Eliminating Freelance Feast and Famine
July 10, 2006 by Anne Wayman
Filed under Jobs
Although there are real advantages to freelance writing, there are also some problems. The biggest is the feast or famine nature of the work flow. There are several approaches, including:
- Residual income from book and other royalties, web site affiliate income and the like. The goal is here is to continue to earn income from work already done.
- Regular gigs – work that is performed weekly or monthly or some other repeating and predictable fashion.
- Savings to fill in the gaps.
There are challenges to each approach. For example, royalty income tends to taper off over time; building affiliate income takes time and often, at least some investment.
Regular gigs eat into time for larger projects or personal writing. A regular gig probably pays at least some less than then the rate you charge for one-time projects. Under earning is the risk.
Savings disappear in a hurry if you’re not careful and paying close attention to your marketing.
It really takes balancing all these elements and paying close attention to the actually flow of your earning and spending. Unless, of course, you’ve got a private income ;)
I’d love to hear your experiences with the feast and famine phenomenon of freelance writing.
Write well and often,
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It seems like the harder I work to find work, the more work finds me. When I say, “Man, I need to get another project lined up,” but don’t actually do anything about it, I just get stressed out. But when I make marketing a piece of my daily routine, my work stays pretty consistent. Because I have several ongoing regular gigs, I don’t experience total famine too often, just some slow times. But man, occasionally when my inbox is already full, I get slammed and end up having to turn work away. I love those times because it reinforces my believe that freelancing is what I’m supposed to be going and because it gives me the opportunity to share the wealth with my freelance friends, but I hate having to wave goodbye to several thousand dollars and in one shot. :]
Kristen
Love your attitude Kristen…