Freelance Writing: Realizing When Less Means More

One of the worse mistake that freelance writers can probably make is to bite off more than they can chew. One can easily get hung up, (not to mention burnt out) with the lots and lots and the more and mores.

Big project are not always good especially if you talk about the quantity of the projects that you single-handedly write and edit. In many instances, fewer is actually better. But can fewer projects be better in terms of earnings? While most new freelance writers complain about not having enough projects, what many of us really need is a lot less but gives us more earnings.

Quality vs. Quantity
An online writer's monthly earnings can go for as much or as little as possible. Let's imagine that you aim to earn P25,000 in a month as a freelance writer(just a figure i thought of). There are many ways you can earn this in a month's time. Depending on the clients you have, there are some situations for earning that are more desirable than others. (Figures are on an average)

• Short Articles. You can write 25-30 short articles (100-150 words) and earn around P60 for each.
• Mid-size articles and blog posts. You can write around 10 articles of 300-350 words long for P150 each.
• Full page web content and SEO articles. These articles range from P250-300 each and you can write at least 5 articles per day to achieve your target earnings for the month.
• Many established freelance writer also offer bundles writing services and high-end-turn-key projects for 2-3 clients in a month and earns as much as P25,000 on each client.

But can you really handle all the requirements of the job to reach your desired earnings and more?

Until you're drowning with too many projects at a time, when you'll realize that having too many writing projects is in fact, bad. Having too many writing projects and juggling a number of clients at a time can -

• Lower output quality. Because you're rushing to get things done and reach the daily quota you've set for yourself and earn enough, it's highly impossible for you to maintain your quality of work.
• Less time to find high-end clients and market their talents. Freelancers working on multiple projects at a time are usually left with every little time for themselves much less for marketing their skills and talents to other high-end clients.
• High Impact of break-ins. For freelance writers relying on their daily quota, missing a single day of work can significantly impact their targeted monthly income. 
• Stagnation of skills. Because of a freelance writer's commitment to high volume of assignments, they also have very little time to update their talents.
• Burn outs. Happened to me and can happen to any freelance writers churning out volumes of work everyday just to reach their goal. I can say that your target figure can work as a motivation, but for many it just ain't enough. 

Focusing more on the quality of work for quality clients is the better way of doing freelance jobs. You get a better working environment and you provide better work results for your clients. Many freelance writers choose to work on multiple project types in a month, but hopefully, more would be enlightened to work more for quality than quantity.