How Much Do You Earn as a Freelance Writer?

According to the US Department of Labor, the average freelancer makes less than $10,000 per year. The question is, are you average, or are you above average? Personally, I pull in between $50,000 – $70,000 a year in writing. Do you want to know how I do it?

Start with Content Mills

I have written for Demand Studios since 2008. I specialize in the real estate genre and home improvement areas. For each 400 word story, I make $15 – $16. I start by writing 10 articles per day at $15.

15 x 10 = $150/day

Move to Assignments

After I finish my content factory articles, I move on to my assigned columns for Yahoo, or assignments from private clients. I write 3 per day. For these, I earn $15 – $60, in addition to residual payments for page views.

15 x 3 = $45/day

Move to Constant Content

Then I write a few public calls for constant content. I know that one of these, if not more, will be picked up for publication, at a price tag of $30 a piece.

1 x 30 = $30/day

If you have been following the math so far, you will note that I am up to $225 per day. Working 5 days per week, 52 weeks out of the year, that is a gross income of $58,500, and it is done quite easily. The secret to writing and publishing a lot of quality pieces quickly is establishing a work flow. This is going to endure trial and error for most of you-it did for me-until you are happy with it.

Change it Up

Every once in awhile I change things up. I shake up some of the websites I write for, to keep it entertaining and my published work varied. I spend an hour or so each day promoting my work to Facebook, Twitter, Linked in and social book marking sites. This helps break the monotony throughout the day, not to mention that social networks can add a lot of insight and content by way of the users.

Freelancers need to keep daily, weekly and monthly writing goals. After that, measure those goals to examine the success of the planning. In doing this, you can plan on earning a lot more than $10,000 a year, and you can do it in your pajamas.