As the owner of WM Medical Communications, there are so many days when I’m grateful to be a freelancer. I’ve been running my own business since the early 90s (first in print, then online) and have helped launch numerous clients, particularly in the health/medicine fields and most especially in the boomers+ market.

And there are so many days when I think I’m truly out of my mind.

What makes for these ups and downs? Here are just a few pros and cons I’ve learned about being one’s own boss, with additional insights from several generous colleagues.

Cons
The Transition Can Be Tough

People come to freelancing through numerous avenues. I was forced into it through a recession, during which my husband lost his job too. Let me tell you, when we cleaned out most of our savings because of what it cost to set up a home office with computers, fax and printer, I was scared.

“I was an assistant editor in a New York City publishing company that was sold. I had offers to stay on, but I wasn’t interested; I really wanted to explore writing. So I went out on my own. I had to do a lot of copyediting while I got into writing. There were two years where I didn’t make a lot of money,” said Sheila Buff, whose expert medical writing and editing has helped seven doctors produce national bestsellers.

Caroline Leopold was working at a non-profit as a grant writer but said the agency hired consultants to work on larger submissions. “I hit a glass ceiling. They paid these people $200 an hour and I realized I was doing it better than they were.” So one day, Leopold said, she “got a backbone” and looked into establishing a freelance career in December 2011. She immediately got a profitable part-time position in February 2012. When it came to renew, “I cut the cord,” she said, and started her own business that August.

Lucy Clark, who’s been a leading graphic designer since 1992 in print and then added online work in ’97, was in a staff job but knew she wanted to start her own business. “I__?d work on other clients during lunches [at work] or in evenings,” she said. “My clients understood to call me at home. My husband was trained to answer the phone and only call [me] if need be.”

It’s Often Feast or Famine

If you’re going into freelancing ’cause it seems easy, forget it. There will be a lot of times of almost 24/7 franticness___ and then scary valleys.

“Yeah, that’s the really big drawback. You can have a really good year, then everything crashes___ and it can take a while to scramble back,” said Buff. Nowadays she has a better handle on when each job is due to end but still takes care not to get complacent. “Make sure to keep beating the bushes,” she advised.

It’s nice to hear the advice of keeping six months’ income saved up and to regularly take on new clients, but I’ve found it impossible. During hard times (particularly, 9/11 and the 2009 recession) that six months’ savings quickly disappears. And when I get a really big client, 40 hours a week almost always goes there, leaving little time for taking on new projects.

Entrepreneur Jake Poinier (aka “Dr. Freelance”) said one of the keys is to simply not roll over. “In summer 2001, people’s marketing budgets dried up. I had a wife, two young kids, a mortgage___ So instead of waiting for the phone to ring, I started cold calling. [Despite 9/11] in September I was busy again,” said Poinier, who — besides being owner of Boomvang Creative Group is also the developer of the Freelance Forecast annual guide and the author of The Science, Art and Voodoo of Freelance Pricing and Getting Paid and Help! My Freelancers Are Driving Me Crazy.

Even a regular workday can be crazed. “I think I read more than I write every day,” said Leopold. Among her musts: about 15 agencies that have references to grants (via a federal RSS); Science Daily; the Scientopia blog; and science-related Reddit posts.

The Low-Balled Battle

The “I can get it cheaper mindset” seems more prevalent since the Internet boom. Clients see numerous listings for blog posts at “5 cents a word” or “$6 a page” or “$10 an hour.” So often they don’t realize how unrealistic these rates are once issues like research, interviews, deadlines — plus overall skill — are factored in.

Clark feels you have to hold your ground. “Unless you can educate [potential clients] about what’s really involved, walk away,” she said.

Not sure what to charge? Ask colleagues. Clients also know the going rate, so as long as you’re not being unreasonable (i.e., moving from the lowest fee in the spectrum for a project to the highest) the ones who want to keep you will pay what is fair.

I’ve found editors rarely pay much in increases; they have a budget for stories and that’s that. However, if you’re a steady contributor, you may be able to finagle an extra $50 or so. If the work isn’t too demanding, it might be worth your while to keep this client. Or perhaps you can negotiate other benefits. For example, instead of all rights to the work, your client takes only one-time rights, so you can easily sell the work (and make money) elsewhere.

But let’s say you’ve “outgrown” the rates you’re being paid; e.g. $30 an hour was a great initial goal, but now you’re worth at least $50. You can start weaning yourself from the lower payers with a process Poinier calls “the stealth raise.” Slowly start adding an extra 10% (maybe a little more) to your bids. Your best clients will likely accept them.

Or maybe you simply have to start expanding your portfolio. For me, there came a point when journalism wasn’t going to pay enough. I had to add other writing services; e.g., custom web content, brochures, white papers, advertorials. But these materials are considered marketing/PR… and it was a hard decision to “cross to the dark side” (as one client put it).

