later Bulari Saga books have gotten more complicated, working more closely with him as a beta reader has reduced my writing time.

One of the biggest things I learned is that writing the next book is the best marketing you can do. I’m looking forward to finishing the Bulari Saga so I can do more with marketing it as a complete series.

2019: A year of making my business work for me

Pineapple balanced on a log. What I learned as a freelance writer post.

I had a few really low points in the last year.

I quit my desk job to freelance 7 years ago because I wanted more freedom, but owning your own business can sometimes feel like a trap. I wasn’t traveling like I’d wanted to do. I was working weekends and evenings. I was scrambling to balance freelance work with fiction, and didn’t have time for any of the hobbies that used to bring me joy — like sewing or drawing.

I hit a wall this summer, and so for the latter part of the year I really worked on reining that in. I said no to more things, and let myself off the hook when it came to keeping up with personal projects. I kept reminding myself to take small steps and enjoy life, rather than barreling through it.

After all, what’s the point in owning your own business if it’s just going to stifle you? Wouldn’t you be better off working for someone else?

Practically, I gave myself permission to take time off. I stopped scheduling my days so rigidly, and started letting myself work on the things that sparked my interest.

The result was that I would get way more done, because I was doing what I felt like working on in the moment, rather than forcing myself to do something I wasn’t inspired to do yet.

Obviously, I still have to meet deadlines — so part of finding joy in my work again was saying no to work that doesn’t spark my interest. I dropped a couple of clients that had become sources of stress for me due either to the type of work I was doing, or the pay rate being too low, and doubled down on work I enjoy.

I also gave myself permission not to worry so much about money. After 6 years of freelancing full time, I know that work comes in cycles. For example, in two months, I billed nearly a third of my total income for last year — which meant when things slowed down afterward, I felt comfortable taking that time to work on my fiction instead of doing my usual “freak out about never having work again” dance.

That required trust, and at times it was terrifying. But the freelance cycle is the freelance cycle, and over the years I’ve built systems to help me weather the ebb and flow through savings and recurring income.

This patience and kindness towards myself is an energy I really want to take with me into the next year. Instead of burning myself out for my business, I want to shape my business into something that works for me.

Basically, I’m going to be a better boss to myself.

Because if I’m going to hate my boss, I might as well work for someone else, right?

Client analysis: How I make my living as a freelance writer

Every year, I sit down with my sales reports and figure out where my income came from, and use that to shape a path for the next year.

This year, I saw some really cool shifts.

  • Content marketing/ghostwriting: 54%
  • Business blogging: 24%
  • SEO/website copy: 16%
  • Book sales/royalties: 4.5%
  • Knitting product copy: 0.5%

Every year I end up breaking things down different ways, sorry, but this year I found that 54% of my income came from my favorite type of work: story-based content marketing and ghostwriting.

That means reported articles, ebooks, case studies, ghostwritten blog posts, etc. (All of the ghostwriting I did in 2019 was blogging.)

It’s hard to get really granular, since I have several clients where I do multiple types of projects — but since I like them all, I grouped them into the top category.

The second category, business blogging, made up about a quarter of my income. This includes white labeled posts that rely less on interviews/storytelling, and are instead more straightforward content.

Website copy went down to 16% from 25% last year, which is great because it’s really not my favorite work. All of this year’s website writing income came from one client who’s been great to me over the years, but the work isn’t super engaging. I parted ways with them about halfway through the year in order to focus on another client who was giving me much more interesting work.

But my most exciting stat? Book income.

Last year, my book writing income was 1% of my total. This year, it’s 4.5%. Having more books in the market definitely helped that, as did having a traditionally published book come out, so I could count on the publisher’s reach and distribution to help get in front of more readers.

And knitting product copy is kind of ridiculous to put as its separate thing, but I just find it such an amusing data point — people will pay you to write all sort of things if you just look for it!

What’s ahead for 2020?

Many-colored pineapples. (what I learned as a freelance writer post)

Fiction-wise, I plan to release the last two Bulari Saga books. Heat Death is already scheduled to come out March 24th (you can pre-order it here), and I’m hoping for a summer release for Kill Shot.

I’m not quite ready to talk about the next series I’m working on, but suffice it to say I’m REALLY excited about it!

As for my freelancing business, I’m going to lean more into ghostwriting, and ultimately stop saying yes to any projects that don’t bring me joy. That will free up space for the really fun work I want to do, as well as writing books in the downtime.

Five years ago, I would have loved to say no to boring projects — but I needed to pay the rent and I’d take what I could get.

This year, I’ve built a business that attracts amazing clients, and I get more inquiries than I can possibly say yes to. Being able to say no to boring work is a privilege, but it’s also the result of 6 years of hustling.

So here’s to an amazing 2020!

