It’s been a little over four months since I quit my job, went freelance and came over to Spain and, as it’s a new year, I thought I’d update you guys on how it’s going.
You can read about my progress after one month here.
This isn’t a post about “How You Can Become a Freelance Writer” (though I will be posting more useful, actionable posts on this in the coming weeks – let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to cover in particular). It’s more of a personal behind-the-scenes insight in to my struggles and successes of going freelance since quitting my job last year.
Before I get started, it occurred to me the other day that I haven’t shown you guys around my apartment in the small town of Igualada yet. One of my bit-weird-guilty-pleasures is looking around other people’s homes and seeing how they live. So, if you get a kick out of that too, I’ll be posting some photos and a little description of my apartment next week.
So, how’s it going?
All in all, it’s going well. I haven’t had a dry month moneywise yet, and I’ve been steadily building up my portfolio.
Business-wise, it’s going great.
Diving back into things after Christmas was a little bit more difficult, though. I had a few clients simply not get back to me in the New Year (I still don’t know what happened to them), and a couple of scenarios where the job didn’t turn out to be anything like it sounded (this seems to happen quite a lot).
I’ve been feeling a bit down for the past week or so, partly because I don’t seem to be picking up any bigger, better clients and partly because being freelance hasn’t exactly given me the numerous hours of free time to work away on my blog and novel as I had hoped. I’m struggling to pitch articles anywhere and, in all honesty, my motivation seems to have taken a holiday.
But then I have to remind myself that it’s only been four months. What was I expecting? A fast track ticket to the top? No, I knew it would be hard.
Also, I still haven’t got to see as much of Catalonia as I would have liked, but I’m hoping that’ll change in the next few months.
It’s not all doom and gloom though!
I’m living the life I want to lead – I could get on a plane tomorrow and travel to the other side of the world if I want to. I get to spend my days writing, which is something I absolutely love.
I have to remember that I’ve worked hard for this, and I need to keep working hard. Going freelance isn’t a highway to lucrative success, but a lifestyle that needs to be tweaked and prodded until it’s the perfect fit.
What have I been doing work-wise?
Since my first update I’ve worked for so many new and varied clients. In the first month or so I was pretty much earning all my income from one client, where I was writing creative hotel descriptions for a luxury booking site. The pay is good and I’m still working with them now, but to a lesser extent than I was at the start.
Travel copywriting has taken up a large chunk of my freelance work. I’ve written descriptive prose for a new-age hotel experience, listings for tourist attractions in Singapore, weather and sightseeing guides for holiday resorts, country and city descriptions for European destinations, and more. I’m lucky because a lot of the clients I’ve written for encourage creative prose rather than SEO-heavy pieces. I’ve seen an upward trend in this recently and it’s something that I’m very excited about in the copywriting world.
Blogging-wise, I’ve had a few jobs here and there, but it is a lot less lucrative than copywriting. To date, I’ve written a couple of in-depth philosophical travel pieces for a luxury brand, a guide to learning Spanish for a large language learning company, itineraries for Brighton and London and short festival and food guides to Malta.
I’m seeing the need for bloggers increasing and the pay is going up, too, so I’m hoping to pick up more regular blogging jobs in the coming months.
These two areas have made up the entirety of my income over the past few months, but I am looking to branch out now. I’m looking at ways I can monetize my two blogs and have started implementing some methods. So far, I’ve experimented with affiliate links (I’ve made 23p in two months!) and commission-based sidebar ads (on Wanderarti). I also ran my first branded content post on Wanderful World the other day, which was a success.
Sidenote: I was very sceptical about moving into the branded content sphere as I’ve been resisting it for three years now. But I figure that as long as I declare them, add no-follow tags to any links and, most importantly, they’re useful to you guys, then what can be the harm in earning a little bit of extra money?
At the moment I’m just putting the feelers out there, but I’d like to solidify some passive income streams over the next year – that’s definitely one of my goals.
My income has been great for the last four months, where I’ve been averaging between £1,300 and £1,900 a month – a lot more money than I’ve ever earned in a 9-5 office job! I hope to keep it this way for the next few months as I consider my next steps and my yearly goals.
Please do let me know in the comments or by email if you have any questions about my freelance work or my income. I will be posting a more in-depth post in the next couple of weeks about how I find jobs and how I pitch for them so keep an eye out for that if it’s something you’re interested in.
How are the blogs doing?
As most of you know, I redesigned and essentially rebranded Wanderful World at the end of 2014. Since then, the stats have just continued to go up and up. Engagement is high and I’ve had lots of great feedback.
I’ve finally found a niche that works for me and that I’m excited by.
Wanderarti has taken a bit of a backseat at the moment, I’m ashamed to say, but I think it has a lot of potential. I’m still posting regularly over there but there’s still so much more I want to do. I actually wrote a short e-book at the end of last year that I was going to launch this month, but I put it on hold when the new EU rules came in about selling products online – I don’t know enough about it at this stage.
