I’ve been freelancing on Upwork now for five years. When I first tried it years ago, I submitted several proposals and didn’t get any responses, so I gave up. Then I attended one of our local writer’s workshops and learned vital tips from a guy who’d been freelancing on Upwork for fifteen years. I made two changes and suddenly I was up and running on Upwork!
My first tip is that you have to be good at what you do, spend time studying and honing your skills all the time. I’ve been a creative writer my entire life, since I was a child growing up in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I was a missionary kid and my dad is a theologian and a published author. I got the writing gene and a passion for history and knowledge from him. He encouraged the little imaginative stories I wrote. My mother took us to the library all the time – I loved it! I grew up immersed in Narnia and Middle Earth and reading many wonderful books – which led to me specializing in the fantasy/sci-fi genre today.
I lived in Brazil until I was seven, then we moved to a small town in Indiana, then to inner-city Chicago where I began 8th grade and attended high school. I enjoyed all these huge cultural changes and loved the energy of a big city. English was my favorite subject in high school and I became an English major in college. All my homework was reading and writing – my favorite things!
After college I got married and managed a small law office for a few years before I quit to raise our children – four came quickly in a row. We moved to Colorado Springs and I became an entrepreneur, trying out a small business venture when my babies were little. Later when they were in school full-time, I founded an online mermaid swim tail company, setting up manufacturing right in town and shipping mermaid tails all over the world. I helped co-found a local swim school with mermaid swim lessons and parties. These startups were great adventures and I learned so much about running a business. After managing them for seven and three years, I sold out of the swim school and eventually had to close my online shop due to lack of capital for expanding needs.
During this time I’d been writing my first novel on and off for several years. When I had to close my mermaid tail shop, I focused fully on my writing, joining several writing groups, learning the craft of writing and editing, and attending the Pike’s Peak Writer’s Conference every year. I finished my debut novel and landed a literary agent. She and I spent a year honing and editing my novel even further. I learned so much from that process that I now offer this service on Upwork and am coaching new authors with their first novels.
Related Posts:
Like I said, when I first tried Upwork I got no responses. After I attended the workshop on freelancing, I changed two things in my approach – first of all, I learned that it’s a numbers game. That teacher said that for every ten proposals he submits, he lands one job. So I realized I need to submit, submit, and submit – and not give up. That’s Tip #2.
Tip #3 is to word your proposals to show what you can do for the client. Like most people, I’d been writing my proposals listing my qualifications. After the workshop I changed my wording. First I repeat what exactly they are looking for, from their job posting, then I tell them why I’m a great fit for their project. Then I list my qualifications and experience, noting how I can meet their specific need and what I can do for them.
And voila – I landed my first client! I got a ghostwriting gig and spent a year or so working on this one client’s projects. Tip #4 for beginners: start with a lower rate, slowly build it up along with your experience and portfolio. You really have to watch for and ignore postings with $5/hour and very low rates. When I was first starting, I negotiated $20/hour. This was way low for a ghostwriter, but I was just starting out and was grateful for creative income work. While I was ghostwriting that first novel, I learned that the industry minimum pay for a ghostwriter is ten cents per word – I was making a fraction of that! So I negotiated a higher rate for the second novel – doubling my pay and including research time – and I got quite close to ten cents per word.
I’d learned to submit a lot of proposals, and I began taking on jobs in editing, proofreading, VA work, online research, etc. I built up my portfolio over time and have gotten high reviews on Upwork. I slowly began raising my rates, experimenting with this. Upwork takes a 20% fee, and as an entrepreneur I have to also set aside around 20-25% for taxes – netting me only 55-60% of my hourly rate. Tip #5 is to watch what you are netting, and always set aside 20-25% for taxes – consult with your CPA as this rate can shift year by year. You need to take into account these fees when setting your hourly rate.
I was still learning and made a mistake. Whenever I landed a job, I spent all my time working on that job, and stopped submitting proposals. Part of that was learning to handle my time and priorities. But several times I had a client suddenly end the contract with no warning – or sometimes I’d get close to landing an offer, and the client would suddenly disappear. Now I know not to count on a job until I actually receive the offer. And I’ve learned from experience that even though a client may say they have ongoing work for you, often they suddenly switch to other projects and pause or end your contract out of the blue for various reasons. I found myself suddenly with no income and no new clients!
You see, I didn’t enjoy the task of submitting proposals and searching for new clients. So while I did it several times a week, I wasn’t consistent. As soon as I landed work, I’d stop submitting and focus on doing the work. I struggled with my freelance income coming and going, and now I’m striving for full-time income to help put my youngest through college. It’s been a challenge learning how to uplevel my freelancing to full-time instead of just part-time income.
One tip I heard which has stood me in good stead is this: Tip #6 is to always deliver more than expected. Do a really good job. Go the extra mile. Give more than they expect. Treat the client as you would want to be treated. Surprise and delight. Be professional and courteous. Get the job done before the deadline.
