Freelancers: Your Writing is Your Job
- by Alex
- in Freelance Writing
- posted October 20, 2014
If there is one unifying trait that I come across more often than any others, it is that freelance writers tend to treat their work as a hobby or something that they do in their free time rather than treating writing as their job. The issue here, of course, is that writing is their job. As soon as you make the decision that you want to be paid for your work, you should immediately shift your mentality from “hobby” to “job”. Like it or not, you have become a business owner; it is time to start acting like one.
So what does this mean for the average writer out there? “Your writing is your job” means the following:
- You need to have set rates and you need to stick to them (within reason).
- You need to have set hours and you need to stick to them.
- You need to have a professional portfolio and a website in addition to multiple methods of contact available to clients and potential clients.
- You need to take care of yourself and avoid taking things personally.
The above, obviously, are just the basics. Having set hours, for instance, is simply something that anyone who owns a business must do. Your business and your life are simply not the same thing, so don’t make the mistake of combining them. If you are checking your email right before you go to bed and you are checking it again right when you wake up, something is horribly wrong. Personally, I don’t check my work email or speak with any clients (outside of a small handful of close friends who I do work for) outside of the hours between 10am and 5pm. This is just something I have decided I will implement. Now, I will occasionally do work outside of that time frame, but I do not feel obligated to do it and I make that clear to the clients right off the bat.
Taking care of yourself is another important point. Your health is your #1 priority. When you work for yourself it is extremely easy to become depressed, lonely, or question the sanity of the decisions that you have made. This is a byproduct of not being around others as much. For writers, a lot of the issues arise from the fact that you are spending a huge majority of your time locked down to a computer in a room (probably with closed doors and windows). Throw the door open. Throw the window open. Get some sunlight. Try out the Pomodoro Technique and stick to your times. Your productivity will increase. Eat well, cut out the junk, go for a walk every now and then. When you are on a break, get up and walk around. You will feel infinitely better and your writing will improve as a result.
Honestly if you follow these basics and act professionally, you will have no problem finding and keeping clients, assuming your work is up to par. None of them are difficult to implement either, so it pays dividends to do so. Give it a try.
If anybody is interested, I can post a sample routine for a freelancer which will get you going, though it may be a better idea to simply make your own routine. The key is sticking to it once you have made it. Just remember that, once you have crossed that boundary and begin to charge for your work, your writing is your job.
