To Freelance or Not to Freelance

When it comes to freelance writing, the questions really are multitudinous:

1. Is freelance writing worth my time? And the sub-questions of that: Could I ever make as much money per hour freelancing as doing a typical job? and Will I spend too much time trying to find freelance work and not enough time actually working?

2. Is it just yet another distraction from my own writing projects?

3. What am I actually qualified to freelance about? 

4. Where do I actually find these lovely freelance writing jobs?

5. Could this actually help make my dreams come true? Those of being able to live where I want, make my own schedule and maybe do a little traveling while writing, and making enough to sustain my fairly minimal needs, that is.

Are the first four questions, and the time they consume, worth the possibility that the answer to the fifth is yes?

All of this has come up because yesterday, when I went down to Columbus Cafe to escape the apartment and get some focus, I didn't get right down to business on my creative endeavors (i.e. my novel), and instead found my way to Craigslist due to my continuing indecision about whether I should stay in the Bay or move back to L.A. (hey rhyming!) where I discovered what looked like some freelance writing gigs. Hastily, I sent over my resume to a company called Content Divas and completed a quick application on Write.com. The wheels in my head started turning: If I could make a few hundred a month freelancing through these websites, build my portfolio and confidence and begin finding other gigs in a more direct way, maybe, just maybe, I could gather enough streams of income to quit the day job, or at least minimize it to part-time and work on my own terms. Such an exciting prospect! 

After the cafe, I was also reading a short ebook (which you can get for free here ) about finding a good business idea. It actually inspired me further, but only in the sense that I am now thinking about trying to find my own leads for freelance jobs and trying to contact them. What kinds of leads am I talking about here? I'm going to look for a business, or twenty, who don't seem like they have in-house marketing and offer my services via email. I may eventually try to set up a decent website, or at least a blog where I can put some samples, but initially I'll likely send them as part of the email. Could this be a horrible idea? It very well could, but who knows, maybe it will work. Maybe I can get some referrals, too. And I don't have much to lose.

So here is the current plan, which I will be updating as time goes along:

1. Write.com (which is actually just crowdsource rebranded, which appears to be a large amount of tiny jobs, paying just a bit)

2. Content Divas (they seem new and like they'll provide better compensation)

3. Offer my services to local/small businesses

Here are some more resources for freelance writing if you are interested:

Freelancewriting.com

The Renegade Writer blog

About.com Freelance Section or Write for About.com

Week One Progress:
Made: $8.20 (sort of, see info on working in Mechanical Turk)
Time Spent: (Estimated, including communication etc.) 5 hours
Written: 250 word article for a dating website, product description for cat food.

~CJ

Photo shout out goes to The Italian Voice on Flickr.