But there’s a caveat to that, too. Tip #7 – rarely, if ever, do free work. I struggled with this for years. Even with a robust portfolio, which is enough for most clients, I still get clients asking me to do a free sample. Now if it’s a job I am really interested in and the free work will only take a little bit of my time, I might consider it. But I began getting angry at so many of these requests, and then I learned that it is against Upwork’s Terms of Service for a client to ask for free work. There have been scammers on Upwork who have gotten a bunch of free work done from freelancers submitting samples – I myself was scammed once this way – and they end up not paying for anything. If a client really wants a sample, they are required to pay you for your time. So now I have wording to that effect – offering them to hire me for one hour of work to complete the specific sample they are asking for. I sometimes gently let them know that it’s against Upwork’s ToS to do free work. If they are legit and serious, they will consider this or negotiate with you. If they reject it because they really expect you, an experienced professional, to work for free, then you’re better off without them. I now withdraw my proposal and flag these clients to Upwork so they can catch scammers.
Speaking of rules, here’s Tip #8: Never take your Upwork contract off of Upwork. It’s against your Terms of Service to do this, and if you get caught, you will lose your access to the platform, the services they provide, their protection, and your income source. I sometimes get clients asking me if we should just do this independently off the platform. I always say no, and let them know it’s against my Terms of Service. Clients who are wanting to do that may not come through with paying you, or could disappear like clients do, so it’s not worth it. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. It’s worth Upwork’s 20% fee for all the income and experience I’ve received over the years, for their payment protection and other services they offer.
Back to the day-to-day of freelancing. Tip #9 is to submit proposals every single work day. Make it a part of your day, a part of your regular tasks as a freelancer. It took me a while to learn this lesson. To streamline this process, I saved my most-used proposals, and now I can quickly copy and paste my various proposals into Upwork, customizing a few words to each job post. This makes it fast and easy. I have one for editing and developmental coaching, one for proofreading, one for ghostwriting, one for business writing and editing, etc. – all based on work I’ve done.
Even with that, I still only submitted 1-3 proposals most work days (not every day) to jobs which I was really interested in. I was landing between 1-6 projects each month, some of them more long term or full-time for a while, some shorter one-off projects. Now I’m experimenting and am submitting at least five or more proposals each work day. It’s been two months since I started tracking this and so far I haven’t landed more jobs than I was getting before, which surprises me. I’m now landing about 2-4 jobs per month, a mix of long-term and short projects. With one client I’ve become a regular QA reviewer at $40/hr, but their work ebbs and flows, it’s not consistent. One of my clients has returned to me to help edit their second novel, which felt really great!
Tip #10 is to set up your budget to handle feast-or-famine freelance income. This has taken me years to learn. Every time I landed a really good, long-term job which paid well, I felt that things would just keep getting better and my income would keep increasing. So I allowed myself to spend more and expected that income level to continue. But no, freelance income goes up and down over the year. With the holidays and everything, it’s constantly changing. I struggled with having enough to cover my bills when my income decreased.
Now I’ve set up my budget and I always allocate my percentages, no matter whether my paycheck is large or small. By sticking to my budget plan, the excess in the abundant months will cover the bills in the lean months. I’m learning to become disciplined with my budget, using YNAB to help me (You Need a Budget).
The Cons of freelancing on Upwork, in my experience, is the lack of consistent income and constantly having to seek out new projects and clients – time you don’t get paid for. Sometimes I get frustrated with my income being too low – even though my rate is now between $35-$50/hour, depending on the project. So on and off I’ve been looking for a full or part-time job to supplement my freelancing. In the meantime, I’m experimenting to see if I can get my freelance income up to $2,000-$4,000/month. I now track my Daily Gross Income I earn each business day, working towards a minimum of $100/day to start, which will net me a little over $1,000/month after taxes. Once I can consistently gross $100/day, I’ll increase that goal, working towards netting $2,000/mo, and so on.
The other con is, being a freelancer, there’s no paid time off. You only get paid for the days and weeks you work. So, plan and save ahead to cover emergencies and vacations!
The Pros of freelancing on Upwork, in my experience, is the total freedom I get in working for myself, choosing fun and interesting projects I want to work on, setting my own hours and schedule, taking time off when I want, working at home or at a coffee shop or on the road – the freedom is awesome. I really like working part time. Sometimes I make full-time income working part-time hours. Sometimes I don’t have much work to do, so while I’m seeking new clients, I have more time for my personal projects, like writing my novels.
One of the biggest benefits is my professional experience and credibility I’ve built up over the past five years. With my first agent, several years ago, she wasn’t able to sell my highly-unusual historical fantasy novel because I’m a brand-new author. But now, with a new agent and all my experience writing and editing on Upwork, a new publisher just requested my full manuscript and is looking at it. And I found my new agent because of connections on Upwork – through one of my ghostwriting clients. You never know where your freelancing path will lead you!
