Be a Freelance Blogger

Hello freelance bloggers!

I know that you’re serious about being successful as a freelance blogger; you’re here, after all.

Now, I don’t want to distract you from this important work—but let’s be honest:

You know you can be a freelance blogger. Sophie knows you can be a freelance blogger. And I have no doubt in my mind that you can be a freelance blogger. But the fact remains that it isn’t always easy to make a decent income right from the get-go. Clients are sometimes few and far between, and even with the best pricing strategy, you won’t always be making as much as you want to.

Your bills, of course, remain largely the same. Groceries need to be bought, the mortgage paid, and the internet kept connected.

So sometimes you need a little extra.

Acquiring that little bit extra, and seeing it put to good use, is a passion of mine, and I think it can be done in a way that complements, rather than replaces or takes away from your freelance blogging work. 

Writers tend to be underpaid. As if that wasn’t an obvious understatement, you could be even worse off as a freelance blogger.

For some reason, many businesses seem to operate under the mindset that bloggers are like enslaved robots who can pump out a crap-ton of writing for their robot-like readers [*cough*search engines*cough*] and who will accept a measly sum of cash in return for our robotic efforts.

(I may or may not have watched I, Robot last night.)

But being underpaid is not something you can afford as a freelance blogger, especially when blogging is so much more than just those short (or long) posts you type out.

You know that you have to blog the right way to attract readers, leads, and clients. And the “right way” involves more elements than your potential clients might realize, or more than even you might realize.

For example, do you charge extra if you need to find images? What about promoting your posts? These blog elements are things you can’t overlook if you want to be taken seriously as a freelancer and get paid accordingly. 

A lot of freelancers agonize over raising their prices. I know I did.

With no boss telling you what to do or how much you should get, it’s easy to feel anxious and confused when it comes to increasing your rates. When should you do it? How do you tell your clients? More important, how much should your new rates be?

I used to spend weeks—no, months—mulling over these things and convincing myself I deserved it. Then when I arrived at the point where I had to tell my clients how much my rates were, I still sometimes ended up backtracking on my prices.

It went on like this the first few times I had to communicate my prices, until I realized one thing: Writing my new rate sheet or telling clients how much my services cost is the easy part of the whole process.

The real work involved in increasing your prices happens BEFORE you actually raise them.