I have always believed that setting career related goals is the key to success. After all, if you do not know what you want to accomplish, how will you know what direction to head? Just like any other career, if you are interested in freelance writing and/or blogging you need to set goals.
The main reason that many freelance writers and bloggers do not set goals is because they have no idea what to strive for. While it can be difficult to set solid, realistic goals, you need to do so in order to achieve success.
As a freelance writer, there are several goals that you can make for yourself. First off, set a goal for how much money you want to earn each month. While doing this, make sure that you are realistic. You may earn $7,500/month sooner or later, but in your first month as a freelance writer this is probably not going to happen.
Additionally, you can set freelance writing goals based on the number of queries you send out or contacts you make. For instance, tell yourself that you will send query letters/emails to at least three publications a week. Many of these may turn into rejection, but over time you are sure to breakthrough. The nice thing about a goal like this is that anybody can do it. As long as you have the motivation to send out letters, you will reach this goal. It has nothing to do with quantity of work or income.
On the blogging side of things, you can set similar goals. Many bloggers set goals based around traffic numbers, backlinks, and of course, income.
As you move forward, you will want to make sure that you adjust your goals to suit your needs. For instance, if you have a goal of earning $1,000/month via freelance writing, you will want to work hard until you succeed. But guess what? At that time, you should set a new goal; one that will push you even higher. Over time, as you reach each goal you will be able to look back at your starting point and see just how far you have come.
Through my experience, setting small goals with your freelance writing and/or blogging careers is the best way to go. This will help you to reach your large goals sooner, and in turn keep you motivated as you move forward. Â
Just about 15 days ago I wrote a post detailing the link that I received from the freelance writing section of about.com. You are probably wondering what this has done for this blog, right? Even though I have not kept extremely close tabs on the results, I have noticed several benefits related to receiving this link.
First and foremost, I have received just about 200 visits from about.com since being linked to. This is not a huge traffic referrer, but obviously it is better than nothing; after all, it woks out to just about 13 visitors a day.
I am not quite sure if the about.com link has anything to do with the increase in my RSS readership, but I would say that it didn’t hurt. My current number of subscribers is ranging anywhere from 55 to 65. In late September, this number was closer to 40. Even though this is far from where I want to be, an increase of this percentage is always a good thing; no matter if it was related to the incoming link or not.
Unfortunately, getting a top level link from a site like about.com is not easy to do. I got lucky that the freelance writing guru for them decided that my freelance writing income was worth talking about. Hopefully as this blog continues to grow, more and more links from top of the line blogs and sites will begin to roll in. And if I am really lucky, about.com may include me in future stories!
I seem to be asked the same questions regarding freelance writing time and time again. The most common is: what kind of money do freelance writers earn? If you have any interest in freelance writing income, you will want to check out my posts on how much money I have made in the last few months. This will show you that I usually earn between $4,500 and $6,000 per month. But guess what? Things were not always this way. There have been months when I earned more, and early on, months when I earned less.
At this time, I have pretty much settled into a freelance writing income of approximately $5,000/month. I always say that my goal is $4,500/month because that will give me an annual income of $54,000. Why am I happy settling for that amount? Well, there is no easy answer to that question.
In the past, when I was concentrating solely on freelance writing, I was earning in excess of $6,500/month, and in some cases up to $9,000. Obviously, this was a great time for me because I was making more money than I ever thought possible. But at the same time, I was working my fingers to the bone and becoming stressed out over too many deadlines.
Earlier this year I decided to cut back on my freelance writing workload, and devote more of my time to developing blogs and other online businesses. This meant that I would lose a couple thousands of dollars of income per month, but so far I am more than happy with the decision. Being able to complete all of my freelance writing projects in an average of four hours per day has opened up plenty of time for other work, such as this blog. My hope is that my internet based projects eventually make up the couple thousand dollars that I am losing by cutting back my freelance writing workload.
With all of that being said, I still never answered your question, right? Just how much money can you make with a career in freelance writing? From my experience, this ranges from $0 to $9,000/month. I usually find my freelance writing income in the middle of that range. But remember, I am not the only full-time freelance writer. There are many who put my income to shame!Â
