The Good and Bad about Freelance Writing
Many people consider freelance writing as a dream job because it can give them the freedom from their day jobs. It also gives them the flexibility of time to work on their projects. Like other professions, freelance writing can also bring drawbacks to your life, profession and finances if you don’t manage it carefully. It carries good and bad characteristics that can either make or break you as a career person.
Here are some the good and bad about freelance writing:
The Good
1. It makes your schedule flexible.
In freelance writing, no other person or entity controls your time because you are your own boss. It gives you the flexibility to work anytime, anywhere as long as your computer and Internet connection works.
2. It allows you to have lots of clients, and you can walk away from any one who you can’t get along well with.
When you are tied to a day job, you have a big chance of coming across a boss who can make your life in your workplace hard and miserable. But if you are working as a freelance writer, you have the privilege of working with many clients and you can choose the ones who work well with you, and drop those who can put you down.
3. You have the potential to earn unlimited income.
Freelance writing is a very rewarding career to serious and highly skilled individuals. It gives them the potential to earn unlimited amount of cash. It is not like working for a company in which you are paid a fixed amount for your work.
4. It allows you to take sole responsibility for your own success.
In freelance writing, you don’t have a boss or a supervisor who evaluates your performance and determines if you are fit for promotion or a raise. It is the quality of your work, your relationship with your clients, your connections, and your work ethics that make you succeed, and you are solely responsible for it.
The Bad
1. It can take over your life if you allow it.
If you are in a rush to earn so much in a short period of time, chances are you will be accepting more projects than you can normally handle. This in turn will make you work longer hours with little rest in between. You should remember that writing is a job that requires you to think while you work. You need to spend more mental energy with it than routine jobs. And it has a tendency to burn you out.
2. You can come across clients that are hard to please.
Even if you think you can write very well and can follow instructions to the letter, there are just some clients who are hard to please. These are the ones who keep on asking you to rewrite some articles that you have submitted, even if they haven’t really told you what they wanted in the first place.
3. Its hard to find clients who are willing to pay the price that you deserve.
There are a few clients who are willing to pay reasonably for quality work. But what’s sad about it is there are plenty, in fact a majority of them who expect you to work for pennies. It’s hard to find clients who are willing to offer a reasonable fee for a project.
4. It makes you accountable for your own failure.
Since you are working for yourself, you will have no one to blame if you fail. Success in freelance writing comes from diligence, determination, commitment and self-discipline.
This means that as a budding freelancer, you need to focus on your work and accomplish every project without missing deadlines. Freelance writing success calls for a lot of sacrifices, and you should go through them if you are determined to succeed.