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How did you know it was time to leave your full time job? Did you make a plan before you left your job before diving into the exciting world of freelance writing, or did you just jump in?
I left my full time job because I was about to have a baby and we bought a home in another state. Since we had the new house and baby we knew I had to work, but we also had enough saved that I could try my hand at working at home first. We did make a plan. I wasn’t sure how much I would be able to work during my son’s first year, but we gave me a year to start earning. The plan was for me to be earning a full time salary by the time my son was ready to enter school full time. I’m happy to report we were two years ahead of schedule.
Here’s what I did:
- I made a schedule. As my son depended on me less, I added more time to my schedule.
- I made a budget. I wanted to be able to pay the mortgage with my salary plus have something left over to save.
- I built up contacts. I’m not going to go into the whole social networking thing again, but I’ll stress once again it’s the reason I’m where I am today.
Now, I know some writers who didn’t make a plan and just decided one day to quit their jobs to work at home because the time was right. Though I’m more of a “plan” type of person myself, I think it’s wonderful they could do so, especially if it worked out for them.
I think the key to knowing when to quit your job is knowing how big a success you are as a writer. If you left your job today could you say, without hesitation, you can earn enough to live on? That’s how I knew. The baby and the house helped with the decision, but if my husband’s salary and my already having a small freelancing business didn’t figure prominently into the picture, I might still be working in an office today. I think a mistake some people make is not looking at the big picture. Are you positive you’ll be a success this year? Next year? Will it be enough to survive? I’m all for taking the plunge, but not without careful planning first.
I’m blessed with a husband who has both the finances and the patience to support my undertakings. So I took full advantage of that. I quit my job in February as I couldn’t stand some aspects of it. I also hated having my kids in daycare so much (some is fine with me and them). I’d always freelanced ‘on the side’ so decided to just increase that activity. That was the extent of my plan.
I, too, left my job not to work from home but to have my first baby. I fully intended to go back to teaching full time, but my husband and I had always planned that I wouldn’t do that until our last child was in school full time. That was over eight years ago. According to our original plan, I would be going back to teaching next September.
But, when my oldest was one, I knew there was no way I could be the kind of mom I wanted to be and the kind of teacher I wanted to be. Although I loved teaching, I realized that I wouldn’t be going back. So I started to pray and after a while I got a clear sense that I was going to write.
I’ve written all my life, and it seemed so natural and obvious. Since the plan that my husband and I had created left the room for me to not make any money at all for many years, I was able to slowly enter freelancing a couple of hours a week. I also was able to pick and choose my clients carefully because we weren’t dependent on the money.
I know my situation was very fortunate and there aren’t too many people who can enter freelancing slowly with no monetary pressures.
Deb talked about taking a look at the big picture, and I think she’s right. Although my big picture looks a lot different someone who has a full time job and is considering leaving it, I too started looking at the big picture about seven years ago.
I planned. I started working from home sooner than I would have if I had gone back into teaching because I knew I needed to build up my skills and my portfolio. I worked after my kids went to bed and during nap times. I realized that there was no way that I could just jump into freelancing the day my youngest son starts 1st grade and expect to be very successful my first year. A lot of planning and looking ahead at our goals for our family has gone into this.
So next year, September 08, I will be making the jump to doing this full time. But I’ll be doing so with the confidence that I can do this with success because I’ve done planning and the work to make it so.
I got fired from my job for checking my email while at work. So not only did I want to get away from office life, I wanted to have the freedom to check my email whenever I want. And damn it, I can!
My job moved to DC (I’m near Chicago) and my wife was five months pregnant (security in employment?), so I started freelancing to pay the bills, then started making too much to take another job.
I enjoyed your article about when to leave your job. I found out recently that I’ll be laid off at the end of the month because of budget cuts. I’ve been freelancing on the side for a while now and have decided to take this opportunity to write full time. I’m lucky that my husband is so supportive. He actually suggested that do it.
I had been freelancing part time for a couple of years when my boss told me and my co-worker that he had run out of funding and could only keep us a couple of months longer. I looked frantically for antoher job, but after talks with my husband, we decided together that I deserved a shot to make freelancing a go. After all, I put him through college, now it was his turn to support something I’ve dreamed about. Two and a half years later, I’m making more money than I ever did in my job, and I can live/work my own hours. It took a while to get my career on track, but it was the right decision.
I’ve wanted to freelance since high school. I bought books on query letters, wasted money on Writer’s Market books that I never used, and occasionally tried to craft a novel of a query about something like, “Asthma isn’t funny!”
When I got to college, my computer took a suicide plunge off the arm of my couch (I couldn’t afford a desk), and I was computer-less for two years. This meant waiting for my roommate to leave or driving ten minutes to campus every time I wanted to check my email or print out a class schedule. It was awful, and my writing suffered because personal space is important for creative thinking.
