I spent those years making low five figures annually. After I landed a full-time writing job, I was terrified to ever go back to freelancing for a living. I thought I was just bad at it. Then I got laid off.

In December 2019, I was suddenly without a job and only had about one freelance assignment every other month.

But this time, I kicked up my freelancing game — and went from making almost nothing to matching my full-time salary in less than 90 days.

12 Ways to Make More Money as a Freelance Writer

If you’ve got the basics of being a freelance writer down and are ready to make more money, try these steps that’ll boost your value and get clients knocking on your door.

1. Learn to write for the web.

Content marketing and online publishing drive some of the greatest demand for writers. Companies need writers for blog posts, social media, email marketing, e-books, and landing pages.

If your background is in print journalism or creative writing, bone up on how to write for online platforms, including search engine optimization (SEO) and social media, to vastly increase the gigs you qualify for.

Related: How to Generate Unlimited Blog Topics That People Actually Want to Read

2. Develop a niche.

I attribute a lot of my success gathering clients quickly to my focus on writing about personal finance, a sought-after niche. I’d worked full time for five years in the space, honing my expertise in complicated topics.

I initially didn’t want to niche down because I like writing about so many things. But labeling myself a “personal finance writer” and leaning into my greatest knowledge base helps me attract clients searching for that expertise. It also helps my network think of me for referrals.

Finance, health, and law are all lucrative niches that always seem to have open writing opportunities. They each cover complex topics that have a major impact on readers’ lives, so expertise from writers and editors is crucial.

I don’t have a certification, such as a Certified Financial Planner or CPA, but those would add authority and boost your value as a niche writer. Legal blogs often want to see a law degree or education in addition to experience writing about law.

3. Be referable.

Through full-time jobs and freelance side gigs over the years, I developed strong relationships with editors and fellow writers.

Networking has never been my strong point. I developed relationships instead of the strength of my work — I turned in clean copy, met deadlines, and proposed good ideas. When my friends and colleagues knew I was available for work, they were happy to refer me to clients and pass opportunities my way.

No matter how much you’re getting paid for your work now, put your full effort behind it. Showing up and doing a killer job will set you up to see referrals roll in — so you can eventually be picky and feel confident negotiating higher rates.

4. Be flexible with rates.

Setting freelance rates is a complicated dance. I set my initial target somewhat arbitrarily, based on what I knew from colleagues and freelance writers I’d worked with as an editor. It was pretty high, and I turned down a few offers from prospects who couldn’t match it.

But then I got an offer from a site I knew I’d enjoy writing for. It offered a set rate to all freelancers — half my target per-word rate. But it also had endless opportunities for assignments, so I’d spend less time pitching and seeking new work.

A low rate with the promise of abundant work could be more lucrative than a high rate for one-off or sporadic assignments you have to spend unpaid time securing. Build that difference into your rates to avoid turning down good opportunities that don’t fit your stringent standards.

5. Work based on earnings, not hours.

You can plan your days as a freelancer in a few ways:

• By time: Commit to working 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (or any set number of hours). Stop at quitting time, even if you’re in the middle of a project, and resume the next day.
• By tasks: Create a to-do list for the day, and work until you check everything off.
• By earnings: Aim for an average daily dollar amount, and work until you’ve earned it.

I plan my days based on earnings because it helps me earn the most and consistently increase my earnings without increasing my hours or workload.

Working toward a dollar amount each day helps me prioritize work, and it helps me quickly see when I need to rebalance my workload by dropping over-taxing clients and reaching out to new prospects.

Related: How to Maximize Your Productivity and Earnings as a Freelancer

6. Do some math.

This was one of the most important steps I took to boost my income by 70% in my third month back at freelancing. Early on, I was doing a lot of content management work that filled up to 20 hours per week, and I was doing a few writing assignments to fill in the rest.

Tracking the hours spent on each project helped me quickly see that writing had a much better ROI.

Keep track of the time you spend on each project to know your effective hourly rate. You’ll see which projects are earning you money and which are sucking your time.

To set a target hourly rate, a good rule of thumb is to double your full-time hourly rate. If you’re aiming for an annual salary of $50,000, the hourly rate at a full-time job would be about $24. Aim for about $48 per hour freelancing.

You have to aim for more as a freelancer because you don’t get paid for every hour you work. You spend tons of non-billable hours on tasks like writing pitches, researching publications, searching job boards, writing proposals, meeting with prospects, or networking.

