Work At Home: Freelance Writer

This weeks Work At Home reader spotlight is Abbi P. Abbi is a freelance writer and blogs over at You Get What You Get. This is something that I think is really interesting, in this age of computers, to me it seems if you have the talent and the skills it is something that you can work into any schedule. All you need to a computer and the knowledge of how to get started.

This is her story:

I've worked from home ever since my oldest was born, over 11 years ago. I have five kids now, including one with special needs. I work as a freelance writer; before my oldest was born I lived abroad and worked as a marketing writer in a small agency.

I actually wrote an ebook called Successful Freelance Writing -- it's a whole course packed into about 100 pages. I used to sell it online, but I haven't done that in years, and I'm sure it's in need of updating.

How many hours a week do you work?

Currently, I work about 20-30 hours a week -- but remember, I've been doing this for 15 years. Freelance anything is feast or famine. So, while I hardly invoiced anything in August (maybe 2000), in September, I'm invoicing for close to $8k.

What can you expect to make?

For a beginning just starting out, it's reasonable to think you could make $10,000 to $20,000 annually by the end of your first year. Yes, that's a big range, because it depends on how afraid you are of cold calls, how dedicated you are to work, etc.

What type of writing is most profitable?

I can't recommend writing ebooks to sell -- unless you have a big following already. For me, it's the corporate writing that is most profitable. The articles I write are more for name recognition and beefing up my resume. The corporate work is less flashy, but pays the bills.

It's not a get rich quick job, and it's not a job that pays you to do nothing. You actually have to work. :-) But, you can do it anywhere -- we spent 5 weeks in Israel last year, and we are looking into spending the year there next year, and I should be able to work.

Thanks so much to Abbi for taking the time to post her story. If you have any questions for Abbi or want to ask her about a copy of her e-book you can email her abbi@perets.net

Do you work form home and want to share your story of what works and even what didn't work out? Shoot me an email at mylitter@mac.com