When I got a new computer (very nice Powerbook, $500 on ebay!), the film school blog one of my teachers keeps had the job posting for boxoffice.com, which I know I saw here a few weeks later.
They hired me, and that job has been going amazingly. They sent me to ShowEast, a huge film convention, and payed me $400 to mingle, get samples, and watch movies that won’t be out until the Spring.
So, I decided to sink my teeth in. I started coming here regularly and applying for every job I felt qualified for. I’m surprised at how well things are going, and how much I love it. I went to film school because there was no magazine journalism track here, and I thought I’d changed my career aspirations. It’s kind of ironic that film school merely turned me into an entertainment journalist.
My blog has been chronicling my freelancing experience since its start, about seven weeks ago. I invite everyone to take a look. I’m enjoying it very much.l
I was working around 80hrs/week at a law firm (plus a two hour daily train commute and working from home during the few hours I was at home). It was six years of this, and I was completely burnt out. After a death in the family, I got very depressed and started rethinking things, like how important was my job really, and what did I really want to do with my life (all that fun stuff that death makes people reflect on). I took a long weekend and went to San Francisco (I’m from Chicago). After being there for three days and seeing how laid back people were, I got a bug up my you-know-what and decided I wanted to live there, that I’d rather be a homeless poet in San Francisco and enjoy my life than dedicate my days to workaholism. So I gave my job a few months notice and left. I’m not really a spontaneous person, and I’d never taken a big risk ever, but I was in this “new life” euphoria. Once I got to SF, I realized I’d have to figure out some way to make money. Most people figure this sort of thing out in advance, but I was going through some sort of mental breakdown and hadn’t really thought things through.
SF folks are big on using craigslist for everything. I went on to find a used futon and ended up browsing the gigs section. I saw a lawyer who wanted to hire a freelance writer. Not knowing what a freelance writer was, I had to look it up. I replied to the guy, got the gig, and there began my freelance life. But it wasn’t easy to get to the steady income point. First I got more depressed, felt useless for months for not having a “real job” and had a very hard time financially. Everyone thought I’d gone crazy. Maybe I had. Within a year, I was back in Chicago after a huge depression battle that got me hospitalized. Once back “home” I realized I couldn’t go back to the office life. I was determined to make it on my own, whatever it took. And it took a lot. But I did it. This year is the first year I’ve earned as much as I made annually as a paralegal. It’s been almost four years since I left the firm, about three and a half since I started freelancing what I’d call full time.
Moral of my long long story: don’t do it my way unless you have to. Think. Plan. You’ll make things a LOT easier on yourself.
I love this topic because I get asked this question a lot by friends and family. I actually had a full-time job with a local university that was very understanding of my desire to write full-time. In fact, they were cool with me checking my email, leaving early, etc. if I needed to focus on writing. The problem was that I felt bad about half-(blanking) my job even when my boss was allowing it to happen.
One day, I just decided to quit and hope that full-time writing would work for me. I had been writing part-time for about two years and I decided that it was time to get moving. A year later, I am doing pretty well with my writing and have only left my apartment to teach at a local college part-time (mostly to have people to talk to, to use my Masters degree, etc.).
Hello
Your site is a real gem!
I’ve just really very recently discovered this whole world of freelance writing that is on the interet.
I live in a small, somewhat isolated town in NW Ontario. I enjoy writing and I’ve been told that I have a gift for it. Exactly how much of a gift is still to be determined. Other than my own handwritten journal, a couple of blogs (which are more or less glorified journals) and some small pieces for the local weekly paper, I have not had any writing experience or education.
I would like to give it a proper go. My understanding is that, especially when starting out, one should be submitting samples of their work. I really have none. Should I work on creating some pieces or are they really looking for published work?
I don’t mind working hard and giving it a try but I want to make sure I am headed in the right direction!
Thanks kindly
Mae
I made the decision to freelance because explaining concepts to students in writing was one of the aspects of teaching that I enjoyed. Therefore, it made sense that I use my teaching experience in the writing world. It’s been a long process, but I really was exhausted and burned out by teaching. I felt like I had no life. I’m not making as much as I was teaching, but I’m happier. I hope that things will continue to progress for me as I continue to freelance.
My spouse and I made a deal: I supported Spouse during 3 years of graduate school. Once Spouse started to work, I could quit and pursue my dream of fiction writing.
I built up a nice freelance portfolio during those 3 years Spouse was in grad school. By the time I was ready to quit my full-time job, I had plenty of experience.
I AM pursuing my dream of writing fiction, but I freelance part-time so I still feel like I’m contributing income to our household (and to keep my portfolio current). I set a minimum $ amount to earn each month. Once I make that amount, I stop taking freelance jobs and switch my attention to fiction.
