Is one better than the other?
Creating content and building a platform to monetize the content, sell products, and provide services high-dollar services to an audience who hangs on your every word is a bit of a holy grail for many solopreneurs.
The process can be a lonely, low-profit endeavor for quite a while.
“But this is the price creators pay along the way to finding their tribe,” successful creators will say.
“Stay consistent, learn along the way, find your voice, improve constantly, and the money may come,” they'll say.
Freelancing, though, pays more now.
Some of my articles have earned pennies on Medium, or even nothing at all.
I would have done better putting up a listing on Fiverr to write an article for $5. Even with the $1 fee taken out, I'd still be ahead over what I made on those poorly paying articles. (Actually, I'd be ahead of what almost all of my articles have earned so far! Only five of them have earned more than $4.)
I've recently taken on freelancing work.
Over the past week or so, I've taken on a freelance client for website design and maintenance, and content creation. It took a while to get things in place, but we've signed contracts and we're doing it!
My monthly report on my side hustle income that I'll publish at the beginning of November will be my best one to date.
Not for the mostly passive pieces of my income, but for the very-much active freelancing pieces.
Producing content for yourself vs. for others
When a creator completes a work for hire — say writing an article — as a freelancer, a fee is paid, and that's the end of the income. It's completion of a job.
When the creator writes the same article, but puts it on under their own platform, they can get paid again and again for it through traffic, clicks, and sign-ups which lead to other income avenues.
The source of tension between these two outcomes is taking a known amount of money now, vs. an indeterminate amount of money over time.
Considering all factors, it's often not a simple trade-off.
There may be a time to take on jobs rather than build a platform.
I'll admit that my online writing ventures haven't been profitable for a while. Hosting, domains, and other online services and software cost more than what my work brings in.
My day job is good, and it subsidizes my side hustles. I haven't gotten to the point where my work is converting. Or, more bluntly, I haven't produced the kind of content that converts.
Bringing some money in the door with freelancing, even at the expense of handing over the potential lifetime profits of the work, is attractive for several reasons:
1. The work offsets current expenses.
The website design will pay for a year of Canva Pro and then some.
The ongoing website maintenance will cover the web hosting for all of my projects.
Each article I write for the client will cover a month or two of some other service.
This covers expenses, even though it's not passive.
The companies providing the services don't really care how their services are paid for.
They needed to get paid for.
2. The work challenges me to be more efficient.
This is a matter of mindset, of course, but I'm not my most demanding client. If I were, I'd certainly be further along than I am.
In lieu of not being demanding of myself, if others set deadlines and expectations, I need to meet them, or lose their business.
At the very least, I had the foresight to charge by the article, not by the hour. This drives me to be more efficient so that my effective hourly rate is higher.
It also teaches me to be more efficient for myself, which pays me dividends in the long run.
3. Freelancing practices are skills in themselves.
I didn't know how to assemble a contract for signing until I had to do it (twice) for this client.
I didn't know how to actually explain what I do to set up a website until I had to explain parts to the client.
I didn't have as much practice, frankly, in standing up for myself until I needed to set certain boundaries.
All good skills to learn. All good skills to earn.
Freelancing some could jumpstart my other endeavors.
In a way it's my own on-the-job training. I'll take it!
Thanks for reading!
Hi, I'm John and I encourage entrepreneurship in people, including myself.
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