Freelance writing can have a reputation as a profession that’s hard to break into and turn into a high-earning career. While others struggle in this industry, India-based freelance writer Mridu Khullar Relph has overcome obstacles that would send the average freelancer looking for a regular day job. How she did it can be attributed to good, old-fashioned perseverance.
Times weren’t always lean for Relph. Throughout the years, she accumulated quite the portfolio by writing for well-known names in the news industry like CNN, The New York Times and ABC News. She even wrote for Cosmo. From her home base, she was taking on work for a number of international clients. Times were good.
Then, her fortunes sank and things took an abrupt turn for the worse in 2013. First, Relph’s husband left his job, which wasn’t an issue because she was expecting to get a book deal. However, after working on her book for six months, the deal fell through.
Making matters worse, a few of her freelance clients went under, yet she was preoccupied with working on her book, so she didn’t take the time to market herself to new clients. Her cash flow became problematic, and she was going through her savings quickly. Her self-esteem as a freelancer took a hit, but instead of quitting and looking for a day job, Relph met adversity head-on and tried to turn this negative into a positive. She succeeded. She made tough decisions and reacted quickly to turn her situation around. As 2013 drew to a close, Relph’s finances were stable once more, and by January 2014, she experienced her most profitable freelancing month ever.
So how did Relph do it? How did she turn adversity into triumph? By making common sense decisions that focused on improving the health of her finances. She resolved to take the most efficient steps that freelance writers can use to make money more quickly. She stopped pitching stories to $1-a-word publications that would only pay in three months’ time and instead approached businesses that paid $200 a blog post, yet paid within the same week of accepting her submission.
From this bold approach, Relph’s book, The Freelancer’s Guide to Making $1000 More This Month, was born. As her cash flow got healthier from this strategy, she was able to go back to the markets that would take longer to pay her—but would pay more. In her book, Relph spells out a few tactics that freelancers should embrace when it comes to trying to earn more money. Some methods include:
- Being straightforward about asking clients for more money and not being scared to negotiate
- Being confident enough to reject low-paying freelancing assignments
- Refusing to submit assignments immediately, so that editors think the freelancer is busy and in-demand
- Pitching story ideas to online publications since they’re more willing to publish writers
Relph makes sure to point out that freelancers have to be business- and capitalism-minded to survive and thrive. Ambitious freelancers have the opportunity—through marketing themselves—to actually create job positions for themselves that ordinarily wouldn’t have existed. This is where the entrepreneurial spirit again comes into the picture, according to Relph. Having a high threshold for risk and being resilient enough to weather both rejection and failure are a must for any successful freelancer. Relph’s biggest piece of advice is perhaps her most practical. She always reminds budding freelancers to be on top of their budget—earnings and expenses for every month—to make sure that they swim and not sink in the competitive world of freelancing.
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