Six Figure Freelancing

The Six Figure Freelancer e-book by David Drake is an excellent starting point if you want to become a six figure freelance writer.

Highlights

What I loved about this e-book is the fact that it doesn't simply target high-end freelance writers, but rather all writers, no matter what their skill level or level of experience are. Even if you're just starting out, this e-book will cut through a lot of the crap you'll find elsewhere, save you time in the learning process of becoming a successful freelancer, and put you well on your way to earning at least a livable income from your writing.

Concerns

The e-book is a great resource, but it wasn't perfect. I did make a few suggestions to the author (which he's taking under advisement, and promised some changes), including:

• Fixing a length statistic regarding those interested in writing press releases - the length he gave was unrealistically long (which jumped out at me, as my full-time work is running an online PR firm).


• Adding more thorough information on setting freelance writing rates (some of which you can find below on this lens, or you can learn more by reading my article on my All Freelance Writing blog: Setting Freelance Writing Rates the Right Way).

What's Covered?

With those issues out there up front, here are some of the topics that I've always found vital when trying to help new freelance writers (especially Web writers), all of which are covered in the Six Figure Freelancer e-book:

• How to successfully use freelance bidding sites (One thing I disagree with is that I don't believe you should lower your rates just to compete with international competition - if you run into that problem, it's your target market that you need to alter. You'll already know your minimum working rate when you set your freelance writing fees up front.)


• Setting up a writer website / portfolio (which I feel is vital for any serious freelancer; writer or otherwise)


• Marketing tips to help you drive potential clients to your website


• Going beyond bidding sites to earn a significantly higher income


• Coming up with your personal best strategy to reach a six figure freelancing goal


• and more...

In Conclusion

I don't generally recommend a lot of e-books, and when I do I usually have to review them personally first. Six Figure Freelancer is one of the few that I'm comfortable enough referring to you. Whether you're brand new to freelance writing, or you're looking to increase your writing revenue (especially on the Web), you'll find something useful in this e-book.

WIN a Copy of The Six Figure Freelancer!!!

Through the month of December, I'm tallying valid comments on my freelance writing blog (doesn't include spam comments, self-promotional comments, or comments that add no value to the conversation - such as "thank you," "I like this blog," or "I agree" - they have to have substance). The top commenter will receive a copy of The Six Figure Freelancer for free, along with other prizes (including an Amazon.com gift card, book on freelance writing, print copy of the 2008 Writer's Market, $25 via Paypal, The Publishing Primer e-book from Dee Power and Brian Hill, and the Who Wants to Become a Successful Freelance Writer? e-book from Jessica Mousseau).

Freelance writing is a rather generic term covering quite a few types of independent writing careers. Some of those types of freelance writing naturally pay much more than others.

Here are a few examples of types of freelance writing, and where they fall on the pay spectrum (with "very low" being equivalent to $5 per article freelance writing gigs to "very high" being something like a five figure copywriting contract for a sales page, report, or other work):

• SEO Articles / Web Content Writing (Low to Medium)


• Freelance Magazine Writing / Newspaper Writing / Large Online Publications (Low to High)


• Copywriting (Low to Very High)


• Informational Products such as E-book Writing (Medium to Very High)


• Blogs or Websites - Your Own (Very Low to High)

You'll notice that there's always a pretty wide variety. Some people will always earn on the low end and others will always earn on the high end of each. The key is understanding where the bulk of work in each category falls and finding the most appropriate writers' markets.

For example, it's much easier to get a copywriting gig that pays several thousand dollars than an SEO article gig paying that equivalent for approximately the same number of hours.

The reason is that copywriters (the experienced ones getting higher-paying work at least) are usually offering specialized marketing abilities and insight that other freelance writers simply don't have. On the other hand, just about anyone these days can claim to be a "writer" and churn out poor quality SEO articles or other Web content, take the few dollars offered, and go on their way.

Are you working in a freelance writing area that allows you to best position yourself with your abilities, interests, and potential earning levels? If not, ask yourself why, and start rethinking your freelance writing specialty. If you don't have a specialty, you might want to consider changing that as specialists nearly always get paid more than generalists for similar work (plus, specialists can often perform a job more quickly, as they're already well-versed in their specialty subject matter).

Many, if not most, new freelance writers are completely clueless when it comes to setting freelance writing fees. They don't know where to begin. Here are some of the most common myths / misconceptions, followed by the reality:

Myth: As a freelance writer, I can base my rates on a 40 hour work week if I plan to work full-time.

