Note from Jennifer: If you haven’t had a chance to share your experiences about the current state of freelance writing, please take a minute or two to complete my survey. The survey will close June 1, 2023 at 9pm ET and I want to hear from you! I’ll share the results here on the blog very soon.

Now, let’s talk about April. Yes, my total for April wasn’t as dramatic as my earnings in January, February, or March. And that’s OK. It’s actually more than OK. 

One of the reasons that I freelance is to be available for the people that I love. This month, two people that are important to me needed me – my daughter and a close friend. So I put work on the back burner so I could be there when they needed me. I truly think that the measure of success as a freelancer is being able to choose which is most important at any given time – time or money. And this month, time was much more important to me than meeting my income goals. 

Here’s how April turned out.

April Breakdown 

Note: I do not include any income I earned from my course or book, just writing income. 

Agency A
Project 1
2 1000-word post, 1 interview
$2000 total 

An editor from an agency reached out about a new project and I jumped on it. These ended up being more time-consuming than expected. Because it was a new project, the client didn’t know exactly what they wanted and I went through multiple revisions. My project contact reached out to apologize and explained that they were revamping the processes, which I appreciated. I ended up earning about $150 an hour on this project, which is low, especially for the high stress factor. I’m going to give the project another shot and see if it goes more smoothly next time. Otherwise, I won’t be working on these in the future. 

Agency A
Project 2
1 3500-word e-book ($2800), no interview
2 500-word blog posts ($500 each), no interviews
$3800 total

The contract with the agency ended so this was my last project for this client, which stinks since it was one of my favorites. The e-book was super quick to do because I know the topic so well and it only took me 6 hours to write (the client gave me a detailed outline) and an hour to revise, meaning I earned $400 an hour. Each of the blog posts took me 1.5 hours, which works out to $333 an hour. 

Agency A
Project 3
2 blog posts
$1200 total

This is one of my longest anchor clients. Each of these articles took me 2 hours so I earned $300 an hour on each. It’s a good example of a client where if I just looked at the per-word rate, I might pass, but because I know the topic so well and there are no revisions, it turns into a great hourly rate. 

Agency A
Project 4
Webinar
$1000

I had done most of the work previously for this webinar so all I had to do this month was moderate the webinar. I really enjoyed this project and need to figure out how to market my services for webinars better. 

Agency B
Finished 10 Profiles
$1500 total

I had done all the interviews and a few drafts in March for this project, which was 10 profiles of 500 words each at $300 per profile with 1 15-minute interview. This month I just had to finish up the project. I ended up earning about $200 an hour for it, but it involved a lot of management work that made me less productive overall. This was my second year on the project, and I need to decide if I do it again next year. Last year I got a great client from the project (one of my interview subjects hired me), but I’m not sure if that will happen this year or not. 

Agency C
Change of Scope Fee: $500

A project I worked on in April ended up having revisions that went out of the original scope. I negotiated a change of scope fee of $500. I probably should have gone higher on this, but I give myself points for asking, which I struggle with. 

Total Earnings for April: $10,000

The Good and the Bad

Every month has pros and cons, benefits and challenges. As I described above, April was no exception. Looking back, here are some of the notable highs and lows (and lessons to remember as the year goes on).

What worked this month:

• I took a week off. I took off the last week of April, without working at all, which I vowed to do after not managing time off well in March. I enjoyed three days off with my husband and then took two days off to support my friend at her husband’s funeral. I was very proud of myself for negotiating deadlines and telling clients no so I could only work three weeks in April. 
• I gave myself grace. Because I feel other people’s pain, I wasn’t productive at all during April. In the past, I would have beaten myself up, but this time I really just did the best that I could and called it a day. I didn’t miss any deadlines or do any work I was not proud of, which was my goal. 
• I began planning for my May vacation. My family loves to travel and taking vacations together is really important with the kids at college. I really wanted to work as little as possible on my two-week vacation to Spain in May. Starting in mid-April, I began telling all my clients about my vacation, especially when taking on new work. I also turned down a project that would have meant working on vacation. 

What didn’t work:

• Nothing. Honestly, for me, April was about keeping my head above water with work. And I did it pretty well. I really don’t think I would change anything at all. I am proud of how I managed everything. Because of the fact that I don’t book out very far, I was able to drop everything early in the month when my daughter needed me.  

What about May?

Well, my procrastination in writing this post gives me a big advantage since I already know how May turned out. Yes, I gave myself grace on the late post as well. I plan on getting May’s post out much more quickly than April. But I can’t promise. So I will skip my predictions for May except to say that I had an amazing vacation – more details soon. 

Any questions about my April? How was your month?