Secrets of Six-Figure Freelancers: 5 Essential Attributes

Today we're going to talk about one of my favorite subjects: money. My first year of fulltime freelancing more than 19 years ago!),  I made just over $17,000 and netted less than $12,000. My goal—my dream, really—was to be able to make $30,000 to $40,000 a year writing from home. By my sixth year of freelancing, though, I’d far surpassed my expectations and cracked the six-figure mark. Today I work part-time hours (my kids are now 10 and 6, and the latter is only in half-day kindergarten) and make between $30,000 and $60,000/year doing so. It’s challenging, but doable. 

So how do it I do it? I’m not a “best-selling” author, nor am I commanding enormous book advances. But I have mastered some necessary skills that other freelancers overlook. I can tell you freelancers who make big bucks (and I know lots of them!) have many things in common. As a whole, they’re confident, efficient, focused, friendly, and adaptable.

Sure, they’re good writers—in fact, most of them are great writers. But they’re even better at running their writing businesses, working more efficiently, and developing relationships with clients, sources, and fellow writers. You can be, too—whether you’re aiming to make six figures or simply get paid more for your writing, when you embrace these five strategies: 

Think Positive   

Let’s start with your mindset. A tagline for a poplar antiperspirant used to be “never let them see you sweat.” Successful writers take this motto to heart. Sure, they doubt their abilities sometimes. All writers do. But they don’t share those feelings with their clients—or let self-doubt prevent them from working.

A positive attitude can give you a leg up on other writers. Focus on what you can do—sending out queries, calling new potential clients, scouting for regular gigs—rather than on what you can’t control. No, confidence in your abilities won’t force an editor to give you an assignment or turn a $4,000 advance into a $40,000 one. But you can choose to be positive as you pursue your career. Setbacks are normal. It’s how writers cope with them that makes a difference.

Use Time-Saving Strategies

In addition to working on assignments, you must devote time for marketing, billing, and record-keeping tasks that can easily eat up hours better spent producing income. That’s why developing and maintaining a selection of writing templates, or forms, on your hard drive can be invaluable. 

For example, I have templates for different types of LOIs (letters of introduction); proposals/bids; invoices; contracts; follow-up letters; and even thank-you notes. This saves me time because I'm not recreating the wheel each time. I’m also a big believer in reusing research and writing about the same subjects more than once. The more ways you can approach a topic and write about it for different clients, the easier it is to make more money with less effort.

         Look for Repeat Business

Remember, it’s easier to get work from clients you already have than to get new clients. While the majority of my income these days comes from books, not articles, nearly all of my magazine work comes from editors who I’ve known for years. That means my marketing time is slashed. 

Example: a couple of of years ago, I pitched an editor with four ideas in one short, four-paragraph query. She bought them all. She knows me and knows my work, and that means it’s easy (and fast) to sell to her. Less time marketing=more time writing=more money. That’s the benefit of working as much as possible for clients you have—and maintaining positive relationships with them as well.

Climb Outside your Pigeonhole

I write primarily service-oriented books and articles about health, fitness, diet, wellness, and psychology. But that doesn't mean I have to. When a former client asked me if could write a television treatment for a new show she was developing, did I say, "What the hell is a treatment?" Nope. (Although I did wonder." I read a couple of books on treatment-writing, gathered background information, and wrote a script and treatment she was thrilled with. Now I've added another skill to my CV. 

Don’t let clients pigeonhole you. If you write articles for print and online markets, you can produce content marketing as well. Your background in a particular subject can also lead to lucrative corporate gigs if you look for those kinds of opportunities. While I believe in specializing, I also believe in keeping fluid—and that’s where my last point comes in.

Adapt to the (Ever-Changing) Market

The publishing world of today is much different than that of the one I entered 19+ years ago. Hell, it's different than what it was two years ago. Magazines are folding. Publishers expect you to give up more rights for the same (or less!) money. Fewer magazines are using contributing editors. But, there are many more opportunities (think content marketing, social media writing and management, ghosting Tweets) for freelancers that didn't even exist a decade before. That means as a self-employed writer, you have to adapt, to improvise, to overcome. (Thank you, Clint Eastwood/Heartbreak Ridge, for the quote.)

Hey, I don't like change. I'd still rather use Word than Google docs, though everyone else seems to prefer the latter. I still suck at Twitter although I have loads of Facebook friends. I'm nostalgic for the days when three contributing editor gigs made up $70K worth of work for me--every year. But that was then, and to survive--and thrive--in this business, I have to be willing to adapt, and change, and yes, overcome. Embrace the same attitude and you'll set yourself up for success. 

**Do you agree with the attributes I listed in this post? Why or why not? Let me know with a comment. 

If you want are serious about making money as a writer, I suggest my freelance classic, Six-Figure Freelancing: The Writer's Guide to Making More Money, Second Edition. If you're more interested in getting into ghostwriting and content marketing, I suggest Goodbye Byline, Hello Big Bucks: Make Money Ghostwriting Books, Articles, Blogs and More, Second Edition. If you're brand-new to freelancing, Dollars and Deadlines: Make Money Writing Articles for Print and Online Markets walks you through the process of launching your freelance career. 

