Welcome to Spark an Idea Thursday.  Each week we’ll be sharing some great ideas for a topic of interest to our readers.  We invite you to grab our image and carry the tradition through to your own blog!  If you do, please link back to this post so we know where you were inspired!

While money is certainly not the only motivating factor for freelancing, it is a big one. If I could realistically live the life of a SAHM instead of a WAHM, I think I’d be OK with that. Unfortunately, the need for cold, hard cash is a reality here in Freelance Parent Land. I recently used that to my advantage, and the payoff (pardon the pun) was really worthwhile.

I guess that in order to tell this story properly, I will have to admit that my life involves a fair amount of debt. Both my husband and I attended a very pricey university, and I was crazy enough to go back for that Master’s Degree. We should probably pay off our student loans right around the time we start putting our own kids through college. Yeah, that’s a fairly depressing thought.

A couple of months ago, I decided to use those student loans to motivate myself to see what I could do with my freelance writing business. I set a rather ridiculous goal to try and pay off one of my husband’s student loans. The goal was $13,000 in five months. I started last November and had hoped to pay the entire thing off by the first day of spring.

Having that goal made me much more productive. Whenever a job came in, Tamara and I would determine if it was something she wanted or not. When neither one of us has the time or inclination for a particular project, we turn to our writers to see who would be a good fit. For those five months, however, anything that didn’t go to Tamara “defaulted” to me. As a result, I put in far more hours than I ever had before, and I got myself on track to pay off that debt.

Having that student loan bill as motivation was really inspiring. I could watch each month as the next statement came in the mail, reflecting all the extra payments I had made. Rather than having the money just disappear (as is common when there’s no true set purpose for it), I was able to funnel it right into the perfect place. In fact, I would find myself doing “mental math” from time to time. “So, if I take this project for $800 and those other two for $400, that’s an extra three months’ payments on the student loan…”

I have to confess, however, that one thing did get in the way of my plan…one client left me on the hook for about $3,500. We’re still working to recoup that money, and it has been quite a lesson. Not only did that mean that I had $3,500 less for my overall goal, but it knocked a lot of the wind out of my sails and derailed my progress. Remember, I was trying to earn $13,000 above my normal pay.

In the end, I paid about half of it off, which is still quite an accomplishment. It was a lot of extra work, but it’s the kind of thing I can see doing every once in a while…maybe when we get close to paying off the next student loan, for example, I’ll kick it back into high gear for a couple of months. The point here is that by finding one place to focus my financial efforts, I was really able to motivate myself to stay quite focused and to get more done than I ever had before.

That said, I would absolutely love to know what types of things you all do to get that extra motivation! What ideas can you spark?

Constant Content is a site that basically works as an article broker for freelance writers. I’ve been using it for a couple of years now and while my earnings there aren’t spectacular (around $2,000 total), I also spend very little time there, so consider it a good investment of my effort. It’s a good option for freelance writers that are going through a slower period.

How It Works

The way the site works is you, the writer, turn out an article on any topic that pleases you (unless responding to a request, more on that later) and submit it. You set the price and decide if you only want to sell usage rights or full rights. There is a strict approval process that ensures only top quality articles get into Constant Content’s article database, but once you’re in, potential buyers can view and purchase your article. Constant Content takes a percentage off the top (35%) and the rest goes into your account, which is paid out at the beginning of each month if you have $5 or more pending.

Article Requests

While you can write on literally any topic, people do put in special requests for articles. The majority of these are going to be “public requests” which any freelance writer can respond to. For example, you’ll be notified that someone is looking for ten articles on kitchen sinks. You write a couple of articles using their keywords and submit them. Once these articles are approved, you can send them to the buyer who will purchase only the articles he or she is interested in. To tell you the truth, I haven’t had a lot of luck with this method unless the buyer is looking for a large number (10+) of articles. With just one article, the fastest article writers will get the job . . . but the article that you wrote for the project still goes into the directory and is available for sale should someone want it at a later date, which they usually do if the topic is a popular one.

There are also private requests where someone will contact you through your Constant Content inbox and request specific articles. These are pretty much guaranteed pay and I’ve made a good chunk of cash off this type of request. If you do a good job, these buyers will usually come back to you time and time again. Building up a reputation is very valuable.

How Much Can You Earn?

Once you have an article approved, it’s on the site and in the public eye even if you never write another article for Constant Content. I usually go through bursts where I’ll upload 10-20 articles at a time and then not touch the site again for months at a time. Despite ignoring them completely, my articles continue to sell and I receive a monthly payment from the site, even if I haven’t logged on in weeks.

Since you set your own price, you can ask for just about anything. There are some freelance writers who underprice themselves and offer their work for $5, but most of the buyers who come to Constant Content are willing to pay good money for quality work. Most of my articles are priced between $25 (for usage rights) to $50 (full rights), but I’ve sold several for $100, as well. Remember that Constant Content does take 35% off your price, so if you sell an article for $50, you receive $32.50. Since these are articles that I wouldn’t have sold otherwise and that I can usually turn out in 10-15 min. it’s worth it for this price.  Remember that you can write what you want, so there doesn’t have to be a lot of research involved.

I wrote a post on my blog in February about how to sell articles on Constant Content which you can read here: http://athomemomblog.com/how-to-sell-articles-on-constant-content/

We alternated between blaming the economy, the omnipresent freelancer famine, and the quirks of fate. But, as it turns out, it was really just two women falling into full-blown panic mode for no real good reason. We ended up having a pretty good month, and have plenty of work lined up for May.