Pros
You’re In Control

And now on to the benefits of the freelance life. With the exception of dealing with true disasters, you control your own destiny. In my home state of Maryland, a lot of health/medical projects are government work and almost always go to primary contractors who are used to the paperwork and politics. Instead of fighting for work, I now sign on as a subcontractor (mostly writing custom web content), get paid nicely and have agencies like the NIH in my portfolio.

Buff also enjoys the autonomy. “[Freelancing] gave me back two hours a day because I wasn’t traveling [to the office]. I don’t have to go to a boss and beg for a morning off; I can work in the garden,” said Buff.

“I take an hour in the evening practicing yoga and nothing would stop me from doing that,” explained Clark. “I can read books, do my own art… I’ve developed a bunch of other hobbies.”

Poinier noted that he and his family lived in Canada for a year, and there was no interruption to his business. “There were people I didn’t even tell I had gone!” he said.

Emotional Satisfaction

It’s true there can be a lot of stress related to running your own business (rush jobs, late payments, etc.), but to me there’s nothing like the self-satisfaction it can bring.

“Grant writing is amazing. I don’t get paid to write. I get paid to learn,” said Leopold. It’s a reward she always appreciates.

And talk about rewarding. I wrote newspaper pieces on health issues for adults ages 60+. It was real information, not just “Five Ways to Prevent Back Sprain.” One of the topics was on PTSD in older veterans. After the work was published, a widow called me in tears. She told me her husband, a vet, had changed and become violent in the last years of his life. At least now she understood why. Wow!

Networking Opportunities

My colleagues and I agree that you have to constantly network if you want to enhance your visibility. “To me, joining a professional organization is a no-brainer,” said Buff, adding, “When you share your knowledge, it all comes back to you.”

With online options, there’s no excuse not to get noticed. For example, after I approached Poinier at Buff’s suggestion, he told me, “Oh sure. I know your name from your postings on EFA [And don’t forget to establish networks with folks outside of your field. “So when graphic designers need copy for something done, they give you a call… and vice versa,” said Poinier.
Final Words of Advice

When a job doesn’t develop, I try to remember what a salesman once taught me. “You have to understand that 99 percent of the time you will NOT get the client. Consider that a given, so you can be overjoyed when that 1 percent closes!”

Ultimately, Buff said, “You HAVE to say, ‘I’m available.’ Make people aware of your existence. Do really good work so you get repeats. [And] stay flexible and open-minded… or you’ll be left in the dust.”

Wendy Meyeroff is a freelance writer and marketing strategist based in Baltimore. She can be reached at wendy@wmmedcomm.com.

?? Mediabistro Inc. 2013. All Rights Reserved.

These are edgy days for print journalism. An onslaught of cuts has shrunk news holes, slashed budgets, dismembered bureaus, curtailed ad revenue and whacked personnel with Sopranos-esque efficiency. Broadsheets have been trimmed to the point of irony. Swords of Damocles dangle from newsrooms’ ceiling tiles.

The industry’s problems notwithstanding, I believe there has never been a better time to be a writer for hire. I know what you’re thinking and, no, I wasn’t recently released from involuntary confinement. I’m the guy who disembarked the Titanic moments before it left port.

In 2006, I departed the presumed safety of a staff editorial position with The Chronicle of Higher Education, the self-proclaimed Wall Street Journal of the egghead set. Suffice to say that we parted company on a timetable not of my choosing. Loath to take another newsroom job, I declined offers of full-time employment, shut my eyes and plunged into full-time freelance writing.

Go figure: Freelance economics can pay off

In 2007, my first full year of working at home alone, I grossed $95,000 — more than I had earned as a staff writer and editor. I eliminated annual commuting time equivalent to more than six 40-hour work weeks and saved money on dry cleaning costs, parking garage fees, automobile expenses and restaurant tabs. I took a two-week vacation in Italy, spent a week on a North Carolina beach and barely lifted my pen between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. I haven’t attended a mindless staff meeting in quite a while.

My leap of faith and its aftermath belie Hunter S. Thompson’s maxim that “writing is a hard dollar.” (Apropos of nothing, Thompson further noted that stringing together words for a living “is a lot better than reaching up inside a maddened cow and grabbing a breached calf by the legs.” Who knew?)

Moreover, I’ve succeeded without benefit of a Web site, business cards, query letters, blogs or LinkedFaceSpaceTwitter. My secret? Economics 101. I’ve found that market demand for editorial professionals outstrips supply — by a mile. If you write well and can meet deadlines, you can earn a good living working at home in your underwear. Meanwhile, my former employer continues to throw people overboard like so much human ballast. Sound familiar? In my experience, making it as an editorial mercenary is a four-step process — Step one: Recruit and retain a handful of good clients. Step two: Do great work. Step 3: Cash the checks. Step 4: Repeat steps two and three. In making the leap from newsroom to home office, I’ve picked up a few tricks and tips for smoothing the transition.

