Things To Know About Working as a Full Time Freelancer

What does it mean to work as a full time freelancer? I didn’t really know until I started. I left my day job as a kids book buyer for a retail chain in March 2018. For about 8 months after leaving, I focused on running an online store I had started to serve the food allergy community. But with slim margins, high shipping costs, and so much competition from other retailers, I ultimately decided it was not a sustainable business and closed it in November 2018. I took some time to recharge over the holidays and planned my next career as a freelancer.

If you like this article, check out 26 Things I Learned In My First Year Of Self Employment As A Full Time Blogger

Building a Diverse Portfolio

Although I work in the food allergy space, my freelance work is not exclusive to that area. I have a diverse portfolio of work, but I still only take on projects that I truly care about and want to devote my time to.

My main focus for freelance work is pitching to inclusive, allergy/eczema - aware brands for contracts to share their products, create recipes or other content, and to promote them on social media. I’m very fortunate to have some clients with whom I collaborate on a monthly basis. One of the anchors of my mission within the food allergy community are my inclusive cookbooks.

However, I also take on work outside of the food allergy world. A fun contract I took on was writing home and design inspiration articles for a new real estate blog called FCT Prop Talk. It allows me to dig into one of my other interests - design.

It was really important for me to find a very sustainable gig, and one that allowed me to socialize with other people on a more regular basis. I work as a consultant at two literacy foundations. That’s why I sometimes go dark for a day or two on Instagram, because I’m in the weeds somewhere else! It feels great to keep a toe in the publishing world.

Having a diverse portfolio of work allows you to develop a diverse set of skills and strategies. There are some soft skills that one maintains while working in an office, that I had completely lost not being in an office for over a year. It felt good to challenge myself in that way, and to build different perspectives into my work. The first time I returned to an office this past summer, I felt a bit like a fish out of water; my way of life was so different. But after a few visits it felt normal again. My work is done remotely but I do visit the office from time to time.

Taking on work outside of your main focus area does not mean that you’re distracted from your goals (it can mean that, but it’s really up to how you shape these experiences). It means that you’re taking new opportunities, exploring new territories, and broadening your knowledge. Having multiple sources of income means that you may receive paychecks on a more regular basis, which is also really important.

How much do you ask for?

Literally the most asked question in regards to working with brands. I will go into more detail about this in a later post, but for now I will say that there is no real set amount for all types of freelance work. Know your costs and hours, make a judgement call, and prepare to negotiate. The only thing I can say for sure is that I don’t work for free.

Should I work with this brand?

And this is the second most common question I am asked by other bloggers. I get pitches for free products, content sharing, affiliate opps or paid opps, almost every day, and most of them are not the right fit for me. The questions I ask myself are:

• Does this product or brand fit my mission statement, to be inclusive and allergy/eczema-aware?

• Am I allergic to it? Is the company able to provide ingredient information?

• Does this brand have a good reputation? Is it a quality product?

• Do I like it? Do I use it? Do I want to start using it?

• Is this something that my readers would be interested in, or benefit from?

• Does this seem like a mass form email, or is it personalized?

If the answer to any of those questions is negative, then I move on. Quality curation is so important. If I advertised a product that had a “may contain” statement, pretending I ate it, then I would not expect anyone in the allergy world to trust me. Trust is SO important. If I’m even on the fence about any of these questions, I go with my gut and turn it down.

The amount of completely unrelated pitches I get would astound you. Protein bars with dairy or nuts, new age “healing” treatments that promise a better life, protein and collagen powders, collagen snacks, articles about vacuums, food allergy “prevention” treatments/products, yoga to “cure” food allergies, bracelets that will improve your life and allow you to join a community of influencers, books about completely unrelated topics, so many tofu products, so many vegan products, the list goes on.

Not every offer is the right opportunity, so know how to spot or seek out the ones that are right for you and your audience. Don’t be afraid to say no.

Companies that literally DISAPPEAR

This might sound crazy, but there have been multiple times this year when I’m either in the middle of negotiating with a company, we’ve worked out a contract, or I’ve even started work already, and the company literally disappears off the face of the earth with absolutely no explanation. The website is gone, the email address no longer exists, the company has changed names, “the payment is coming very soon, we promise”… you get the picture.

Generally this happens when a start up goes out of business and they just forget to tell you because they’re extremely stressed out because they just went out of business. However, this is very frustrating for several reasons.

First, because I put a lot of leg work into my pitches when I decide that a brand is a good fit for my blog or social media channels. Second, because that is lost time that I could have been working on something else. And third, it’s confusing and I have to piece together what happened and whether the deal is dead or they’re just behind on their emails. When I’ve already started work it means I will have to chase for payment which is unfair to me and wholly disappointing.

Think creatively

Working in the blogger/Instagrammer field means that one cannot be focused on just getting their tasks done, but about offering a new perspective or insight, relating to and engaging with others. Preparing a pretty salad every day may be nice to look at, and allows me to tick content creation off my list, but probably won’t do much to grow my audience.

What sets you apart? What makes you memorable? What makes you the go-to person people think of when they think of X. Often, my daily tasks get pushed aside to make way for an impactful creative project that I just have to see through. How can you start a meaningful conversation?

Set some boundaries for what to put online

Once my audience started to grow, it became clear that I needed to set myself some boundaries for how much I shared, of who, where, and when. A clear way to delineate this was to open a private personal account, one that is just for sharing photos of family and friends, and that has no concern for growth or engagement. My family is very private, and does not like to be shared publicly, and I respect that. Instagram is used by many, like some of my family members, simply as a photo album. I realized that if I wanted to share a picture of my parents at my Nonna’s house, that wasn’t really something to share on my Everyday Allergen-Free feed.

Respecting other people’s boundaries is so important. My husband doesn’t love to be on social media, which is why you rarely ever see him on my stories. I always ask first if I know someone is on the fence about being shared.

I only post about where I am going after I have gone there. I record my Instagram stories in real time, but I generally only post the story once I have left that location. It’s not to be disingenuous, it’s because I have received creepy phone calls and messages from people asking where I am or where I’m going to be. Set boundaries to protect your personal privacy.

Have a good media kit ready

Your media kit is a quick snapshot of you and your personal brand and mission, that you send to companies you are pitching.

What do you stand for? What is your mission? What type of companies are you looking to work with? What does your content look like? Who else have you worked with? Have you had any publicity? What are your credentials? What makes you unique? Provide some basic and relevant statistics about your traffic and audience.

This document should be no longer than 2 pages and should be sent as a PDF. I update mine every quarter. Always send an updated media kit. Providing an outdated one sends a bad message and is not a great representation of yourself and your work. It looks sloppy. Always have an updated version ready, even if you aren’t planning to pitch anyone that quarter. You never know when a brand will reach out to you, so be prepared.

Keep on top of your analytics, deadlines, and invoices

Check your analytics regularly; most popular posts, how your ads are performing, where traffic is coming from, etc. And likewise, track your invoices, contracts, and deadlines. Always follow up with a review of content performance a few weeks after the content went live. The brand will appreciate not having to ask you for it. When you only have a couple outstanding invoices it may seem easy to track, but through the course of a year things will pile up and become difficult to manage if you don’t have an organizational system in place.

If you like this article, check out 26 Things I Learned In My First Year Of Self Employment As A Full Time Blogger