joelklettke

Cheers and thank you, Rachel :)

Happy to clear this up:

I did subcontract a very small portion of work, which I did eliminate from the number I crunched. On the whole, it contributed less than $10,000 to the total, and as I mentioned, the time I invested trying to make it work actually made it such that I more or less came out even, but not at a profit.

Right now, I'm handling all the work I'm sent personally. I do plan to scale up in the future, at which point, I don't think it would be fair to call myself "freelance" any more.

I'm no longer surprised by the disconnect between a great dev/writer/artist/musician and a good business sense. Most freelancers I meet have a great talent in one area - but talent in that area doesn't always mean they know how to market or manage it as a business. It seems so obvious, I agree - but it's a big stumbling point, at least with those I come in contact with.

Thanks for the catch. I'm certainly not immune to typos or malapropisms - especially when writing for myself and not a client :)

Thank you very much for the kind words. There are more failures I could have mentioned - failures to properly qualify clients, failures in overbooking, failures in trying to scale up, failures in time management..

But at the risk of running a cliche, if I'm not failing, I'm not learning. And that's all this post is - sharing what I've learned.

Appreciate your kind response :)

You really don't have to apologize, I can see how it'd be read that way, and I'm culpable for that.

I know you say publicity like it's a dirty or cheap word - but, what writer doesn't want people to read their work? What person doesn't want their story to get traction?

Yes, it feels a bit cheap to throw numbers for attention. But my honest goal was not to wave a financial number like I've "made it", but use that as a means of opening the floor for discussion and sharing.

I appreciate that to many people, that's going to seem really insincere, but I hope that the rest of the piece made it worth your time.

Hey - thank you! I'm okay with being bashed - I just think I'm being misread. I never intended this to be a prescriptive guide to success, just some reflection on what I, myself, have learned from the process.

Thank you for reading, and for being open to the idea that this is just my experience!

Absolutely - the post wasn't meant to say "money over everything". One of the big reasons I'm freelancing is for the freedom and flexibility that comes with it.

But I still treat it like a job. A job I can take vacations from, or a hiatus from, or whatever - but still something that takes some discipline to succeed at.

I never intended it to sound like freelancing should be un-fun slave labor. That would entirely miss the point.

Author here - new to HackerNews, so forgive me if I stink of "n00b".

You are absolutely right in that your freelance experience might differ from mine - and I did try to say at the end of the piece that money is just one factor. If you can operate well on a job and work in your underwear (and not feel like a sub-human after 3 days), power to you - DO IT!

There's room for disagreement and I'm not trying to run anyone else's freelance life - just share what's worked for me.

These are MY lessons. They're not meant to be absolutes for anybody. I couldn't have dreamed this would wind up on Hacker News - I wrote it for my (small) community and I'm thrilled to see it get traction, but I didn't try to game any system and get on here.