After completing a freelance writing assignment, I'm out to explore to clear my head. Here I am at a historic railway tunnel located two blocks from my home.
I get it. Not everyone understands what it is I do. As a freelance writer, I write blogs, articles, and product descriptions for other website owners, it is not what many in my circle seem to have a very good grasp on. It’s okay. I know it is not what would be considered a traditional nine-to-five kind of gig, but it happens to be the kind of gig that fits into my life perfectly. As a result, there happen to be several cool benefits to doing what I do. Here is my list of the benefits of freelance writing.
1 - Low Overhead (Compared To Traditional Job Settings)
Sure, we converted the majority of our upstairs into a home office but I don’t have to pay rent like I would if I had an office downtown or shared a space somewhere else. That also means that the household utilities and additional living expenses are not issues my home-based freelance writing business has to be concerned about. Essentially, my costs are my computer, internet access, paper, and time. Hey, from where I’m sitting, I can’t think of many startups that can be launched so easily and cheaply.
2 - I Can Turn Down Business (If I Want To)
At first, I said “no” to no one. That was back in January 2014 and for most of the first few years, I was on this freelance writing adventure. I knew that as a newbie, I wasn’t in the proper position to be picky about the types of jobs that came my way. So I did them all. Now that I have several hundred completed writing jobs under my belt, I have gotten picky. Not too picky, mind you. But just picky enough to say no to those jobs that sound like things I don’t want to be associated with even without a byline.
3 - It Has Allowed Me To Build On My Writing Experience
Before I had launched my freelance writing career, the majority of my writing revolved around poetry, short stories, news copy, and advertising copy. Switching to writing blogs, web articles, and product descriptions was well, quite an interesting challenge. I think what I found to be the most challenging of all was the need to incorporate keywords, long-tail keywords, and hyperlinks into web content. Today, I am a lot better at that part and clearly, that has come from doing it more often.
4 - Project Diversity (It’s Not Just Blogs That I Write)
One of the most interesting things about freelance writing to me is the spectrum of topics and projects I get to work on. As a ghostwriter, my name does not appear on probably 95% of the content I have produced for others. While that has never been an issue to me, what it means is that I have articles, blogs, and product descriptions I have written that have been posted on hundreds of different websites around the world. And the topics are always changing which keeps it interesting.
5 - My Talents End Up Helping Other Web Entrepreneurs
Another cool benefit of freelance writing is that I can assist other website developers in having new content for their projects. This is where a lot of my new business comes from. I’ll provide content for one web owner who will refer me to another and that web owner will refer me to one more and so on. It’s how I’ve picked up some regular clients over the years. I know how much they appreciate the new content I provide so I have no problem working hard to help them become successful online.
6 - If You Do It Right, It Can Pay The Bills
I started freelancing in January 2014, as noted above. I became a full-time freelance writer in September 2016. Both my wife and I had “side hustles” we were dabbling in while operating a traditional storefront business. We closed that business in July 2016 and flipped our hobbies into new careers. It has been good for us. It also has provided both of us with a decent income. We were lucky that the hobbies we had fit into today’s gig economy and have a strong supply and demand ratio.
Here’s The “And More” Part - A Review Of January 2021
Well, I have to admit that January 2021 was a little busier than I thought. Following a dip in business in December 2020, I was hoping to see an increase of some kind rather than another dip. That’s the thing with this business - you never really know what to expect from one month to the next. That is also something that keeps it interesting to me. I rarely write about the same things every day with each week having some similarities but for the most part, each day is a bit of an adventure for me. And I like it.
A Look At The Numbers
For January 2021 I completed a total of 14 jobs which included 38 articles and a total word count of 26,800. Compared to previous months, my job count of 14 matched that of December 2020 and was just down slightly from November 2020 where I had 17 jobs. As for article count, January 2021 was up from 36 in December and down from 44 in November. Word count was off a bit coming in below the 34,225 of December and 31,400 of November. Overall, I basically matched the job and article totals of December so there wasn’t a drop anything like there was from November to December. Hopefully, this is a sign of things picking up. I know I did get a few jobs from clients I haven’t worked for in a while so that could mean that some web developers are getting back on track after COVID slowed everything down online.
Where The Work Came From
I didn’t realize that I didn’t see work from very many places in January 2021 until I looked at my list. I saw 9 jobs from the United States, 4 from Australia, and one from the United Kingdom. I had a total of 2 jobs that came to me from Fiverr and ended up writing a total of 21 different articles for a web content company I have been working for since mid-2019. As for what I have been writing about in the past month, the topic list continues to be a wide variety of things. In no particular order, my topic list included articles on drones, online advertising, SEO, dentures, humidifiers, online gambling, restaurant reviews, technology, socks, and healthcare. To find out what I’m writing about today, you can follow me on my Facebook Page.
