What Does "Full-time" Freelancing Really Mean?

I've been a full-time freelancer for nearly 17 years now (hard to believe!) but this doesn't mean I work full-time hours. In fact, for me one of the biggest advantages of freelancing is that I can make a full-time living working far fewer than 40 hours/week. During the last couple of years, I've worked between 10 and 20 hours/week and plan to continue to do so until my daughter is in school full-time; then I'll ramp up, hours-wise.

I often say it's not dollars/word that matters when it comes to freelancing; it's dollars/hour. In the same vein, it's not the number of hours I work that is important--it's how productive I am with that time. I aim for an hourly rate of $100, although sometimes I make less than that,a and sometimes significantly more. And that rate helps me make what I want during my working hours. It also means that I can be spend more time with my kids, as well as give me time to pursue other professional interests.  

I'm juggling multiple careers at the moment. In addition to freelancing and ghostwriting, I own and operate Improvise Press, which publishes books to help creative people make money from their passions. (Don't forget--through year's end you'll get 50 percent off of print editions if you use the discount code CHICKENS.) And in January, I started working at my local Y as a personal trainer and I love it. 

This summer I got certified to teach Les Mills Body Pump classes, which I'm now doing at two Ys, and somehow I wound up teaching a circuit class once a week, too. I typically have about five clients I'm training at any given time, and I teach two-five/week depending on the week and sub schedules. The money is nowhere near what I make freelancing and ghostwriting but I love the interaction with clients and being part of something bigger than myself. I've trained clients ranging from high school athletes to seniors post-spinal-surgery and it's rewarding emotionally if not financially. 

However, I'm looking for ways to combine both better. This year I'll be focusing on finding more content marketing gigs in the fitness arena (for obvious reasons) and I've been working for one publishing client as their fitness expert. It's great because I no longer have to interview an "expert" to write the workouts or the Q and As; I am the expert. And that means I can make a great hourly rate--for example, I'm writing a workout now that will take less than an hour for $300. No, I can't make that kind of money training people but it definitely informs my writing work and makes me want to do more of the same! 

So, while I call myself a full-time freelancer, I'm anything but. My plan for the coming year is to continue to do pursue multiple careers, spending about 10-15 hours freelancing/ghostwriting and running Improvise Press, and 5-10 hours training/teaching. It's challenging to "do it all" and be an involved mom, too, but I've found that these different careers use different parts of my brain/personality/etc, and make me happier overall. To me, that's one more huge advantage of freelancing--the freedom to spend my time the way I want to. 

Readers, what about you? Are you really a "full-time" freelancer? If not, how else do you spend your "work" hours? 

Need to Jump-Start your Freelance Career? Interview with Stephanie Auteri

I've been freelancing full-time for 15+ years now, and during that time, I have tweaked my approach to my career multiple times. I've transitioned from writing for magazines to newspapers to book author and novelist to ghostwriter and freelancing "expert." So I know firsthand the importance of jump-starting your career, and was happy to do a Q and A with freelancer and career coach Stephanie Auteri. Auteri is offering readers Freelance Awesome: A Starter Kit, a freebie e-packet containing the five worksheets you need to jumpstart your freelance writing career  

Q: Stephanie, tell me a little bit about your background. 

A: Post-college, I worked full-time in the publishing industry, doing both editorial and marketing work for two different book publishers. I felt content for awhile, because I'm a major book nerd but, after a few years, I no longer felt fulfilled. I was tired of publishing other people's work. I wanted to create and publish my own. About five years ago, I jumped ship and went full-time freelance. 

Since then, I've done writing and editing work for a variety of magazines and newspapers, and have even co-authored and ghostwritten ebooks, blog posts, and essays. When the economy took a turn for the worse, I realized I needed to diversify, so I went through a career coaching certification program, and launched Career Coaching for Word Nerds. I love the mix of things I do now (I sometimes even sing funeral masses!), but I know I'm not done experimenting with my career. Goals change. People change. It's exciting!

Q: What made you decide to create the starter kit? 