Are you well-suited to go freelance?

Ernest Hemingway, an accomplished freelancer in his own right, advised would-be writers to “develop a built-in bullshit detector.” Assuming you possess such an apparatus, use it to check your motives and assess your suitability for freelancing, preferably before you ditch the paid vacation and employer-matched 401(k). Are you comfortable with a certain amount of uncertainty? Can you function in the absence of cubicle-d colleagues? Are you adventurous? Can you distinguish a gerund from a gerbil? Can you identify and report on compelling stories? Do editors compliment you on your writing? Are you a multitasker? Self-motivated? Does the idea of being your own boss cause you to smile?

Be honest. If your answers are overwhelmingly affirmative, you may be suited for freelancing. If, however, you thrive on rigidity, demanding bosses and the consequences of not falling in line, the U.S. Marine Corps is looking for a few good men.

Don’t be afraid to take the plunge

Every few months I get a call from a friend, an accomplished and independent-minded staff writer who desperately wants to go solo. Immobilized by fear, however, he can’t pull the trigger. Like many of us, he has a hard-wired aversion to the unknown. (Consider that the most chilling aspect of horror movies — Jaws, Alien, Psycho –is often the unseen monster.)

Speaking of little monsters, the decision to become a freelancer — and following through on it — is akin to planning and starting a family. In both cases, putting it off until you’re ready means that it probably won’t happen — unless there’s a fortuitous accident. Overcoming inertia sometimes requires what might euphemistically be called the gift of desperation. If you’re among the legions of journalists who have lost or will lose a job, this is your chance to make a change.

Don’t let your ego get in the way

Lurking at the other end of the emotional spectrum is ego. If your definition of freelance success is contributing regularly to The New Yorker, you’ll be disappointed to learn that David Remnick isn’t awaiting your call. Nothing will cut short a freelance career more cleanly than a stubborn insistence on publishing in million-circulation mags or not at all. As in war, amateurs do it for the glory, mercenaries for the money. (Call me, David.)

Recruit a client base

How do you find clients? It’s the question most often asked of me by people mulling the freelance option. If you’ve been around for a while and haven’t recently awakened from an extended coma, you probably know a lot of people. Call them. Text them. Reconnect. Let them know what you’re up to.

As a newly liberated staff writer and neophyte freelancer, your job is to have lunch. Pastrami on rye has catalyzed more freelance writing assignments than all the resumes in Manhattan. If you’re enthusiastic about what you’re doing, people will want to help. For many nine-to-fivers, there is something alluring about the crazy, courageous colleague who works without a net. They might not have the stones to go it alone, but they want in on the action — if only vicariously.

Keep your clients, and keep them happy

Tapping your network is a start, not a destination. If you fail to transform first-time clients into loyal customers, your progress will falter. An old hand told me that it’s a lot easier to keep a customer than it is to get a new one. Neglect the care and feeding of clients, and you’ll go hungry.

The successful freelancer understands that customers want what they want, when they want it. Your job is to give it to them — on time, on topic and written to the agreed-upon length. (Getting a 2,000-word piece instead of the agreed-upon 1,500 isn’t likely to be viewed by most editors as a 500-word bonus.) Make your copy clean, accurate, compelling and well-reported. Try not to libel anyone.

How much quality should you give a client? More then they expect. A quick scan of any publication will reveal its quality benchmark. Having sized up the competition, make sure you’re better than the other guys. Do great work, yes, but don’t fall into the black hole of perfectionism. The law of diminishing returns will rob you blind. Besides, Oil and Gas doesn’t expect the same urbane wit demanded by, say, The New Yorker.

Work where the money is

A freelancer of another sort, Willie Sutton, when asked why he robbed banks, replied with unerring logic: “Because that’s where the money is.” Similarly, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, in the cinematic account of the Watergate investigation, were advised by uber-source Deep Throat to “Just… follow the money.”

Indeed, it pays to follow the money. As satisfying as it might be to write church bulletins or craft C.V.s for unemployed subprime mortgage lenders, those gigs don’t pay. Most of my freelance assignments have involved work in the areas of education, health and information technology, gazillion-dollar sectors all. I’d love to be a poet, but the pay for penning quatrains is too often comp copies of obscure literary journals.

Following the money can lead you to nonprofit institutions of all stripes, including colleges and universities that are among the wealthiest institutions around. Other destinations include companies, trade groups and membership associations whose internal and external publications frequently rely on freelance editorial professionals.

