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Tag: freelance rates

  • Tracking Freelance Earnings: December Income Report From Nicole Dieker

    Tracking Freelance Earnings: December Income Report From Nicole Dieker

    How was your 2015 freelancing year? Did you land a new client? Hit a financial goal? Write something you were truly proud of?

    For those of you who have been following me all year, it’s time to take a look at my numbers and what I consider my biggest freelancing accomplishments. It’s also time to start planning my 2016 freelancing goals, including my goals for this column!

    Here are December’s numbers:

    Completed pieces: 55

    Work billed: $4,328

    Earnings received: $7,492.26

    I wrote a little over 40,000 words in December, completing 55 pieces with an average per-piece earning of $79. My highest earning piece was $944.

    A lot of publications take time off over the holiday season, and I was able to plan a full week away from work — which also meant my December earnings were lower than my $5,000 monthly income goal. I didn’t mind, though, because my year-end earnings received totaled $63,571.12 — $3,500 more than my $60,000 goal.

    In other words: I beat the freelance income goal I set for 2015.

    How I achieved my goal

    If you’ve been following my Tracking Freelance Earnings columns since the beginning, you might remember that in my first column, I listed my 2014 freelance earnings as $43,059.02.

    In 2015, I increased my freelance earnings by $20,000. That’s the kind of raise you rarely get in a so-called “real job!”

    How’d I do it? It comes down to two basic components:

    I set the goal

    Freelancing is different from other types of jobs because it doesn’t have specific boundaries. I can take on as many or as few pieces as I want — my only limit is the number of hours per day I am willing and able to work!

    So, when I decided at the beginning of 2015 that I wanted to earn $5,000 a month from my writing, I made a commitment to myself — and to you — that I would actively work to take on enough pieces to hit that goal. If I lost an income source (and I did), I would find another one. If I didn’t have enough work to fill out the month, I’d start hustling for more.

    It’s important to note I didn’t hit my $5,000 goal every month. Setting a goal doesn’t guarantee it will happen. Sometimes your regular clients won’t have the budget to assign you an extra piece, and sometimes the pitch you send out will get turned down. (If every pitch you send out gets turned down, make sure to read my other Write Life column, Pitch Fix.)

    But since I was working to earn at least $5,000, that meant some months I earned $4,000 and some months I earned $6,000. It averaged out to a successful freelancing year, even though I didn’t always hit my monthly goal.

    I had the freelancing background to achieve the goal

    I had two years of full-time freelancing experience before I set my 2015 income goal. I didn’t go from $0 to $60,000; I went from $35,000 to $43,000 to $63,000. If I hadn’t already had two years of building my skills and growing my network, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve this goal.  

    I also picked a monthly income goal close to what I was already earning; by the end of 2014 I was regularly earning around $4,500 per month, so I decided to see if I could bump that up to $5,000.

    This goal was a stretch for me, but it was also a realistic stretch. If you want to set your own income goal for 2016, it’s important to choose a realistic stretch goal of your own, such as:

    • Taking your highest monthly earnings from 2015 and trying to match those earnings every month in 2016
    • Finding one new higher-paying client every three months
    • Sending out one new pitch per week

    Whatever 2016 goal you choose, make sure it’s just achievable enough that it doesn’t feel impossible. Then stretch yourself to make it happen. As you work towards your goal, you’ll probably start meeting other writers, editors and clients who can help you achieve it even faster. That’s what happened to me.

    My biggest freelancing accomplishments

    Hitting my freelance income goal was a huge accomplishment for me this year, but it’s not the only thing I’m proud of. Here are some of my 2015 highlights:

    • Writing the comedy piece “The Economics of Neko Atsume” at The Billfold, which received enormous positive response when I published it in June and gets a steady stream of new readers every day
    • Taking on additional writing and editorial responsibilities at The Billfold and being part of the team as The Billfold partnered with Medium
    • Writing “10 Mistakes That’ll Ruin Your Freelancing Career,” one of the three most popular pieces of 2015 at The Freelancer
    • Launching Pitch Fix at The Write Life
    • Providing financial advice to high school students at SparkLife
    • Funding the first draft of my novel The Biographies of Ordinary People through Patreon
    • Landing my first $1-per-word client
    • Earning enough money to move out of a studio apartment (with no kitchen) and into a one-bedroom
    • Successfully renegotiating many of my freelance rates for 2016

    I’m still working to improve my writing and connect with my audiences, but I’m happy with the work I’ve done this year.

    Goals for 2016

    This year, I’d like to maintain my $60,000 freelancing income. It would be nice if I grew my income, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I hit $65K this year, but I don’t expect another $20,000 jump.

