Sharon Wu

One way to get a steady income as a freelancer is to go after retainers. This means clients who will pay you $X each month for X amount of work. An example: 4 blogs, $3500/mo You wouldn't go into each month wondering whether you'd be getting work, or how much work you can expect. Secure 3-4 retainers and you won't stress as much about income fluctuation.

No matter how established you are, income fluctuations are normal for business owners. The key is to live below your means and always save as much money as possible on months when you earn a lot so you don't panic as much when dry spells come (trust me, they will!). On slower months, I try to: - Cook and eat in more - Cut down on unnecessary spending like facials, manicures, etc. - Engage in social activities that don't involve spending money (pool days are nice in SoCal!) In the 10 years I've freelanced, I've never regretted living below my means. In fact, it SAVED me when the pandemic hit and I had to pivot in my career.

Project management tools like Trello and Asana can help you stay organized and track progress as you complete projects. I use Trello for myself (managing and tracking personal projects, newsletter content ideas, etc.) and both Trello and Asana for clients with multiple team members. It's a fantastic way to keep everyone in the loop on where things are at, no matter where they're working from. For example, writing projects may be divided into different "phases" like: - Research/ideation - Ready to write - In progress - Team review - Published Each phase can have multiple team members assigned depending on who needs to work on what. I couldn't live without project management tools in my workflow!

Sometimes, clients won't even know they're "scope creeping" until you bring it to their attention. What's worked for me is not only identifying the scope creep but also suggesting specific ways to fix it. For example, if an article has a target word count of 1500 but the content brief calls for 2000-2500 words to provide real depth and value, I would bring that up and either suggest parts that could be streamlined or let them know I could follow the brief as is at the rate of $X. This gives less guesswork to the client, and they can either agree to the reduced scope proposed or pay more for more work.

If you're a freelance writer, remember that clients have hired you for *your* expertise and style. Of course, it's essential to be open to feedback and adapt within reason, especially during the onboarding period. But if you're going months and the partnership constantly experiences bottlenecks due to conflict in writing style, then it's probably not the best fit. Most partnerships will be great, but some won't work out and that's okay. Don't be afraid to walk away from an opportunity that isn't right for you, for a better one that is :)

When you are working with multiple freelance writing clients, things can get overwhelming if you don't have a solid system in place. Personally, I love using Trello (free version suffices) to organize projects by their deadlines. This way, I know which ones I need to prioritize. I submit quality work 1-2 days earlier than promised — it's a practice my clients really appreciate! Pro tip: If your client sends you briefs or any guiding docs via Google Drive, ensure open permissions right away. The last thing you want is to wait until the last minute and find out you can't access them. Then, you'd have to inform your client and wait for access... Depending on how long you've procrastinated, this could lead to you missing deadlines.