The life of a business freelancer

Rosalind Resnick writes on the Entrepreneur magazine site about her life as a freelance business journalist after leaving the Miami Herald business desk in 1990.

Resnick writes, “Shortly after I quit my job as a business reporter at The Miami Herald in 1990, I set up shop as a home-based freelance writer and began offering my journalism services to business magazines and trade publications.

“Then the recession hit.

“For me, the timing couldn’t have been better. Rather than pay a full-time staffer $40,000 or $50,000 a year plus benefits, national magazines jumped at the chance to hire me for $1,000 a month to write a story — no payroll taxes, benefits or strings attached. Quality journalism for $12,000 a year? That was a no-brainer for clients like mine.

“But while corporate America was getting a great deal, so was I. When I left The Herald, I was making $38,000 a year plus benefits as a full-time reporter. As a freelance writer, I picked up the phone and, within a few years, had assembled a core group of eight to 10 newspaper and magazine clients that each paid me about $1,000 a month. Though I was putting in twice the hours I’d been logging at my full-time newspaper job, I was also making twice the money. While I had to pay my own taxes and find my own health insurance, I was certainly better off than I’d been before. And I also got to work from home with my kids.”

Read more here.