3 Extremely Unflashy Yet Simple Ways I Doubled My Income as a Freelance Writer This Year
It doesn't have to be sexy to be effective.
The majority of us tend to view increasing our income as an impossible uphill battle up a steep mountain during a severe thunderstorm that’s just begging us to fall down the side.
I’m the same way. Lack-mindset, comparison, and insecurities can get the best of us on our harder days.
They can also prevent us from moving the needle forward and actually making any real progress in our endeavors.
For creative freelancers – like writers, social media managers, and graphic designers — this can be a common situation we face. Once we start offering our services and receiving our first paid invoices, we get excited!
But, we can quickly plateau into the comfort of consistent clients or projects which can paralyze us from making any growth in our freelancing careers.
I’ve been there myself. For the majority of my freelancing career, in fact. I saw other freelancers offering more services, increasing their streams of income, and ultimately just making more money than me.
I felt happy with my clients and what I was making. But, I knew I could earn more money and grow my freelancing career into something that felt more like a full-time business than a side hustle.
All it takes is a mindset change and deciding to do things a little bit differently. Here are the 3 extremely unflashy yet simple ways I’ve doubled my income as a freelance writer this year:
1. Sending cold pitches on a consistent basis
A mistake that many freelancers make is thinking the clients are always going to be coming to them. When I first started offering my freelancing services, I expected my inbox to be flooded with inbounds overnight.
It just doesn’t work that way. Not until you’ve got some work to show for under your belt, at least.
Last year, I set a goal to send out 40 cold-pitch emails every single week to prospective brands and businesses that I wanted to work with. Some weeks I sent more, some I sent less.
But, one thing was certain: sending cold pitches on a consistent basis resulted in me getting a heck of a lot more freelance work, which of course helped me increase my income.
2. Creating a social media presence for my business
One of the freelancing services I offer is social media management, so it’s quite ironic that I myself failed to have a social media presence marketing my work.
Last year, I decided to create a TikTok account to share both my work and services, as well as tips and tricks for aspiring freelancers that aren’t sure where to start. Since then, I’ve amassed nearly 15,000 followers on that account.
Creating a social media presence for my freelancing business has brought a lot of incredible money-making opportunities my way.
I’ve had businesses and brands reach out to hire me for my services, and since I have somewhat of a following now, I’ve even scored myself a few paid brand deals.
3. Selling digital products
Truthfully, I never thought I’d be the person selling digital products or preaching to others that they should. But, here we are.
In growing my TikTok audience, I wanted to share more value in a way that was hard to do all the time on TikTok. So, I decided to write an e-book within my writing niche and put it up for sale.
It was a measly $7.50 USD and I admittedly have not done the best job at marketing it. But, over the past year, it’s amassed me over $1,000 in sales — which I’d say is pretty dang good.