(Guest Post by Jennifer Mattern)
Guess what? How you choose to begin your freelance writing career can set the tone for your business for years to come. If you want to get the most out of that freelance writing business, there are important decisions to be made. Don’t dabble and wait to learn the hard way – instead make those important decisions up front.
Whether you’ve recently started working as a freelance writer or you’re just thinking about it, here are three key decisions you should make early on:
1. When and where will you work?
You should find a place where you can work comfortably before you really jump into freelancing. That includes having somewhere to organize your files and data. If you don’t get organized early, you might find yourself digging your way out of a mess later, and no freelancer needs that extra stress!
If you have kids, find a quiet place in the home or decide that you’ll only work when the kids are at school. If you live alone you might have more flexibility in the “where” side of things, but you should still make sure you’re comfortable. Sitting on a hard wooden chair for hours a day might not be conducive to writing for you for example. Writing on a laptop from bed might make it too difficult to stay focused (those naps will occasionally call to you).
No matter where and when you want to work, figure it out up front. It will help you target the right kinds of clients — the ones who will be flexible with you if necessary.
2. How much money do you need to make?
Decide if you’re looking for a full-time income (think “career”) or just a part-time income (hobby writing, spending money, some discretionary funds for the family, etc.). If you need your freelance writing income to pay the bills, you better map out your freelance writing rates accurately before marketing your services.
Keep in mind that a 40 hour work week doesn’t mean you’ll have 40 billable hours (25-30 is more realistic, especially early on — other time is spent marketing and on administrative duties). You also won’t work every week, so you need to account for potential sick days, holidays, and vacation time.
Also note that $50,000 as an employee is not the same as $50,000 as a freelancer. As a freelance writer you’ll pay more taxes (in the U.S. at least). You’ll have business expenses (even those little PayPal fees really add up over the year not to mention software, ink, basic office supplies, Internet access, phone bills, and more). You’ll also be paying for all of your benefits out of your own pocket if you aren’t covered for some under a spouse’s plan, like insurance.
Make sure you factor in all of those things when figuring out an hourly rate. And always figure out an hourly rate first. You can adapt an hourly rate easily to any other format like per word, per page, or per project because you know how fast you can finish different types of assignments.
3. What will you specialize in?
While some writers hate to hear it, it’s a simple fact that clients tend to pay more for specialists than generalists. If you want to make a serious go of a freelance writing career, it pays to specialize.
You can specialize in a couple of ways: notably by niche / industry or by style of writing. I suggest you combine both. For example, you might decide that you want to specialize in writing Web content. You narrow that even further and decide that you want to be a freelance blogger. There are a lot of industries that you could work within. It might be tempting just to call yourself a “blogger” and target anyone who might be hiring. However, you might be far more successful by narrowing it down, let’s say to corporate blogging. You might target mid-sized corporate clients by helping them launch their own company blogs, and keeping them updated with company news and industry commentary (it helps if you focus on a specific industry where your credentials are already strong).
There will be low paying markets and high paying markets related to pretty much every type of freelance writing. It’s up to you to make sure your specialty area can support the rates you already set. If it can’t, change the market rather than the rates. The rates are far more important and markets are far more adaptable.
These certainly aren’t the only decisions that you’ll make as a new freelance writer. I highly recommend that you write out a full business plan and marketing plan before jumping in — they’ll serve as guides in making your other decisions by bringing up marketing ideas, financial forecasts, and more.
In the end, it’s all about making sure you go into freelancing prepared. If you don’t, you’ll run the risk of working for too little money because you didn’t properly plan out what you needed to earn or you didn’t choose the best specialty or market to get you there. When that happens you can no longer work smarter — it becomes all about working harder instead, cramming in more content to make ends meet. That’s how freelancers burn out. It’s one of the things that drive writers to quit. There’s no good excuse to set yourself up for that.
Make the tough decisions up front and stick to them or adapt as you need to. That’s quite possibly the most important thing you’ll do when it comes to launching and significantly growing your freelance writing business. It’s all about making the right business decisions. So go ahead and start doing that from day one.
About the Author
Jennifer Mattern is a freelance business writer and professional blogger. In addition to writing and blogging for clients she also manages several resources for freelance writers including two blogs: All Freelance Writing and The Query-Free Freelancer. You can follow Jennifer on Twitter @QueryFreeWriter.
