Description
How have you found working freelance? What are the highs and lows, the frustrations and the bonuses?
I’ve been freelance for just over two years now, having been employed in academic and commercial research for more than twenty years before that, and I can honestly say I have enjoyed every minute. I can’t see myself ever wanting to go back to paid employment. In fact, I suspect I’m unemployable now, I’m far too used to doing things my own way. I even enjoy the bookkeeping and admin – how sad is that?
It took me about a year to be sure that I could really make a go of it, to develop my own personal style and find my niche. Actually I have two contrasting niches, one is checking and presenting factual information in an orderly and logical fashion, while the other is helping authors to prepare their novels for sending out into the world, which involves a certain amount of sympathetic creativity and sometimes more than a little detective work. I love the variety this job flings at me – one moment I’ll be checking out how to get a driving licence in Hong Kong, and the next I’ll be on a different planet, saving the world from evil mutants.
The bonus is doing things on my own terms. I like being able to take the time to be excellent. I’m a bit of a perfectionist and when I was in employment I used to find it frustrating that often just good enough was all that was required and all we were given time for.
And I like being in control of my own time - if I feel like heading off to the common to fly my kite on a sunny afternoon then I can do just that.
The highs? Knowing I have done a good job, and that my client is very happy. One customer wrote a poem for me, and another called me ‘a diamond set in pure gold’. That put a smile on my face for a whole day.
The lows? Has to be not getting paid. In my two and a bit years as a freelancer I’ve generally been very lucky, and my regular customers always pay me quickly, as do most of my other customers. But with new or one-off customers there’s always that anxious wait after sending the invoice. I’ve had one client not pay me at all – he just disappeared off the face of the earth. I really hated all the business of having to follow that one up through the courts, even though I paid a debt recovery agent to actually do the paperwork. However, it was a useful learning experience, so now I have adopted a range of measures that encourage customers to pay up front.
Has being a member of Freelancers In The UK helped you? We’d like to think so but how?
Setting up in business for the first time is hard, and one of the hardest things is publicising yourself and getting known, and this is where Freelancers in the UK has really helped me. I’ve had work both from people who looked at my profile and contacted me directly and by applying for projects posted on the site. It has more than repaid the fees, and is a lot more cost-effective than other forms of ‘marketing’. Nearly all my work is done via email, with people I’ve never met face to face, and without a place online to advertise my services, I wouldn’t be able to reach my potential clients. I’ve seen the site develop over the last couple of years, and know Kate has done a fantastic job to increase both its usefulness and its visibility.
What are the biggest challenges for you throughout 2007?
My biggest business challenge remains being paid a realistic rate. I don’t know what it is about freelance editing (or maybe freelancing in general), but many people assume you are doing it as a hobby and are happy to work for less than the minimum wage. Well I’m not. I offer a professional service and I expect to be paid a professional rate. But often when I try to charge the rates recommended by the Society for Editors & Proofreaders (which are by no means excessive), I’m told they can get someone else to do it cheaper. I dare say they can – there seem to be people out there who are content to work for peanuts, but they aren’t doing the profession as a whole any favours. End of rant – sorry.
Another challenge is keeping a steady and predictable stream of work coming in. At the moment about two-thirds of my time is taken up with work for regular clients, with the rest available for one-off projects, usually for private authors. I like this balance, though of course it does lead to a certain amount of unpredictability; there are times when I have to turn away a project, as well as the occasional lean period. It would be nice to have work I could turn on and off at short notice – kind of the Holy Grail of freelancing, I guess.
Where is your favourite place in the UK, and why?
Anywhere with a deserted beach. I grew up on the north-east coast, and love the wildness of that area. The town I lived in as a child is a bit seedy now, but I’m still irresistibly drawn to the beach, especially when it’s quiet. There’s an island that’s only an island at high tide, which even now makes me ridiculously excited. I love waiting until the very last minute to leave so that the water is swirling around my ankles as I cross the causeway. And there’s the added frisson that if you leave it too late you’re stuck on this small island for eight hours with nothing to do but eat ice cream and climb the lighthouse (again).
That said, I live about as far from the sea as you can get in the UK, and I love it here too. The view from my office is of the western slopes of the Malverns, and is truly beautiful, especially of an evening, with the setting sun casting a golden light over the hills. There are fields and woods to walk in straight from my front door. So can I be boring, and say that my favourite place is where I am right now?
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