A Freelancer's Quest

It's only been a couple days since I delivered on my last review and I got another request! This time it's for a 200 word review, so $5.00USD. I've finished it up, and will proofread it tomorrow and deliver it to the client. I think I need to start reviewing my prices though. I thought a 200 word review would take me a very short amount of time, but it took me an hour. I've been tracking my time for each job, and this one took me the same amount of time to write as the 400 word review I did originally. Would bumping everything up by $5.00USD be fine? I'll finish this job, do some research, and then figure out what I'll do. I love getting frequent jobs, but I also want money. I guess all things considered I shouldn't be complaining. I'm getting to write paid music reviews, which is awesome. I'll revisit this thought after I deliver this latest job.

I haven't posted in a while, and a lot of things have happened! I got my CompTIA Network+ certification, which is going to help me in my day job. But that's not what you want to read about - you want the dirty details on freelancing.  Well, have I got some news for you. I've had TWO orders on Fiverr for music reviews! One of them was for a $10.00USD 400 word review, and the other was for a $15.00USD 600 word review! I honestly couldn't believe it when I got my first request, but I nailed it and got a five star review, which is super important in the world of Fiverr. I think it was because my blog actually had content on it - I was writing free reviews in my spare time about bands I liked. So when someone clicked on my Fiverr ad and went to my blog, they could trust that I was able to put a few coherent thoughts about an album together. The content on my blog also allowed me to take better pictures to put as my gig photo, which I believe also helped. Apart from th...

I'm feeling well enough to use screens again, woohoo! Last night I ended up writing a big blog post on my psychology blog about dealing with anxiety after a car accident, and crossposted it to Medium today. It's the largest post I've ever written. My goal is to have it get two unique views. I'm enjoying focusing on creating a pool of content for myself. It's making me feel more confident as a writer and will give me a better portfolio for Fiverr, and eventually pitching to publications. I've also edited the themes on all my active blogs to make them look more modern and sleek looking. No more early 2000s vibes on my  blogs!

So I'm not going to be able to post and write as frequently as a would like for the next little bit because of a car accident. I got a mild concussion and so I should spend a limited amount of time on screens. It sucks, but I've got a lot of ideas and am excited to come back and try them out.

My review that I crossposted to Medium has one view. It was my fiancée's. And you know what? I'm really proud of it. I created something and published it, and that's something right there. Even if it never gets any other views I will still be proud of it, because I wrote it and wasn't afraid to put it out there. I think if I keep doing that, maybe I'll get somewhere.

I cleaned up Kitchen Toonz and replaced the videos with images because I'm not sure about Google's policy on YouTube videos on a monetized blog. I also set up a general, catch all writing gig on Fiverr. I'm gonna turn all that on September 10 once my schedule finally looks normal again. I think I need to set up the psychology blog tomorrow and brainstorm ideas for a good first post. I think the title is key - some variant of 'How having X can do Y for you' seems to be popular. I also need to find a stock image site to use. Should I also start a comedy blog/gig on Fiverr? Hmmm. I feel like on the one hand I'm stretching myself very thin, but on the other hand having multiple things going on means I won't get bored.

We completed our move, and I wrote a brand spanking new review for my music blog, which I also edited and redid. It's called kitchentoonz.blogspot.com. Choosing a name was hard, but I wanted something simple, catchy, and funny. It's better than Sam Talks Music, which was the old name for it. I also signed up for Medium and cross-posted it. I had done a lot of research and it seems like the best way to reach a wider audience and monetize more is to post on your blog, then import into Medium. There will be an origin link to your blog, plus you can make cash from being a partner on Medium which is free to join. With regards to Fiverr, I set it to out of office until I'm back from a wedding next week. It's busy, but at least I'm still being productive. So far so good. I think tomorrow I might try and set up a general article writing gig on Fiverr and then try and write a psych article or something. Not sure yet. I'm having a lot of fun with this whole process, it ...

I'm realizing a lot of other music reviewers on Fiverr have successful platforms or blogs they can post their reviews to. I'm going to try and set up my music blog, give it a fun title, and give people the option to have me email my review to them so they can use it however they want, or for me to post it on my blog. I'll need to work on reviewing a lot of albums to get my the music blog worth it for people. I'll do that this Sunday hopefully. On another note, my friends wanted to get back into World of Warcraft and asked me. I don't think I'm going to because I want to spend a big chunk of time on making this writing gig work. Go me.

I am writing this laying in bed after a long day of working my day job, preparing to move apartments, and trying to get my freelancing career started. Currently, I haven't sold a single product. I hope that will change soon, and I hope I can document my successes and failures for anybody interested in trying their hand at freelancing. We've been preparing for a move to our new apartment for months, and now move-in day is only four days away. In that time, I met with a good friend who was in town with his girlfriend for some coffee. I learned that she had recently quit her day job to freelance write full-time. I think that gave me the kick in the butt to really pursue this myself. I've always toyed with the idea of freelancing, but could never decide on what to do, or how to start. That meeting, combined with the whole new apartment new beginnings vibe I'm feeling right now, has led me to finally bite the bullet and take my first steps into the world of freelancing. I...