Great stuff. I’d been thinking I’d like to freelance full-time for a few years and done a bit on the side for the last five or so. I’ve been employed as a writer (journalist or marketing) for 21 years. My day job was like mental waterboarding, but the steady check kept me in there. I was praying for a new job or a new door to open when (in July) my employer decided we didn’t fit, which hit me out of the blue. I was out pretty much out over night. I took it as a sign and have been freelancing since. The contacts I’d built up in those 21 years have served me pretty well so far. I keep praying and knocking on wood.
I left my job a year ago to move to a different state to help take care of my dying father-in-law. It was a short-notice move, into an area of the country with few publishing or marketing jobs. So I went freelance. Luckily, my years of “real work” allowed me to build up a list of contacts and a wide range of samples. Once I started, it took a few months to make it work, but things really fell into place starting in April and I haven’t looked back since.
I currently work outside the home part-time on the weekends (for income, and insurance), and work my freelance writing into my week while I play a stay at home mom, and full-time student (for my Bachelor’s in Teaching). I never assumed that I could make enough money writing just out of the gate, you know-”pay your dues”, and “work your way up” and all that. If I ever make a yearly income writing that surpasses my “real Job”, I will surely take on freelancing full-time.
I had to find something from home because I have 5 kids and a few health issues that make it difficult to work outside the home.
I tried lots of different at-home jobs which I hated. Then I thought, why am I doing this when I can write? So I gave it a shot.
I’ve always loved writing. I can’t quite support us yet, but I know with time I will.
I’d always assumed that I couldn’t write full-time because of all the risks that come with being self-employed. When I found this site and began to get more and more regular jobs, I began to think that it might be possible. I’m making the leap to full-time (which will probably be like 60 hours a week knowing my work-addicted style) on the 16th of this month.
I thought having a full-time ‘real’ job would provide me with stability, a regular pay check to pay the bills, regular time off and good insurance. My full-time job, at this point, doesn’t pay enough to pay the bills, requires me to work most every day of the month, and charges me $300 a month for a 60/40 insurance split. After my husband and I decided to buy our own insurance, there no longer seemed to be a reason to stay…
Goodluck to everyone!
I’ve only been working freelance for the past 15 months. Our youngest child was about to start kindergarten and I figured hubby would think it was time for me to get a job outside the home (I had worked from home doing a number of things – babysitting, writing resumes, Internet research – since I had our first child). So I got my nerve up and responded to an ad a client placed on a message board for wahms. I think I wanted to write for a long time but I was too scared to apply in case I would get turned down.
I messed up my sample article really badly (gave him 350 words when he asked for 500) but he graciously let me fix it up and he was my first client. I consider myself very fortunate in that I’ve only had a couple of days since then that I haven’t had work.
In September 2007 I set a goal for myself to be at a certain income level in 12 months. I’m on track to reach it next month. Needless to say, I’m very pleased.
For me it was the opposite, I’d been a stay home mom for 10 years and my daughter had started school full-time and was finally comfortable (wicked bad time with separation anxiety with her until 3rd grade even with counseling). I was ready to reenter the working world but found that secretarial jobs were impossible to find and those that did exist paid $8 an hour. Given the cost of gas and that the town I live in is 20 miles from the city, I decided to look online and see what I could find instead. I’m glad I made this choice because my mom was laid off after almost 8 years with a local bank (Moved jobs to India like many other companies) and it’s taken her 8 months to find another job and she’s starting over at $8.50 an hour without benefits.
I was working full-time at a law office in an environment that had become intolerable. I started my freelance career on the side and it was going quite well…well, the straw that broke the camel’s back at the office came and I packed my stuff in a box and walked out, telling myself I’d see if I could at least cover that month’s rent with money earned freelancing. It’s been almost two years, and I earned more last year freelancing than at my supposedly great legal job! I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
I had been freelancing all along, while putting in 40 hours a week at “real” jobs. I finally hit the breaking point when I got to be writing/editing all day for an academic research center, and then coming home and writing/editing for freelance gigs all night. I couldn’t keep doing both, and, without exception, every self-employed person I knew was happier. So I took the leap into self-employment.
It’s been 18 months now, after 20+ years of being a full-time employee, and so far, so good!
It’s so cool to see everyone’s success stories and positivity. Unfortunately, I haven’t experienced the same kind of fortune and have problems seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m a new freelancer, and so far I’ve only had one (v. disorganized) client. Your optimism is v. inspiring, though
Do you all have any suggestions for a beginner? I would appreciate any guidance…
I had been working full-time as an editor in a publishing house but was doing some freelancing on the side. I moved to a different publisher and the job turned out to be horrible. I wanted to freelance but didn’t know if I could. The job became intolerable, though, so I called a few of the people I was freelancing for and asked them if they expected to have more work for me over the next few months. They said yes, and I quit my job and went to freelance full-time.