A: When I first launched Career Coaching for Word Nerds, its mission was similar to that of my freelance blog: give beginning word nerds the help and direction I wish I had when I was just starting out. To that end, I tried a few things. I offered a variety of one-on-one coaching and consulting packages. I ran an e-course. I even planned and ran a large-scale speed networking event for publishing professionals. As I experimented, I learned more about how others like to learn, and about how I like to share information. It was a period of trial and error.

Running an e-course wasn't my cup of tea, but I still wanted to share that information in some way. I'm obsessed with worksheets and spreadsheets and lists. I thought maybe others would also enjoy learning freelance writing skills using the same tools.

The starter kit is a precursor to a longer-form workbook I'm working on: 5 Weeks to Freelance Awesome: An Action Plan. It's the freebie preview. ;) It contains worksheets I created and use myself on a near-daily basis.

Q: You talk about the importance of jump-starting your freelance career. How do you know if your career needs a jumpstart? :) 

A: So many beginning freelancers have a grasp of their goals, but don't know how to get there. The list of things they know they need to do is just so overwhelming. How can they prioritize? Where should they start? How do they know they're ready? Anyone who's spinning in circles that way -- frantic, overwhelmed, paralyzed -- could certainly benefit from a jumpstart.

Q: Tell me some of the ways a freelancer can jumpstart his/her career.

A: The simplest thing to do is to look at your to-do list and ask yourself: Where do I want to be a year from now? Then, move the items on your list that will get you there to the top. Move the other items lower, or eliminate them completely. 

After that, break things down even further. Draw up a list of bite-sized action steps for each item on your to-do list that will take you from Point A to Point B. We often balk at starting a task because it seems so large. But when we can see a clear path, that fear is removed.

Then? Get going, punk!

So much of what holds us back can be traced to fear. We know what we need to do. But we're worried we're not ready. We're not good enough. We don't know the right people. That's just crazy-talk. The best way to get better... to meet the right people... to learn... is to dive on in. We self-educate ourselves as we go. We become ever more awesome. (Clearly.) We achieve our own versions of success.

We can't just wait for it to come to us.

Q: How can readers get in touch with you? 

A: You can learn more about me on my website, snag more freelance advice on my blog, and stalk me on Twitter. And if you'd like a free copy of Freelance Awesome: A Starter Kit, just sign up for my mailing list!


***Thanks so much to Stephanie for this Q and A! Next up, I'll be sharing the most recent sales numbers and explain why you need an e-version of any print book you publish. Stay tuned! 

Advice for New Freelancers: Choose your own Path

One of the most attractive aspects of freelancing is the freedom that it provides. Not only do you set your own hours, you decide how much you’ll work, what kinds of work you’ll perform, and what kinds of clients you’ll work for. If you come to freelancing from a corporate job, that freedom is exhilarating.

It’s also overwhelming.

Here’s what I mean. Take a poll of a hundred freelancers, and you’ll find that they’re all pursuing different career paths. Deciding which one is right for you (often through a process of trial and multiple errors) can leave you constantly second-guessing your career arc.

I started out as a freelancer in a bubble. I didn’t know any other writers, let alone any who worked for actual money. I was free to decide how to pursue my career without any role models to emulate or contradict. In the first few months, that meant working on my first novel and pitching (mostly poorly written) queries to national magazines. 

Then I started writing for the local paper and for local businesses. Then I decided to teach magazine writing at a local community college, which led to speaking at writers conferences and writing about writing. Then I started writing books. Then I started collaborating on books, which led to ghostwriting.

None of these things were in my plan. I didn’t have a plan when I started out. I honestly didn’t even have a clue. But I found my own path by asking first, what did I want to do, and second, what could I get paid to do? I still go through that process today.

My career looks very different than it did five or ten years ago. When I started out, I was a fledgling novelist, writing for magazines and newspapers to pay the bills. Five years later, I was a newly published author and successful magazine freelancer, balancing both roles. Another five years passed and I was a new ghostwriter/co-author who still kept her hand in with magazines. And now that another five years have gone by, I find that most of my work involves writing other people’s books and doing motivational speaking on health and fitness topics. It’s not the path that I expected but it’s the right path for me.