    Instead, I want to focus on working reasonable hours. I’ve written before about the struggle to keep my workweek around 40 hours, and I want to make it a priority in 2016. Now that I feel like I’m earning enough, I can start to put the rest of my life back in balance.

    I also want to continue to build connections and new client relationships. A freelance career is an ever-changing thing, which means I always need to be working towards finding that next big job. If I want to keep my earnings constant and work fewer hours, I also need to land higher-paying assignments. That’s how it works.

    Finally, I want to build this column into a collaboration. I’m going to continue sharing my monthly income with you, but we’ve had a whole year of hearing about me. What about you?

    I’d love to interview some of you about your monthly earnings, as well as your freelance goals and what you do to achieve them. If you’re interested in being part of a future Tracking Freelance Earnings column, email me at dieker.nicole@gmail.com.

    Here’s to a new year!

    Did you achieve your 2015 freelancing goals? Write something you’re especially proud of? Share your accomplishments in the comments!

  • 4 Reasons Your Low Freelance Writing Rates are a Terrible Idea

    4 Reasons Your Low Freelance Writing Rates are a Terrible Idea

    When you begin your freelance writing career, it can be difficult to set yourself apart and build your book of clients.

    Your desire to get started and earn a steady stream of income can be overwhelming, which leads many freelancers to fall into a costly trap: Competing for business based on price.

    It’s true that some of the most powerful businesses in the world make their bread and butter by competing on price. Think of Walmart, or Amazon, or McDonald’s. But these are major corporations that can turn pennies into billions of dollars based on sales volume.

    As a single freelancer, there are only so many hours in the day you can work.

    You don’t have the luxury of turning small profits on a huge volume of jobs. You want large profits on a low volume of projects.

    You need to build a business that competes on quality instead of price.

    But why is it so dangerous to focus on a low price? After all, offering quality work at a low rate can make you extremely popular with clients, the same way that quality cars sold at a low price will draw in customers.

    Here are four pricing issues to watch out for as you build your freelance writing career.

    1. You can’t always be “on”

    The biggest reason why don’t want to compete on price is simple arithmetic.

    If you work 40 hours at $20 an hour, you earn $800. If you work for $50 an hour, you only have to 16 hours to earn the same amount.

    Sometimes freelancers don’t realize how consuming your work can become. At a typical office job, you leave your work at the office and have a clear delineation between work and home.

    For freelancers, that line blurs. Can’t sleep at night? May as well work on that project. Need to run to the grocery store in the middle of the day? You’ll just catch up on work this evening.

    The result is an “always on” mentality for freelancers where you’re never off the clock. But if you charge more, then you don’t have to work the traditional 40-hour (or 50-60 hour) workweek.

    Instead, you can have the freedom of lifestyle that draws many people to freelancing in the first place.

    2. You are worth more than you think

    It’s not just a self-esteem booster: You are worth more than you think.

    Consider a company that wants a copywriter to write a new ebook. It has two routes to take. It can either make a new permanent hire, or can hire a freelancer for the project.

    A new hire comes with the costs of a salary, health insurance, a 401(k), Social Security, paid vacation, office space, a computer, training and even a Christmas gift at the company party.

    Freelancers come with none of the extra baggage. So when you’re bidding on a job, think of those expenses to the company. After all, you have to pay for those things. You should be bidding an amount that covers all your expenses, plus an extra charge for the convenience of the company not having to bring on a full-time employee.

    Don’t be shy about your prices. Remember, people are willing to pay for what they value.

    3. You’ll never win the low-price game

    The ugly truth about competing on price is that you will never, ever win. There will always be someone willing to do the job for cheaper than you.

    A person pitching in New York can be underbid by someone in Kansas. Someone in Kansas can be underbid by someone overseas. And someone overseas can be underbid by a person willing to do the project for free because they want the experience.

    That’s not to say you won’t ever get a job. You will. In fact, you’ll find plenty of work. But over time, you’ll find yourself in a spiral of continually having to lower the price you’re willing to take if you compete on this end of the spectrum. Instead, you want to set your prices based on the value you bring to the job.

    4. Your cheap clients won’t be worth your time

    We’ve all had difficult clients: Those people who don’t clearly articulate what they want, but know what you produced isn’t it.

    There’s no evidence that clients who pay less are more trouble than those that pay higher rates. But it’s simple logic that those clients paying less are worth much less of your time when they do cause issues.

    Any bid you make on a project should be done so with the knowledge that you will have to go back and tweak things. The catch is that if you compete on price, those revisions eat into your already thin margins.

    It’s easy to see that getting materials just right for a client and ensuring they are happy is no longer worth your time. You want to build a client base where no matter how much you have to adjust, tweak or revise your work, it will still be wildly profitable for you to work with them.

