The reckoning

How bad are times for freelance writers?

At the risk of over sharing, and after spending some time calculating my own revenue for the first half of 2009, my conclusions are: bad, but not as bad as they could be.

Bad, because old clients don’t have as much money to spend. Not as bad as they could be because there are – surprise, surprise – publications of various shapes and sizes out there with money to spend.

Before I get to the numbers, a brief explanation of my writing business. I practice what I call the contributing writer model of freelance writing. For just about as long as I’ve worked as an independent writer, my preferred business model has been to write for a handful of publications – wire services, newspapers, trade magazines and websites – on a regular if not monthly basis. As a former newspaper staff writer it’s what I’m most comfortable with. And it doesn’t require as much marketing effort as constantly sending out letters of introduction and queries to editors I don’t know.

This business model still worked for me in 2008, when my top two clients accounted for 72 percent of my work.

Not so in 2009. In the first six months of the year, work from my two biggest clients fell 39 percent and 71 percent respectively. Ouch and double ouch. Work for a few other regulars stayed steady or increased slightly.

My saving grace: work from new clients, a handful of publications I hadn’t worked for before, which increased 89 percent during the first six months of the year. It wasn’t enough to completely make up the difference, leaving me with a 15 percent decline in revenue for the first half of the year. Not great, but compared to GM, none too shabby either.

Until I did these calculations I didn’t realize how much I needed to innovate and beat the bushes for new relationships. Although it takes me out of my comfort zone – and really, who likes that? – it’s obviously something I must do, and in fact, have already begun. In the past several weeks, I’ve nabbed my first assignment from a national writers’ magazine, and am waiting to hear back from an organization that could throw some interesting work my way.

There’s an upside to pushing beyond the familiar. If and when things get better and work picks up from my old standbys, I’ll have my pick of assignments. If it doesn’t, I’ve cultivated a crop of what I hope will be my new regulars.

What have you learned about your own freelance business this year?

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• Analyze where the year's freelance work came from
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