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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mearls" data-source="post: 237160" data-attributes="member: 697">Your numbers are a little off.I'm going to write a million words this year. It's gone from "I looks like I'll write a million" to "I have a million agreed on, contracted, and penned into my black book."I estimate that I'll make a sight less than $40k.Now, I know very little about other freelancers, but I suspect most people don't write a million words a year.The only way I've been able to make a full-time freelance career happen was by working 60 hour weeks coding at a startup company for 12 months (all while writing at night) before the investment bankers figured out that the Internet is never going to make the money they thought it would. I used that nest egg to finance my first 8 months or so on the job. I'm finally at the point now where I have enough money coming it to live off it.Of course, if tomorrow I fall down the stairs, break my leg, and can't work for a week or two, my freelance career is essentially over. I have no health insurance and between the doctor's bills and missed work I'd have to go back to coding.(As an aside, the big barrier isn't necessarily the pay rate. You can probably freelance on the side for a year or two, do good work, up your rate to 4 cents, then work your ass off lining up work. You'd be shocked at how rare it is for a writer to turn in readable, coherent manuscripts on time. I never knew this was a big deal until I'd been doing it for over a year. The problem is that companies have this thing about waiting for freakin' ever to pay their freelancers. I still haven't been paid for books that were published 4 months ago. The key is finding good companies that treat you like a contractor, not like some idiot who's just happy to see his name on a book.)</blockquote>

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