As part of an email to a friend yesterday, I had come up with some conditions that needed to be met before one could survive as a full-time freelance writer and/or editor. It seemed like it’d make a good blog post so I thought I’d put it up and expand on it. As someone who has been a full-time freelancer, I think I’m suitably qualified to have come up with this list. To earn enough to survive, i.e. pay for transport, food, phone bills, insurance, entertainment (movies, restaurants etc) etc, I’ve concluded that you’ll need to have/do the following.
1. Have a spouse who earns a stable income enough to feed the family on one salary. What you earn as a freelancer will be used to cover the costs of cheap stuff like groceries, the occasional eating out and things like movies.
2. Have at least 20 work contacts you can tap on for gigs.
3. Have at least ten jobs that you know you get to do monthly. e.g. sub-editing for a monthly magazine(s) or writing a column for a monthly newsletter/magazine.
4. Live at home and don’t have to pay rent. (Either have this or Condition 1 above)
5. Don’t have a mortgage, car, student or other major loans to pay off.
6. Be willing to work round the clock, i.e. over nights, weekends and public holidays.
7. Be very good with budgeting and keeping aside an emergency pool of money every month because many clients won’t pay on time. (That said, you should be doing this even in a full-time job but it’s all the more crucial when one’s freelancing!)
8. Be thick-skinned and willing to chase for payment. So you’d have to be really organised and meticulous with the recording of invoices you issue.
9. Be thick-skinned and promote yourself to whoever you meet. Shove your namecard in people’s faces.
10. Be extremely disciplined with your time. No watching TV or napping when working from home.
Ostensibly I’m hardly accomplished in any of the above which kinda explains why I am where I am. 😐