Anna Burgess Yang

#promo - January 16, 2025 at 09:49 PM

Hi fellow Superpathers! If you're thinking about launching a freelance business in 2025 (woo hoo!) I wrote a guide about what you need on Day 1:

https://blog.annabyang.com/how-to-start-freelancing-day-1-and-beyond/

#freelance-talk - January 06, 2025 at 04:02 PM

I'd go with an hourly rate for the interview portion, and then the writing part as a proportion of the article rate. So if you're earning $350/article and you think the quotes would add an additional 20% to the article, then add $70. So let's say you charge something like $50/hr for the interview and it's a 30-minute call (so $25), plus $70 for the writing - so charge $95 per article.

#freelance-talk - July 21, 2024 at 07:31 PM

thanks for the tag @Eric Doty (Superpath)!

@Abby Hinsley - most of my work is ad hoc (it's my preferred way of working with clients) so I'll have anywhere from 6 to 8 active clients at a time.

Here's what I do:

• Clients may have their own brief formats (and maybe their own project tracking tools) but I move assignments into my OWN brief format - with a link to their original
• All assignments go into my project management system (Trello)
• I work based on "slots" - so one slot per day, four days per week. When I add a project to Trello, I put the deliverable in a slot. Trello has a calendar view so I can see what I need to work on each day. Trello also has the ability to add to-dos, URLs, etc - so I use some of that also.
• Every client has an identical set of folders in my GDrive.
• I have tons of Zapier automation running in the background to reduce the risk of error - things like creating a GDoc based on the brief, putting the GDoc into the correct client folder, adding the project card to Trello, etc.

#freelance-talk - March 07, 2024 at 12:15 PM

I'm sure there are other agencies - that was just an example.

#freelance-talk - March 07, 2024 at 11:45 AM

She could probably get a job at a freelance agency to start, like https://www.timeetc.com/ or similar.

#freelance-talk - February 17, 2024 at 10:55 AM

I'm also looking for a video editor (did a search in the channel and this convo came up!) would you mind DMing me also @Rupali if the person you know has additional availability?

#freelance-talk - January 25, 2024 at 01:08 PM

I reply to their questions in the body of the email but also include a PDF that has info about who I am, what I do, rate info, FAQs about working with me.

#freelance-talk - January 25, 2024 at 01:06 PM

They likely won't send you a 1099 or anything. You just report the income.

If you're filing a Schedule C (sole proprietor or single member LLC) Google says to do this.

#freelance-gigs - January 22, 2024 at 01:27 PM

Hi @Todd Anthony - I'm an experienced journalist and have written for several finance publications. I've also been in the banking/finance industry for more than 2 decades. Ok to send you a DM?

#freelance-talk - January 22, 2024 at 11:39 AM

I operated as a sole proprietor for a long time. There are no tax benefits to an LLC (filed a schedule C, same as a sole prop). I carried business liability insurance fo protect myself, though an LLC would have provided greater protection by shielding my assets like my home if I were to get sued. But I decided that no one was going to sue me for millions for a blog post.

In 2023, I elected to file my LLC as a Sub S Corporation. that's where you'll start to see tax savings, because it's a lot different. It's also more complicate because you have to pay yourself a W2 salary - you become an "employee" of the corporation. That all comes with tax requirements and finding a payroll provider (I use Gusto). I spoke with an accountant and the threshold for tax savings that offset the increased costs you'll incur is around the $100k mark in earnings.

#freelance-talk - December 03, 2023 at 12:20 PM

I charge 75% of my normal rate to agencies. I'm not interacting directly with their client so it's less work for me (in theory) plus the agency has overhead.

#promo - October 26, 2023 at 11:16 AM

Want to learn how to remove boring / tedious steps from your content process?

I'm hosting a free workshop with Alt Marketing School on Thursday, Nov 9 at 10:00 am CT.

I'm covering how to streamline your admin work, like automatically creating GDocs for drafts, setting reminders to repurpose your content, and more. Check it out and sign up if you're interested!

https://altmarketingschool.com/event/081123/

#freelance-talk - October 26, 2023 at 11:00 AM

I'm also a Sub S Corp, and I got business liability insurance even when I was a sole proprietor. It's pretty inexpensive for liability only ($60/month). Some of my larger clients have actually required it and I've need to provide proof of insurance before they'll enter into an agreement. So for that reason alone, it has been worth paying for, since I wouldn't have been able to sign those clients otherwise.

