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Freelancing pays (a little)

Brad Linder · Aug 13, 2007 · Leave a Comment

My first wedding anniversary is coming up in a few weeks. This morning it occurred to me that this means I’m celebrating another anniversary. Exactly one year ago I quit my full time job and struck out on my own as a freelancer. (Yes, I quit my job just a few weeks before the wedding. And Farrah married me anyway. Go figure).

At the time I’d just accepted a position writing for PVR Wire. The pay was low, and I was told that I couldn’t write more than 50 post a month, so I really didn’t expect to make more than a few hundred dollars a month blogging. Primarily I hoped to be able to scrape together enough radio work to make a living. Blogging was just going to be something I did on the side. Now it turns out that my work for Download Squad and TV Squad makes up about half of my revenue.

I checked my records this morning, and in the past 12 months, I’ve made pretty much exactly the same amount of money I would have made at my old job. Actually, I made a little bit more than my old salary, but when you account for the fact that I used to do a little bit of freelance work for NPR on the side, the numbers pretty much even out. When you take self-employment tax into account, I might be making a little less.

It’s not entirely clear whether I’m living proof that freelancing can pay a living wage, or if I was just underpaid at my old job. Odds are both are true. My annual revenue doesn’t take into account the fact that I made just $160 in my first month as a freelancer. It takes a while to pitch stories, have them accepted, report them, and then wait for paychecks to come in. And of course, there are business expenses. I’ve written before about building a home studio on the cheap. But cheap is a relative term. I’ve still spent hundreds of dollars to build my home studio, buy a new computer, and other various odds and ends.

Anyway, I expect that my fiscal 2007 revenue will be much higher than my 12 month report. But I’m glad I did my little budget check this morning.

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About me

Brad Linder is editor of mobile tech blog Liliputing.com, host of the LPX Show podcast, and an independent journalist whose work has appeared on public radio and the web.

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