Honestly, I had no idea I was having a good month. I thought it was low, like $10 to $12K. That was until I added it up and realized I actually had the best month of the year so far. And then I was thrilled. 

I’m so glad that everyone finds these useful (check out January and February if you missed those posts). Occasionally I hear from someone who feels discouraged reading about my high earnings. That makes me sad. I share this to let other writers know what’s possible. I started 15 years ago with no clips and no connections, and I was writing for content mills. If I can do this, anyone can do it.

In full disclosure, my earnings for this post only include earnings from writing projects, not from my “Using AI Writing Tools to Improve Your Productivity” course or my book royalties. I also do not subcontract out any writing, just a few nonwriting tasks, which I explain below. 

Here is how the month looked for me:

Agency A
Project 1
$1500
2 750-word articles (no interviews)

Each of these took me two to three hours, which turned into a great hourly rate. This is a semi-regular client that I got through a referral from a writer friend last year. I did a lot of work for them in the fall and then it’s been sporadic this year. However, I got these two projects with a different client by reminding my contact of my other niches and keeping in touch. This reminds me to reach back out to her!

 

Agency B
Project 1
$2550
3 850 words articles (no interviews)

These take me about two to three hours as well. I have my VA do the research and then I write the story, saving a lot of time. One of these got returned for revisions, which was the first time out of like 50 (more on that later). 

Project 2
$1500
Webinar

This is for the same agency and has been dragging on forever. The whole project is $2000, so I will put in the last $500 when I actually moderate the webinar. For the $1500 so far, I’ve had a kick off call, created six questions for the webinar, conducted an interview and wrote a script from the transcript. I’ve spent eight hours so far on it. 

I’ve now created and moderated three webinars and writing this reminds me that I need to add this service to my LinkedIn profile. I LOVE doing this type of work and think it’s a great place to expand since AI writing tools can’t take over webinars no matter how advanced they get. 

Project 3
$3500
3000-word e-book 

I’ve been working on this project for about a year and have really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, it’s going to end in April. Darn, it’s been a great source of work. I got this e-book because a last-minute project came up and my editors know I love last-minute work. I spent 30 minutes creating an outline and then about eight hours writing it and making revisions, which turned into an hourly rate of over $400. It was pretty quick because I’ve done so much work for the client and know the topic backwards and forwards. 

Project 4
$3810
8 400-to-700-word articles (no interviews)

This is for another anchor client (IBM Security Intelligence blog) and one of my favorite projects. These take me between one to three hours. I get a lot of referral work from these pieces because it’s a well-known industry publication and I will share my posts on LinkedIn. While these do require pitching, it’s just two or three sentences and I use my VA to come up with the ideas. This project is a little lower paying than some of the others but I find that the clips from this high-profile publication keep me up to date in a high-paying niche of cybersecurity, so it’s well worth the trade-off

Agency C
$1500

500-word profiles 

This is a large project of interviewing agencies and writing profiles of agencies who won a big award. They are 500 words, 1 15-minute interview and take me about one to two hours each. The rate is $300 per profile so I earn $150-300 an hour from each one. Also, last year I got work from two of the agencies profiled and another project from the agency that gives the awards, making it a great marketing opportunity. I landed this project last year as a referral from another writer. Because the profiles spanned March and April, I put half in March and half in April. 

Agency D

$1800 Case Study
$400 Infographic

This agency found me over LInkedIn. It took me 6 hours for both, which was a good hourly rate. However, the agency’s client changed their mind and wanted something pretty different. Thankfully the agency had my back and gave me more money. This project continues into April so I’ll share more about it on my next post. The good thing is the agency hired me for another project as well, so they are turning into a good client for me.

Direct Company 1

$750

750-word article (no interview)

This client found me on LinkedIn. As I always do, I did only a small project and it went okay. But I got a lot of revisions, the tone isn’t my natural one and the subject matter was out of my wheelhouse. I could have continued. But it would never have become a project where I was their favorite go-to freelancer. It wasn’t a disaster, but it wasn’t a great match. So I told them so and walked away. It was a bit hard, but I had to remind myself that I am in a position in my career where I only want to take projects where I’m going to really succeed. 

Total Earnings for March = $17,310

Expenses

My expenses were about the same as last month: $1000 for my proofreader and $750 for my virtual assistant. I also spent $104 on human transcription for two articles with sources that were too technical to use AI-generated transcription or had strong accents making AI transcription not a good option. 

With expenses, my total was $15,440. But without outsourcing these tasks my total would have been hundreds of dollars lower due to the amount of time I would have spent. 

