What I Learned as a Freelance Writer: The Ups and Downs

There was a time when I was young. Fresh out of high school. Got into a job I hated. Felt like I was top dog, all while being a bottom bitch. It was a rough time, but not too rough. It was like getting choked by small hands with rheumatism, uncomfortable but not in any danger.

Around that time, I started getting into freelance writing, started getting gigs on sites like Fiverr and Upwork. Now, when I say gigs, I mean very few. I lucked out and got a couple that paid well. Small things I could do in a day or a week and make money on the side. But I gave into sin, I gave into the greed. It was like when you give a kid a nickle and they think they can buy a house, I had no idea what was around the concept of the money I was getting.

One important thing I learned was that taxes for self-employment are a bitch compared to a normal job. In the US, at least. W-2 jobs have you paying half of what you're supposed to, while SE jobs on the 1099 make you pay the full 12.5% something.

That's not the worst of it though, as there's also the fees from the sites, the chance of getting jipped, the wait time for new gigs. I learned that freelancing needs a lot of time and patients and it's not good to quit your day job to speed it up.

If you're interested in being a freelancer, don't let my mistake get under your skin. You can still do it, and I would highly recommend it, even if it's just a small gig here and there. Best tips I can give you:

1. Don't schedule things on the line. Meaning, give yourself time to do gigs you do. Faster is not better, especially when you are just starting out. I remember going days without sleeping because I promised someone I would write a novel in a month, as well as edit the thing. Gallons of coffee later, I got it done, but boy did my body suffer.

2. Accept small things out of your comfort zone. There were a lot of people asking for some kind of weird copyrighting or review

3. Don't like it, don't do it: I suggest you challenge yourself and go for bigger jobs after getting comfortable, but I also suggest stopping once you're not feeling fulfilled. There's no reason to

4. Invest all or most of your side income into stock or crypto(for now): this is one I didn't do, but I wish I did at the time. You can use robinhood to get into the more popular crypto and stocks, and investing your money is better than spending it, as long as it's not your main source of income. After a while, the interest and money gain can even surpass the taxes lost.

Side tidbits

There's a lot of weird things I learned. One thing was how amazon had to change its review policies and even its affiliate programs all because of freelancers taking advantage of things. I wanted to get paid to review stuff, by giving real reviews, and couldn't because other people were doing fake ones that simply flooded random books with 5 stars and pre-written praise. I guess if people want to trick the system, the dumbest way is to do it out in the open.

Speaking of pre-done, a lot of freelancers get into things like photoshopping book covers and other things that are easy to pre-make. Just have free images ready (or paid ones) and then add the titles, make sure it looks okay, and boom an instant $5 or whatever. That kind of thing is not for me, even though I know how to make covers, but I thought it would be interesting to hear for anyone into photoshop and want to make some side cash. There's MANY people willing to pay $5 for something basic, and strangely they are people who don't even charge for their books.

There's all sorts of things to get into for basic money, I could go on forever about it. What do you think?

Do you have a freelancing horror story? Advice you gained from experience? Reply below and I will be more than happy to add it here or in another post.

Have a question not answered here about freelancing or investing? Feel free to ask and I'll see if I can please.