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.

It’s a fact. I find it a little difficult to believe that in a few days, my freelance writing career will hit the seven-year mark. It was on January 4, 2014, when I “officially” launched the career by joining an online freelance community. Two years later, in April 2016, I joined another online freelance community and have been working steadily since. While I don’t see as much work as I used to from either of those sources, the exposure brought me in contact with several regular clients over the years. Some of whom I still work for from time to time.

How It Started

Our business was starting to dip at the newspaper my wife and I owned and operated. At the time, Brenda was spending a fair deal of time at her work computer doing not much of anything. She was working half days or not coming into the office at all as she didn’t have much work to do. I remember us talking to an acquaintance a few months before who had indicated that they were making a decent living with online work. I seem to recall this person was providing medical transcription services so one night I started searching for possible solutions for Brenda. I learned that there was a course she could take to become a medical transcriptionist, but it didn’t appeal to her. So I looked for other possibilities. At one point, my search terms changed and I started using the word “freelance.” This is where I started to get some very interesting results. Only now, I was coming across search results that had my interest.

I Took It From There

By this time I was intrigued. I came across several online platforms which offered options for freelance writing from home. I was quite certain that I could do that and I picked one platform that I had never heard of before and posted a very basic profile. My goal at the time was to do some research on the platform but I couldn’t see job listings unless I became a member and had a profile posted. So I did that. I liked what I saw and bid on a few jobs. Within days I got my first freelance writing job. You could say that I got bit by the bug. Within the first few years, I was working on both online platforms and with clients that were referred to me aside from these online sources. It didn’t take me too long to see that I could make a decent part-time income just by being a freelance writer.

September 2016 Changed All Of That

After the first quarter of 2016 was tough on our existing business, Bren and I decided to close the newspaper. At the time, she was spending more time with her home-based business we named JamBusters! and we were on the road most weekends during the warmer months selling her products. We had found an interesting niche and took her “spicy, fruity and (later) boozy” jams and jellies, salsas, and other preserves to nearby communities at local farmer’s/community markets. Both of us enjoyed doing this and saw potential in it becoming a serious venture. Once we closed the newspaper in July 2016, we had to come up with a plan. One morning at the kitchen table we both decided to try to flip our respective hobbies into careers. That was September 2016 when I decided to freelance full-time and Bren decided to can and vend full-time. Neither of us has looked back since.

So, How Did It Work?

Well, that’s a good question. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to find enough freelance writing work to stay busy. As it turns out, I was wrong. There are companies out there that have writers on staff who create content for websites daily. There are also web developers who turn to freelancers to provide web content for their new customers. It turns out that there are very few days that go by where I don’t have at least one job of 1,000-words to complete. As for Bren’s venture, we vend weekly at a location 125-kilometres away from our home and it has been very successful for us. I am at a point in my “new” career that I don’t take every job that comes my way. It’s nice to be at a place where I can pick and choose if I want to. I am also very fortunate to have some very good customers who keep me busy. Most of my work these days goes to a content company in the United States. The balance of my business comes from web developers in the UK and Australia. I have customers in 40+ countries but my regular business is from the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and from one online freelance platform.

How Long Will I Do This?

I don’t have a grand plan. All I know is that as long as I have the interest, I will keep freelancing. I can see it eventually getting cut down to a part-time career, but not anytime soon. I think that’s partly because I’m having so much fun doing what I’m doing and I can see Bren truly enjoys what she is doing. You know what they say. If you have fun doing something, it doesn’t seem like work. And that is probably why I sometimes find it difficult to believe I’m now seven years into my fun hobby-turned-career.

I know I would not be alone in stating that I’ll be happy to see 2020 finally come to an end. It has been one of those years that has impacted all of us in one way or another around the entire planet. COVID-19 is the main issue, in my mind, but I also experienced some serious health issues early in the year that was carried over from late 2019. I’ll be dealing with these well into 2021 but I am much stronger now than I have been so I’m not too concerned about my recovery following my next procedure. I think I can also point to COVID-19 as having an impact on my freelance business. My numbers continue to slowly dip and I think that uncertainty in the online marketplace - where I get all of my writing business - has had something to do with this. Not only are web developers not spending as much on contracting out for services like mine, but some are also switching to creating these things themselves in-house. At least that’s my take on it.

Let’s Look At The Numbers

In December 2020 I completed a total of 14 jobs. That amounted to 36 articles and 34,225 words. Although December does slow down, my stats are not far off of November 2020 (17 jobs, 44 articles, and 31,400 words) and just down slightly more from October 2020 (20 jobs, 49 articles, and 47,500 words). So when I look at the work through comparisons of previous months, the dip is not quite that significant. Maybe this is a sign of stabilization on the horizon. I should point out that during December I did spend some extra time “cleaning up” my Fiverr profile and adding a few new Gigs to my profile there thinking it could generate some more activity. I did get a job out of that so maybe more is on the way. My job split for the month saw 5 of the 14 I completed coming from Fiverr. The remaining 9 jobs, except one of them, were all from regular clients.

Where The Work Came From, What I Wrote About

I saw a slight shift in where my business was coming from this month. I had 6 jobs from Australia and 4 each from the United Kingdom and the United States. The majority of my work during the month came from a contract I have in place with a US-based content service that I have been working for since October 2019. As for topics, December 2020 is another mixed bag of subjects. I wrote about sailing products, healthcare concerns, sports gambling, collectibles, dental care, unusual fonts, how to furnish a man cave, and coin collecting for beginners. With very few exceptions, I have little idea of what sorts of topics I am going to encounter on any given day. I say that this is one of the things I find that makes freelancing so interesting as it is never the same thing two days in a row.

Interesting Developments

One of the regular clients I have has been making good use of my years of experience in the newspaper business. I have rewritten and edited several news releases this past month converting them into 1,000-word articles. It has been a lot of fun to be able to put that skill back to regular use. I suspect that I’ll see several more of these types of jobs from this client in the coming months. I also interviewed for a contributor spot with a US-based firm that has developed a medical device. The interview was just before Christmas break so I may hear more about it early in January and I’ll be able to say more about it at that time. I will say that the firm sought me out after following me on Instagram and liking some of the content I have posted there. The fact that I am a freelance writer made me a bit more attractive prospect.

An Anniversary Coming Up

It will be in early January when I will mark my 7th anniversary as a freelance writer. The time has gone by rather quickly and I have to admit that I have truly enjoyed what I have been doing in this, my third career. I didn’t turn to freelance full-time right away as I was using it at first as more of a side hustle than anything else. However, there was a time when making it a full-time career made sense and it still does. Hopefully, I will be able to continue to write and be in demand for my web content for several more years. And as I have noted above, it will be good to close the door on 2020 and hopefully, the New Year is going to be filled with positive things for all of us.