I will say, however, that it was nice to have a business partner to accompany me into panic mode. Like misery, it’s much more pleasant when you bring a friend along.

Without further ado, here’s the breakdown for April:

Monthly Income: $4,142.65
Percentage of Income Paid Out to Our Writers: 7.2%

SEO Articles – $125.00

Web Content – $352.60

Blogs – $1,360.00

Ebooks/Reports – $1,600.00

Newsletters – $75.00

Editing – $70.00

Product Descriptions – $185.05

Press Releases – $175.00

Nonprofit – $200.00

We’re still pretty curious about the way other freelancers are faring in this economy. While I’m fully onboard Lorna’s It’s Not the Economy concept, I can’t help but think that there are some issues at play. And I’m not the only one; the first question almost everyone asks me when we meet is how my company’s doing in the face of so many layoffs and cutbacks nationwide. (So far, so good, people. So far, so good.)

There is absolutely TONS of talk on the blogs about how to set your freelance rates. You will probably notice, however, that while everyone talks about how to set your rates, no one tells you what they actually charge. There are a couple of reasons for that, in my opinion:

• If you tell others what you charge, they might undercut your rates and get all your great jobs.
• Other freelancers might make fun of you for not charging enough. (There are a couple of freelancers in the blogosphere who make it their personal mission to go around berating freelancers who don’t charge enough.)
• People might think you’re too big for your britches if they learn that you’re charging three times more than they are.
• Our culture has certain taboos regarding talking about money in more than hypothetical terms.

Tamara and I have attempted to break through some of these obstacles by posting our own freelance income report each month. Of course, we didn’t do that early on when we were happy to make a couple hundred dollars a month, but that’s mostly because we hadn’t thought of it yet. We really want to try to take some of the mystique out of freelancing, so that’s why we made the decision to post those reports. When you read them, however, keep in mind that we’ve been doing this for about a year and a half, and between the two of us, we probably work a little more than 40 hours a week.

One Approach to Setting Freelance Rates

So, how do you set your freelance rates? There are tons of opinions out there on the subject. Some say that you should determine how much money you need to make and then divide that by the number of hours you intend to work to get a reasonable hourly rate. If that makes sense to you, then go for it! Other suggestions include charging a per-word or per-project fee. We use this approach quite a bit in our business. We base the rate not only on the size of the project, but also on the type of project. For that reason, we have different prices for “web content,” “ebooks,” “SEO articles,” and other types of writing.

I may get yelled at by other freelancers for disclosing this, but here’s how we got to this point:

I’d like to start February’s income report by saying that, as with most businesses and individuals these days, the Berry-Brewer Freelance Agency has been negatively affected by the economy. In addition to general annoyance, we’ve lost three fairly regular clients who simply had to cut back on their own expenses. We also had a very late international payment almost cut in half because what the exchange rate was in October (when we did the work) and February (when we got paid) were two very different things. These things do not make us altogether happy.

That being said, I’d like to also state that the Berry-Brewer Freelance Agency has been positively affected by the economy. We’re not quite sure if more businesses are turning to independent contractors to provide low-cost copy (as opposed to doing it in-house), or if we’re experiencing something of a fluke, but this has been the most incredible month we’ve had as a business so far. It was so incredible, in fact, that Lorna squealed like a little girl and hugged me when I told her what number we’d hit. And I’m not a hugger.

Here’s the breakdown:

Monthly Income: $7,300
Percentage of Income Paid Out to Our Writers: 14.8%

SEO Articles – $2,605

Web Content – $2,219

Blogs – $261

Ebooks/Reports – $1,840

Newsletters – $150

Print – $0

Press Releases – $225

We’d really like to follow this month up with another one breaking $7,000. After all, nothing beats kicking the economy in the butt like showing regular growth regardless of stimulus packages and housing market collapses!

http://www.sparkplugging.com/freelance-parent/freelance-income-report/ – January, 2009

http://www.sparkplugging.com/freelance-parent/freelance-income-report-playing-catch-upand-losing/ – November and December, 2008

http://www.sparkplugging.com/freelance-parent/freelance-income-report-aka-show-me-the-money-3/ – October, 2008

http://www.sparkplugging.com/freelance-parent/freelance-income-report-aka-show-me-the-money-2/ – September, 2008

http://www.sparkplugging.com/freelance-parent/freelance-income-report-aka-show-me-the-money/ - August, 2008

http://www.sparkplugging.com/freelance-parent/our-first-freelance-income-report-aka-show-me-the-money/ – July, 2008

One interesting thing that has come out of the situation, though, is this discussion about writing for print media versus writing for the web. This issue actually goes back a long way for us. I seem to recall that it was the end of 2007 when we did a review of Men with Pens’ Write for the Web: A Beginners Guide to Writing on the Internet. It was probably around that same time that our friend Allana Tapia first started (lovingly) harassing…I mean encouraging…us to get into print media.

We’ve heard Allena’s arguments, most of which revolve around money, and I,, especially have been nearly seduced. (Tamara’s more interested in becoming a fabulous romance novelist.) In addition to potentially higher pay, being published in a magazine is one of those things that I always thought would make me feel more like a “real” writer. Until I really became a freelance writer, my ideas of what it entailed were a lot different. I expected to be querying editors and getting form-letter rejection notices from Reader’s Digest and Vogue.

