Freelancing 101

Media Bistro has a discussion going about the merits and challenges of freelancing—the initial question being, “How long does it take to succeed at freelancing?” The discussion deals with how to get started, the benefits of a specialty, the income you might likely make, and how to manage getting gigs.

I would add:

• The Internet makes my specialty—health and medical writing—far more possible than it would have been even ten years ago. I can find medical research that would have been inaccessible to me because I do not live in a city with a medical research university or center.

• The Internet also improves access to experts. I can find emails for major researchers, give them my pitch by email, and add a spiel about my own university experience, which gets some of them to talk with me, as most have some sort of university connection. They can also Google me. One health researcher recently told me he turns down most media requests, but I looked like I knew my way around. He might have meant I looked old, who knows. Still, a well-crafted email with biographical information, which is what I send, can do wonders for access. Far better than a phone message that is by nature pretty abrupt. Of course, some folks still do not use email, so that means I have to develop a well-crafted phone spiel.

• Gizmos like Skype make international calling cheap and easy. You sound a little like Darth Vader, but people in New Zealand are usually understanding when you explain you are calling on your computer. You can even record your conversations.

• It is really easy to get lazy. I have a home office and I get myself in here every morning just like a real job. The afternoon is easy to fritter away, though, especially if I go out to lunch. Still, I am sort of retired, so I think I should have that latitude. But I still feel lazy.

• It is far easier to take good care of yourself when you are your own boss—usually. I get in my daily yoga and my daily walks, and it is easier to schedule around myself than to work around meetings and office hours and other things that require you to be at an office in nice shoes.

• I do sort of complain now when I have to “dress up” to jeans instead of my usual sweats.

• It can be difficult to balance the too-busy times, especially if you get assignments you really want to do. I have had a couple of months that were a tad stressful, but that was because I had a problem magazine I was working with, not because I was working a lot of stories. I dumped the magazine and lost that stress. And $2000 a story. So I have a hole to fill in, or a budget to realign. That’s no way to get to Machu Picchu. But the stress of the magazine was more than I thought was healthy. (Bad editor, bad planning, bad editing, slow payment.)

• I feel less isolated now that the weather is nice. Cabin fever can be a double-whammy when you are in an office with you alone.

• If you spend too much time writing things that you do not enjoy—things that just pay the bills—you might want to reconsider your approach. Good freelancers are strategic—working their way bit by bit to the types of assignments that challenge and reward them with more than just money.

• You have to be your own IT person.  I have a son, daughter and son-in-law who introduced me to Skype and got me started with some cool electronic stuff and who can help me with my random, "What the #@!%$#! is going on" sorts of problems.  And I am in awe of the Apple geniuses at our local Apple store.   Still, nothing can match having the IT guy come in and just fix what you need while you go out for a cup of coffee.