Six-Figure Freelancers Share their "Secrets" of Success

In 2005, Random House published my book, Six-Figure Freelancing: The Writer’s Guide to Making More Money.  The book sold well, but eventually Random House let the book go out of print. I’d anticipated that and had been pressing the publisher to revert rights back to me—which it finally did at the end of 2012. I was thrilled at the prospect of being able to update and expand the book, and to publish it myself this time.

To do so, I contacted and interviewed almost all of the two dozen freelancers quoted in the original version. It had been a decade since I spoke with them, and I found that nearly every writer’s business model had changed radically. The only two writers whose careers had stayed pretty much the same during that time were also the two writers having the hardest time succeeding as freelancers—and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Happily, the majority of them were thriving, due to factors like the following:

Pursuing new markets. Early in my freelance career, I wrote almost exclusively for consumer print markets, and  the original version of Six-Figure probably put too much emphasis on these publications. Today, I found that even writers like me who used to focus on print markets have branched out, whether they’re writing for websites, trade and custom magazines, or corporate clients—or a mix of all of the above.

“Nearly all of my work now is done online, though I have an assignment for Good Housekeeping magazine right now—my first magazine assignment in over a year,” says Leah Ingram. “Everything else is either paid blogging, blogging for myself, or writing custom content for branded websites.”

Robert McGarvey hadn’t considered trade magazines as potential markets until fairly recently. After he wrote a number of stories about credit unions for The New York Times, he received an email from the editor-in-chief of Credit Union Times, the industry's leading weekly, asking if he would be interested in writing for a trade. “I had done very little writing for trades, ever, but this was 2010 and a changed publishing world,” says McGarvey. “She was talking about a regular gig. She came to me because she'd seen the NYT stuff. Oh, she asked if I would agree not to do future credit union-related advertorial. I agreed. Today work relating to credit unions probably constitutes half my income.”

Diversifying. Smart freelancers don’t only diversify the types of markets they write for—they diversify their skills, too. Erik Sherman has done theater in the past, and now moderates Webcasts and live events for a number of clients. Wendy Helfenbaum, who is bilingual, does translation and adaption work for clients.

Andrea King Collier segued into doing health care policy writing when she saw a need that few writers could address. “I don't do a lot of health care marketing work [anymore] but I do more health care policy writing work for publications, and for foundations. It was just the natural ebb and flow of things. I do also the occasional white paper,” says Collier. “But because there are so few journalists that really have the rolodex and the context to do strong health care policy and health disparity work, it created a solid demand for me.” 

Steve Slaunwhite was originally a copywriter who began offering marketing advice and strategy to clients. Then, after publishing The Wealthy Freelancer, a book on copywriting, he began offering workshops on copywriting and freelancing. Now he continues to perform a mix of work. “What I do well, and enjoy doing, is coaching, writing, and training,” says Slaunwhite. “While most of what is do is writing, I also do one-on-one coaching and consulting with clients, and I do training and workshops. They’re all related and tied together.”

            Consistent marketing. Wendy Helfenbaum has three major clients, two of whom make up two-thirds of her income. “Mixing in corporate work has been by far the smartest decision I've made. I've worked for CN [Canadian National] since 2006, and have written hundreds and hundreds of stories for them,” she says. “I work mostly for CN's internal communications team, but now have done stuff for their marketing, recruitment and social media departments too.” She plans her schedule on the needs of her three big clients, but continues to reach out to other new markets.

“I still market aggressively, pitching stories and markets I'm interested in (I do tons of alumni profiles, parenting stories and architecture/design stuff, all of which I really enjoy),” says Helfenbaum. “I love the ‘game’ of pitching, the challenge of landing new clients. I do not take my three regular clients as a given—I know full well any or all could disappear tomorrow, and if they do, I'm ready to replace them.”

            Social media savvy. Finally, the importance of social media cannot be overstated. When I started freelancing 16 years ago, there was no Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, or Twitter. Now most serious freelancers use social media to at least some degree to network, nab assignments, and develop their platforms.

“More and more editors are expecting writers to be on social media and to promote their work, plus being on social media can lead to more work,” says Lisa Collier Cool. “For example, I just landed a nice corporate gig that includes both writing articles and providing two Tweets to promote each article, because the client is very impressed that I have nearly 80,000 followers on Twitter. I'm also active on Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google+, stumbleupon.com, and LinkedIn.” 

Gwen Moran realized early on that social media could be an effective tool for freelancers. “Social media is important to my business in a couple of ways. First, by building up a following of engaged friends/followers, I get a wealth of good information and contacts, as well as a social component to my day that's lacking when working from home. I consider it my office chatter—I a window open and check several times a day. It's a great way to fill that empty few minutes before an interview or conference call,” says Moran. “And I've gotten a great deal of work and referrals just by being authentic and passing along good or funny material on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.”

In this competitive business, nothing is constant but change. Six-figure freelancers—and those who strive to be—are continually adapting to the market, and finding new ways to continue to find clients, nab assignments, and make money. You should be doing the same.

**Want to be a six-figure freelancer—or at least make more money? Six-Figure Freelancing: The Writer's Guide toMaking More Money, second edition is for you. The updated edition includes a new chapter on markets; a new chapter on writing books (including ghostwriting and coauthoring); new queries and templates; information about using social media to attract clients; and the latest advice from successful, six-figure freelancers. It retails for $19.95 and is available through any brick-and-mortar or online bookstore. You can also order copies directly through Improvise Press;  use the discount code "IMPROVISEPRESS" (all caps/no breaks) when you order for 20% off of each book.