Hey everyone,
We’re not supposed to talk about money.
We’re writers. We’re artists. We work because we love the work and money is the side effect of that work. It’s just a reflection of the reach we have. Right?
We don’t say we want to make money even though we do.
Well, you know what? Screw that.
Because I’ve had money. And I’ve not had money. And not having it sucked royally.
Now that I have money, I can go see my parents in India for the first time in four years. I can put my kid in private school, after a year of being told by his state school that he was too advanced and needed to slow down his learning and not do any extra work at home. I can take more than two weeks a year off work without worrying that it will kill my income. I can save for my future instead of constantly trying to outrun my past. I can buy healthy food. I can join the gym and get fit. I retired my husband from a job he hated and he can now breathe. I can now breathe.
This is important: I can breathe.
I understood very early on a fundamental truth that has guided my life and my work:
The world does not need another struggling writer, another miserable starving artist.
What the world needs is a thriving artist. A thriving female artist. The world needs more examples of women who will step up, own their worth, and demand to be paid exceptionally well for it. The world needs powerful women who make money, are unapologetic about their ambition, and who will demand the highest levels of pay not because they need more money, but because they understand their own value.
We need those women to be our role models and we need to step up and be those women ourselves.
My motivation for making money has often been personal but I talk about money—a lot—because I think it’s essential to stop treating it as a taboo subject.
We all make money. We all need money. We all spend money.
And the more money you make? The less your decisions are likely to be guided by it.
That’s freedom.
I created time and income freedom in my life through freelancing and I learned how to get paid really well for my work. When I was freelancing full time, I made as much as $450 per hour.
You know why?
Because I was never embarrassed to ask for more. I was never shy about saying that I was the best writer for the job. And I sent the pitches, made the phone calls, and showed up to the events even when I didn’t feel like it and even when I was terrified of doing so.
I made the effort because I wanted to make the money. It was essential to me, as a female artist, that I make the money.
I learned everything the hard way, through a decade of trial and error, but you don’t have to.
You shouldn’t have to go into debt or make lower than minimum wage even though you’re a talented writer because no one ever taught you how to run a business.
And you shouldn’t have to work fifty hours a week marketing your ass off only to get clients asking if you’ll “do the first one for free.”
I run this website and do this work because I was to show you how writers just like you—journalists, content marketing writers, experts—have created time and income freedom by bringing in regular, ongoing work from clients who respect their worth. Our students have quit their jobs, built six-figure freelance businesses, and gotten published in top publications.
I can’t guarantee you’ll have results like them, but I CAN guarantee that if you don’t take action, you’ll be facing 2019 with more of the same.
Most freelancers never achieve what they set out to with freelancing.
More money. More freedom. More fun. Without the burnout.
You can waste all your time spinning around in circles and eventually figure out how to bring in the work. Fifteen years ago, when I was starting out, that was the only way to do it.
Or you can learn from people who’ve done what you want do so that you can raise your prices and start creating the freelancing career that you wanted this month, this week, today.
Your choice.
We need you to stop being another freelancing statistic and be the success story instead. You know it’s time.
Cheers,
Natasha