In addition to the people I’d already been writing for, I also let people at my first editorial job know I was now writing full-time. As they’ve scattered around to different companies, they’ve continued to contact me for work, and have also given my name to other people. I’m working on a project now for a person I met six years ago when I was an editorial assistant making copies and trafficking material.
So if I have any advice for people who want to freelance, I’d say it’s not a bad idea to work for a little while on the editorial side of an industry that uses lots of freelancers, and build up a contact list that way.
I´ve been freelancing off and on since I was 18, but after moving to Guatemala, meeting a great guy and working as an English teacher for four years, I got pregnant. I tried a few different business ideas, writing wasn´t high on my list of priorities because we couldn´t get internet at my house. Everything failed, so I figured I would go back to teaching after the baby.
My son was born with some problems that required a colostomy and assorted surgeries over the first year of his life, so the whole idea of going back to work stopped right there. I stayed home and looked after him, but I was going a bit stir crazy. My husband finally suggested that I start going to the internet cafe for an hour a day.
At first, I would go to the internet, copy all the writing jobs onto a diskette, come home and write queries, etc. The next day, I´d send out my queries. I couldn´t take some jobs because there were a lot of days that the internet cafe would be full or closed, so I couldn´t keep tight deadlines.
Finally, we managed to get internet at home, just before my second son was born (about a year later) and since then I have been blogging and writing online. While I don´t earn enough to survive in Canada (my home country), here in Guatemala, we are doing just fine! My husband even quit his teaching job to stay home and look after the boys while I write and only works nights as a musician, his dream job. We are even building a house, slowly but surely.
Rei:
I started two years ago and have definitely had my share of disappointments. The first woman I started writing for could only pay $5 an article and I know most would scoff at it. I stuck with her because the topics always amused me and I could get three or four done per hour. She now pays me extremely well so it’s paid off.
Likewise, the first very high paying job I received was for job descriptions. I did all ten as promised within a week’s time as promised. That guy walked off never paying me the $300 they owed me. His “professional email account” turned out to be one that he’d spoofed and it was no longer active as soon as I started fighting for payment. I fought them through their website domain, paypal, and the likes and never saw my money. When I learned they’d used the articles anyway, I went right to the website and the informed had hired a man themselves paying him $50 an article (he was paying me $30) and that they’d paid him so I was s&^t out of luck. They put my names on the article but that’s the most I ever got out of that.
I think like it or not, there are going to be the good and bad experiences. There are things I watch for now, but after the spoofed email one, I find myself unsure how to truly pick out the honest people.
Things I do look for –
Payment with paypal and that they have a business acct. with paypal.
Partial payment up front.
Website that can be checked out and I check with the Better Business Bureau too.
Rei:
I have a good example of what to watch for when accepting/not accepting jobs. There was a job post a few days ago for a book editor on poker. It claimed they paid $50 to $100 so I emailed for more information.
What I got back was an email stating that you were sent an ebook to read and then you had to:
1. Offer 250 words of commentary on each chapter, and draw quotes from the book to prove your point (quotes do not count in the total word count.)
2. When the book was finished, offer a 750 word summary of the book, again adding important book quotes (which again don’t count to the word count total.)
I again queried to see how long these books were. I was given the title of one and found it had 26 chapters plus an introduction. So that was 27 chapters requiring 250 words– at least 6,750 words total plus the additional 750 word summary equals 7500 word essay on these poker books. Even if you get the whole $100 payment, that’s a penny a word. And the details were sketchy about when payment would be $100 rather than $50 words.
I ask lots of questions, and in this case was able to rule out this one as being not worth my time.
I’ve been a freelance editor for a decade, and have been pretty sick of editing for a couple of years, but I had steady work. One big client and I had a parting of ways last year and my income dropped a lot. I was thinking about law school, but I figure that in 4 years’ time (at 45), I could either be a brand-new lawyer or a pretty established freelance writer. So I’m giving it a plunge! Even though I already freelance, this is entirely different. But I have current editing clients as a backup for now, and reading everyone’s stories here is very encouraging. Crossing my fingers . . .
I knew when that little voice in my head said, “Get out of this corporate job and start writing!” It was either a little voice or schizophrenia…
A QUESTION: I am about to write an interview, arranged by the head of publicity at a big TV station. Does anyone know the price range I should be expecting, just so I’m in the ballpark?
OK, your site is great. But truthfully this time I am not sure which is better – your original article or the comments. Lots of great information and insight there. And the anecdotes range from heartfelt to humorous. Good stuff!
Now, to get up the courage and break out on my own…