My insurance is through Hiscox: https://www.hiscox.com/

#content-collab - October 25, 2023 at 03:24 PM

I'm not familiar with any term for a scorecard like what you're describing. I've always just called it prioritization, whether it's a feature request or a bug.

#content-collab - October 25, 2023 at 02:45 PM

Hi Anne-Marie - I'm a former product manager and also was the director of the customer success department - so my role overlapped with both QA and support. This was an issue we dealt with all the time.

What was really tricky was knowing the number of customers impacted, as you suggested. That wasn't always clear. Like maybe it was a nasty bug, but not in a high traffic area of the product (I worked on a complex enterprise solution).

When bugs came in, I'd triage them: they were escalated directly to QA if I deemed them critical - affecting a large number of users or a high-trafficked area of the product or something that was detrimental to product usage.

If they were serious but not critical (not a "stop what you're doing and fix this now") I'd flag them for the next release. And if they were a lower priority, I had a status called "Attic" ( 😂 ) to fix maybe someday if we had extra time.

But I also monitored incoming bug reports and sometimes issues of previous thought weren't that serious became more serious if more users reported them. Or maybe the issue had a cascading impact. Id link tickets together in our ticketing system so we knew exactly how many customers were impacted. It was a B2B product so one customer reporting it meant potentially tens or hundreds of users within the org were impacted.

As far as data, there are product analytics platforms (Amplitude, Mixpanel) that I think can help identify issues and number of users impacted, but my company didn't use anything like that.

Hope that helps!

#freelance-talk - October 23, 2023 at 06:14 PM

GoDaddy for the domain itself. GSuite for email (and it was very easy to connect/verify my GoDaddy domain).

#freelance-talk - October 20, 2023 at 11:50 AM

As a complete aside, I use Otter.ai for all calls. It auto joins and records the call and produces a transcript. That way, there's always a record of the call and what was said.

#freelance-talk - October 19, 2023 at 06:58 PM

I use JournoPortfolio, which isn't overly fancy but does look professional. It's linked from a Carrd website, which is my homepage. To me, the website and portfolio signal to clients that I take my business seriously - especially since there's a link to my portfolio from my LinkedIn page so clients can (and do) look at it before they even reach out.

I think some clients will care - especially those who look are looking for top-tier freelancers. So yes, there may be clients who don't care. But you're pulling yourself out of the running for clients that do care, before you even get a chance to talk to them.

#freelance-talk - October 10, 2023 at 03:05 PM

I only work 4 days per week, sometimes less. Zero guilt. The more efficiently I wrap up projects, the more time I have for myself / my family.

#general - October 04, 2023 at 12:58 AM

I'm using Trello but I think it depends on what your needs are. Is it just you or for a team? I'm a freelance writer but share one of my Trello boards with a client.

#freelance-gigs - October 03, 2023 at 06:58 PM

Probably about 2/3 of my client work is ghostwritten. I still include it in my portfolio and I've never had a client suggest that it's not my work or had to explain.

My agreements with clients state that I'm allowed to use the work for my own promotional purposes. (Unless I sign their agreement - but I'll often still include it unless explicitly told that I can't)

#general - September 29, 2023 at 10:05 AM

A few times I've cross-posted to Medium, but not regularly. I write a lot (Substack, Medium, newsletter) but my blog is a very different audience - I'm writing about pregnancy loss and grief. https://www.musingsoutloud.com/

#general - September 29, 2023 at 09:39 AM

I use Ghost. The platform is easy to use / easy to build a nice looking site. And people can sign up so if they want to receive new posts from blog directly to their inboxes, they can.

#content-collab - September 27, 2023 at 08:16 PM

Thanks for the shout out @Tasmai Dave! @Dusten - I'll send you a DM, see if it would be a good fit.