Truth: Even if your "working hours" are 40 hours per week, your freelance writing rates have to be set based on your "billable hours." If you're spending enough time to effectively handle marketing, financial, and administrative duties on top of your client work, you billable hours will often end up being a little over half of your working hours. Therefore, when setting freelance writing rates, you should set them based on 22 - 23 hours in many cases, and not a 40-hour work week.

Myth: Yearly earnings as a freelancer are the same thing as a salary from an employer (ex: You quit a job paying you $55,000 per year to become a freelance writer, and set your writing fees based on wanting to earn $55,000 as a freelancer, thinking they mean the same thing.)

Truth: Yearly earnings as a freelancer are very different than those of salaried employees. There are several reasons for that. First, (in the US) freelancers pay more taxes out-of-pocket than employees. Freelance writers also have to pay all of their own expenses (from basic office supplies and phone calls to expenses from their marketing campaigns). Freelance writers have no one making a contribution towards their health or dental insurance or retirement savings (they incur the full cost). There's a lot to add up to put a freelancer on an equal playing field with an employee with a similar job description. To get the same benefits and circumstances, a freelancer ends up with much less take-home pay. What I generally tell freelance writers is that they shouldn't look at an employee's salary as a comparison point when deciding how much they need to earn in a year, but rather look at that employee's total cost to the company (salary, benefit, the company's side of taxes, expenses per employee, etc.).

Types of Writing Rates and How to Calculate Them

When setting freelance writing fees, you have several options (such as per hour, per project, or per word). No matter what end pay model you choose, I recommend coming up with a base hourly pay. You know how fast you're able to write for an average project in your specialty, so figuring out what to charge per word or per project is easy once you have that base hourly number.

Here's how to calculate your hourly rate (based on wanting to earn a six figure income, 23 billable hours in a week, working 45 weeks to account for holidays, vacation time, sick days, and as some extra "padding" in the calculation to account for slow periods, non-paying clients, or other risks):

Salary Goal / Working Weeks / Hours per Week = Hourly Fee

or

$100,000 / 45 weeks / 23 hours per week = approximately $97 / hour

In this case (because I like even numbers to make other calculations and estimate easier job-wise), I would round this up to $100 per hour for each of your 23 working hours each week (over 45 weeks).

You can alter those numbers easily to fit your own needs (if your goal is a smaller yearly total, you plan to work more hours, or take more or less vacation time). While I added extra "padding" to the weeks worked, you can also do that by starting with around 50 weeks, and then just adding on 10% or so to the total to account for the unexpected.

You can read more in my article Setting Freelance Writing Rates the Right Way

There's an inherent problem with trying to earn a lot of money as a service provider: your income is often limited by the number of hours in each day.

Sub-contracting work to other writers is one way to seemingly increase your available hours (and therefore your income stream). But sub-contracting then means you still have to spend time finding those subcontractors, dealing with the payment issues, putting your reputation in the hands of another writer when you don't have control over them as an employer otherwise would, etc. There's a better way.

The best thing you can do for yourself as a writer on your way to becoming a six figure freelancer is to diversify your income streams by adding passive revenue streams.

While almost nothing is completely passive (you'll still need to spend some time marketing), the idea is to use your skills as a writer to create things that will lead to regular or recurring revenue. Here are some examples:

E-books - E-books are a wonderful option for freelance writers, especially if they've already built a reputation in a specialty niche. You only have to write the e-book once (I wrote my first in a 5-hour period while I was bored on a weekend). If you set it up to be delivered automatically (which I'm actually guilty of not doing at the moment), all you need to worry about as far as a time investment is marketing (and even that takes very little time once word of mouth buzz kicks in).

Blogs - Yes, blogs can be just as much of a passive revenue stream as e-books. The trick is creating a lot of articles up front. If you sit down and write 52 articles (you can do this in a weekend if you're very familiar with the subject matter), you can set them up to automatically post one article per week to your blog over the course of a year (depending on your blog platform - I recommend Wordpress. You would earn by placing things like contextual advertisements or by featuring affiliate products. The big time commitment with a blog would be comment moderation and responding if the blog becomes popular, and of course you would have to market it just like anything else (but your marketing time should already be accounted for outside of your billable hours anyway).

Self-Published Books - These would be handled much in the same way as e-books. I would recommend using a print-on-demand publisher, or at least a self-publishing company that handles fulfillment for you (so you don't have to spend time dealing with packaging and shipping).

PLR Articles or Unique Article Packs - These are simply pre-written article packs. People pay you, and they're delivered via email or a link (PLR sets can be sold to multiple buyers and unique ones are sold to just one buyer). This can all be automated similar to the e-book sale process.