The Good and The Bad

I’ve been finding the process of thinking about what worked and what didn’t each month to write these posts to be very helpful. And I’ve already made changes in my business because of taking the time to think about it regularly. I highly recommend that each of you try to do the same. It’s so easy to miss little things that we can change that actually make a big difference in either or stress or income – or both. 

What worked this month:

• Taking bigger projects. One of the reasons I was surprised at my total was that I worked on several bigger projects, including a webinar, case study and whitepaper. All three of these projects earned a high hourly rate and were a lot of fun. I think this is a large part of the reason why my earnings were higher than I expected. 
• Being flexible/taking last-minute work. The $3500 eBook was a very last-minute project that I did in a few days as was the case study. I am a procrastinator so I do better with last-minute work and I actively let clients know I’m available for last-minute projects. And it works for me. The key is letting your clients know projects that you are uniquely qualified or wiling to take that others might. I tell every single client to call me if they ever get a day or two turn around. 
• Asking for work. Previously I was only getting 1 story a month with Project 1 from Agency B and I asked for more, resulting in three this month. I am also positive that I wouldn’t have gotten the $1500 from agency A if I hadn’t stayed in touch. I honestly think that keeping in touch with clients is my most successful marketing technique. Editors are busy and if they know you are likely to say yes because they heard from you yesterday then they will reach out to over others. 
• Taking work that is a fit. I had no disasters this month like last month. And I was very careful to think about my strengths when saying yes. I even turned down a project that was a financial audience. Hopefully my stress from February will cure me once and for all. 
• Walking away from a client where I am not going to be a favorite freelancer. There is a big difference between a client that is a disaster for you and one that you just aren’t going to be their best freelancer ever. It was really hard to walk away from Direct Company 1. But I am now trying to take clients where I am such a fit in every way that I will be their favorite freelancer or at least ONE of their favorites. These are the clients from whom I earn the most money because I get more work and I feel the most fulfilled. I will have to say that it’s really hard to walk away in these cases, but I did it. And I hope to keep doing it. 

What didn’t work:

• Taking in 12 dogs in 10 days. This was a hard month for me. And the biggest reason was that our rescue helped with a hoarding case and I took 12 dogs into my foster homes in a little over a week. While they are not in my home, I manage their vetting, help the foster families, coordinate transportation, write their bios, and find their new families. I try to have about 8 dogs that I’m responsible for, but I got up to 17 dogs in my foster homes this month. There were many nights I had to work late this month because I said yes to too many dogs. But it’s worth the late hours when I see the pictures of them in their forever homes. While this was an emergency, I need to work on keeping a better balance. 
• Not taking my vacation time. Because of all the work and the dogs this month, I found myself scrambling at the end of the month. I went with my husband on a golf tournament he was playing and I planned to explore the area while he played. But I didn’t. I worked the whole time he played and then explored with him. We are doing another golf trip this month and I’m going to do a better job of taking some time off. 
• Wasting my mornings. I am the biggest time waster in the mornings, especially if I am trying to write a draft. I do so much better with writing in the evenings. I need to do a better job of either figuring out a way to focus on writing better in the morning or reorganizing my tasks based on my productivity. 
• Not hiking or kayaking. Last summer and fall I did a great job of hiking or kayaking several times a week during the day. But I have not made time for that lately. And I miss it. I have signed up for a Meetup hike this week and a kayak next week and I’m not going to cancel, no matter what.
• Too much work from one agency. Yes, I said this last month and it got even worse this month. But one of the projects with agency B is ending. While I will miss the income, it’s a good reason to find more projects with either new clients or other agencies. 

How the First Quarter Went 

• Total Earnings for January 2023: $14,950
• Total earnings for February 2023: $15,050 
• Total earnings for March 2023:  $17,310

First quarter 2023: $47,310

I’m very pleased with this total. It puts me almost at a $190k prediction for the year, which is my target. $180K is my minimum goal, $190k is my target and $200 is my stretch goal. However, this does not include my earnings from the course, which was very successful for me.  

How is April Looking 

April has been on the slower side. And that’s OK. I’m tired. And even though the course doesn’t fall into my monthly writing earnings, it still takes time. Plus I had some family issues come up and I needed to be there for one of my kids, which took a lot of time and energy. And that’s OK. Not to mention that was my original “why” for freelancing – being there for my kids. And the 12 dogs I took in March into the rescue are now looking for homes, which has been a lot of work as well. 

I also plan to take the full week off work as much as possible when I’m in Florida late next week. I had several projects that should kick off anytime and I would love to get them finished in April, but we will see if that happens. But expect to see a lower total when I do this post for April and May, which is absolutely fine with me. 

Any questions for me about my month? How was your March? How’s April going?