#freelance-gigs - September 12, 2023 at 06:55 PM

I don't unconnect with anyone, but I'll unfollow someone if they start showing up in my feed and it's spammy or uninteresting. Part of my social strategy is a presence on LinkedIn, so the more connections the merrier.

#freelance-gigs - September 11, 2023 at 12:44 PM

@Mako Young - I actually don't do any copywriting - only longform content (blog posts, eBooks, whitepapers).

I'm probably not the best judge of content marketing overall - I'm in a super specialized industry (fintech) and do a lot of ghostwriting for industry publications or thought leadership. So I'm not following typical recommendations for things like SEO. But maybe some other people in this group would be willing to offer feedback?

#freelance-gigs - September 11, 2023 at 12:09 PM

I don't think 0.15/word is particularly high paying. I work with mostly venture capital-backed B2B SaaS companies. I charge per article, not per word, but my first clients were the equivalent of .25/word (2 years ago), then .50/word and now I charge anywhere from .75-$1.25/word.

Depending on the types of clients you work with, there are definitely companies out there that can afford to pay more!

#freelance-gigs - September 11, 2023 at 09:42 AM

Yes, I always do a contract and won't start work without one. As @Dominic Kent - you can always point to the terms of the contract. Not only for payment, but for specs of what you will do/won't do.

If you had clients peace out without much notice, you can point to the terms of the contract and let them know that "I'll have my attorney send a demand letter." I'm a member of the National Writer's Union for this exact purpose - they have a grievance division and you can send over a contract and they'll harass your former client for you to enforce the contract. (I've never had to use this, but nice to know the threat is there).

#freelance-gigs - June 26, 2023 at 12:33 PM

@Courtney Withrow - you bring up a good point with international folks. The problem with companies that call these people "independent contractors" instead of going through a payroll company - but essentially they're performing the same functions as an employee - is that they may run afoul of that country's employment laws for time off, benefits, etc.

That's what caught my attention about the Nike case. The misclassified employees weren't limited to the U.S. - they also had employees in Europe that they had labeled "independent contractors". So now they face potential monetary penalties in those countries.

#freelance-gigs - June 23, 2023 at 07:57 PM

Agree with @Nneka Otika and @Nick Moore - companies that post contract or freelance roles (anything where you're not a W-2 employee) are playing fast and loose with IRS laws on what constitutes an independent contractor. It's not just "I'm going to slap a label on it" because they're intentionally avoiding employment laws and associated taxes if the work is essentially the same as an employee - including dictating where and how the work gets done. On a broad scale, Nike is looking at hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for employee misclassification and the mishandling of independent contractors.

#freelance-gigs - June 17, 2023 at 03:09 PM

Yeah I wouldn't worry about the legal/registered name as much since you can always have a DBA. I just registered my LLC this week and kept it simple (ABY Creative, since my name is Anna Burgess Yang). But my LinkedIn business page just uses my name, not the legal name, since my full name is unique enough that it's good for searchability.

#freelance-gigs - June 09, 2023 at 06:47 PM

Just added myself! I've done a lot of ghostwriting for executives in banking and fintech

#freelance-gigs - June 05, 2023 at 07:49 PM

If I'm working with a competitor, I'll name the competitor. It's up to them to decide if they're ok with me working for both. (In this case, they were fine with it because it was also targeting different audiences, even with a really similar product).

If they'd said they weren't fine with it, I would have had to end the conversation (unless the current client was one I was looking to drop anyway - but I still wouldn't sign a non-compete)

#freelance-gigs - June 05, 2023 at 07:07 PM

I won't sign a non-compete and I'm a niche writer in fintech. I've had companies ask if I'm working with any competitors and I'll let them know if any of my clients seem closely related. But I can't limit my business by way of a non-compete.

#freelance-gigs - June 02, 2023 at 10:21 PM

I gave a 45 minute speech one time and when I wrote it out in advance it was about 7,000 words. People speak at a rate of about 150 words per minute. So I agree - start with what you would charge for that word count length and go from there.

#local-chicago - June 01, 2023 at 01:27 PM

If Pritzker signs, I believe it would go into effect on July 1, 2024. (That's what I've been told)

#local-chicago - June 01, 2023 at 10:07 AM

Calling all Illinois freelancers! Our state is on the verge of passing the Freelance Workers Protection Act, which has provisions that ensure freelancers get paid on time and recourse if we aren't. The legislation has passed both the IL House and Senate and is pending the governor's signature (which is expected).