What I found, however, was web writing. I mean, it was just sort of there. Bidding on several jobs on Guru seems a whole lot easier than trying to write just as many pitch-perfect query letters. Just the thought of truly using my Writer’s Market for its intended purpose is enough to give me heart palpatations. Here are the reasons I have mostly avoided print media up until now:

• It seems much more time consuming to get a gig.
• The gigs seem way more competitive.
• A magazine article would take way more work than a lot of the web writing we do.
• Magazine editors expect you to come up with your own ideas.
• Narrowing down the markets is overwhelming.
• You can’t get the gig without already having good published clips.

I have to say that those are all fairly compelling reasons, although, this whole discussion about money has made me feel like I need to look at them more critically. Are they reasons, or are they excuses? I suspect there’s a little of both.

So, I’m looking to you folks. What kinds of experiences have you had with print media? Has it been worthwhile, or was it more work than it was worth? Do you have any words of wisdom to share with the rest of us?

I’m going to try to revisit this topic a little more often, as we tend to mostly focus on the web writing stuff. I did actually get a few print pieces published in the last few months, so I suppose I have a little experience to share on the subject. Still, I know there are Freelance Parent readers who know way more about the subject than we do. Let’s hear from you folks!

Anyway, for those of us who are a little insecure, it doesn’t take much to throw us for a loop. Back when we first started this blog, we took a little flak for admitting that we’ve been known to cry over a dissatisfied client. The funny thing is that between then and now, there have been very few dissatisfied clients, yet we still remember it like it was last week. We’re definitely growing a thicker skin, but (I’ll speak for myself here, and Tamara can add her own two cents’ worth if she wants) I’m actually a little needy when it comes to my words. I think it’s because writing is the main thing I’ve always been recognized for doing exceptionally well; and when it’s called into question, it’s like saying that there’s something wrong with me.

Yikes. That got a little deep for a moment. Moving right along…

I found that my insecurities were dredged up a bit this weekend, and I thought, “Hey, why not tell the whole world (ok, the 600-and-something people who read this blog), what a big dork you are?” Actually, I figured that a lot of you would probably see yourselves in my situation and it might be comforting to you to know that you’re not alone.

So, how’s that for a really, really long introduction?

The point is this: Things have been going great for Tamara and me lately. We’ve been getting new clients left and right. We’ve moved into our very own office in a lovely historic building. We have been receiving excellent feedback from our clients on their projects. We were, in fact, on top of the world.

And then, someone left a silly little comment on an old post here, and my self-doubt went all out of control. The post was geared toward newbie freelancers and was intended to give them an idea of what constituted reasonable expectations for wages. We actually hedged our bets a bit when we said that SEO articles might pay anywhere from $5 to $50. I can tell you that we don’t make $5 an article, but we also don’t make $50. What we do make, however, we think is pretty fair for the amount of work that goes into the piece.

This person left a comment saying that she makes $100 for 500-word SEO articles. Honestly, I felt like she was a little haughty about it, but that’s neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is that if she’s getting $100 for SEO articles, then GOOD FOR HER! Also, I would love to know where she finds those clients, because we’re definitely not at that level.

And there, of course, is where my insecurities kicked in. I went from thinking, “Wow, we are really doing a great job,” to “Maybe we’re kidding ourselves.” It sucked. Thank goodness for Tamara, who immediately recognized why I was feeling this way and helped pull me out of it. Sure, I would love to earn $100 for an SEO article, but that seems a little far-fetched to me at the moment. (Not to say this other person isn’t doing it, just that I obviously haven’t hit that level.) In my experience, I don’t generally make $0.50 per word on my web writing.

The question is, can I still feel successful, even if I’m not earning what this person thinks is fair? The answer is “yes.” It took me a little time this weekend to answer that question for myself, but the truth is this that I work hard, and I make a reasonable amount of money. As long as I continue to work hard, I will continue to make a reasonable amount of money. In the meantime, I will be happy for those who are doing “better” than I am, I will try to help those who are not doing “better” than I am, and I will continue to work hard and grow my business in a way that makes sense for me.

So, if you’re not at the level you want to be yet, that’s OK. I’m pretty happy where I am, but I’m still striving to go further. Tamara and I have built our business this way since the beginning, and it’s working for us. I just have to keep those damn insecurities from popping their nasty little heads out and making me question myself.

Overall, Lorna and I feel like we have never been more busy than we have been these past two weeks. Part of it may have to do with opening a new office space, but a lot of it also has to do with several new clients we’ve acquired. I expected the acquisition of these new clients to make a profound difference in our numbers, but they haven’t. Not yet, anyway.

Here’s the breakdown:

Monthly Income: $3650.73

SEO Articles – $1964

Web Content – $248.90

Blogs – $91.28

Ebooks/Newsletters/Reports – $920

Print – $309.05

Product Description – $42.50

Press Release – $75

At first, this might not seem like a bad idea. After all, maybe you don’t have a lot on your plate right now. What could it hurt right? The truth is that it can hurt. It can hurt you, your bottom line, and your peers.

There are a lot of freelancers out there who get extremely passionate about why spec work is the ultimate evil, but I’m not going to go that far. While I totally get their point of view and agree that spec work is not something that should be done very often (if at all), I draw the line at believing that all the potential employers asking for spec work are simply the spawn of Satan.

