Have any of you transitioned from being a part-time freelance writer into full-time freelance writing? If so, I’d love to hear your tips on handling the change.
I’m currently in the midst of that change myself. As you may know, my full-time work is in PR (which involves consulting and writing for the most part). I do copywriting / editing and business content writing on the side.
While my ultimate goal is to go full-time with my own publishing projects (my sites and blogs, my e-books, perhaps other informational products, books hopefully in the future, etc.), I’ll settle for getting to the point of being a full-time freelance writer even if it means taking a pay cut overall at first. I simply enjoy this side of my work more.
Now, I’m not giving up PR completely. I plan to still heavily emphasize my PR writing; just not consulting (I’ve stopped taking on new consulting clients already).
So tell me, and other freelance writers, how you’ve gotten through the transition. What challenges did you face? What benefits were there? Did you have an easy time, or was it a struggle to fill those extra hours with enough clients right away? Did you alter how you marketed yourself. What pearls of wisdom can you share with others thinking about making the jump from part-time to full-time freelance writing?
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I started freelance writing on the side and built it up for five years before quitting to do full-time freelance writing. My advice is to keep doing what you’re doing.
When to quit depends on your needs. Benefits? I had to wait for my husband to find a steady job with good health benefits considering we have three kids.
By the time I went full-time, it was a breeze. I think too many people quit sooner than they should instead of when they have a healthy amount of work that spreads across several clients, not just one or two big ones.
I just made the transition. It was about 2 months earlier than I anticipated, but the govt position I was in was really stressful and prohibited me from truly pursuing my writing dreams.
I’ve had writing gigs PT for a while now. But I could never take more because there are only so many hours in a day and if I ever wanted to actually spend “fun” time with my son that didn’t involve Mommy setting up an ultra-cool base camp on the big bed with cartoons on, some Hot Wheels and Mommy sitting with her laptop precariously perched on a pillow trying to get writing done…well, you get the idea.
So I was scared shitless and I jumped the proverbial gun and quit. May 29th was my last day.
While I do have a husband and health insurance, there is still that requirement to bring in the dough each month. So I have that drive and WILL make the money writing because I MUST make the money writing.
My two cents would be to save up some money. Minimum of 6 months of expenses. If not twelve months.
But honestly, I would say make the move sooner rather than later because you can always make excuses to not make that move from PT to FT. It’s scary. Plain and simple. And sometimes that fear can be debilitating. So I vote for some moderate preparation and then go for it!