Jenny Peters

I did learn how to run a small business before I became a freelance writer. I had a marketing and wholesaling videocassette company through the 1980s, and it taught me exactly what I tell others: that you can sell something, but you don't get paid for it for longer than you think, and you have to manage all your expenses. Because I knew how to do that after the experience of running my own business, I was able to shift to freelance writing and successfully do this for as long as I have. I continue to do it, and I'm of an age where many people are retired now, but I'm a good writer, people like my work, and I get to do amazing things in both the entertainment world and the travel world, so I am not going to retire.

Save money. Never be living from paycheck to paycheck. Don't spend money on expensive shoes and purses when you may need the money to pay your mortgage.

You really have to treat it like a small business if you want to be a freelance journalist. Put capital away so that you have money in the bank that's liquid and available if all of your work dries up for a while and you still have to pay your rent, your car payment, your mortgage, whatever it is. A lot of people think, oh, I'll be a freelancer, and they don't realize that when they turn in their article, they think they're going to get paid in the next week, but generally they get paid net 60 days. People don't understand the business. Most companies pay net 30, net 60, and newcomers to freelance writing discover that the money they're expecting is not going to show up for a while. So it really is important to manage your money well and be ready for anything to happen, because things like the crash of 2008 and the COVID crisis cause a lot of people to have a lot of trouble staying afloat. So watch your money.

The biggest challenge to my field is AI, because AI is taking jobs from writers. The other challenge is that newspapers, magazines, and websites that provide information for people are going out of business, and so there's less advertising in those sorts of places. It's just getting harder and harder to have a steady income as a freelancer. As a freelancer, I pitch stories to editors, and I know a lot of people in the industry because I've been in it for so long and have a good reputation, but even the people that I know that I pitch come back to me and say, what we used to pay you $500 for, we'll pay you $100 for. That's a big challenge.