Because I once asked a friend to do work on spec. I thought it was an awesome idea. He could take some pictures for me, and if the project went well, he could share in the rewards. I shudder now when I think about how he probably agonized over a nice way to tell me “no.”

I did what a lot of others do. I assumed that he would be excited to be involved in the project. I also figured that he would be happy to share in any proceeds. Thank goodness he was a friend, or I would have looked like a real jerk.

Now that I’ve admitted to being naive, I will tell you that there are also people out there who really do want to take advantage of you by requesting spec work. There are a few ways they do it:

• They tell you that your work will be seen by others, and that’s such a great deal for you. In most cases, that is really not a good deal at all.
• They say that they’ll pay you if they like what they see. So, if they don’t like it, you just wasted how much of your time? Seriously, that’s like paying them to tell you “no.”
• They promise more work in the future. Again, there’s no guarantee you’ll get it; and if you don’t, you’ve just paid for the privilege of being passed over.
• They’ll ask for “students” or “beginners” and tell them this is a chance to build their portfolio. Honestly, I sort of “get” this one, but I still have to say that it’s pretty low to assume that a student or beginner doesn’t have any value.
• They play on the fact that they don’t have much money because they’re a small company, or a start-up, or whatever. Oh, Lord. I think that will have to be another post. All I can say is, “if you can’t afford to start a business, you can’t afford to start a business. Duh.” Besides, how should their lack of money in any way affect your lack of money?

There are even nastier folks out there, too. Some of them will take a big project and break it up. If they have ten or tweleve freelancers doing parts of it “on spec,” then they can actually get the entire project done for free. Others take your work and then have someone really, really cheap change it just enough so that they’re not technically using your work and don’t have to pay you.

First of all, I have to point out that—as is so often the case with debates—I think we all ended up practically “arguing” the same point, just in different words. I agree with the way James phrased it:

“We’ve determined (all four of us) that it’s possible (but not preferable) to start a freelancing business on less than $500.”

Yep. We agree on that. You can totally do it with less than $500, but you’d better have a backup plan.

So, here’s where I get a little rant-y. I hope you’ll bear with me, as I think I actually have two mini-rants brewing at the moment.

Point #1:

Tamara and I absolutely know that we are privileged. The mere fact that we live in North America means that we are privileged. Also, the reason that I mentioned our working spouses was to be clear to everyone that we knew we were in a fortunate situation. Of course, that’s not to say that we are (as Tamara so eloquently put it) “a couple of rich bitches who decided to take up freelancing because we got bored of sitting around and having our nails done.”

We started freelancing because we needed money and wanted to earn it on our own terms. When we decided to start our business, Tamara’s husband had taken on a second job, and I was trying to figure out which maternity outfit was going to work best for my upcoming job interviews. She even took a part-time job at the beginning to help her family meet expenses. So, while we are absolutely a couple of fortunate people, we want to be clear that this wasn’t just a lark or a hobby.

This leads nicely into my second rant…

What Did You Have to Say?

Anyway, there have been some really good discussions sparked by the debate, both in the comments here and over at their blog.

Some folks see things the way Tamara and I do:

Annette Elton has first-hand experience starting a freelancing business with nothing more than a website and an Elance account.

Tony Lawrence also has some experience bootstrapping, although he points out that it shouldn’t be a way of life.

Genesis Davies started freelancing by spending $1 an hour at an internet cafe!

Others feel that it takes more to be successful:

Heidi Blodgett is investing over time to allow her to make the leap from her day job.

Heike Miller is finding that it’s much more expensive to become a virtual assistant than he originally expected.

Trish Lambert feels like we need to get rid of the “starving artists” metaphor once and for all.

Some saw both sides of the story:

Laura Spencer notes that while it may not be totally cheap to run a freelance business, it beats the pants off of working for The Man.

Graham Strong also weighed out some pros and cons, citing that a freelance business is inexpensive to start, but there are some other benefits (and drawbacks) to working from home.

John Hewitt points out that you can get started on the cheap, but that it’s really a lot easier if you’ve got some cash to back you up.

A whole lot of the arguments we wanted to make were already brought up in the comments sections on both blogs, but we’re going to go ahead and make them anyway. After all, we started this thing, it seems only right we’d be bull-headed enough to make you listen to the rest of our thoughts, eh? So, what follows on the next page is the rest of our side of things.

Here’s what Susan had to say:

“Wow, you guys do a lot from Guru! Are you Guru Vendors? I just signed up as one (gulp. $250 is a lot of $$)! I’d like to learn more about how you use Guru to get jobs and beat the cheapies that bid on projects (as I’m sure your readers would too).”

Choosing to be Guru Vendors

To answer her first question, yes, we are at the vendor level on guru. We decided the first time that we signed up (we’ve now renewed for a second year), that we were going to take ourselves seriously as a business, and that was one way we did so. Susan’s right, as the $250 was a bit of a pill to swallow, but we made $10,000 through Guru in our first year, so that was a pretty good return on investment.

Fortunately for us, we were able to afford the enrollment fee at the time. If someone else can’t then it could still be worthwhile to sign up at the basic level. Of course, you’ll be competing with even more freelancers, and a lot of them are probably bidding really, really low because, hey, they didn’t even have enough money to get a vendor account – they’re obviously strapped, and a couple of bucks for an article sounds great.