Finding your own path doesn’t mean that you ignore what other writers are doing or that you choose to follow the same trajectory of a successful freelancer. It means you observe, you pay attention, you gather information about what seems to be working for someone else and decide how you can apply that to your own life. You determine what appeals to you about the other person’s work and what does not.

Take Jane Boursaw. a successful blogger who shares her advice in an earlier post. Jane gets to watch movies—and get paid for it! I dreamt of being a movie reviewer as a new freelancer, mostly so I could impose my opinions on the general public. Jane makes good money as a blogger, which is also appealing to me. 

But you know what? Jane blogs all the time. That’s critical to her success. She also has to watch movies she might not particularly enjoy, and she has to analyze those movies. She can’t just sit and veg out  in front of the latest romantic comedy; it’s work for her. My point? No matter how appealing or attractive someone else’s freelance career looks, I promise you there are drawbacks along with the plusses. 

   Yes, you should use other freelancers as guides. (That's one of the reasons you're here, right?) Just recognize that every writer’s path is different. Don’t blindly follow another writer; pay attention to the unmarked trails that may offer you more promise and satisfaction. The path you take may not be the one you expected. But it will be yours.

***Are you a new freelancer, or know someone who wants to break into freelancing? My new line of ebooks, all branded with the Dollars and Deadlines name, are geared toward new freelancers. I take the same approach that I do with this blog--I give practical, proven strategies and plenty of examples to help you achieve your writing goals. So far the most popular has been Dollars and Deadlines' Guide to Selling your First Article, but Dollars and Deadlines 10 Essential Freelance Templates is also selling well. And if you write for love more than money (nothing wrong with that), you need to read Dollars and Deadlines' 10 Truths Every Writer Who Wants to Get Published Should Know.  

The Money Test: Say Yes--or Not?

When I started freelancing 14+ years ago, I said "yes, please!" (think Austin Powers) to any paying work that came my way. I was trying to make money. My financial goal my first year was to make...wait for it...$10,000. I have no idea why I chose that number, other than it was a nice, neat one and seemed realistic for someone launching a freelance business with no connections, no experience, and no clue.

However, having a financial goal (even a small one) made me focused on money and it meant that every assignment I took that first year had to pay something--even if it was just $25 or $35 for a short piece for the local paper. Even the "small stuff" did move me toward making my income goal that first year. and I actually made more than $17,000 my first year of freelancing.

Today I can't say yes to everything, or even most things. And over time, I've developed a four-part test I use when I decide whether to take on work:

1. How much money does it pay? (If you're freelancing to make a living, or at least make some green, this is obvious.)

2. Less obvious--how much time will it take? I've found that the work I've done for national magazines takes far more time (including the pitching and follow-ups) than the work I do for smaller publications. Yes, the big magazines pay more, but I'm always looking at my hourly rate, not just the size of the check. And sometimes the magazines that pay less per word, actually pay more per hour.)

3. What's the PIA factor? My regular readers know that PIA is my shorthand for "Pain In the..." Some clients and editors are just...annoying. I'm thinking of an editor I work with who takes forever to respond to queries, then assigns stuff with ridiculously tight deadlines. I love her, but there's definintely a PIA factor to working with her. And if that PIA factor on a particular project is high, I'm either going to get more money...or I might even walk away.

4. Will this work further my career--and if so, how? So, for example, when I wrote my first book, Ready, Aim, Specialize, I received an advance of $2,500. And I interviewed 56 people for it! Looking at my hourly rate, I made more as a teenaged lifeguard. But I wanted to start writing books, and I had to begin somewhere. So I said yes to the book, added "author" to my CV, and even made royalties from it. My first book led to many others, which made the first deal worth it.

What about you? How do you decide to take on work? Is it just about the money or do you consider other factors as well?