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I’d pretty much landed my dream job.
I was a staff writer at a well-read, profitable blog — a role that came with responsibilities and
challenges I loved, as well as loads of cushy benefits. (And no, I’m not just talking it up
because that job happened to be right here at The Penny Hoarder.)
But I’ve always had itchy feet, and the road was calling — as were my aging parents, who
lived a few hours away and could use more help around the house than they were ready to
admit. I wanted to be there for them before that “could use” turned into “needed.”
So when I took a deep breath and hit the send button on my official resignation email in
December 2016, I was more than a little nervous. And not just because was I checking out
of a position that had a lot of promise (and had been a fun way to spend 15 months).
I had no idea what my life as a full-time freelance writer would have in store for me. Well,
besides the promise of working in PJs and yoga pants the vast majority of the time.
Here’s Exactly What I Earned in My First Year as a Freelancer
As it turns out, I was correct on that front… but that was about the only thing I predicted. My
first year as a full-time freelancer came with a lot of surprises, and not all of them were good
ones.
But in the end, I didn’t just survive the W-9 world — I succeeded. I cleared $50,000 in my
first year as a freelance writer and scored more than a dozen new bylines. That’s several
thousand dollars more than I was making while I was working on salary, although it doesn’t
include the benefits I now pay for entirely out of my own pocket, like health care and
retirement.
What I learned along the way is harder to quantify, of course. But for those of you who are
looking to build your own freelance business and are experiencing the same nervous
excitement I did, here’s a quarter-by-quarter breakdown of my earnings — and the evenmore-valuable
insights that came along with them:
Quarter One: $8,298.75*
This isn’t a terrible total, especially since at this point, most of my clients — all four of them
— were either blogs I’d already written for (like, um, this one) or connections I’d made
through my existing network.
I was also working a part-time coffee-shop job for the first couple months, mostly in order to
secure health care, but it soon became an unjustifiable time expense as my web of clients
expanded.
Quarter Two: $14,827.25
Quite a jump, right? In large part, my ability to pull in almost double what I earned in the first
quarter was thanks to a compromise — one I was pretty unsure about at first.
One of my main anchor clients , who paid me ten cents per word for fairly straightforward
copywriting, asked if I’d be willing to write for eight cents per word… but with the assurance
of a certain minimum amount of content each week. In short, I’d be writing more for less
money, but I’d have an all-but-guaranteed, reliable stream of income.
Even with the pay cut, I earned a great deal more from that client in Q2 than in Q1, when
several weeks went by devoid of assignments entirely. I’d also been busy in Q2 pitching
new ideas and outlets — outlets who paid a higher rate per article than most of my existing
contacts. Although I only scored three new bylines, those clients alone accounted for $2,000
of this quarter’s earnings.
Quarter Three: $13,975
Although I earned slightly less than I did in Q2 earnings, by Q3, I was cooking with gas. I’d
taken up some work I hadn’t expected, including retail-website copy and an e-book, and I’d
also garnered exciting bylines with recognizable publications like SELF and VinePair. ( How
to land dreamy publications, you ask? Persistence and thick skin. About 85% of my 2017
pitches were rejected — or ignored entirely.)
Quarter Four: $12,945
Since the anchor client I mentioned above is in the travel and hospitality space, fall and
winter are considered their slow seasons. Thus, my weekly copy quota got cut back a bit. I
wasn’t super pleased to get this news, which came just in time for the holidays… and my
costly, already-booked, months-long overseas sojourn .
But luckily, by this point, I’d built up enough momentum and regular clients to have a solid
base income. In fact, the cutback ended up working in my favor, since I had more time to
explore my foreign destinations.
First-Year Total: $50,046 (!!)
Of course, I didn’t actually have Scrooge McDuck-style stacks to roll around in. Freelance
earnings come in fits and starts and don’t account for taxes, which you need to withhold
yourself.
After paying Uncle Sam his cut — approximately 35% of my gross total including income
and self employment tax , which is slightly more than I’d been taxed as a staffer — my net
income was down to approximately $32,500, about $1,500 of which I stuck directly into my