How We Use Guru.com

It’s probably safe to say that we look at guru.com as sort of a “necessary evil.” I know, that’s a little harsh, but we are plenty annoyed that they take such a big percentage of our pay, in addition to the annual fee. Not only that, but if the client pays with a credit card, the freelancer has to eat the service charge. I still can’t figure out how that’s fair.

On the other hand, it’s been one of the best places for us to go to find new clients. I will admit, however, that when we’re busy, bidding on jobs on guru.com quickly gets pushed to the backburner.

I don’t know that there are any special tricks to how we bid for jobs. Tamara does it more often than I, but each of us tends to bid on jobs we find personally appealing. For example, she’s more interested in ad copy than I am, and I’m more interested in environmental topics than she is. We each have templates created that we use to bid for certain types of jobs. However, we personalize every single one that we send out.

That means that we pay attention to what the potential client has asked about, and we address those issues. This gets mixed in with our usual spiel that says something like, “my bid of $50 for this article represents a very reasonable rate of 0.07 per word.” We bid based on the job description and on what we think we should get paid. Then we usually lower it a bit.

Beating “The Cheapies”

Tamara did an experiment a few months ago in which she bid what she really felt she should get for jobs, and we didn’t get a single bite. So, we do bid lower than we would like. We don’t bid ridiculously low, however. There are no $5 articles for us.

That was not always the case, though. When we first started our business, we were just desperate for clients. Any amount of money coming in was proof that we could do this thing. We did some dirt-cheap projects in the beginning. As we did the projects however, two things happened.

1. We got really sick of selling our time for so little.
2. Our ranking kept improving on guru.com.

Both of these factors played into us getting more money for jobs. First of all, we started asking for it. Secondly, clients began to realize we were worth it. Our client feedback rating averages five stars, and we work to keep it that way. As of today, we are ranked at number 43 in the Writing/Editing/Translation section of Guru.

I suspect that the third thing that helped us along was presenting ourselves as professionals. We have a pretty good profile on Guru, although I suspect it could be better. We also have a link to our Berry-Brewer web site, which we happen to think looks pretty professional.

Any More Questions about Guru.com?

We’re really enjoying posting our freelance income reports each month. We think it’s useful to our readers, and it really gives us another way to be accountable for our work. It’s great fun to watch the numbers from month to month. As it turns out, those are also the posts that seem to spur our readers to ask questions. If you have any more questions about Guru or how we use it, feel free to ask in the comments.

Yet despite what sometimes felt like a whirlwind of activity, we still managed to meet our goal for this month’s income. I’ll be honest – we were near nervous breakdowns on more than one occasion – but at the end of the day, we feel really good about where we’re headed.

You will notice a new “passive income” category in this month’s freelance income report.  It’s pretty small right now, but we’re excited to watch it grow over the next several months as we put more and more of our ideas to work.

We’ve increased our goal substantially for this month in addition to starting some new marketing campaigns, so we’ll see if our pattern can hold!

Total Income for September: $4,047.60

Percentage of This to PayPal/Guru Fees: 6.73 %

Total Number of Clients Served this Month: 13

Number of These Clients Who are New: 3

Original Client Contact Point

Guru.com: 9

Subcontracted work: 1

Referrals: 3

Total Number of Projects Completed: 20

Project Types

SEO and web-based article writing: 7

Website content: 4

Blogs and blog-related work: 2

Nonprofit: 2

E-books/E-courses: 1

Copywriting: 4

Passive Income: $23.00

Because I enjoy feeling a bit like Ann Landers and because I wish I had had the guts to ask someone for all the information I needed when I was a beginning freelance writer, I always take the time to craft a reply. Over time, I actually developed a template response to these queries, since so many of the questions centered on the same subjects.

Although we certainly welcome questions at any time (seriously, I think my alter ego is an advice columnist), I thought I would make the search a little easier by posting an FAQ for all new freelancers. Feel free to pose more questions either in the comments section, or you can contact us directly at admin (at) berrybrewer (dot) com.

Do I have to have a college degree or a degree in English to be a writer?

No, you don’t have to have a college degree in order to get jobs, but it does help. I have a Bachelor’s in English, and it’s helped me to land quite a few editing jobs and writing jobs with those looking for something a little more academic. That being said, I also know plenty of freelancers without degrees who get along just fine. Some people would argue that the school of life and a good knowledge of your niche (whether you want to write SEO, product descriptions, or anything else that catches your fancy) is more than enough.

Overall, I’d say as long as you know the rules of grammar and composition, you should be able to find some kind of writing work (although it might be harder to get the bigger and higher-paying clients, at least at first).

I’ve never written professionally before, but all the jobs I want to apply for ask for samples. How can I get around this?

Ah, the Catch-22 of any employment. You can’t get hired without experience, and you can’t get experience without being hired. Fortunately, writers have a bit of an “out” because there’s nothing stopping you from writing all you want.

One solution is to submit articles on pretty much any topic to free content sites. Most of them don’t pay at all (EzineArticles.com, Buzzle.com), while some pay peanuts (AssociatedContent.com). The trade-off is that you can point to a URL and say, “I wrote that.” Web Marketing Today lists 25 free content sites you can consider, though it’s important not to give too much of your work away for free.

Your other option – and in my opinion, the better one – is to create a portfolio of samples. If you want to write press releases, write some. You can either make them up or offer to write them for free for a worthy cause. The same is true for just about any kind of content. Most clients won’t be able to tell that you didn’t write them for the $100 you’re quoting them; they’ll just see good, solid work and hire you based on that. Many beginning freelancers are better off with this option, since you aren’t giving your hard work away by posting on the free content sites.