It’s going to be the year my business becomes a source of joy and energy rather than a hustle and a drain.

Because I definitely can’t afford to burn out — I’m way too unemployable at this point. 🙂

What are your 2019 takeaways and 2020 goals? Le’ve ’em in the comments.

For more posts about what I learned as a freelance writer, read about Year 5 (2018), Year 4 (2017), Year 3 (2016), Year 2 (2015) and Year 1 (2014).

(All pineapple photos by Pineapple Supply Co. on Unsplash.)

Read more about the article New To Freelancing? The 3 Things I Wish I’d Known

New To Freelancing? The 3 Things I Wish I’d Known

Hey there! This post is part of a series of freelancing advice articles from various bloggers, coordinated by invoicing app Invoice2Go. If you’re looking for a simple way to invoice through a phone app, definitely check them out. And as for all the usual disclosures: I’m not getting a cut of any sort – I just dig this project of theirs as a way to support the freelance community. 🙂

I hate making mistakes.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had a tendency to be way too hard on myself when I did something wrong – even if no one else noticed or cared.

In fact, that perfectionist tendency is what has often kept me from trying something new, or pushing myself too far. After all, if I don’t push myself too hard then I can’t fail, right?

On the surface that may be right, but I’ve also started to realize that the safe way is a boring way to go through life.

I’ve forced myself out of my comfort zone in a lot of scary ways, but by far the most life-changing was when I decided to stop playing it safe at a desk job and start make a career as a freelance writer. I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way – but I’ve also avoided a lot of pitfalls by learning from freelancers who went before me.

In the spirit of paying it forward, here my biggest pieces of freelancing advice.

(Oh, and by the way? I spent the last week visiting my family back on the farm, where my 5-year-old niece sagely told me, “If we make mistakes, that means we’re learning.” Learn from the rugrat’s wisdom, everyone.)

1. Sow your (marketing) oats widely

Last week I was talking to a friend, a real estate agent who’s just getting started in the business. He mentioned to me that he’s been surprised lately when prospects he talked to months ago contact him out of the blue – he’d written them off, but they were just biding their time.

That sort of thing happens to me (and other freelancers I know) all the time. A few days before that conversation, I received two emails about prospective work: one from a client I’d written for two years previously, and one from a new prospect who’d been referred to me by a client I’d worked for nearly three years ago.

Part of marketing is about planting seeds, and understanding that those seeds will grow in ways you can’t anticipate. My current biggest client is the result of a friendship I struck up during a networking event. We were both unemployed and just enjoyed each other’s company – but when my new friend got a job at a creative agency several months later, I was the copywriter she knew to call.

2. You probably won’t make money on your passion topics

I see this question again and again in freelancing forums and comment sections:

“I’m passionate about writing about [antiques/spirituality/yoga/golfing/knitting]. How can I find people who will pay me to write about this?”

The hard reality is that you probably can’t. When I first started, I wanted to write about cycling, crafting, travel, and beer. They were things I was passionate about – but they’re also things that a lot of people are passionate about.

I’ve sold articles to travel websites and beer magazines – and I even sold an article on bicycle crafts to a fashionable bike style magazine. I wrote for the Brewers Association trade magazine. I wrote for cycling blogs. But trying to scrape together a career of $50 travel site articles and “free exposure” blog posts was frustrating. Paying markets for these topics were few and far between – and competition was fierce.

It took me ages to learn this, but in industries that people are passionate about, there’s a steady supply of writers who are willing to write about the topics for pennies – or for free.

I’m not trying to say you shouldn’t pursue writing about topics you’re passionate about – just understand that it’s going to be much harder to find well-paying gigs in a popular topic.

3. Think sideways to break into a new niche

Another question I see a lot is how do you get clips to break into X or Y niche. The trick is by making your clips work double duty.

Let me tell you what I mean.

The only clips I had when I started out were travel writing. For the reasons outlined above, I wanted to break into better-paying niches – so I pitched a travel article to a parenting magazine. Sweet! I now had a parenting* clip to add to my portfolio.

I’ve used the same trick to break into trade magazines, cycling magazines, corporate blogging, and eventually into my current primary work writing B2B content marketing pieces for software-as-a-service companies.

(If you want more specific examples, I wrote about this in more detail on Make A Living Writing a couple of years back.)

When you’re starting out, take the work you can get, but don’t be satisfied with it. With every piece you write, scheme how it can advance your portfolio and break you into the next niche. With some strategic thinking, you’ll make it to your dream niche.

(* I have no kids. Bonus advice #4 – don’t worry about only trying to write what you know. As I told one of my current clients when they asked if I knew anything about forklifts, “Nope, but I know a lot about research.”)

Was this helpful? I’d love to hear your own tips – or challenges! Leave ‘em in the comments.