How I Earned 9x My Job’s Salary from 5 Freelance Income Streams
But April was my worst month ever, and this doesn’t reflect on my finances.
But April was my worst month ever, and this doesn’t reflect on my finances.
Freelancing is a wild ride.
I haven’t turned full-time freelancer yet, but I’m already starting to understand the thrill of this lifestyle.
I have a day job that pays a decent enough salary to lead a happy life in my country, India.
But ever since I discovered the adrenaline rush of writing online and potentially exposing your work to millions of readers, I can’t get enough of it. In April 2021, I made more than 9 times the salary of my day job just by writing online. This article discusses the various streams of income I built for that.
Before we get started, here’s a disclaimer: April was a tough month for me emotionally. I didn’t work as much as I’d have liked to. But because of a silly reason (which you’ll find out towards the end of this article), I made more money than I ever have.
Read on to know the breakdown of the four streams of income I had for April 2021 as a freelancer.
Stream One: Medium (9%)
Writing on Medium was the reason I’d first thought of quitting my day job, but now I’ve come so far in my writing journey that the money I earn on the platform barely makes up for 10% of my total monthly income.
That being said, April wasn’t a very good month. March was unbelievably good, but in April, I didn’t write quite as many articles as I’d have liked, and the views weren’t too good either.
To give you an idea, I published exactly 15 articles. Assuming it takes me 2 hours to finish each one from scratch, I put in 30 hours of work on Medium for April 2021.
This led to a lower income than I’m used to, but a decent amount nevertheless.
Stream Two: Digital Product (8%)
My digital product is my course, Project Medium — a live program where I teach new writers to make their first $100 by writing on the platform. I host hour-long group coaching sessions every Sunday, which translates to 4 hours of work per month.
20 students from 9 different time zones have enrolled so far. It’s been a hell of a ride, but I didn’t start a new batch in April because I was so exhausted. Any income I made from this was from old students who had chosen to pay monthly installments.
Yes, digital products are an amazing source of passive income, but it takes a lot of time and energy to promote your courses. I hope to do more of that in May, especially as I plan to launch a new batch this month.
Stream Three: News Break (30%)
News Break is the blessing that came to my life at a moment I didn’t know I needed it. They have a model where you get a flat fee of $60 for each local (US-only) article you write and an additional $10 per 1000 views.
Since I’m not from the US, I never thought I’d write US-based articles. But a single conversation with Ash Jurberg convinced me otherwise.
I didn’t think I’d enjoy writing US-based articles, but when the payment is so good, what have I got to complain about? It takes me about 15 minutes to finish an article, and I’ve written about 40 articles in April, which means I worked about 10 hours for the whole month to make a significant chunk of my monthly income.
Stream Four: Freelance Client (53%)
I’m lucky to have landed a freelance client who pays me so well. I have to write about 10 articles a week for them.
The actual percent this contributes to my total freelance income is about 26%. But I’d forgotten to send them the invoice for February. So, in April, they paid me the total amount for both February and March, and hence this added amount.
Effectively, if I’d sent them timely invoices, I wouldn’t have earned this much.
Summarizing
Here’s a table summarizing the amount of money I earned and the hours I spent on each income stream.
If you’re curious about the amount, I earned $5150 US (rounded up and excluding taxes) by spending 84 hours in the entire month. This translates to 21 hours per week.
This post aims not to brag but just to show you the miracles writing online can bring about. As I said before, April was my worst month in terms of emotional and mental energy. Here’s hoping May will be better. I also plan to expand my income streams in May in the following ways:
- Find more freelance gigs on Upwork and Fiverr.
- Find more brand collaborations and newsletter sponsorships.
- Write articles for websites other than Medium that have a better pay per hour spent.
If you’d like to follow my freelancing journey, don’t forget to follow this space for more. Till then, keep writing and keep being awesome.