Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
This is a good rule no matter what business you’re in, but a crucial one if you are a freelance writer. It may not be as easy to put into practice as you might think. The literal meaning is simply that you shouldn’t rely on only one client or job as an online freelance writer, because you just never know when the work could stop. The Internet can be horribly capricious. If you already have another job besides freelance writing, then it’s not quite as big a deal. If your career is anything like mine, you’re juggling your income from several different sources. And that’s how it should be (more or less).
The problem comes when you find you have more baskets than hands to carry them. In other words, do you give up a few lower-paying jobs in order to make time for higher-paying jobs? Work can be hard enough to come by, can you afford the risk of ditching a gig?
Well, only you can figure this out. You need to really work out your priorities and decide which jobs are the riskiest, most time consuming and best paying. Don’t get blinded by the dollar signs. When a new opportunity comes around, do your best to juggle your time until you can assess the new project. New jobs have a nasty habit of “dying on the vine” before they really get going, and you may regret that you dumped a smaller but more reliable job to make room in your time table.
