How a Freelance Writer With a Book Advance Does Money
Autumn (not her real name) is a freelance writer in Los Angeles.
So, Autumn, how much money are you making?
I’m making around $25,000 a year, although it fluctuates wildly since I freelance. I would say my income ranges from $24–$28K, maybe?
Does that represent full-time work as a freelancer? Do you wish you had more work? (Are you overworked?)
Yes, that’s my full-time income. I’m happy with the amount of work I have, but my goal as a freelancer is always to do fewer, bigger, better gigs for more money. So I don’t necessarily want more hours of work in the week, but I want better-paid hours. 😀
Oh, and I wouldn’t say I’m overworked! There are weeks that are incredibly stressful, but mostly I have enough flexibility to chill, which is what drew me to the freelance life in the first place.
Good to know! I’m glad you aren’t putting in a lot of extra hours.
How does that income compare to your expenses? Are you earning “enough,” whatever that means to you?
I keep my major life expenses (like rent) as low as possible, which lets me feel like I’m earning “enough” most of the time. Like, I live in this crazy little apartment with a bathroom in the apartment building’s hallway that costs me $495/month, so that gives me a significant amount of financial freedom — I don’t have to take on extra work just to pay rent.
However, I do find it frustrating that I’ve never been able to break that elusive $30K/year income as a writer and editor. That annoys me more on principle — why are writers and editors so undervalued?? — than in practice, since I’m lucky enough to have a pretty chill life. I think, though, that if I’m not making more in a few years, I’ll start to feel dissatisfied, hopefully not because of lifestyle creep (am I using that concept correctly?) but more because… I guess I want to feel like I’m progressing in my career, and income feels like an indicator of that.
You are definitely using “lifestyle creep” correctly, if you’re thinking of it in terms of “someday I will want more than an apartment with a bathroom in the hallway.”
If you’re thinking “someday my landlord will raise the rent and I won’t be able to afford this,” that’s different.
(I worry about both of those, LOL.)
HAHA! Using in the first sense! But OMG, I worry about every landlord everywhere raising rent and every city in the world becoming unlivably expensive.
Every time I find a cheap apartment, I think, “This might be the last one EVER.”
YES. 😥
So I want to talk about the idea of success being measured through income, but before we do I have to ask where else your income is going, because Billfolders will want to know! Do you have savings? Debt? A retirement account? Do you spend a lot on travel or food or any one budget line item?
In an ironic twist that you will probably appreciate as a writer yourself, I recently had to write an article about retirement and how nobody’s saving enough for it… and I have NO retirement plan in place other than “get so cool and in-demand that people hire my decrepit self to give very expensive talks at universities!”
But other than that: I have no debt, for which I thank the good Lord and my Scottish Presbyterian father every day (the latter terrified me into believing that credit cards were basically the devil). I graduated college with $20K in debt but obsessively paid it off as soon as I could.
I’m actually quite proud of my savings, which is currently at $11K. I never used to have much in the way of savings until a few summers ago when I took on a waitressing job which enabled me to use all my cash tips as spending money and then save a lot of my freelance income — so that provided a nice basis for a savings account — and then last year I sold a book and got an advance. All book-related checks come SO LATE that I couldn’t really factor it into my daily life (like, I didn’t want to be like “cool I’ll use it for August rent” when my agent was saying things like “it will arrive in four to eight months”), so when I finally got the check, I just dumped most of it into my savings.
I spend a lot on travel AND food. I spend TOO much on food (brunches, cocktails, etc.). Travel doesn’t feel quite so wasteful (life experience!) and also I’m in a long-distance relationship right now, so I fly back and forth to visit him a lot, and then we’re so happy to see each other that we have to go to all our favorite restaurants and get drinks and do brunch etc etc etc. Long-distance relationships are expensive!
Very true! I’ve enjoyed that expense myself. 😀
Haha! It’s a special one. 😀
Does that answer your question about where my income is going?
Yes, for sure! I am also a little curious about how you plan your expenses around what I’m guessing are unpredictable and variable paychecks, if you’re interested in sharing those strategies.
Sure! My biggest strategy is that I always try to have one rent-paying gig, which is usually on the editorial side of things. Most of mine have paid around a thousand a month.
It’s important (financially and mentally) for me to have a monthly paycheck that will cover my basic expenses. I loosely know when my other checks are coming in and can plan around that, and there are a few higher-paying but sloooow gigs whose checks seem to magically appear in my mailbox right when I’m panicking about money. But it’s the monthly gig that saves me.
Right now, I have a part-time editing job that pays $1,500/month. I used to have a far more lucrative one that was for 20 hrs/week at $30/hr for a website that went under (ugh it was so nice for a while). Or once I wrote three articles about local shops every week for $900/month. It’s never very glamorous, but… peace of mind!
As far as other strategies, I’m not sure I have any exciting ones… sometimes I put things on my credit card if I know a check is coming in but I need the money NOW.
I read about this one freelancer who put all her income in her savings and paid herself a “salary” out of her savings every month — I think that’s so brilliant!
That is honestly not a bad idea.
I’m not sure if my income is steady enough to do that; I spend a lot of it right when I get it (I also put 10 percent in savings, right when I get it).
