Oh my God. If I had a nickel for every time I got asked that, I could say “Hell yeah, I have eleventy billion dollars just from people asking me about being a freelancer!”
As with any job, much of it depends on the person in question. Also, what is your niche? If you are a freelance style writer, you are going to have lots of competition. Competition lowers prices. If, on the other hand, you are a freelance assassin, your pricing can be unlimited. Also, if you only want to work 10 hours per week, your income will be very different from a full-time freelancer.
I present to you two articles, one pro, one con.
I had the unhappy job of informing [students] career options for journalism graduates today aren’t anything they”re likely to see on TV. With newspapers and magazines laying off staff by the thousands and people getting more of their news online, the industry is changing completely.
That doesn’t mean there are no opportunities, I explained. There will always be some newspaper and magazine jobs. But there will be even more opportunities elsewhere, at Web-based publishers, trade magazines, community papers, etc. Heck, even Rory Gilmore ended up writing for a Website.
The key, I suggested, is to learn the basics, keep up with the latest tech skills, get experience interning and be flexible. In hard times like these when you’re just starting out and jobs are scarce, where you work isn’t as important as the opportunities you have to put your education into practice.
Ugh, journalism school. What a racket. By the time you learn something in j-school, it’s easily three years out of date. Stay tuned to next year’s courses in using MySpace. The best way to learn anything is to jump in and do it (excepting neurosurgery – just sayin’). J-school isn’t going to move you to the front of the line. You’ll do better with some gumption and a copy of the AP Style Guide.
I started Home with the Kids in September 2003. I had decided to expand on the whole work at home concept because medical transcription is really not suited to everyone. It took me a while to realize that I could be earning money from the things I had been talking about for free. I eventually took my medical transcription stuff off the free host, updated it, and added it to Home with the Kids.
My income ranges from $1000-5000 per month. The AdSense income is the biggest part, but some months I’ve done very well with other programs, breaking $2000 in a month in affiliate referrals. While Google AdSense is a major earner for me, I’m trying to dump it so that I have more control. I also do a little bit of ad selling, mostly featured links in the Direct Sales Opportunities directory on my site. It hasn’t been the focus for me that many say it ought to be. That’s just not one of my specialties.
What we’re seeing here is not a writer, but more of an internet marketer. That’s a niche. It’s all freelancing, whether you’re a writer, a marketer or an assassin – but each area is going to have its own potential for earnings.
So what about me? I write. I write political news and opinion for a variety of sites, because that’s my specialty. In addition, I do copy writing for marketing materials, which pays better than political writing. Beyond that, all of my websites have some form of advertising on them, from AdSense to affiliate items to text links for a flat fee. I have found ways to monetize my websites, and each provides me with a little income.
I also have subscribers to one of my sites. Though the content on the site is free, I have benefactors who appreciate my work and pay me just to keep doing what I do. I love them for the opportunity they afford me.
For those of you who want to know more about monetizing of websites, try this post over at Marelisa’s.
So what’s the answer? Is there money to be made in freelancing? Yes. And no. As with everything in life, it all depends on YOU.
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“So what’s the answer? Is there money to be made in freelancing? Yes. And no. As with everything in life, it all depends on YOU.”
I agree! It all depends on your abilities, talent, willingness to work hard, and of course timing and luck.
Thanks for including that snippet from my blog post. However, if you read it carefully, it’s not about whether or not someone can make money freelancing. I wrote it based on a talk I gave to high school students who wanted to know about careers in journalism in general.
My response, in the classroom and in my blog post, was very pro-journalism and forward thinking, and didn’t necessarily advocate going to journalism school in order to write. As I stated, if you want to be a reporter, either on staff somewhere or working for yourself, in today’s economy you need to be flexible, keep up with the technology and the times and be willing to work for markets that might be less than ideal, at least until things get better.
Speaking for myself, I’ve worked as an independent reporter full time for more than a decade and currently have more work than I can handle from the national and regional business magazines and Websites I contribute to on a regular basis. It’s hard work but if you take care of your editors (clients), they’ll take care of you, even in tough times like these.
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