When you’re self-employed, you also have to pay more taxes and buy your own health insurance if you don’t have a spouse who can provide coverage.

Related: The Best Online Writing Courses for New Freelance Writers

7. Drop time-sucking clients.

After realizing I could earn more on writing than on content management, I fired a client that had commanded a ton of my time for a low hourly rate.

When I filled that time with other clients, my hourly rate jumped about 40%. That meant I could earn more money and work fewer hours. I was hesitant to lose that client, who promised as much work as I wanted, but I knew I could make better use of my time.

Be aware of inefficient work that sucks a lot of time you could spend on more lucrative work; and don’t be afraid to drop clients for better opportunities.

Notice clients who waste your time with non-billable work — the ones who require complicated invoicing, email you at odd hours, micromanage every assignment, expect several rounds of revisions, or are generally disorganized. Account for that extra time when figuring out the hourly rate you earn for that client’s projects.

Related: 29 Best Work-From-Home Jobs for 2024

8. Don’t rely on pitches.

My biggest mistake in my first stint as a freelancer was thinking pitching was the only way to get work.

Sending a one-off pitch is a great way to get an assignment at a high-end magazine or newspaper, or at blogs as a new writer. But it’s a laborious way to make a living writing.

Focus on finding clients that offer ongoing writing work and want a long-term relationship. Small businesses often work this way, as do niche sites that require expertise, like finance, health, or legal blogs.

Or turn one-off assignments into ongoing gigs by doing a great job.

Follow up after one successful assignment with another pitch. Once an editor knows how great you are, let them know you’re available to accept assignments. Most sites have a wish list of articles they’d like written, and they’ll be happy to pass them your way once you’ve proven yourself reliable.

Related: Meet the Journalism Dropout Making Six Figures as a Freelance Writer

9. Look for gigs in the right places.

As a new freelancer, you might have relied on broker sites like Upwork and Textbroker to find places to get paid to write. But clients on those sites are often looking for the cheapest hire and aren’t as concerned with quality.

Now that you have more experience, you have better options to find freelance jobs:

• Browse higher-quality job boards, like MediaBistro, JournalismJobs.com, and Mediagazer.
• Host a portfolio and “work with me” page on your own website, and link to it from your social media profiles to help clients find you.
• Join membership groups of writers, like Freelance Writers Den, Editorial Freelancers Association, or Society of Professional Journalists, which host vetted job boards and let you list yourself as available for hire.
• Use your network and make sure colleagues who love your work know you’re available, so they can send prospects your way. Try to return the favor when you can.
• Join freelance writer groups on Facebook, like The Freelance Content Marketing Writer and The Write Life, where editors post quality opportunities.

10. Become (a little) tech-savvy.

Being easy to work with will make you more valuable to clients — and a little tech savviness makes you less of a headache than someone clients have to handhold with every new piece of software.

Learn how to use basic tech you’ll encounter as a freelancer, including:

• Video conferencing: Google Hangouts and Zoom.
• Project management: Trello and Asana.
• Word processing and collaborating: Microsoft Word and Google Docs.
• Content management: WordPress (and Wix for some small businesses).

11. Subscribe to writing newsletters.

Newsletters for writers are a simple way to stay abreast of writing gigs without constantly perusing job boards. Plus, they usually come with tons of writing tips.

My favorite newsletters with unique writing gigs are:

• FundsforWriters by C. Hope Clark.
• Where to Pitch by Susan Shain.

12. Reach out to new clients.

When you’re a new writer, it can be easy to rely on job boards or Facebook posts to find new clients, but you can make more money if you find clients on your own.

Use sites like Crunchbase to find startups in your field. Send emails to them explaining what you offer and how you can help grow their business with your writing.

Set a calendar reminder to follow up within a few months with a quick check-in and a link to your latest article.

Following up is key, even if you never hear back or only receive a lukewarm response. You never know when a company will be ready for freelance help. It could be six months or a year from now.

Related: How to Get Paid to Write Reviews

Kick Up Your Earning Potential

Making more money as a freelance writer is about more than knowing how to negotiate higher rates. A little organization, strategy, and good work will give you a serious boost, even if you never have a conversation about money.

Increase your value by focusing on a niche and proving your quality and work ethic to colleagues. Avoid low-rate job boards, and seek jobs through industry groups, vetted listings, and network referrals.

Even though it can be tedious, try to track your work. Understanding how much your time is worth is the first step to figuring out how to get more out of it.

The post 12 Ways to Grow Your Income as a Freelance Writer appeared first on DollarSprout.