(I would also argue that a stellar portfolio is especially important if you’re going in without a degree.)

What are the best websites to read for getting started freelancing?

• Definitely check out Men with Pens. Their blog offers a lot of freelance tips and advice (plus they’re really great guys). There’s a link on their site to something called Write for the Web. It’s an ebook they wrote specifically for newbie freelancers. You can either buy the book or take the Sparkplug U Get Started Freelancing: Writing for the Web course we’re offering, which is going to be using the book as a required text. Either way, it’s worth every penny for those just starting out.

• You’ll also want to add Freelance Writing Jobs and The Golden Pencil to your list of blogs to read. Both of these ones offer advice and also list daily updates of jobs available all over the web. Most freelancers read these, though, so the competition for the jobs can be stiff. Get to them early each day.

• IttyBiz is marketing-related, but Naomi offers some good advice on general freelancing, as well.

• You should also check out About.com’s freelance writing page.

As you get more and more involved in the online freelance writing community, you’ll notice a lot of overlap. We all get along pretty well, and there are some amazing networks in place. Become an interactive part of the community by reading the blogs, commenting on the blogs, and even starting one of your own. I’d say that at least 50 percent of our freelance knowledge base comes from these incredible folks.

Okay, I want to get started. Where can I find freelance writing jobs?

We started with Guru.com (Elance.com is another popular job-finding site). You have to pay for both services – basically you pay an up-front fee, and then they also take a cut of every client you have. Paying money out sucks, but you can get some really good contacts through them.

Overall, these sites work by having employers post the jobs they have available and having freelancers bid against one another to get them. Some of the jobs on these sites are ridiculous (we’re talking $1 for a 500-word article), but there are also some really good ones – and once you work with a client successfully, we’ve found that they often return to you for more.

Note: BE WARY of most other job posting sites. There are far more scams out there than plausible sources of work. Always get the opinions of other writers in the community before you shell out any money or share your credit card information.

In the beginning, we didn’t make too much money off the bidding sites, since we didn’t have any customer feedback or job history. Once you build up your site statistics, though, you tend to get considered for better jobs and even get invited to bid on some of them.

• I also mentioned The Golden Pencil, Freelance Writing Jobs, and About.com above. They all offer great links to jobs as well as regular updates on job postings.
• Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger Job Board has some great listings for freelance writers who want to use their talents to blog for money.
• You may want to try checking out Craig’s List or your local newspaper.
• Subcontracting is also a possibility, so if you find other freelancers or freelancing firms you really want to work with, drop them an email and resume letting them know that you’re available for any work they might have. Again, making contacts in the community and networking is key here.

That’s great, but these jobs aren’t paying very much. How can I actually make a living doing freelance writing?

Hard work and perseverance, I’m afraid. It takes quite a bit of effort, trial-and-error, and time to get to the point where your incoming work is equal to or greater than your monthly financial goals. The important thing to remember is that most of your income is going to come from referrals and repeat business. Even if you have to put out ten query letters and fifteen Guru.com bids every single day before you get a client, you still have to do it.

As long as you do a good job and create a good relationship with that client, you are more than likely to get his or her business again. Eventually, you’ll create a roster of clients who like you, return to you, and tell others about you – it just might take awhile. Stick with it.

At the same time, we know how hard it can be for new freelancers to lay out the cash for marketing advice and materials. We also know that for many of us, marketing is practically a four-letter word. Unfortunately this fear and/or ignorance of marketing can make moving from a small freelancing venture to a full-fledged business rather difficult.

To get around this, Lorna and I often find ourselves … borrowing … marketing campaigns from other fields. Oh sure, I know there are piles of research, an analytical method, and other factors that weigh in when it comes to successfully reaching your target market, but there’s also an underlying theme of common sense. What works for one business could theoretically work for another, right?

We think yes. That’s why we’ve developed the following list of successful marketing campaigns through the years – adapted for the savvy freelancer. Some of these we’ve tried to great prosperity, and others we simply think sound like a good idea.

Pizza Pipeline
A local pizza company sent our business a coupon for a free pizza as a way to welcome us to the small business community in our city. They got us from a list of all the businesses that applied for a city license (the list is free to the public). Freelancers could do the same thing for local and/or web-based businesses. Many of us find our work from people building their websites for the first time, since they typically need some great content. Try contacting your chamber of commerce or using social media networks to find new businesses, and offer them a discount as a way to welcome them to the world of business.

Blend-Tec
These insanely-expensive blenders (we’re talking $900 here) are way out of the price range of most people. However, the company’s “Will it Blend?” campaign makes the entire idea of a $900 piece of equipment really fun and almost practical. How? They have a mock scientist blend pretty much anything that sounds ridiculous and fits in with current pop culture (things like Chuck Norris and ninja action dolls). They then make a video and post it on the site, which is pretty popular overall. Though I doubt most people buy that particular blender, the company has other products, too. Freelancers could do the same by offering an insanely expensive item that no one really expects to buy (I’ll write your sci-fi, erotica, vampire-ninja doctoral thesis for $10,000) and make it really fun to draw people to the site. They can then peruse your more reasonable services and products.

