2018 Freelance Income Report: Q4

With Olivia in daycare three days a week, I thought I could wrap up those three days in a nice little package of writing work. I thought for sure that would leave me four other days of non-work, and that turned out to NOT be true. Working for yourself means there is no boss. There’s no going into the office. There are no set work hours you’re tied to. It means a ton of flexibility, even if that means writing an article at 10:00 at night from your couch while keeping an eye on The Great British Baking Show. It means writing an email while your kid is eating breakfast and conducting an interview with a source while hitting the mute button periodically while miming to your three-year-old to go back to the couch and watch TV for one more minute so help me while Mom’s on the phone. It’s not easy. But it’s been a crazy wild year.

Q3 Income Report: Possibly written while binging on Grey’s Anatomy (again)

This quarter saw another massive growth in income, confidence and new clients. In October I had a phone call with Modern Fertility, to do some content writing for their site. In November, after starting to branch out with content writing clients, I got another content gig with a genetics client, writing 5 pieces a month for their blog. This was a major client and one that would make up the vast majority of my income. December brought my highest monthly income yet.

Here’s what each quarter has brought in:

Quarter 1:
Pitches sent: 58
Articles written: 27
Income total: $2,970

Quarter 2:
Pitches sent: 68
Articles written: 48
Income total: $5,795

Quarter 3:
Pitches sent: 69
Articles written: 47
Income total: $6,609

Quarter 4:
Pitches sent: 3
Articles written: 26
Income total: $8,925

Gross Annual Income: $24,299

When I first started out the year, I wanted to make $1,000 a month. I thought that was lofty. For years, I was freelancing with Mom.me and then with FertilitySmarts making $500-600 a month and was feeling completely inadequate about sending pitches to other publications. But as I started doing it, the high of a pitch being accepted became a huge motivator. Even the rejections were still encouraging me to try again, send more pitches. By March, I surpassed $1,000 and then the next month, I was making over $2,000. And then in November, I hit over $3000 and topped almost $4500 in December. Mid-year, I made it a goal to hit $20,000 and I surpassed that.

Recently, I started taking my business more seriously. Where I used to think of my writing as “something to do whenever I can to make some side income” has become “my business.” I’m putting together a plan for 2019 and have business cards made up. I’m so excited where this could go for me. Back in 2014, when I was contacted by an editor of a parenting site, asking if I was interested in writing for their site, I had no idea what my life would blossom into.

So what’s in store for next year?

I made over $24,000 this year. Next year I’m going to shoot for $45,000. That averages to $4,000 a month. Is it possible? Probably. Maybe. I don’t do this full time and I’m highly distracted, but there it is. We’ll see how it pans out.