Cull the good customers from the bad

One of the great intangible benefits of being a solo practitioner is the gratitude of clients who rely on freelancers. And why shouldn’t they be grateful? They don’t pay benefits or provide office space, and they get access to a level of expertise that in many cases would be prohibitively expensive if paid for on a per annum basis. It’s a good deal all around.

Unfortunately, a small number of clients aren’t worth the trouble. They come in different varieties. Some refuse to acknowledge the line between freelance workers and employees, paying for the former and demanding the latter. There are slow payers and nonpayers and flat-out difficult clients. Fortunately, they are rare.

If you have a diversified base of clients, excising the occasional bad apple can be done with little or no financial harm. Not that it’s easy to break off a lucrative relationship: I dropped a client worth almost $20,000 annually because its lack of organization compromised the work I did for other customers. I second-guessed my decision more than once, but it was the right thing to do. If the customer is always right, fire him!

Know what to charge

When it comes to freelance remuneration, there is a tendency to get hung up on per-word rates. Granted, there are cases that justify obsessive attention to those numbers, such as speculation on the blogosphere that Portfolio paid Michael Lewis a saliva-inducing $12 per word. Moneyball, indeed.

For the rest of us, per-word rates are something of a red herring. (That last sentence would have netted Lewis either $156 or $168, depending on the definition of “per-word” as it applies to hyphenated terms.) What matters is how well you’re compensated for your time, the most nonrenewable of nonrenewable resources.

At $1 per word, a 1,000-word assignment that requires listening to a one-hour Web conference and writing for four hours is worth $200 per hour. A seemingly more lucrative $3-per-word assignment of the same length that requires two weeks of reporting, writing and editing is, at $37.50 per hour, a poorer deal. You learn these things the hard way. Early on, I was thrilled to get an $8,000 assignment to write a long magazine piece. Only later did I realize the extent to which overnight reporting trips to Syracuse, Chattanooga and Albuquerque had cut into my hourly compensation.

Of course, money isn’t everything. It makes sense sometimes to take an assignment that will serve a higher purpose, such as reaching a broader audience or a more sophisticated reader, someone like, I don’t know, David Remnick. (Call me.)

John Pulley is writing a guide for freelancers.

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With days that can take you from steamy subway commute to Arctic-cold office to al fresco networking drinks or dinner, spring and summer mean temps as varied as your social calendar.
The key to staying fresh and not turning into a hot mess is a little wardrobe game plan before you step outside. Check out these style points for keeping cool—without getting a call from HR.
WOMEN
The Shift Dress
Looking to land the job as managing editor at a publishing house? Sleek, flattering and short-sleeved, the shift dress is the equivalent of a power suit. It’s interview appropriate when worn with a blazer and cocktail ready without.

The White Shirt
This timeless wardrobe staple is always chic. You can never have too many white shirts; their versatility ranges from Oxford cloth with the preppy button-down collar to a classic silk secretary blouse with bow. The endless options mean your closet is well stocked for work and play. Pair with a statement necklace to go from plain to glam.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/288160076136377139/
The Kitten Heel
You may be a publicist who’s up at dawn for a television appearance then later hosting an event that ends at 10 p.m. To pull off looking polished without being uncomfortable, your shoe choice is key. Opt out of changing by noon and go for a lower heel to keep your day on track.
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The Linen Blazer
If jeans are the workplace uniform, but you’ve got a client dinner, a linen blazer is the perfect piece to give your style a tailored look. Even worn with a T-shirt, a structured jacket transitions you from laid-back to business casual.
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The Camisole
Nothing says day-to-date-night like a silk camisole. Once considered lingerie only, the lingerie-inspired piece now has 9-to-5, appeal especially when paired with a jacket or cardigan.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/288160076136455490/

MEN
The Khaki Suit
Go from office to off duty with this warm-weather classic. Whether you’re the art director or account manager, this suit keeps you looking cool and professional. Pair with sneakers if your gig is more creative and brogues to add more polish.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/288160076136455766/
The V-Neck Sweater
Simple and versatile, a cotton V-neck layers perfectly over tees or an Oxford shirt worn with a tie. It adds a bit of refinement to a casual office look, and the lightweight weave is ideal for warmer days.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/288160076136456097/

The Trench Coat:
A must-have for unpredictable rain showers, a lightweight trench is a wardrobe necessity. Its water-repellant tech fabric makes for an ideal travel companion and its classic tailoring is a nod to heritage style.
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The Navy Sportcoat
Worn with our without a pocket square, no closet should be without a navy sport coat. It partners well with polos, tees or dress shirts, giving you limitless wear for any occasion or occupation.https://www.pinterest.com/pin/288160076136455944/
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The Polo Shirt
The mainstay of sport enthusiasts from tennis to golf, the polo shirt has also found its way off the field and into fashion. A pima cotton piqué weave is perfect for humid days especially if you’re cycling to work. If you decide to go the blazer route, keep it soft and unstructured.
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