great abundance, we must become money-conscious until the desire for
money drives us to create definite plans for acquiring it,” writes
Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich (Fawcett Crest, 1960).
If money is not a concern, you can write whatever you want, whenever
you want, as much or as little as you want, without regard to the fee
you will be paid, how long it will take to write the piece, or the
likelihood that you will sell the piece.
If you want to consistently make $100,000 a year as a freelance
writer, you need to avoid the “poverty mentality” that holds so many
writers back from earning a high income.
A doorman in New York City earns around $30,000 a year. If an
unskilled laborer can make $30,000 just for opening a door, surely you
can earn $50,000 to $100,000 for your skills.
2. Have a daily revenue goal. To make $100,000 a year, you need to
earn $2,000 a week for 50 weeks. For a 5-day workweek, that comes to
$400 a day -- a quite modest and achievable sum.
The question then becomes: What writing-related work can you do that
people will pay you $400 a day for? Proofreading won’t hit the mark,
but ghostwriting books, annual reports, fundraising letters, speeches,
or ad copy probably can.
Do you have to make $400 each and every day? No. Some days you’ll be
writing queries or doing self-promotion, and earn nothing. Other days
you’ll get into a writing groove, finish a $1,000 article in 6 hours,
and still have time to write more queries. You’re safe as long as your
average revenue is $400 a day, or $2,000 a week, or approximately
$9,000 a month.
Of course, the higher your average project fee, the easier it can be
to meet your $400 a day goal.
Robert Otterbourg specializes in annual reports, with an average price
tag of $10,000 per project. By doing several of these jobs in a month
or two, he can get way ahead of his income plan, leaving him time to
write the career books that are his avocation.
3. Value your time. If you earn $100,000 a year and work 40 hours a
week, your time is worth at least $50 an hour. You should base
decisions about how you spend your time on that figure.
For instance, if you spend an extra half hour to go out of your way to
save $10 in office supplies, it costs you $25 in lost productivity,
and you are $15 in the red.
My time is worth at least $100 an hour. Therefore, virtually any
service I can buy for under $100 an hour -- including lawn services,
handymen, and tax preparation -- I outsource.
Of the two resources, time and money, time is the more valuable. You
can always make more money. But time is a non-renewable resource. Once
it’s gone, you can’t get it back.
4. Increase your personal productivity. Except for royalties and
product sales, writers are paid only for their time. So the more
efficient and productive you are, and the faster you write, the more
money you make.
Develop habits that help you get more done in less time. The easiest
is simply to get up and start work an hour earlier than you do now --
say at 7 am or 8 am instead of 9 am. That first hour will be your most
productive, because you can work in peace without interruptions before
the business day starts, the phone begins to ring, and the messages
come pouring into your e-mail box.
to begin "
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