You Are Not Your Own Boss as a Freelancer

One of the main reasons you want to go freelance is to never work under a terrible boss again. You want to work autonomously, be immune to bureaucracy, and avoid petty power trips.

You are backed up by numerous articles and books that tell you if you go freelance, you will obtain the dream of being your own boss. It is easy to believe charting your own path will lead to independence.

The real world begs to differ.

As a freelance writer, you are at the bottom of the totem pole for any publication or agency you work for. You will have a multitude bosses titled editor.

As your client load increases, the number of people you are accountable to multiplies. Each of them will set different expectations you will adhere to with different performance metrics for you to reach.

Instead of having to work with one Michael Scott, you will have to work with three of them at once.

You note that, as a freelancer, you get to choose who you work with; therefore, you will never choose to work with a Michael Scott. Dismiss this fanciful thought before it embeds in your brain.

You are going to take on work that puts you under a Michael Scott. You will deal with editors with different thoughts on what you should write, even if they approved your original pitch. You will realize that clients are not always easy to obtain. If you want to eat, you will deal with it.

If you do freelance copywriting work for an agency, expect less freedom. What you write will be dictated by your marketing manager, which was dictated to them by their boss, which was dictated by the client(the real boss). Once you write the content, the end result will change significantly. Since you are an obscure freelance copywriter, you will not do anything about it.

You may one day be your own boss. If you are a new freelance writer, you will not be.