How I Earned $7,763.53 With 11 Streams of Freelance Writing Income

I began my freelance journey with ambition: I decided to aim for $10k/month of freelance writing income by the end of 2021.

While I’m not there yet, this month was another step towards my goal, and a sign that I’m on the right track. Jumping into freelancing and relying on my freelance writing income has been one of the most terrifying and rewarding journeys of my life. Here’s how that’s played out financially for me, broken down by client type and income stream. I use Clockify to tally the number of hours I spent on these pursuits.

· 1. Myself as a client: $1,610.99  ∘ 1a. My own website.  ∘ 1b. My Patreon.  ∘ 1c. My collaborative newsletter, Write Your future. · 2. My Partners as Clients: $4,495.14  ∘ 2a. Medium  ∘ 2b. YouTube   ∘ 2c. News Break  ∘ 2d. Vocal Media· 3. Direct clients: $1,657.40  ∘ 3a. Client 1.   ∘ 3b. Client 2.   ∘ 3c. Client 3.   ∘ 3d. Client 4.

1. Myself as a client: $1,610.99

I am unusual among other freelancers in that I consider myself a client. I think it makes sense, though: I have my own deadlines, my own goals, my own content calendar to answer for. That’s why I separate my own income out as one of my meta-streams.

I define my own client work as work that I have to make a brief for, create, market, and sell. This includes:

1a. My own website.

Here is where I sell my editing and consulting services: $618.00

1b. My Patreon.

Here, I coach and help encourage a group of writers. This is where I post my successful pitches, answer emailed questions, and conduct monthly Office Hours: $232.59

1c. My collaborative newsletter, Write Your future.

Just one month ago, I and three other writers launched a comprehensive weekly newsletter that cost $10/month. The aim was to answer questions about writing on Medium and in general, from 4 different perspectives of success. It has been an absolute roaring success so far and a ton of fun to boot: $760.40

Altogether, I spent 8.35 hours on myself as a client this month, giving me an hourly rate of $192.93 per hour. Not bad!

2. My Partners as Clients: $4,495.14

The second type of client is one where the money comes from a third party. As an example, I count Medium and YouTube as partner clients. In Medium’s case, the money comes ultimately from the readers who enjoy my stories. On YouTube, it’s the advertisers who buy space on my videos. In both cases, the money is given to me through the partner, but the source is not the partner.

The reason I differentiate is that for this type of freelance income, the rules are different. I’m not writing directly for the people who are paying me, unlike myself as a client, or direct clients, which I will get to in part 3.

I have to create content for an algorithm and the content consumers. It’s a little trickier.

2a. Medium

This month on Medium, I wrote 9 stories that earned money. Medium is one of my favorite partner clients because I’ve been here so long that I know the rules. As a result, I can consistently earn a high income: $3,125.82

2b. YouTube

This is a newer partner client for me, where I’m still learning the best practices. Nonetheless, this month on YouTube I posted 8 full-length videos and 4 live events, resulting in: $368.82

2c. News Break

This is the most unusual of my partner clients. News Break pays me a flat fee of $1000 per month, if I consent to publish three times per week on their platform. This agreement is only good for three months, so I suspect in April I will lose this source of income. Until then, I’m happy to report: $1,000.00

2d. Vocal Media

I had high hopes for Vocal Media as an alternative and partner client for writing. However, after spending much more time and learning much less money, I decided to give it up: $0.50

Altogether, I spent 22.1 hours on my partner clients, giving me an hourly rate of $203.4 per hour.

3. Direct clients: $1,657.40

These are the most typical kind of freelance writing income streams. This month, I doubled my regular clients from 2 to 4, which also slightly grew my income. These are frequently the most straightforward to work for — they give me a brief, which I complete — but they’re unique in that I don’t have much control over the input and outflow of work. If they don’t have work, go bust, or hire someone else, my work slows down. Aside from pitching new clients, my income rests in their hands completely.

3a. Client 1.

I write programming articles for this client: $200

3b. Client 2.

I ghostwrite articles on a number of subjects for this client: $1,197.40

3c. Client 3.

This is an exciting and new opportunity in the B2B marketing sector. I only completed my trial project with them, but I’m excited to see how it progresses: $200

3d. Client 4.

This is a smaller but more consistent digital agency that hired me. The rates are lower, but the work is very easy and fun to complete: $60.

Overall, I spent 11.35 hours writing for these direct clients, giving me an hourly rate of 146.03/hour. I suspect as I grow more familiar with the newer client work, this rate will increase in my favor.

My success as a freelance writer and content creator stems from two things, in my opinion: the diversity and breadth in my clients, and consistently analyzing those to plan ahead for the future.

But success shouldn’t only ever be monetary. While it’s true I earned over $7.5k doing work I absolutely adore, what’s more important to me is that I only spent 41.8 hours working this month, barely 10 hours per week. The rest of the week? I spent it playing video games, chatting with friends, hanging out with my cats, working on my fiction book project and baking choux pastry. I am literally living my best life and getting paid very well to do so.

I love analyzing these months because it reminds me that the life I thought was so far out of my grasp even just five months ago is not only possible, but amazing. Of course there are challenges: I had to learn to invoice; sometimes clients drop me for no reason. Algorithms are fickle. But overall, becoming a freelance content creator has been one of the most rewarding, fulfilling and lucrative moves of my life and I wouldn’t change a thing about it.