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Freelance Income Report November 2016

freelance-income-report

Here I am finishing up my second official month of freelance writing. And since income reports appear to be a hit, I will continue them.

And although it’s a bit early in my journey, I can already tell you a few things for certain:

  1. The work you get each month depends on how much you hustle and pitch the month before.
  2. If you don’t have any more hours in the day to work, you probably will level off at some point.
  3. There’s a way around #2. You need to demand higher rates and/or also leverage and diversify your income. What I mean by that is, you need to have other things for sale that doesn’t just trade your time for money. I’m experimenting with this right now.

So, before I go any further, my freelance writing income for November was…

$1650

 

Not a bad chunk of extra change right before Christmas, eh?

Remember my income from October’s freelance report was $1385. So, it went up a little: 19% if I did my math correctly.

Part of the reason I got a bit more than last month was that I had some “vacation” time from my corporate job so I was able to dedicate several full days to my freelance work.

Expenses:

My expenses were pretty trivial, unless you count the $277 I spent on a business coaching package. But actually, I used my own spending money I’ve been saving up for that, so I don’t really know if that counts.

I also have the cost to maintain my site, but I paid that in full for two years several months back. I don’t divide it out by month, I just pay it when it’s due.

 

Freelance writing jobs I’m working on:

  1. Writing copy for a fitness app
  2. Product copy for snowboard equipment
  3. A paid post on Make A Living Writing

I was working for several of the same clients as last month as the projects are ongoing for now.

 

My predictions for next month:

  • December should be roughly about the same.
  • I only have a little PTO left, so I don’t have many more full days in December to work.
  • I didn’t send out as many pitches in Nov to make Dec bigger. It’s a numbers game.
  • My fitness app job comes to an end in December, so I’ll need to hustle again to bring in some work for January.
  • And it’s Christmas. I don’t intend to spread myself too thin this month as we settle peacefully into this starry-eyed season.

 

If you’re getting started on your own freelance journey, I’ve got some must-read articles for you:

 

I have many more up my sleeve for the future too, so be sure you subscribe so you don’t miss them! And I plan on doing more of these income reports as well. So, if you enjoy seeing the cold, hard warm, fulfilling truth then stick around;)

 

So tell me…

What other freelance writing/biz topics would you love to hear more about?

Would you be interested to see how I track my income (it’s very low-tech)?

Freelance Income Report October 2016

freelance income report

I always love when freelancers or bloggers share their income reports. The transparency and raw insight is so refreshing.

And although it’s a little nerve-racking to put it out there, I figured I would be transparent about my very own freelance writing income for this month since Oct was my first official month of freelance writing.

As of yesterday, I made…

drumroll please…

$1,385 on my freelance side hustle

This is in addition to my corporate job and the product of working after the kids go to bed, on weekends and on my days “off.” (If you want it bad enough, you’ll find the time!)

So, now that you have the numbers,

 

Let me show you how I got there:

  1. I hustled my butt off in September. The efforts that you put in the month before show up in dividends the month after. You can get the exact pitch tracker I use for keeping track of all of them here.
  2. I sent cold pitches and I applied for Problogger and  projects.
  3. I tended to my social media profiles, optimizing them for my freelance writing business. Just by updating my Twitter profile alone, I landed one of my sweetest gigs in which the client found me (and I have a full article about how I did it coming out soon, keep watch!)
  4. I stayed active in my entrepreneur Facebook groups and did a little bit of free work there to get some lucrative testimonials.
  5. I was firm on pricing. I was offered many more jobs than I actually took because I refused $0.04/word offers and $20 blog post offers. With my credentials and experience, I wouldn’t settle for those “content mill” prices.

So, that’s sort of an overview of all the work that went into getting the income streams going this month. There is soooo much more I could say about pitching and pricing and networking, but for the purposes of this article, I’ll leave it at that. Feel free to comment with questions if there’s more you want to know.

So, what have I been working on?

  • Exercise copy for a new major fitness app
  • Coffee table book about New Mexico
  • Copy about snowboard equipment
  • Small business blogs for a website design business

I love the work I’ve been commissioned with. I’ve been learning so much and writing about my passions, so things are aligning just the way I believe they were meant to.

I can’t wait to delve more and more into my health and fitness, travel and mental health niches.

 

The fun part?

To reward myself for all the hard work, I went on a little bit of a shopping spree on Amazon. I found the pineapple chamomile tea I can’t find anywhere anymore. I bought some more writing books, one about writing white papers and the best freelance writing resource ever. I bought two barre workout videos to improve my teaching craft. And I bought a new journaling Bible that was soooo “me” that I can’t wait to dig in to. There might have been a few other things, but they escape me right now;)

 

What’s next?

I put in quite a few pitches in October alongside the work I did. I’ve already turned a few offers down, but I hope that a few more amazing opportunities come out of the work I put into October.

I’m also working on a swap offer for writing in return for some web design, so there could be some website changes coming. It’s exciting to think about where this all leads.

Not bad for my first month, eh?

If you’d like, I’ll keep you posted! Let me know in the comments.

 

Do you like seeing freelance income reports like this? What parts of the freelance journey would you like to know more about?