Freelance Writing: How much can you earn?
Freelance Writing, Freelance Writing Jobs July 16th, 2007How much money can you earn by working full-time as a freelance writer? This is a question that most aspiring freelancers ask time and time again. But unlike some jobs that have set salary ranges, this is far from the truth when it comes to freelance writing. The fact of the matter is that earnings change from person to person, and are based on everything from writing skills to marketing prowess.
To give you a better idea of what type of money you can make as a freelance writer, I am going to detail some of the projects that I work on each month. They range from high paying gigs that I located on journalismjobs.com to lower paying website content articles. Although everybody would like the high paying jobs, even full-time freelance writers have to give in from time to time.
First off, let’s take a look at one of my highest paying jobs. Generally speaking, this job entails writing at least one article per day. That sounds easy enough, right? Well it gets even better. The article can be on any topic I want, and it is up to me to determine the length and direction. What does a gig like this pay? This particular one gives me $.10/word. As you can imagine, this is a nice deal because for a 500 word article I can pull in $50. And since it only takes me 15 to 20 minutes to complete these, I make out just fine in the end.
On the other side of things, there are some jobs that I take on that do not offer nearly as much in the area of finances. But of course, there are a couple of reasons that I stick with these jobs. There are two requirements that I consider before taking on a low paying job. The first one is ongoing, steady work. As long as the client is always sending work, the small pay will add up in the end. The other requirement is that I must feel that the articles can be written at a highly fair rate of speed. After all, I am not going to work for $5/hour or so.
One example of this is a client that pays me $.012/word. Does this sound like a rip-off to you? If so, I don’t blame you. But even though this is far from being the best pay, it usually works out to right around $50/hour in the long run.
As you can see, you will have the ability to make up your mind on which freelance writing jobs to accept. Remember, the faster you write, the more you can write. And in turn, you can increase your average hourly rate. But of course, you should never give up delivering quality work just so you can make more money. If you do, your clients will see through this, and your job will be gone before you can blink an eye.
Determining how much money you will make as a freelance writer is not possible. In fact, it is not even possible for me and I have been doing this for quite some time. There are some months that I earn nearly $10,000 and others that are around $5,000. My goal is to get as close to $10k a month as I can, without having to sacrifice more time. No matter who you are, you should have earning goals in mind for your freelance writing career.
July 16th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Good info. What to charge has been one of those dilemmas for me, so I like knowing how other writers go about it.
July 16th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Price can definitely be a difficult thing to determine, but as you write more and more, you will get a good feel for the industry!
July 17th, 2007 at 4:12 am
how do you go about optimizing your resources? i mean, would there ever be a point where you could cut out the $.012/word jobs for increased $.10/word jobs?
July 17th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
As far as cutting out lower paying jobs, the answer is yes, this is more than possible. In fact, I spend a lot of time trying to increase my income, but at the same time cut back my workload.
From my experience, the best way to do this is to simply work hard in the marketing department. But remember, never cut out your lower paying jobs until you have better ones to replace them with!
July 26th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Just about to take the dive into freelancing/blogging for bucks and appreciate the detail and honesty of your posts.
$10K a month is quite a goal–how much time are you investing a day when you reach a target like that?
July 26th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Proofking - Great to hear that you are taking the dive! Getting started can be a lot of fun!
Generally speaking, I start my work day at 645am, and usually go strong until 4pm or so. Of course, this can fluctuate, and during the day I am not writing nonstop. I take time to market, get caught up on my paperwork, etc.
If you need any help getting started, feel free to contact me via email! In the meantime, I am glad that this blog has helped.
July 30th, 2007 at 12:55 am
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