Want to Double Your Freelance Writing Income? Try These Strategies

One of the joys of being a freelance writer is that your ability to earn is in your hands. Work as much as you like and take the kinds of jobs you like to make the kind of money you want. Of course, that is a bit of an oversimplification. It’s true that the ability to make money is completely in your hands as a freelance writer. However, it’s not always as easy to find work that pays you as much as you would like. The reality is that many freelance writers are looking for ways to make more money. Additionally, they aren’t looking to take on more working hours.

The good news is that it is possible to boost your freelance writing income—even double it—without working more hours, if you know which strategies to apply to your work. Take control of your income and watch your earnings pile up with these tips.

Take Some Time Out to Work on Your Business

Many freelance writers find themselves in a cycle that is hard to break out of. They spend time looking for clients, then they spend time writing for those clients, while also looking for more clients. That schedule doesn’t leave much time for stepping back and looking at the bigger picture of your branding as a writer.

It can be hard to break away from this kind of work to take a broader look at your business, but doing so is essential. If you can manage, take a day off to look at your business. Create a list of clients and how much they pay you. Then, make a list of the places you find most of your jobs and how well those jobs pay. Check out your social media pages and see what kind of traffic you’re getting or interactions you’re having. Now, evaluate that information and look for patterns that could help you. Do you see that you make the most freelance writing income working for clients that you find from a particular source or by writing about a particular topic? Could you be better exploiting social media to strengthen or create writing relationships?

Executing those ideas can help you find uncovered income sources that can dramatically increase your earnings. Moving forward, try to carve out a few hours each week to dedicate to your business and brand management.

Say Goodbye to Clients Who Don’t Pay Enough

The idea of cutting a client loose is terrifying for freelance writers. After all, what if you drop a client and then you can’t find one to replace them? But remember, you had to acquire the clients you currently have. Therefore, you can do it again. You just have to find them—which you can’t do when you’re being underpaid to create content for a client who isn’t paying you your worth.

A good way to go down this road is to start by getting rid of the client who pays you the least. Spend the time you would spend writing for that client finding someone who pays more to replace them. If you do this process over and over again, you’ll be turning your starter clients into ones who can pay more, which could easily double your freelance writing income without any kind of change in the workload you have. In fact, you could even end up with clients that pay enough that you can whittle down the workload you carry, so you can enjoy some of the benefits of being an entrepreneur.

Increase the Rates You Charge

Raising rates is another thing that strikes fear into the hearts of freelance writers. However, it’s worth doing periodically for the sake of your freelance writing income. There is a good chance that you, as a customer, have accepted increased rates for countless goods and services. And you likely still patronize those businesses after a rate increase. From value meals at fast food restaurants to the price of milk and the cost of cars, everything goes up in price over time. Why should your writing rates be the only things that stand still?

It’s normal to start with lower rates when you are a new freelance writer, because you want to attract clients and compete with a crowded marketplace. However, once you get experience, increasing your rates is completely natural, as it is in any field. Writers approach this in one of two ways. One is to raise rates across the board, including with existing clients. Some clients may decide that your new rates are outside of their budget, and that is OK. You will replace them with clients who can pay more.

The second approach writers take is to raise rates with new clients only. This is a good way to onboard clients with the expectation of paying you more. However, keep in mind that if you have long-term clients, eventually you will not be able to sustain a large gulf between what new and old clients pay you. Thus, you will need to increase your rates across the board eventually.

Find the Right Clients

There are many clients out there who want to pay freelance writers less than a penny per word. No matter what stage you are in your writing career—even if you have never gotten paid to write anything before—you do not have to accept these kinds of clients.

Don’t simply write for anyone who is willing to pay you. Hold out for clients who respect your work and your ability to run your business. Focus on finding clients who can afford to pay you a fair amount. Then you can create a mutually beneficial working relationship with you.

Writers Work makes finding those clients easy. In addition to our extensive job listing features, we offer our exclusive Writers Marketplace, where quality clients can find your work and approach you directly. You can join our community for 30 days risk free, so see how we can help you grow your business as a freelance writer. Visit our homepage to join our community today.