From Make a Living Writing:
After Columbia, Casey started an internship in Washington D.C., hoping that would turn into a full time job.
But two years later, she moved to Thailand, and started writing for content mills (a dead-end path to make money writing).
“I supplemented my writing income with other gigs,” says Casey. “Writing a documentary script, editing novels for way too little pay, tutoring schoolchildren and even dabbling in voice acting.”
And it wasn’t really working…
- She pulled lots of all-nighters trying to make money writing.
- She was constantly worried about money, rent, food, finding more work
- The scarcity mentality drove her to accept whatever assignments she could find, even if it didn’t pay well
- Even after writing for some big-name publications, moving back to the U.S. strained her finances.
“I was as broke as I’d ever been,” says Casey. “I signed up for food stamps to get by, but I was ashamed to need assistance.
To be clear, I fully support welfare programs and believe they should be there for people who need them. I vowed that my food stamp application would be a one-time situation.
When the initial six-month period ended, I was determined to not need to renew my claim, and I made good on that promise.”
The missing piece to make money writing
Ever wonder what you’re missing to make money writing?
For a lot of freelancers, English majors, and former journalists, it’s not writings skills. It’s something else. Things like…
- Business sense to make connections, hire people or mentors to help you, manage your money, and land clients.
- Marketing savvy to leverage your connections, reach editors and marketing directors, and showcase your best work.
- Confidence to raise your rates, pitch your dream clients, and land high-paying contracts.
- Consistency in marketing, self-care, booking work with only good clients, meeting deadlines, tracking progress, and pursuing goals.
When Casey finally realized this, something clicked. She set a goal to earn $100,000 in a year. She forced herself to step out of her comfort zone. And she learned a lot of hard lessons along the way that can help you make money writing.
Casey’s advice to make money writing and be a six-figure freelancer:
1. Always be leveling up
The last thing you want is to plateau before you’ve gotten started, so once you get the hang of one type of assignment, look for your next (more lucrative) challenge.
I spent a long time in assignment hell, because I was too unsure of myself to go after better-paying, higher-profile work on a regular basis.
Tip: Upward momentum is crucial to feeling fulfilled and making good money as a freelancer.
2. Take stock of your successes
Day to day, you’re so busy pitching and working on deadlines that you don’t always see how your portfolio and skills are growing.
That causes you to accept assignments at the same skill and income level, which causes your career and earnings to stagnate.
Once I took a hard look at what I had achieved in my career, I realized I was seriously under-earning by working with low-paying clients who were never going to pay me what my skills were worth.
Tip: When you do a quarterly or annual review, you’ll be surprised by how much work you’ve accomplished and how much your writing has improved. That will motivate you to raise your rates and weed out the low-payers.
3. Think before you accept a rate
One of the biggest traps I fell into during my early freelance years was taking on low-paying work because it sounded interesting or I wanted a particular clip.
The problem: I wasn’t earning enough from those assignments to cover my expenses, so I’d have to take on whatever other work I could get. Oftentimes, those would be assignments:
- I didn’t really want
- I couldn’t afford to turn down, or
- Both, which meant I was trying to cobble together an income from a lot of bad jobs.
Don’t do this, OK. Not only does that approach make it tough to pay the bills, it’s also exhausting and demoralizing. I cried *a lot* in those days because I knew I needed to make a change, but I felt too burned out to market myself or pitch better outlets.
The moral of the story? Insist on a fair, livable rate, even if you’re new to freelancing. That’s what sets you on the path to six figures and gives you the confidence and clarity of mind to keep improving.
Link to the rest at Make a Living Writing
PG notes that the OP is about writing articles, not books, but some of the underlying principles are the same for each form.