✍️ 5 Hard Truths About Freelance Writing
The 5 things I wish someone had told me when I started as a freelance writer.
First, some exciting news — this Substack publication From the Desk of Amy Suto: Make Writing Your Job is now #3 on the rising literature charts!!!
What an honor. Thanks for being here — I’m so grateful to be able to curate and write for you each week. I’ve got some new surprises in the works for you — coming soon :)
In today’s newsletter, you’ll read about:
✨ 5 Hard Truths About Freelance Writing — the “tough love” I wish I had been told
✍️ Writing jobs you may have missed last week
📚 Writing Community Wins: some really cool community victories this week!
✍️ Missed This Past Week’s Writing Jobs?
Did you miss it? Here are the writing jobs on this past week’s job board:
A freelance book ghostwriting featured job that pays between $10,000-$20,000 and is about healing from a dysfunctional family situation
A part-time copywriting role that pays $84,750 - $127,250/year.
A freelance book developmental editing job for a romantic fantasy book
If you missed the last issue of my writing job board, check it out at the link below:
🙌 Writing Community Wins!
Congrats to David Ridd for landing a memoir ghostwriting client from the writing job board!
Check out David’s website here to get to know his work as a writer.
Congrats to Anna Goldfarb for selling over 10,000 copies of her book Modern Friendship (grab the book or read the excerpt here) and also so impressive — cracking book marketing!
Also congrats to Kirsty and Madhumithaa for launching your Substack publications!
Want to add your writing win to the newsletter? I’ll be posting weekly threads on the Subscriber Chat for you to drop your wins and each week I’ll pick 2-4 writers to include.
🙌 So excited to continue highlighting your writing accomplishments and boosting you work!
📖 Bookish News & Links
…to give you more conversation starters with your writer friends!
🍴 Why Mark Zuckerberg tried to block the publishing of the tell-all memoir Careless People
📚 The Writer’s Sanctuary: Hannah Ashe shares how writers can create inspiring physical spaces
🙌 Evelyn Skye’s most anticipated April reads
🫖 Sunday Tea: 5 Hard Truths About Freelance Writing
Back when I was getting started as a freelance writer (nearly ten years ago!) I wish someone had sat me down and given me some honesty about what it means to succeed as a freelance writer.
Here are the 5 hard truths about freelance writing that I wish someone had told me:
If you’re not fully booked, your #1 priority should be finding new work. In the first few years of my freelancing career, I spent the first few hours of my mornings submitting on job boards and fine-tuning my portfolio and cover letters. Once I became fully booked, I shifted my focus 100% to making my current clients happy, which turned into testimonials and referrals that landed me more new work. These days clients find me without much work on my end, but in the beginning, I had to do lots of legwork to build that initial momentum.
Working smarter — not harder! — is all about creating efficient systems. My freelance business really took off when I overhauled my daily systems. I turned off all notifications on my phone, learned how to separate deep work days from meeting days, and batched chores and admin work. I have my partner
to thank for a lot of these systems, as he’s the expert on what it means to work efficiently with the help of various automation tools and smart shifts in your daily workflow.If you’re feeling burned out, you likely need to double your rates. I talk about how to raise rates without losing revenue in my book Six-Figure Freelance Writer, and I stand by this truth that most freelancers aren’t charging enough — especially if you’re feeling burned out.
One writer’s “bad market” is another writer’s opportunity. I get emails daily from two types of writers: one writer is lamenting how “bad” the market is, and the other is emailing me to tell me how they just landed a great job, or doubled their income projections for the year based on how much work they have coming in. And I know it’s easy to blame a “bad market” — I’ve done so in the past, only to realize that in blaming larger economic climates, I missed opportunities and ways to improve my freelancing business that were in front of me the whole time. The freelancing industry is what you make of it.
If you’re not landing new work, your portfolio, branding, or interviewing/sales skills likely need to improve. If you’re applying for tons of jobs and nothing is landing, then there are likely some opportunities to improve things like your cover letter/initial email to potential clients, your portfolio, or what you say on discovery calls. I cover lots of these in my book, but if you want to see an issue of the Substack dedicated to one of these topics, let me know!
The hardest truth of freelance writing is that us writers succeed or fail by our own merit and skill. It’s also liberating: when you do succeed, the hard-won victory tastes even sweeter.
💫 Amy’s Favorites
Not sponsored. Just my faves.
I was recently in the market for new house plants, and got a bunch of them on EasyPlant and was really impressed by how fast they shipped. You only have to water them once per month (they come in a self-watering pot).
My favorite plant I got from them was this large Golden Snake Plant, and they’re known for helping to improve indoor air quality — and are basically nature’s air filter! They also thrive in low light, making them a great plant for any room. 10/10 would recommend.
📚 Author Corner: Carving Out Time for Creative Writing
Life has been quite busy lately, and it’s been an effort to block out time for my own creative projects.
I’m finding myself really needing to rely on the tried-and-true methods of blocking out days on my calendar for creative work, setting self-imposed deadlines, and leaning heavily on “maker vs. manager” days and “maintenance vs. growth” weeks.
All this to say that it doesn’t matter how many books you’ve published: being an author still requires a mindful set of systems to ensure you actually get pen to paper!
Enjoyed today’s post? Please give it a “heart” ❤️ and share or restack it.
Sending creativity and good writing vibes your way,
-Amy
p.s. I think that’s a snake plant (also known as Mother in Law’s tongue), not a spider plant 🌱
These lessons are 🔥🔥 I ALSO learned number one the hard way. Even when I'm fully booked, I'm now always connecting with my network and sending pitches. If it comes down to it, I can always take a project and outsource some of the work!