Running a freelance writing business can be a scary thing. It’s like any other small business: there are uncertainties, and there are risks. If you’re not prepared to face some of your biggest fears, a freelance writing business probably isn’t for you.
Over the years, I’ve had a handful of moments when these kinds of fears bubbled up to the top. While I get that everyone is different, I thought that maybe sharing some of my struggles might help you identify some of your own, and maybe help you be better equipped to face them when they come:
Fear of Failure
This is the sort of generic “Will I make it?” question that everyone asks. I felt this way quite a bit early on. My writing business wasn’t my first business venture, and the others hadn’t turned out so well.
Eventually, though, I got past this. My business brought in enough money to pay the bills, and even have a little bit left over to invest in growing my business. The best remedy for this kind of fear is, in the end, success. In the meantime, having a positive attitude will help, but it won’t pay the bills.
Fear of Inadequacy
One of my freelancer friends once said, “You know, I’m afraid one day that they’ll all figure out I’m a fraud, and the cops will show up and haul me off to jail for impersonating a writer.” It never happened to her, of course. And I don’t know that I’ve felt that strongly. But I have had fleeting moments where I think, “What if I’m not good enough?”
In some ways, this one is all about self-confidence. But all of the positive self-talk in the world won’t prove anything. Here again, the proof is in the pudding. After doing hundreds of jobs for dozens of clients with less than two or three complaints, I’ve come to the place where I realize I’m good at what I do. And, if you’re good, you’ll get there, too.
Fear of Growth
I will never forget the trepidation I had when I first began to outsource work. It truly worried me that I’d be sending all of my profits off to my writers while I’d wind up in the poor house. This became really clear when one of my writers said, “I need $1,000 worth of work a month to keep freelancing. Otherwise, I have to go back to computer programming.”
At first, I freaked out. Sure, I’d been outsourcing about $300 a month to that writer on average, and I knew I’d need to outsource a bunch more based on some big contracts we’d closed in the past few weeks. But it was scary. So, I looked at the books and realized: I can afford this. I also realized that I could scale back, if the business were to dry up.
Strangely enough, I wasn’t very afraid of anything at the beginning. When I first started out, I was already in a transitional period. I was finishing my Master’s degree, and I started freelance writing so that I could help pay the bills while I looked for a faculty position. I had no idea then that I would enjoy writing as much as I do, and that it would be able to provide me with (after a few years, of course) a better income than a faculty position.