Corn Nuts
I remember a radio ad for Corn Nuts from my high school days wherein consumers were encouraged to “Bust a Nut” by opening a bag of Corn Nuts. It was, of course, both hilarious and inappropriate. These borderline-dirty types of marketing campaigns work pretty well, since I can still recall the ad to this day. Freelancers who are targeting a certain demographic and are comfortable with the approach (think IttyBiz) can certainly benefit from pushing the envelope in their blogs and marketing techniques.

Starbucks
One of the main reasons Starbucks has been so phenomenally successful as a company is their approach to the way they treat the concept of coffee. Despite a public who really can’t tell the difference between good coffee and sludge, they introduced specialized jargon, roast variation, and snobbery into the caffeine world. Basically, they offered high quality goods to customers who don’t really know the difference. The result? High prices and massive worldwide consumption. Freelancers could – and, in my opinion, should – strive for the same high quality of goods, no matter who the client is. When you offer really good writing all the time to all your clients, word will spread, and you should be able to command the same ridiculously high prices that Starbucks does.

Costco/Nordstrom’s
These companies have a reputation for taking returns on pretty much any piece of merchandise – receipts and packaging not required. They almost never ask questions and are pleasant in their approach. I don’t know about you, but that means a lot to me; and I shop at both of these companies on a fairly regular basis. Freelancers can do the same by offering changes and alterations to their text or web design without making a big deal over it. If clients know they can count on you to make them happy with the outcome, they will tell others and come back for more.

Grocery Stores
The other day, I purchased alphabet-shaped tater tots and Nemo-shaped noodles. These delightful goods were offered at exorbitant rates and taste like sawdust. However, my daughter absolutely insisted. Why? Because the grocery store cleverly placed them on the bottom shelf, right where her eyes hit. Stores are notorious for this kind of activity, and it makes sense. If you put your product where your demographic is bound to see it, your sales will increase. Freelancers can cultivate a similarly purchase-minded demographic and bombard them with advertisements and good deals. If I’ll spend $5 on tater tots, who knows what clients will be willing to shell out for?

Payless
How many times have you seen those Payless Shoe Source “BOGO” ads? The idea is based on the concept of “Buy One, Get One,” although I think they’re cheater-Peters, as it’s really “Buy One, Get One Half of One.” (Buy one, get another at half price.) Still, freelancers can totally borrow this marketing method in order to improve their return-customer rate. Why not offer first-time customers a discount on their second project? This helps create get them in the mindset of hiring you repeatedly.

The Gap
How is it that The Gap keeps expanding and narrowing their focus all at the same time? What started out as sort of hip clothing store has parlayed itself into a whole series of stores, each with a different focus. Consider Gap Kids, Baby Gap, and Old Navy. Each has its own demographic (kids, babies, and cheap people), and by “specializing” in this way, they’ve actually been able to market to even more consumers. Freelancers can develop this idea for themselves by specializing in a few areas. Have a client whose startup needs a web site, why not refer him to the “small business” department of your freelance business?

Marketing yourself can be a scary (and expensive) proposition. Unfortunately for many of us, it is a necessary evil. Adapting some already successful marketing ideas to your own business has a couple of advantages, not the least of which is that it’s actually kind of fun. 

If you’d like to get free marketing advice and ideas, consider subscribing to the Marketing Eggspert blog right here on Sparkplugging!

As far as home-based businesses go, freelance writing has been a dream come true for us. We’ve had our ups and downs, and the ups have been more than enough to keep us motivated and excited. We definitely think of you all as one of those “ups.” We want to thank you for being a part of our success. We truly believe that we’ve gotten as far as we have because of this blog…because of you!

James, Allena, Melissa, and Genesis weighed in, and they were all really supportive. We wanted to say “thanks” to all of you for that.

But, it turns out that we’re not done with this topic yet. In fact, it seems that we don’t plan to ever be done with this topic. One of the basic tenants of Freelance Parent is that we want to encourage those who are willing to work hard enough to take the leap into freelancing. In order to do this, we feel it’s important to share the truth and give people a factual example of what others are doing.

In honor of our recent revelation, we’ve decided to offer a monthly look into the finances and workload of the Berry-Brewer Freelance Agency. We are opening ourselves up to scrutiny in hopes that our struggles and successes can inspire others to learn what it means to be a freelance writer in the current market.

Whether you want to compare your own successes to ours (for good or evil purposes); you are a new freelancer wondering about the hows, wheres, and whys of making money on the Internet; or you are simply a lookie-lou of the freelancing community, there is information here for everyone. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions as to how we came up with our numbers or why we do things the way we do.

Total Income for July: $2248.88

Total Number of Clients Served this Month: 13

Number of These Clients Who are New: 3

Original Client Contact Point
Guru.com: 6
Elance.com: 0
Subcontracted work: 1
Referrals: 6

Total Number of Projects Completed: 18

Project Types
SEO and web-based article writing: 3
Website content: 4
Blogs and blog-related work: 5
Nonprofit: 2
Product descriptions: 1
Press releases: 2
Newsletters: 1

Look for additional tallies in the upcoming months. This is no fair weather project; we mean to expose ours numbers every thirty days or so regardless of feast or famine.

The “Charge More, Make More” Idea

One recurring theme in the “how to make more money” game is to just charge more. However, the concept of charging higher fees in order to raise your income level is a deceptively simple one. The idea is that by selling yourself as a professional worthy of commanding higher prices, you will find the clients willing to pay that much. Period. However, I recently ran a little experiment wherein all my bids for jobs for a month were placed at the rate I really want to make rather than my usual, slightly-lower rate.