Her company, PodReacher, has been growing since, helping small businesses and entrepreneurs turn podcast episodes into blog posts for their websites.

About two years earlier, Schiff left her marketing job with a healthcare trade publication and stumbled into self-employment as a freelance content strategist and marketer.

“I sort of left that job without a plan,” she said. “My plan, if anything, was to freelance while looking for another job.”

Luckily, she never had to find that job. After a few months of freelancing, she picked up two long-term clients on retainer. She sold most of her stuff, moved out of her place in Chicago, and traveled, working as a digital nomad.

“I was super grateful for the work I was doing, but it wasn’t what I saw myself doing in the long term,” she said. “It paid the bills, but I knew I had been itching to start a business that was more than just me.”

Finding the Right Opportunity

Schiff had followed the podcasting industry for a while, but she’d never done the kind of work she eventually based PodReacher on.

“I took a closer look at what different people were doing [to promote podcasts], and the idea was sort of born there for PodReacher.”

Jaclyn Schiff, Podreacher

Popular podcasts repurposed episodes to create articles for their websites, among other marketing efforts. The tactic attracted Schiff in part because of her journalism background.

“That’s the foundation of the way you would create an article [as a reporter],” she said. “It’s people having an interview and then distilling the most interesting parts.”

Some content marketing agencies offered the service, but no one specialized in it. That was Schiff’s opening.

Her next step was to pitch the idea to podcasts she thought would be a good fit.

She chose podcasts she enjoyed, targeting some that seemed fun to work with and others that seemed like they could benefit from the service.

Of her first 10 or so cold pitches, she got “warm responses” from about six, and two became clients. That was the validation she needed to go all in.

Niching Down the Business

At first, she treated the business as a side hustle, still freelancing full time as a marketing consultant. For about six months, she put any money she earned back into the business.

She also spent that time honing the service and clearly defining PodReacher’s niche. She’d originally pitched podcasts spanning genres but quickly noticed business podcasts with a marketing budget were her best opportunity.

Over time, Schiff narrowed her service offering, too. PodReacher used to write show notes and edit transcripts in addition to repurposing episodes into articles.

“I originally thought edited transcripts would be a lot more popular,” she said. “And there was virtually no response to that.”

After just a few months of pitching and working with clients, Schiff realized her highest-value service was turning podcast episodes into blog articles.

PodReacher now occasionally experiments with other services, but the focus is almost entirely on repurposing podcast episodes into blog articles for business podcasts.

Schiff is so focused on this core service that she’ll turn down potential clients willing to pay for other marketing work. This tactic may sound scary to a budding entrepreneur, but it has benefits.

“A fatal error that is so easy to make is people bite off more than they can chew. I think if there’s anything I’ve taken away from case studies of others, that’s it.” 

Jaclyn Schiff, Podreacher

Even though it’s hard to turn down paying clients, she knows staying focused is the right move for her business. She thinks honing in on one service and becoming the best at it will give her an advantage in the long run.

Selling a Niche Service: Treat It Like a Product

One of the greatest benefits of narrowly defining your service, PodReacher’s model demonstrates, is that it simplifies how you sell it.

As a freelancer, you can spend a lot of time talking with prospects about their needs, customizing proposals to demonstrate how you’ll best fulfill those needs, and negotiating rates for your services.

When you clearly define your service before having that conversation, it’s a lot simpler to determine whether you’re a fit for each other.

This model is called “productizing,” a method of selling your services the way you would products — a predetermined offering for a pre-set price. On PodReacher’s home page, podcasters can see an outline of the episode-repurposing service and pricing for a monthly subscription or single article.

“I was very interested in the productized service model,” Schiff said, so she intentionally designed her business to use it.

The potential drawback to productizing a service is giving up your ability to charge higher rates to clients with bigger budgets. PodReacher works with some companies that have marketing budgets in the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. It also has clients with four-figure budgets. All pay the same rate.

It can be frustrating knowing she could charge some businesses more and doesn’t, but she still believes productizing is the better option.

“I think for people that do well in business, it’s not just about getting the most money you can from a single client,” Schiff said.

Saying ‘No’ to Work Outside of Your Scope

Freelance-style client work can grow in scope easily, and freelancers often find themselves renegotiating with clients or regularly steering them back on track to avoid doing extra work they never agreed to.

Productizing, on the other hand, helps you create clear boundaries around what you offer.

“It easily gives you clarity on what you offer and what you don’t, on what you say ‘yes’ to and what you say ‘no’ to,” she said.