And what about the novel?
This is probably the most successful part of my four months so far! I finished the first draft of my novel just before Christmas which was an absolute shock (I can’t even count how many unfinished novels I have on my hard drive) and I began the second draft edits last week.
It turns out writing the damn thing was actually the easiest part. Editing it is a whole other story – I’m basically re-writing it from scratch. Ouch.
I’m planning to have the second draft done by April and then the final draft polished by June/July. At the rate I’ve been working on it this seems entirely possible, but of course I’m open to things changing. Obviously paid work comes before the novel at the moment.
So there’s a little update for you guys.
Going freelance is absolutely one of the best things I have ever done and I’m learning so much – not just about the writing industry but also about myself – which is always a good thing.
I’m still loving living in Spain – moving here is absolutely one of the best things I have ever done and that will never change.
Let me know if there’s anything I haven’t covered here that you’d like to know and please tell me about your goals for freelancing or just an update on your life! I’d love to hear how you’re getting on.
Good for you! I love hearing success stories like yours! Which freelance sites do you use? I want to get into it.
Katrina the Two Week Traveler recently posted…The World’s Largest Grave-Paris Catacombs
Thanks Katrina! I use a mixture of sites – mainly oDesk, Elance, Indeed, Problogger jobs, and the London Craigslist (there’s a lot of rubbish jobs on these sites, but I’ve become adept at sifting through until I find something good 😉 I’m also going to write a post about the sites I use and how I got into freelancing in the next couple of weeks.
Hey Lizzie!
It’s so good to see an honest article about fresh freelancing, and I love to come to you to see how you’re doing, since I also starting freelancing four months ago and it seems like we have a lot in common in this area :).
As you might have remembered, I had to leave my 9-to-5 job because of financial difficulties at the firm, and I was set to go back from the 1st of March if things got better. Well, last week I quit the job definitely, choosing freelancing over the job of a travel agent. And I am so happy I did it!
I agree that is not always easy, and every time I start finishing up an assignment and don’t have immediate plans for another, I am a little worried. But it always works out somehow, and I always find another assignment/job. I have been working almost every day for four months, sometimes even more than eight hours. And the pay is so much more than I ever would’ve gotten at a 9-to-5 job (I am from Romania and we have like the smallest pay rate in Europe)…
I can also blog more, not necessarily because I have more time, but because I have more energy. I was working at the travel agency all day long with clients, and at the end of the day I got soooo tired and exhausted that I didn’t have any motivation nor creativity to sit down and write, leaving my blog empty for 3 months (I am very ashamed of this..).
I’ll be waiting for new articles regarding freelancing, and travel of course.
Good luck with your writing! 🙂
Best, Adri from CityoftheWeek
Cityoftheweek recently posted…Photo of the Week 2: It’s like Riding a Bicycle
Hi Adri! It’s good to hear from you 🙂
It’s so exciting that you quit your job for good! It’s great that you can see potential for your freelance work to continue… And even better that you get paid more 😉 That’s one of the things I love about freelancing – you’re not tied to a set monthly payment like you are when you have a 9-5 job. You basically have complete control over your income (of course, this does make you worry more, but I find it also motivates me to get out there and keep looking for better work!).
I agree about have more energy, too! I can now write a blog post whenever I feel inspired instead of having to wait until I get home from work when I most likely won’t feel like it.
I’m looking forward to following along with your progress (it’s lovely to find someone who’s in the same boat!). I also be posting a lot more articles about freelancing in the next couple of weeks 🙂
I feel ya! It can be hard to find that motivation to contact people and chase work leads, but like you said, it’s only been 4 months and it sounds like you are doing GREAT for that amount of time. YAY! 😀 Good luck with the novel! All the best to ya.
Thanks so much Dana! It does feel like a bit of an uphill struggle at times, but you’re right – it’s only been 4 months and I have to keep remembering that!
Congrats on your success Lizzie! I love that you get so into detail about everything. Guess that’s what one of my guilty pleasures is too, knowing more of the ‘behind the scenes’ of other peoples lives haha.
Mariana recently posted…On Finding A Place To Call Home
Thank you Mariana! I love finding out how other people are getting on so I thought I’d lay it all bare here 🙂 glad you like it!
So glad you posted this! I needed a bit of freelance writing positivity:) I want to build up a portfolio, but I’ve been finding it difficult to get writing jobs (I’ve been working as a freelance editor for a few months). It’s great to see that you’re enjoying it and making a good income, I probably need to try harder!
