Chris Garrett writes about The Myth of Freelance Pay, a post inspired by the Writers’ Strike. The strike is hitting home for plenty of people and I think web publishers, bloggers and other content producers are keenly interested in what’s going on. Chris points out that some people are being pretty negative about the writers for wanting more money assuming that they get paid too much already. I don’t know if you know any freelance writers or not but most of them don’t make a living at it. More than a few freelance writers have a “regular” job that helps pay the bills. Chris compares it to freelancers (web dev, design, seo etc) in our field. He brings up some good points, like dry spells, waiting for checks to come in and those kinds of things. Freelancing can be tough for a lot of reasons:

• You don’t have a boss. You have lots of them. Instead of answering to one person you know have lots of bosses.
• There are times when you should be billing someone but you aren’t because you’re too nice, like when your doing research or answering emails or in meetings.
• You look at everything in terms of how many hours it’s going to cost you. That new HD TV might be 15-20 hours of work.
• Taxes stink! You think you got it bad as an employee. Oh no my friend. Oh no.
• Everyone thinks your job is easy and they have a 12 year old who could do it.
• Communication is harder. Email and Phone just aren’t the same as doing it in person.
• It can be kinda lonely. This is also a benefit ;)

Freelancing can be great too!

• You can sleep in after working late the night before.
• You don’t have to worry about office politics or office mates bugging you all day
• You can wear whatever you want to work most of the time.
• You commute time is reduced to 0 and not paying $200/month in gas is awesome!
• You get somewhere like 2 hours back in your day (lunches, commute, bs meetings etc.)
• If it’s not working out you can fire your client! While you can quit work, it’s just not the same.
• You get to meet more people than if you were just in one office. If your lucky, like I have been, you get to work with great clients!
• I can do chores while I’m waiting for lunch to cook or while a long upload is finishing, etc. Multi-tasking is so much easier.

Freelancing has been a tough adjustment for me, I admit it. I’m a very task and schedule oriented person and I sometimes miss working in an office. But it’s a means to an ends and brings me one step closer to relying solely on my own projects to make a living. I’m loving freelancing and learning so much from the experience. I’m sure it’ll get easier the longer I do it. It’s hard to imagine giving up working from home.

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