Break the Feast-or-Famine Freelance Cycle

For weeks, you’re so slammed with work that you hardly have time to eat, sleep, or breathe. And then finally, there’s that feeling of sweet relief after you hit the send button on that last assignment. But suddenly, you realize your calendar has too much white space and you have no work assignments scheduled for weeks.

While you were busy cranking out all those stories and editing those articles, you shoved your marketing efforts to the back burner. Now, you are paying the high price of the feast-or-famine freelance cycle: no work assignments = no money.

Sound familiar? I have yet to meet a freelancer who hasn’t experienced this at least once. But from my observation, successful freelancers eventually learn how to level out that ebb and flow so that there is a steady stream of work flowing in the door at all times.

Some freelancers argue that the feast-or-famine cycle is an inevitable part of freelancing. I disagree. I certainly believe that there are times when work is slower than others. But I do not believe that freelancing has to include a feast-or-famine cycle. And even in this economy, I no longer have periods where I’m sitting completely idle, waiting for the phone to ring or the e-mail inbox to ding.

Here are some strategies that have helped me keep a steady stream of work flowing in at all times:

• Get a gig. I’m a strong believer in the value of working with two or three anchor clients who supply you with steady work every week or month. This can help you manage the lulls and slowdowns, and it also can provide you with some welcome financial stability. Any other assignments you manage to get on top of those regular gigs are just nice extras.

• Market when you’re busiest. After experiencing my first feast-or-famine freelance cycle, I started talking to other more experienced freelancers about how to prevent it from happening again. The best piece of advice I received was from a freelancer who has a lot of national byline credits to her name. She told me to market when I was busiest—even when I felt I couldn’t possibly add one more thing to my to-do list. I still fall short of this goal some weeks. But on my daily to-do list, I always include some marketing activity that involves reaching out to new or existing clients. A typical daily goal for me is to send out two LOIs (letters of introduction) to new editors or potential clients.

• Diversify. I probably sound like a broken record because I’ve mentioned the importance of diversifying several times before. But I don’t think it can be overstated either. If you work with a diverse client base and you do different kinds of work (e.g. writing and editing), you are less likely to experience the famine part of the freelance cycle. For example, when I experience a slowdown in writing assignments, I’ll often see an uptick in the number of copyediting and proofreading projects coming my way.

• Set short- and long-term goals. My immediate goals for today are to finish this post, set up three to four interviews for stories that are due next week, write a story that’s due next Monday, and work on a proofreading project that’s due in mid-January. But my long-term goals are to develop a marketing strategy and business plan for next year, work on my book, and identify a couple of new skills that I’d like to learn to help make myself more marketable. Short-term goals help you hit your deadlines, but you also have to look beyond those to grow your business and take it to the next level. But be sure to break down your long-term goals into small daily tasks that end up on your to-do list.

• Pay attention to the market. Businesses that don’t adapt or change according to market demands, needs, or trends eventually go out of business. Just witness all of the auto suppliers sitting idle and laying off employees right now. If you don’t want to sit idle, it’s imperative that you pay attention to the market and developing trends. Commercial magazines and newspapers are having a tough time right now. I do not do any work for commercial magazines or newspapers at the moment. But if I did, I’d be decreasing my dependence on these markets in a hurry. Take a close look at where the bulk of your income is coming from—if you’re depending on these markets for 10 percent or more of your income, I’d strongly recommend adjusting your strategy and moving in some other directions.

Have I left anything off the list? I’d love to hear about your experiences with the feast-or-famine freelance cycle—especially if you’ve discovered ways to help keep the famine part of the cycle at bay. Please drop me a line below! I’d love to hear all about it!

-Jenny

Photo credit: Hamed Saber (Flickr)