Thanks Grace! I’d love to get into freelance editing, too, but that seems to be much harder – for me, anyway, it seems! I’d say just keep working at it 🙂 it seems like there’s a lot of bad writing jobs out there (and there are), but there are some diamonds amongst the rough! I’m going to be posting a list of places I hunt for work in the next few weeks, so hopefully that will help out in some way.
It’s so funny because I feel like we’re both on this journey at the same time, going through almost the exact same things! Every day feels different as a freelancer, and although some days it feels like nothing is happening, when you can look back at the end of a month and know that you have enough money to live off and a whole lot of words down on a page, it’s so satisfying! Here’s to many more months and years like these last four (and better, of course!)
Elle Croft recently posted…Grounded: A Short Story
I’m so glad I’m not the only person who feels like this! It’s much better to assess progress at the end of the month, rather than on a day-to-day basis – MUCH more satisfying! Here’s to the crazy (but wonderful) life of being a freelancer 🙂
good for you in pursuing what you want in life!
lisa recently posted…2015: The year of ?
Thanks so much Lisa!
Lizzie, that’s an excellent post! At least, I could relate to it so much and do a bit of comparison in terms of a newbie freelance writer (I know comparing isn’t always right), but in a good way your post made me realize I’m doing pretty great too! I’d love to follow your series and would really appreciate more tips on hunting for adequate (in terms of pay and attitude) clients. Do you find them yourself or work via marketplaces like PeoplePerHour?
P.S. Thanks stopping at my blog. I’m glad I’ve found yours this way!
Elena@Elena’s Travelgram recently posted…How to See the Best of France in Just Two Weeks
Hi Elena! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Glad to hear you’re doing pretty great, too! I’m planning on publishing a post this week about the places I find clients and how I pitch for higher priced work (as you probably know, there’s a LOT of low paying writing jobs out there!). For the most part I use sites like oDesk, Elance, Problogger, Craigslists etc, but I also subscribe to a few newsletters like Brian Scott’s Morning Coffee Newsletter from FreelanceWriting.com.
How do you find your work? I’d like to start looking for my own clients, but at the moment I’m not really sure where to start!
Cool, I definitely look forward to more posts in the series 🙂
Yes, I’m Brian Scott’s newsletter too! He lists quite a lot of decent gigs, yet I haven’t been really lucky to score any so far. So, I had recommendations and referrals from the company I used to work at (and still work for some projects, yet out of office). Also scored a few short term jobs via Odesk, but the competition is really tough. Plus, it takes quite a bunch of efforts to persuade the client you are worth spending extra $ for.
So far, I like PeoplePerHour most as you can create a fixed-price job proposal (say, I’ll write 500 words copy for 35 euro) and let them find you, instead of the opposite. Plus, the jobs listed there are pretty nice too.
Also, I received a few proposals directly from advertisers who either seen my work published somewhere else (like LifeHack.org) or who found my blog directly.
Elena@Elena’s Travelgram recently posted…How to See the Best of France in Just Two Weeks
Looks like you have some great ways for finding jobs! I used to use PeoplePerHour but I found that the pay wasn’t so good – however, I didn’t try posting an ad myself so I think I might give that a go 🙂
I agree that it does take some effort to convince clients to spend a little extra, but I just think that the ones who won’t budge aren’t really worth working for anyway. I’m always pleasantly surprised though when someone happily accepts the higher prices I bid at! That’s always pretty nice 🙂
I’ve had a few reach out directly to me, but I’d like to increase that this year I think (less work for me…!). How did you find getting gigs on LifeHack? Is it easy or does it take some time?
I’ve meant that I’ve joined LifeHack as a contributing writer (a free position) and wrote a few posts that went viral. I got quite a bunch of new readers for my blog and various business reps reaching out to me with different proposals. Not all of them are great of course, but most were really interesting!
And is it worth joining Huffington Post as a contributor? That’s also a free position, right? But did it work as a portfolio for you?
Elena@Elena’s Travelgram recently posted…How to See the Best of France in Just Two Weeks
Ah excellent, I’m going to look into LifeHack 🙂 Yes, HuffPo is a non-paying gig but I see an increase in views/subscribers/followers everytime I post there and I’ve had a few brands reach out after seeing my posts on there so, for the moment, it’s good for me – I’m sure this will change later down the line but we’ll see 🙂
You are lucky to be a writer who travels! I really love to do the thing same as yours. I am a Freelance writer and a Professor in a University and that’s the thing, why I can’t leave. It’s really my passion to do the teaching and writing both. We both have the different aspects and thoughts but we ended the same career, writing. Good to know you survived the ride of the bumpy road of life with your career. Keep it up!
Writing has so many different branches, right?! What do you teach at university?
Thank you for your kind words!
It’s fascinating reading how this is working out for you, especially since I want to move into copywriting and freelance work!
As it happens though, I’m a fiction writer and I’ve got six years experience with self-publishing, so let me know if you have any questions when you want to put your novel out!