    Have you learned similar lessons trying to compete on price? How did you adjust your business model?

  • Raise Your Freelance Writing Rates: 4 Steps to Help You Get Paid What You’re Worth

    Raise Your Freelance Writing Rates: 4 Steps to Help You Get Paid What You’re Worth

    It can be nerve-wracking the first time you have to talk to a client about raising your freelance rates. After all, you don’t know if your client will negotiate. You could end up earning less if they choose to stop working with you, instead.

    The great thing about being a freelancer is that you are in charge, not your client. But you also have to consider your client’s viewpoint and make it easy for the client to say yes to a higher rate.

    That’s why it’s essential to give yourself the ammunition you need to make the rate-raise conversation go smoothly.

    There are four steps you need to take:

    1. Figure out the “going rate”

    Some clients have a maximum figure in mind for writing services, which may not match your ideal target. So it’s helpful to know what other freelancers charge for services similar to yours.

    Check out The Contently Freelance Rates Database (mostly U.S.), The NUJ Freelance Fees Guide and Rate for the Job service (mostly U.K.), Writer’s Market, The Editorial Freelancers Association, and Professional Writers Association of Canada for helpful rate resources.

    Since each writer and writing job is different, these so-called “going rates” are a way to help you assess the value of your services and help you to set a baseline. This industry knowledge will boost your confidence as you start to think about asking your client for a higher rate.

    2. Track your work

    Another way to build confidence when considering asking for a rate increase is to work out exactly what you are doing for your clients, because every service has a value.

    You have to remind yourself about your value over and over. I learned (again) working for a third-party client via a marketing firm. They itemized a bunch of services I’d hadn’t thought of charging separately for. It made sense, because they all took time and they all added value for the client.

    Here are some ways to think about the true value of your work:

    • Use a tool like RescueTime to track what you spend your time on each day, or a simple time tracker like Toggl.

    • Itemize the subtasks involved in each job. For example, if you write a blog post, remember to include research time, finding images and creating social media messages, if these are part of the job.

    • Remember any value-added services you provide, like matching your client’s voice if you’re a ghostwriter.

    • Include long phone calls and email handholding on your list. This takes up time and stops you from doing other work.

    • Check your client contract to see if you are delivering services above and beyond what’s listed.

    Those steps will help you to understand how much work you’re putting in, but there’s one more thing you can do. Track social sharing statistics for the content you create (Buzzsumo is an excellent tool for this).

    Social sharing means increased attention, higher search engine prominence and increased authority for your client, so it’s a powerful indicator of the value of your writing.

    3. Show your value on your website

    When you combine the going rate with the actual value you bring to clients, update your website accordingly. It’s up to you whether you display ideal rates or not, but at the very least, show clients what they get when they work with you. It really makes a difference when you get to the negotiation stage.

    When I started freelancing, my website had a bulleted list of services, but no rates. Since then, I’ve expanded it so I have a full page explaining what my clients get from my main services and what those services are worth. That has resulted in better offers, better clients, better pay rates, and less time wasted.

    4. Raise those freelance rates!

    Once you have an ideal rate in mind — a figure that makes you slightly uncomfortable is a sign that you’re on the right track — you’re ready to have the conversation with your client about raising your rates.

    A good starting point is to show clients what they’re getting. When I looked at my work for one client, I realized I was doing way more than we originally agreed. I itemized the value I brought in terms of writing experience, research capability, subject matter knowledge, SEO, and technical ability and compared that with the rate offered by similar clients. I got a hefty raise with no questions asked.

    Other ways to raise rates for existing clients include:

    • Having a contract and stating up front that rates will be renegotiated at the end of the term. It sets client expectations and makes the process easier.

    • Implementing a regular cost-of-living increase. I used to do this every January. I’d give clients a few weeks’ notice, then bill at the new rate when the time came.

    Look out for opportunities clients provide during your relationship. One of my clients updated their writing guidelines and sent an email to let me know. I replied and asked whether the update came with a pay raise, and I got one. It wasn’t much, but it covered the additional time needed to comply with the new guidelines.

    There’s also a law of increasing returns with successful negotiations. Once one client agrees to pay more, you have more negotiating power with others so your overall income can get a nice boost.

    So what if clients say no?

    It happens. My usual approach to this news is to make a graceful exit. I try to recommend another freelancer who’s in line with the client’s budget, while freeing myself up to look for higher paid work.

    In all cases, I’ve maintained friendly relationships with my former clients and some of them have come back to me when their budget increased.

    That’s my approach. How do you handle those tricky rate raising conversations? Good luck!