Turning work down continues to be a challenge for Schiff, almost two years into the business. But she’s learned from years of following business podcasts that specialization pays off.

The key — as with a lot of business decisions you’ll make — is to take your emotion out of it and choose work and clients rationally.

When a client or prospect asks to hire her for work outside of PodReacher’s scope, Schiff takes a beat.

“I try to not respond [right away],” she said. “I give it time, because I know, emotionally, it’s hard to say no, because I want more work, more revenue. If I give it time, I give time for the intellectual side to kick in.”

That extra space usually reminds Schiff that accepting a larger scope of work hasn’t turned out well in the past, and it becomes easier to reiterate the boundaries of her services.

Related: 47 Small-Scale Business Ideas You Can Start Today

Getting Clients in the Door

When you provide a service no one else offers — and many clients haven’t even heard of — how do you convince anyone to pay you for it?

Offer samples

The simplest way is to let them sample the service. It’s one of many marketing tactics for business owners — a short free call with a coach, free consultations with a chiropractor, free samples of food in the mall food court.

PodReacher offers a discounted first article for prospects. If they want to continue, they can sign up for subscription billing or buy additional articles a la carte.

“Once people see an article, the conversion rate is high,” Schiff said. “So if we get to that point in the discussion, they see the article, they see also that it takes no work on their side and that we produce something really good…they want to move forward.”

Demonstrate the demand

One hurdle you may have to overcome when you’re the only one offering your specialty is prospects assuming there’s no need for it.

PodReacher prospects sometimes wonder why no one else specializes in podcast repurposing. Doesn’t that mean the market doesn’t exist?

In response, Schiff points out that she has seen a demand for the service. People request podcast repurposing on freelancer platforms like Upwork, and some content marketing agencies provide the service to their clients — she’s just the first to offer a premium service in the niche.

“I like to think of myself as someone who was just early to pick up an unmet need and form a service around it.”

Jaclyn Schiff, Podreacher

Arm yourself with examples of others looking for a service like yours to show prospects you’re not pulling ideas out of thin air.

Related: 20 Best Small Business Ideas for New Women Entrepreneurs

Tie it to hot topics

If people aren’t specifically seeking your service, find a way to demonstrate its value related to the outcomes they want.

For PodReacher, Schiff often talks with prospects about the value of frequent website content for search engine optimization (SEO) — a major marketing buzzword. That connection lets her talk about podcast repurposing using a framework that prospects already understand.

Within that framework, she can explain to them how her service can help them achieve a goal they already have: more website traffic.

Earned media or press also comes more easily with written content than audio. From her perspective as a former journalist, Schiff can say it’s easier for a newsletter or industry publication to write up your podcast when the writer can skim an article for highlights and quotes.

Related: How One Woman Turned Her Financial Crisis Into a Successful Business

Show them what they’re missing

Leaning on her experience with content strategy, Schiff can see how podcasts are marketing themselves before she talks with their hosts.

Understanding what prospects already do is important so you can point out what they’re not doing — and how you can fill the gap.

A lot of podcasts PodReacher works with are interview-based. Just a few years ago, a high-profile guest was all you needed to get visibility. But now, Schiff notes, the ubiquity of podcasts makes that strategy ineffective. Guests appear on too many shows to promote them all; you need a special hook.

A blog post, which puts the guest’s name in print and highlights their best moments from the interview, is a strong hook — and Schiff’s clients say it works.

“This can be a differentiator,” Schiff said, “because not every interview podcast is doing it.”

Related: One Expert’s Advice on Why Weird Side Hustles Work (and How to Find One)

Find Where Your Unique Strengths Meet a Need

If you’re looking for inspiration to start your own business, pay attention to what you’re interested in and stay open to changing course. Schiff developed her business idea after pivoting from her original plan to earn an MBA. She didn’t think the cost of the degree would pay off down the line.

“I didn’t go to grad school,” she said, “but I listened to business podcasts, a lot of them.” That free education helped her recognize a business opportunity when she saw it.

Her story demonstrates that it doesn’t take a revolutionary idea to build a successful business. You just need to find where your strengths align with a need in the market.

That intersection is where many successful business ideas, like PodReacher, are born.

Disclosure: The author has worked as a freelancer for PodReacher. This profile was created independently for DollarSprout without direction from PodReacher.

The post This Podcaster Was First-Mover on a $600 Service. Here’s How It Went appeared first on DollarSprout.