Should I freelance full-time?

I have a buddy who essentially freelances full-time, but most of his revenue comes outside of sports. If I was getting into the business now, I'd look at freelancing on the side of a 9 to 5 job.

 

Keep insurance in mind with freelancing full time.....you're not going to get benefits, which with mandates in Obamacare and various states could become costly.

 

Freelance is a euphemism for unemployed.
Make it your fallback, not your goal.

 

I think freelance is best intended as supplemental income, whether to a full-time job in the business or one outside. Even with regular, reliable outlets, I know it'd be a nightmare to find consistent enough work to support yourself exclusively with freelance, especially having to come up with insurance on your own.

 

We were in a media softball league many years ago. One of the teams was the Independent Writers of Southern California ... a group of freelancers.
"Who are we playing on Saturday?"
"The Unemployed"

 

Also, here's the dirty little secret with freelancing.
You think it will lead to a full-time job, but it almost never does. I've found this to be true repeatedly - at the nation's top publications. They just assume you'll keep pitching great ideas and working for peanuts-- because they know you need the income and exposure.

Another caveat: it's extremely rare to find an editor that pays a fair price for the reporting required in a piece. You will have to beg and negotiate everything. All. The. Time. It never ends. Every day is an uphill battle.

(Speaking from experience.)

 

Tried it when I get laid off in 2011. It was OK, during football. But it was the Deep South, and in January, the work opportunities became scarce.

Got into an IRS problem, unrelated to the freelance life (an overzealous accountant led me astray; that's my story and I'm sticking to it ...), and fortunately landed on my feet, and got another job, in Texas, in the summer of 2012.

When I got jettisoned there -- they called it a dismissal, but I won my unemployment case, without a hearing, and am pursuing an EEOC age discrimination complaint -- I did not even consider the freelance life.

Did a couple gigs anyway. Got paid for one of 'em.

Still have some from 2011 that I never got paid for. Not to mention when I was working full-time, and then some, during my 17 years at that gig.

After losing my job in Texas, on January 5, 2016, I was looking for work by the end of the week.

Got a job four states away in early March.

And I'm grateful.

 

I think most people coming out of college think the best way to work your way up the ladder at a publication is to start at the bottom and bust your butt for a few years. That works for very few individuals. Most end up working hard for a while, building resentment, and then leaving the business because it just doesn't usually work that way anymore.

Instead, publications don't seem to care anymore how much experience you have in traditional media; they want someone with expertise and an audience. You can get that by freelancing for a number of bigger (even online only) publications simultaneously. Yeah, making a living is more difficult, but then going the traditional journalism route isn't much easier.

 

In a word: No. In more words: I spent 13 years full-time in the business before my job was eliminated in a cost-cutting measure. I kind of saw the writing on the wall with newspapers and while I pursued some journalism jobs, I focused more on moving from the South to the Midwest and getting closer to my family and pursuing a full-time communications job. I was fortunate to get a decent to good severance that made my initial existence more comfortable, but it still took a little under 18 months (and quite a few phone/second interviews and two in-person interviews) to land the job I have now with a big university.
I freelanced for multiple outlets while I searched and I will concur with above posters that the work flowed more freely in football season and it was more of a grind afterward - sending out emails to sports editors to cover basketball games that they weren't staffing in my area while also doing some football recruiting had mixed results. I was lucky to land a contract freelance gig that I have carried with me to supplement my 9-to-5 as well as some newspaper freelance and some magazine freelance in my new area.
But I am much happier and far more financially secure combining the two than I ever was in newspapers and certainly moreso than my freelance-only period. I wouldn't recommend the grind and the stress of full-time freelancing - not to mention occasionally chasing down payment - to anyone unless their spouse has a steady job as well. I'm single, and it wasn't a lot of fun for me.

 

Thanks for all the helpful input, everyone. It looks like I've got some decision-making to do these next few months.