I’m so proud of my friends over at Berry Brewer freelance, who met the question of earnings head on with no waffling.
The money I make freelancing is directly and wholly dependent on how many hours I spend working per week. Whereas my husband can leave work early and make the same amount of money week in and week out, I cannot. On the other hand, my career is still the more flexible; give me a Blackberry and we’ll be fine.
The Berry Brewer post reminded me of one thing though- the difference between billable hours and work hours. For example, as I am writing this post, I would consider this a work hour. However, I cannot bill it to anyone, as it’s simply a portion of my marketing efforts- a way for my clients to get to know me, to hear my voice.
So when a freelancer tells you that they make an hourly wage of X, don’t think that they actually bill X- instead they probably bill Y- a much larger number which evens out necessary administrative tasks across the board.
Oh, Allena. You say stuff like this and I start to think that “Y” needs to be bigger. Ah, well. I’m pretty happy with what we’re doing right now.
Y should be bigger than X. I think sometimes that Y should be 2x.
Wait, is this Algebra class? I’m getting confused.
Caveat: this is a totally untested formula. I’m gonna jump on google and see what other freelancers think about bill versus salary hours.
Yeah, this post agrees that Y should be about 2X:
http://ewritingjobs.com/freelance-writing-rates/setting-freelance-writing-rates-working-hours-vs-billable-hours/
But, like James C said in your post, it’s completely personal.
Oh, now I see why I never got into freelancing–there’s algebra involved!
*ducks and hides from Xs and Ys*
Could you email? I tried to find your contact info on here but didn’t see it and I haven’t seen you on Plurk today. I have a question. Thanks!