Freelance writing is a professional service that you render to your clients. If this is your sole means of earning a living, it should be treated seriously. Your time and experience are worthy of appropriate compensation for this expertise. If you spend hours and hours laboring over an article or project and then are paid very little, maybe you need to rethink your strategy for obtaining these projects. You have several choices; charge more per project, seek higher paying jobs, or a combination of both.

The traditional approach to freelance writing suggests that you are limited to magazines, books, and the odd pick-up jobs you can find. The reality is that these kinds of jobs do pay, but probably not enough. Perhaps you retain the popular attitude that in order to be a real writer, you must live in poverty and need. This comes from media that portrays writers as undeserving and limited in their dreams.

If you are a struggling writer and want to make more money, you will need to actively consider other options for finding jobs. If the cashier at a fast-food restaurant is making more per hour than you as a writer, then you need to re-evaluate your choices. Think about the last few jobs that you sold. Was the pay for them enough to compensate for the hours involved in the project? If not, you need to make some changes. You deserve and can earn a good living after certain changes in your thinking.

Each writer has different interests and different goals. One person might want to make $20K more per year while another might want to make $80K more per year. It doesn’t matter what the amount is as long as you agree with yourself that you are currently being underpaid for your work. When you finally come to that conclusion, you are ready to make some changes in your life.

One major change involves a new attitude regarding the type of jobs you accept and the money you charge for those jobs. This new attitude consists of realizing the entire network of writing has no job unworthy of your effort. So, if that is the case, you control your time and choices and pick the highest paying. The lowest paying accounts are no better or no worse than the highest paying. It is your choice what type of account takes up the most of your time. Large corporate clients can be the backbone of your freelance career with the smaller paying “fun” accounts as a hobby.