Slowly building my empire

I took Friday off to work on some writing projects. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much writing done because of my dinosaur of a computer, which doesn’t really cooperate if I have more than one application open at a time. Until I get my new one (hopefully in a couple of weeks!!), my productivity is going to be seriously hindered. (Hey Gloria, does Greg want my old one back for any reason??)

I spent most of the morning paying off some credit cards (thanks to a $1500 tax refund, woohoo!) so I guess that was productive in its own right. Between Friday afternoon and a couple of hours yesterday while also doing laundry, this is what I accomplished in my freelancing life:

• Wrote 2 Fact Sheets for Demand Studios (total payout: $10)
• Wrote 3 more posts for ehow (no immediate payout; from what I’ve read it takes about 100 articles to start making ad revenue on ehow, so I’m now 5% of the way there …)
• Finalized my first post for Want to Freelance ($5, but these posts don’t really feel like work; they are very similar to writing in my own blog. My next 2 posts are already well underway and I have ideas for at least 2 more. At 300-500 words each, they should be a breeze.)
• Started freewriting on part 4 of my yoga series for AltGlobe, which I think will be a very easy post (not as much research as the last two) and which will earn me $20 after it’s posted on Thursday

So, $35 for the weekend’s work. Not exactly a freelancing gold mine, but all steps in the right direction. I also read a lot of industry-related blogs, so I am learning a lot about the crazy world of freelancing. And I have several more Demand Studios jobs in my queue that could easily get me up to $75 or more for the week.

My biggest challenge right now as I see it is to work on spending an appropriate amount of time on each project. I think I take too long to write and edit most of my articles, wanting to make them “perfect.” I’m used to spending as much time as I want on my personal blogs, because obviously I’m not getting paid for these, I’m just doing it for my own enjoyment. But when it comes to a 200-word Fact Sheet for Demand Studios, spending an hour or more (including research) just isn’t going to be worth my time. Fortunately, the two assignments I did for DS were on similar topics, so I didn’t have to do much additional research (and I did a similar piece for ehow, just rewriting it to make it more personal). This is probably going to be the best approach to get the most mileage out of every topic I research.

My goal is to get the freelance income up to $100 a week. Kelsey said she’s at $250-300, which is astounding! But she’s been much better than I have about applying for jobs. I’m sure once I get the new computer I’ll be able to get a lot more accomplished in the evening hours, which will make it easier to take on more assignments. Up, up and away …