1 - Low Overhead (Compared To Traditional Job Settings)
Sure, we converted the majority of our upstairs into a home office but I don’t have to pay rent like I would if I had an office downtown or shared a space somewhere else. That also means that the household utilities and additional living expenses are not issues my home-based freelance writing business has to be concerned about. Essentially, my costs are my computer, internet access, paper, and time. Hey, from where I’m sitting, I can’t think of many startups that can be launched so easily and cheaply.
2 - I Can Turn Down Business (If I Want To)
At first, I said “no” to no one. That was back in January 2014 and for most of the first few years, I was on this freelance writing adventure. I knew that as a newbie, I wasn’t in the proper position to be picky about the types of jobs that came my way. So I did them all. Now that I have several hundred completed writing jobs under my belt, I have gotten picky. Not too picky, mind you. But just picky enough to say no to those jobs that sound like things I don’t want to be associated with even without a byline.
3 - It Has Allowed Me To Build On My Writing Experience
Before I had launched my freelance writing career, the majority of my writing revolved around poetry, short stories, news copy, and advertising copy. Switching to writing blogs, web articles, and product descriptions was well, quite an interesting challenge. I think what I found to be the most challenging of all was the need to incorporate keywords, long-tail keywords, and hyperlinks into web content. Today, I am a lot better at that part and clearly, that has come from doing it more often.
4 - Project Diversity (It’s Not Just Blogs That I Write)
One of the most interesting things about freelance writing to me is the spectrum of topics and projects I get to work on. As a ghostwriter, my name does not appear on probably 95% of the content I have produced for others. While that has never been an issue to me, what it means is that I have articles, blogs, and product descriptions I have written that have been posted on hundreds of different websites around the world. And the topics are always changing which keeps it interesting.
5 - My Talents End Up Helping Other Web Entrepreneurs
Another cool benefit of freelance writing is that I can assist other website developers in having new content for their projects. This is where a lot of my new business comes from. I’ll provide content for one web owner who will refer me to another and that web owner will refer me to one more and so on. It’s how I’ve picked up some regular clients over the years. I know how much they appreciate the new content I provide so I have no problem working hard to help them become successful online.
6 - If You Do It Right, It Can Pay The Bills
I started freelancing in January 2014, as noted above. I became a full-time freelance writer in September 2016. Both my wife and I had “side hustles” we were dabbling in while operating a traditional storefront business. We closed that business in July 2016 and flipped our hobbies into new careers. It has been good for us. It also has provided both of us with a decent income. We were lucky that the hobbies we had fit into today’s gig economy and have a strong supply and demand ratio.
Here’s The “And More” Part - A Review Of January 2021
Well, I have to admit that January 2021 was a little busier than I thought. Following a dip in business in December 2020, I was hoping to see an increase of some kind rather than another dip. That’s the thing with this business - you never really know what to expect from one month to the next. That is also something that keeps it interesting to me. I rarely write about the same things every day with each week having some similarities but for the most part, each day is a bit of an adventure for me. And I like it.
A Look At The Numbers
For January 2021 I completed a total of 14 jobs which included 38 articles and a total word count of 26,800. Compared to previous months, my job count of 14 matched that of December 2020 and was just down slightly from November 2020 where I had 17 jobs. As for article count, January 2021 was up from 36 in December and down from 44 in November. Word count was off a bit coming in below the 34,225 of December and 31,400 of November. Overall, I basically matched the job and article totals of December so there wasn’t a drop anything like there was from November to December. Hopefully, this is a sign of things picking up. I know I did get a few jobs from clients I haven’t worked for in a while so that could mean that some web developers are getting back on track after COVID slowed everything down online.
Where The Work Came From
I didn’t realize that I didn’t see work from very many places in January 2021 until I looked at my list. I saw 9 jobs from the United States, 4 from Australia, and one from the United Kingdom. I had a total of 2 jobs that came to me from Fiverr and ended up writing a total of 21 different articles for a web content company I have been working for since mid-2019. As for what I have been writing about in the past month, the topic list continues to be a wide variety of things. In no particular order, my topic list included articles on drones, online advertising, SEO, dentures, humidifiers, online gambling, restaurant reviews, technology, socks, and healthcare. To find out what I’m writing about today, you can follow me on my Facebook Page.
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