Starting out in business on your own is an exciting time, but what nobody really tells you is just how difficult it can be to make money without working yourself into a shadow. Add that to the fact that essentially, every time you gain a new project you have a new boss that you have to find different ways to get on with and freelancing can soon look like a worse option than the general 9-5.
In fact, there are many things that can get you down when you’re a freelancer. You realize that you have to have business skills, you need to get involved with the tax man on a more intimate basis than you’d like and you need to price jobs in such a way that you both beat the competition, and are able to eat. This can all get very wearing and suddenly, it can seem that the daily grind of working for somebody else wasn’t actually much of a grind at all when you’re putting in 16 hour days.
However, there are ways in which you can supplement your income so that perhaps you don’t have to work quite so hard just to live. You’re unlikely to get rich from these income streams, but you were equally unlikely to become a millionaire by adhering to the hourly billing model either. So in other words, you have nothing to lose by checking out other ways of making money and with that in mind, let’s have a look at your options.
These days I’m all about the writing but I do test affiliate links quite often still, it takes a little research to find good ones and I’m very picky about who I choose to affiliate with, they have to be in the tech niche and close to what I do. When it comes to Google penalties, I NEVER put more than one or two affiliate links throughout the entire site, that’s asking for trouble. Google will tolerate a couple but I wouldn’t recommend using them liberally such as textual links throughout blogs. Aside from anything else I feel that it really reduce the quality of the UX, it’s spammy and I personally never stay long on a site that has lots.
It’s about residual income, you’re never going to get rich doing it, so why risk your business and your reputation.
Rant over … the others, well I do teaching at a local level and when I find the time I intend to offer online as well, membership is another project that’s currently on the backburner for when that magical day arrives when I have the time. Mostly, my time is spent on writing as it’s my ‘first love’ and that covers everything that I’ve suggested.
It was really difficult to get started with freelancing at first. But if you’re hard-working enough, results pay off. You then realize that you would have got lots of extensive knowledge which you will never think of with safely boring 9-5 trains.