You know what the response was? Not a single bite. In fact, I placed a bid yesterday at my lower rates and already have a job lined up. Go figure.

I wasn’t catastrophically upset by this experiment, since it fits in with my theories about charging more and making more (and I made sure I had enough work lined up to keep me busy in the interim).

How “Charge More, Make More” Really Works

Making more money and getting higher rates of pay is actually a really complicated balance that most of us are still working out. If you want to make more money, you have to charge more money – but not to everyone, and not all at once.

When I break down my income into averages and include all my own administrative work, I make a decent hourly rate. However, it is hardly achieved with any measure of consistency. Here’s how it works: I have one client who pays very, very well. I love them, but they are the exception rather than the rule. I’ve built a solid relationship up with them over time, and they continually send more work my way. Understandably, my income has risen with these changes.

The rest of the time, I fill in the “gaps” with lower paying work. While I’m not making the kind of figures I want with these clients, it is still income. Some pay better than others, and some are simply a great way for me to expand my experience and make more connections. I have enough work to fill my 15 to 20 desired hours per week, but not all of it is blow-me-away fantastic.

The next step in the “Charge More, Make More” game has been said all over the blogosphere: a freelancer should fire his or her lower-paying clients and slowly ease his or her way into the upper echelons of clientele. Although I rely heavily on my good-paying client right now, I know that sticking to just one client is not a feasible long-term plan. Securing several high-paying sources will (over time) replace all the lower paying ones I currently rely on to make up my income differences and fill my time. Eventually, I should be sitting exactly where I want to be financially.

When “Charge More, Make More” Doesn’t Work

There are several scenarios in which this process might not work:

You don’t have any high-paying clients yet. Although I’m willing to take on what amount to $15/hour jobs as a secondary measure, it would not be a happy situation if that is all I could ever get. Remember, freelancers have quite a bit of communication to do and administrative work to attend to. If you’re only billing $15/hour (or making the equivalent with flat-fee or per-word writing), you’re probably making half that by the time you clock all your hours. That’s minimum wage. You have to have some better-paying gigs to balance out the lower-paying ones, or you’ll just get burnt out and frustrated.

You really aren’t worth the amount you’re charging. Whether it’s a lack of experience, a lack of skills, or a lack of effective marketing, you may simply find that people aren’t willing to pay more for your services because they can get better for less somewhere else. That’s the nature of competition. Sometimes, you may have to beef up your skills/education/experience, create a stellar marketing platform, discover a new approach to writing queries, network better, or simply charge less in order to get the jobs.

You aren’t being patient. When a potential client posts a bid on an online site or a job board, we freelancers typically scramble to get a query in ASAP. However, your client may not get back to you with the same hustle and bustle. I’ve had clients hire me as much as four months after I made initial contact, without a word in the meantime. The moral of this story is that even though you might feel like you are climbing ladders to nowhere, things can turn around very quickly. Stick with it, try a few different techniques, and be patient. Old clients may return or new ones may discover the other guy they hired isn’t working out. You never know.

But there you go. I’ve just said it.  After reinvesting in the business and taking taxes into consideration, my pay rates allow me to take home about $1,200 a month working a bit less than half time.

Money is one of those things few people talk about, and I get the reservations. You don’t want to seem boastful when you talk about your six figures. You don’t want to be ridiculed for what you charge. You don’t want someone to come right out and say, “Dude. You are making way too little. I’m making three times that in my first two hours of the week.” However, I can’t help but feel that it’s the elephant in our giant freelancing room.

Here at Freelance Parent, we actually get quite a few questions about money and freelance pay rates in general. Oftentimes, these aren’t asked through the blog itself, but come through in our personal email.

• Readers want to know if my pay rates for spec work are the same amount of money I would normally charge for a job. (Yes.)
• Readers want to know how much money we are actually making through Guru.com. (We expect to hit the $10,000 mark by our one-year anniversary in August.)
• Readers want to know how we came up with the pay rates listed on our website. (It starts at $0.10/word or $30/hour. Believe us, this number took some agonizing over, and we don’t always get this much.)
• Readers want to know what portion of our freelance income comes from a single client. (Most of mine comes from two regular, well-paying jobs that I’ve had for six months or so.)
• Readers really, really want to know how to make more money freelancing. (This isn’t a one sentence answer. It’s a complicated tangle of marketing, writing skills, perseverance, and luck.)
• Readers want to know why we undervalue ourselves by charging lower pay rates than many others in the field. (We don’t. We are learning to traverse the fine line between charging what we feel we’re worth and having enough work to keep us busy.)

Money, income, and pay rates are also very much dependent on the freelancer. I like working only a few hours a day, but I know that I make less because of it. I live in a pretty cheap city and have super-low overhead (as well as a husband), so I can get away with making less without stressing about it. Although my income is small compared to someone working full-time, it, along with my average pay rates, has been increasingly growing since I started. I’ve also reached a point where I can turn away work I don’t want without worrying about it, which is one of my financial goals.

Money makes people nervous. I get it. But I’m hereby inviting everyone to ask questions and share their opinions on this oh-so-touchy subject. Let’s talk about freelance pay rates.  Let’s talk about how much money we’re really taking home.  I’m happy to have this conversation with you.