10 Ways to Make a 6-Figure Income as a Freelance Writer

I started freelancing full-time in 1982, and except for that year and the next, I have earned more than $100,000 a year as a freelance writer for 20 consecutive years. Last year, I grossed $500,000, as I did the year before that.

I tell you this not to brag, but to illustrate that making a 6-figure income is a realistic goal for even an average freelance writer like me (I’ve never written a bestseller, nor have I sold a script to the movies or TV). Following are some suggestions to help you achieve and exceed the $100,000 a year mark:

1. Get serious about making money. “Before we can accumulate riches in great abundance, we must become money-conscious until the desire for money drives us to create definite plans for acquiring it,” writes Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich (Fawcett Crest, 1960).

If money is not a concern, you can write whatever you want, whenever you want, as much or as little as you want, without regard to the fee you will be paid, how long it will take to write the piece, or the likelihood that you will sell the piece.

If you want to consistently make $100,000 a year as a freelance writer, you need to avoid the “poverty mentality” that holds so many writers back from earning a high income.

A doorman in New York City earns around $30,000 a year. If an unskilled laborer can make $30,000 just for opening a door, surely you can earn $50,000 to $100,000 for your skills.

2. Have a daily revenue goal. To make $100,000 a year, you need to earn $2,000 a week for 50 weeks. For a 5-day workweek, that comes to $400 a day -- a quite modest and achievable sum.

The question then becomes: What writing-related work can you do that people will pay you $400 a day for? Proofreading won’t hit the mark, but ghostwriting books, annual reports, fundraising letters, speeches, or ad copy probably can.

Do you have to make $400 each and every day? No. Some days you’ll be writing queries or doing self-promotion, and earn nothing. Other days you’ll get into a writing groove, finish a $1,000 article in 6 hours, and still have time to write more queries. You’re safe as long as your average revenue is $400 a day, or $2,000 a week, or approximately $9,000 a month.

Of course, the higher your average project fee, the easier it can be to meet your $400 a day goal.

Robert Otterbourg specializes in annual reports, with an average price tag of $10,000 per project. By doing several of these jobs in a month or two, he can get way ahead of his income plan, leaving him time to write the career books that are his avocation.

3. Value your time. If you earn $100,000 a year and work 40 hours a week, your time is worth at least $50 an hour. You should base decisions about how you spend your time on that figure.

For instance, if you spend an extra half hour to go out of your way to save $10 in office supplies, it costs you $25 in lost productivity, and you are $15 in the red.

My time is worth at least $100 an hour. Therefore, virtually any service I can buy for under $100 an hour -- including lawn services, handymen, and tax preparation -- I outsource.

Of the two resources, time and money, time is the more valuable. You can always make more money. But time is a non-renewable resource. Once it’s gone, you can’t get it back.

4. Increase your personal productivity. Except for royalties and product sales, writers are paid only for their time. So the more efficient and productive you are, and the faster you write, the more money you make.

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