Yeah. The unpredictability can be freaky! Honestly, you’re catching me at a good place because of the book advance, but I would not have been so positive a year ago, haha.
Okay, let’s talk about income and success, then.
The book advance was probably a significant boost both professionally and financially, right? (Knowing that advances are not necessarily HUGE.)
Yes! I was so naive before I got the advance… I thought that advances were maybe possibly like… I can’t even say, I’m so embarrassed… but upper five-figures and maybe even six figures. Turns out that’s just for Jonathan Franzen!
I’ve only received the first half of my advance, which after agent fees was about $5,500.
But still — THAT’S HUGE! So yes, it was a great financial boost. Professionally, it’s been more of a personal internal boost, but since the book hasn’t come out yet, my career itself hasn’t really changed. But I feel like the book may open up options down the road or lend me credibility or something, so in that way I feel more professionally secure. I mean, fingers crossed! Who knows.
Have you also been increasing your freelance income every year? I’ve found that the longer I work, the more higher-paying opportunities come my way.
I’ve been increasing the amount I get for an article, or a gig, but my income has pretty much stayed the same. Maybe it’s a little bit of inertia? Like, I used to write three $25 articles a day (the horror) but I’m not going to write three $200 articles a day because… inertia? Some mental block? It is something I think about and was sort of putting off until I finished the book… the idea of being proactive about making more money, not just because of the money, but because of… adulthood, self worth, etc.
Do those $200 articles take more work to put together, though? A $25 800-word article isn’t always the same thing as a $200 800-word article, depending on the client.
Yes, you’re totally right. Mostly the better-paying ones involve reporting/interviews, which obviously can take forever.
I don’t know if you ever feel this way, but I do feel a little burned out on writing articles. Something about the process gets kind of draining.
So what would the next level success look like for you, both income-wise and work-wise? Articles, or another type of writing, or more editing, or another book, or all of the above?
Leslie Jamison’s career! Super long, beautifully crafted articles appearing in wonderful publications that were clearly carefully edited. And gorgeously written books.
Wait… that’s not the next level, I suppose. That’s the end game!
I loved The Empathy Exams!
Me too!! Gahhh. So good.
I mean, Jamison is not at the end of her career (I’m assuming, she’s in her 30s) so thinking of her career as your end game doesn’t seem quite right.
It could be your end game for the next decade, maybe. Like a goal.
That’s very true and an exciting way to think about it!
Part of me really wants to talk through the “okay, first you could do this thing, and then you could do this other thing, and then you might earn $30K, and then your book’ll be out so you can do these things,” but that’s just me getting excited about work.
Plus I really can’t predict the future.
I love it! You could be a freelancer’s life coach!
Let me ask you this instead: what do you think you do really well, financially, and what do you wish you could do better?
Hmm, let me think. I think I am really good at handing my income on a year-to-year basis (i.e., not including retirement/long-term future planning). I’m good at saving, I always spend within my means, and even though I make less than a lot of my friends, sometimes I feel like I’m just less stressed about money than they are because I just, like, know how to manage what I make.
That being said, I’m REALLY BAD at making more money. I think this boils down to two things: I’m scared of asking for what I think I deserve, so I just accept whatever $$ I’m offered, and I have a little voice in my head that tells me that writing/editing isn’t THAT great of a skill and I don’t deserve TONS of money and $200 for a reported article is PLENTY etc. etc.
Like, I’m writing a bio for this musician, and he recently called me up and asked me to write a second version of the bio that would be more focused on a different genre of music than the first version. He kind of awkwardly said “…will that be a problem?” and I awkwardly chirped “…nope!” Of course, I KNEW that I should ask for more money. He was asking for almost twice the work he initially asked for. But in my head, I was like, “This is awkward, I know him semi-personally, it’s an easy enough task for me to do, I’ll just let this one slide…” I mean, I was kicking myself as I did it… but I didn’t ask for a cent more. Ugh.
Yeah, I’ve let stuff slide too. I’m getting better at not doing that. It’s hard when you know the person, too!
SO hard! And there’s definitely a gender thing going on… he was a dude and I just felt… presumptuous or something. Which is ridiculous.
And there was a bit of “well anyone can write a bio” which, having seen musicians try to write their own bios, is utterly untrue! Writing is a specialized skill! But I think forces conspire against us to make us (or at least me) forget that, sometimes.
So, last question: with your specialized skills, what advice do you have for Billfold readers? Freelancing advice, money advice, any advice you’ve got.
Hmmmm…
I would say that it’s helped me to think of money as a type of freedom. Less debt, more freedom. A savings account provides you with freedom (you guys did that Fuck Off Fund article! that’s exactly what I mean).
Having your finances in order so you don’t have to stress all the time frees up mental space, which is a form of freedom. It’s not that helpful for me to think of actual dollar amounts all the time, but of… what do I want this money/income/account to do for me?
Wait, can I give one more piece of advice?
From my very expert, specialized perspective?
Of course!
It would be this: don’t listen to all the narratives that people are feeding you! You don’t have to live in a certain type of apartment or maintain a certain level of brunching or ANYTHING. I have friends who are just RESIGNED to putting most of their paycheck toward their apartment because “big cities are expensive.” You don’t have to resign yourself to any amorphous idea of lifestyle if it’s going to stress you out.
Very true.
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