I’ve felt more optimistic about my own freelance writing business and freelancing as a whole in the past six or so weeks than I have in a long time. And my two biggest takeaways from my October State of Freelance Writing Survey backed me up. 

• The majority of writers are on target to make the same or more as 2022 in 2023. 
• Freelancers are more optimistic about the future than we were earlier this year.

The industry has not tanked. We haven’t all lost our jobs. And we have a future as freelance writers. At the beginning of the year, many writers and the media thought things would get worse quickly for writers. And they haven’t. 

Let’s dig into the survey results.

The majority of writers are on target to make the same or more money in 2023

My survey found that 56.5% of writers expect to make the same or more money in 2023 than they did in 2022, which was positive news to me. Based on the media and anecdotal posts, I expected it to be much less.

While it’s easy to blame the 41.4% who are making less this year on ChatGPT and the economy, it’s important to remember that, every year, some writers make less than they did the previous year for a wide range of reasons. I do expect that some of the lower earnings, especially the 21.9% making ‘significantly less,’ are due to these factors. But I don’t think that’s the sole reason. 

Freelancers are more optimistic about the future than earlier this year

The results for this question surprised me. I honestly expected things to get worse before they got better. But writers are feeling more confident than they were in the spring. In my May 2023 survey, 49.7% of writers reported that they were ‘a bit concerned,’ but by October only 43% said that. At the same time, only 32% of writers said that they were optimistic in May, but that number grew to 40% by October. The proportion of writers who are ‘very concerned’ also dropped from 15.4% to 12.1%. 

May 2023 

October 2023

The majority of writers have not lost a client due to ChatGPT

Yes, I know that not all writers know if a client goes away due to ChatGPT or another reason. So it’s possible that this number is higher than reported. But I expect that most writers who suspect ChatGPT was the reason responded yes. And regardless, even if this percentage is a little high, it’s still amazing news for the future of freelance writing.

Most writers have lost at least one client due to the economy

I personally think that a lot of the writers who are lower on income can blame the economy, especially those writers who are doing higher level writing, meaning not SEO type work. I was a bit surprised that 42% of writers haven’t lost a client. But I’m in tech, which has been hit hard by this downturn, so my perspective may be skewed a bit.

The majority of writers complete at least one marketing activity each week

I was happy to see that a very small percentage of writers do no marketing activities on average. But I think that the fact that the majority of writers do less than 10 activities a week means that most of us should get into a better regular marketing habit. 

Referrals are the most effective form of marketing

The responses to this question backs up my personal experience: referrals from writers and clients are the most effective way to get new work. I was happy to see that other writers are also getting LinkedIn leads. I also wanted to point out where LOIs fell in the list – behind referrals but ahead of job ads. 

Who took the survey?

Since a lot of people wanted more demographic information about the respondents after my May survey, I asked more questions this time. While the respondents skewed higher in terms of years freelancing, I was happy to see that the results include a wide range of niches and income levels. 

My final thoughts about the results 

In many ways the results from this survey were very similar to the one in May, which was also very positive. I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out any commonalities between those earning significantly less this year and couldn’t figure it out. I’m going to spend some more time looking into it, but on the surface the niches, hours they work and amount of marketing they did was all over the map. 

Survey respondents shared some really insightful comments, which I’m going to publish in the next week or two. There are quite a few quotations that offer some more details and perspective into what other writers are experiencing. 

What do you think about the survey? Does it back up what you are seeing? Any ginormous surprises?