This income report is going to look a little sad and sparse since I was on maternity leave from October to the end of February. But March brought some new opportunities, even with the coronavirus outbreak.
Going on maternity leave a few months ago, I realized I was starting to burn out from article writing with publications. Making $100-200 apiece was starting to get to me. Some publications were paying a lot more than that, but overall, in 2018 and 2019 I was averaging 15-20 or more pieces a month from $1,000-2,000 and it was hard getting that all done with limited childcare. So while on leave, I started asking myself some questions: What did I want to do? Should I branch out into other areas? Social media management? Content marketing? Web design?
I started sending out emails to healthcare companies. I ended up with two new clients in content marketing. There are a lot of differences in working with businesses versus publications and one of them is being able to have more control of your pay and terms. Now is the perfect time to get into it and gain some knowledge of the world of content marketing.
Along with that, I got a pitch accepted at a big publication and I’m so excited to see it live. I have to write it first so reign it in, Self. But they offered $500 for the piece, and I countered with $550 and they accepted. All in all, it wasn’t a bad month being that I brought in over $1,800 only writing five pieces.
Here is the breakdown from the last three months:
Quarter 1 breakdown
January: $0, articles written: 0
February: $0, articles written: 0
March: $1,825, articles written: 5
Goals for next quarter
I haven’t set any goals for myself for this year because I knew things would be unpredictable with a baby. Now, with coronavirus and social distancing, meaning no daycare or preschool for Olivia for the time being, it’s even more up in the air. Obviously, I’d like to make more than $1,000 for the next quarter, but I have no idea what kind of opportunities are going to come up. All I know is I’m done writing for publications that don’t pay a whole lot. I’ve decided to change how I’m pitching and really try to target the bigger/higher-paying publications while searching for new businesses to work with. Call it an experiment if you will. We’ll see how it goes.