Rep. Will Guzzardi, who sponsored the bill, is hosting a celebration of the bill's passage on Thursday, June 15 at 6:00 pm at Middle Brow in Logan Square, located at 2840 W Armitage Ave, Chicago. (I plan to be there!)

Details in the attached flyer and RSVP here if you plan to attend.

#freelance-gigs - May 30, 2023 at 11:19 PM

If you're in the US, there are maximums to the fees you can charge and it varies by state. A quick Google search says that 1.5% - 2% is common because then you'll not run into issues with exceeding a state's usury laws.

https://www.freshbooks.com/hub/invoicing/how-do-i-charge-late-fees-on-an-invoice#:~:text=Generally%2C%20though%2C%20if%20you%20charge,per%20month%20on%20unpaid%20invoices.

#content-collab - May 23, 2023 at 02:19 AM

Hi Rosemary - I have three kids in public schools in the US. Happy to contribute, feel free to reach out via DM.

#freelance-gigs - May 19, 2023 at 06:18 PM

@Simon Litt - I see someone tagged me above! I spent 15 years in fintech as a product manager before pivoting to content. Would love to hear more - let me know if I can send you a DM!

#freelance-gigs - May 12, 2023 at 10:50 PM

I can only think of one client who writes partially in her day-to-day work. The rest are straight managers or leadership roles. A few are editorial leads that were writers at one point in their lives.

#freelance-gigs - May 11, 2023 at 06:42 PM

I'd look to see if you can find examples via Google. At a minimum it should outline the scope of work you're going to complete, the timeframe for delivery, and the payment terms.

#freelance-gigs - May 11, 2023 at 04:58 PM

It varies a ton. I have my own agreement but several of my clients require their own agreements. I usually ask "Do you have agreements you use with freelancers or should I send you mine?"

#freelance-gigs - May 10, 2023 at 04:34 PM

Hi @Kevin Dam - I spent 15 years in banking/fintech before pivoting to content. I'll send you a DM!

#freelance-gigs - May 09, 2023 at 01:58 PM

I've done "lukewarm" outreach - through industry connections I know, but not sure if they're specifically looking for content. That's been pretty ineffective - I don't even know if they're willing to consider a freelance supplement to their internal content team.

I use LinkedIn like crazy and most of my work is inbound now. And as suggested earlier, I ask past clients to leave testimonials on my LI profile. People see me commenting, posting, head to my LI profile, see good things, end up sending a DM or coming through my website. (At least that's how I think it's happening)

#content-collab - May 04, 2023 at 11:56 AM

What is the website where this would be featured?

#freelance-gigs - May 04, 2023 at 11:54 AM

I agree with @Kanika Modi - write about both. I write about a variety of topics on LinkedIn because the point is engagement/visibility (to help me as a freelance writer). Talking about freelance writing shows prospective clients what you're like to work with and talking about content marketing shows that you're knowledgeable.

#freelance-gigs - May 02, 2023 at 10:52 PM

When I first started, I had a separate email address from my personal email but it was still a gmail address. I got an email address with my domain a few months in.

I never give out my cell to clients. It's always Zoom/Meet. There have been a few times when I've needed to put a phone number on paperwork and then I use a Google Voice number.

#freelance-gigs - April 27, 2023 at 08:30 PM

You could simply state that you require a contract for all clients that outlines the scope of work to be done. And point out that it protects you and the client.

#freelance-gigs - April 26, 2023 at 11:30 AM

I have yet to find an all-in-one that I love (and I'm obsessed with tools).

I use Streak, which is a Gmail add-on to keep track of pipeline. It's easy-peasy and I never have to leave Gmail.

I use Honeybook for proposals because I like the way the proposals look and that clients can pay directly in the proposal. However, Honeybook falls far short of being an accounting software and doesn't work well for some of my clients because the work is ad hoc.

So I use Wave for accounting. Most of my invoices are sent from Wave and then it integrates with my bank account and business credit card.