Freelancer Profile: Ian Smith

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Ian Smith
Boise, ID
GemstoneMedia.net

Q: Tell me a little about your freelance background (how you got started, how long you did it, why you moved on from it).

A: My first job out of college (1997) was as a copy editor at the Seattle office of Landor Associates. They had the primary Microsoft packaging contract, which involved a huge amount of package design and print production for domestic and international markets. The office had around 50 people on staff, including three copy editors and three production editors. When the dot-com bubble burst, Microsoft frugally parceled out their packaging business based on competitive bids. As a high-end, high-cost agency, Landor couldn’t compete.

When I left in 2003, about a year before Landor closed the Seattle office, I found that few agencies had enough editing work to justify employing a FT editor, so I started freelancing. I survived because of my professional network—my Landor coworkers, now at other agencies, called me when they needed an editor. I would work onsite for a week and then move on. I landed at GreenRubino as a freelancer-in-residence thanks to some of these former colleagues. GR gave me a desk and regular work. If things were slow, I worked for other clients via email. In 2007 I moved to Idaho but kept most of my Seattle clients.

The beginning of the end came in 2015, when Microsoft released another version of Office. Instead of six full-time editors working four months to produce the packaging, GreenRubino only needed one editor (me) for about 10 hours. The voluminous printed packaging of 1997—multiple boxes localized to each market, CD sets, manuals, fliers, certificates of authenticity, end-user license agreements, cross-sell and upsell brochures—had been replaced by a single product key card, along with a few marketing pieces. This experience and others revealed that my traditional work was fading away, so I went back to school.

In 2018, after 15 years of freelancing, I accepted a full-time job with the curriculum department of Northwest Lineman College. For me, it’s stable, meaningful work in an important industry, working with highly skilled professionals to create top-notch product. I do have to submit vacation requests now, but I feel it was a good change.

“Maintain every relationship because freelancers will likely go FT at some point, or change jobs, and then they will refer you.”

Q: What do you wish you would have known when you started freelancing?

A: I wish I had known:

  • How much to charge. I still don’t have a good answer. Companies balk if you’re too high or too low. And it changes depending on the economy, their experience using freelancers, whether you’re talking to the Seattle office or Boise office, or whether the CEO just read a relevant article in Forbes. One LA company refused even to consider us unless we charged $100/hour (anyone who charged less clearly wasn’t “big time”). A few years later, they wouldn’t pay more than $30/hour because their company culture had changed with the recession. My advice: Look up pay ranges for your services, tweak it for your market and experience, and start there.

  • People who share your job description are good for camaraderie, but not for job leads. For example, my contacts who are professional editors are not looking to hire an editor. But my contacts who are designers and project managers and web developers—those who don’t perform the service I provide—do need me. But maintain every relationship because freelancers will likely go FT at some point, or change jobs, and then they will refer you.

Q: What are three key pieces of advice for students considering freelancing?

A: Three key pieces of advice are:

  1. Success is based on relationships. People are most likely to hire you if a) they know you, and b) they like you. Only a few times in 15 years have I been hired cold turkey (e.g., based on a LinkedIn search). Virtually all of my work came directly from someone I’ve worked with before, or through a referral. Some caveats to this advice: a coworker’s referral carries more weight than a friend’s referral; use LinkedIn so people can find you, even years later; be nice—clients chose me over more skilled editors because I was easier to get along with.

  2. Look for regular gigs. My best clients were those that needed me for a few hours each week, rather than those who had one or two massive projects each year. With the former, I developed more stable relationships with more people (future referrals) and they thought of me as part of the team. Big projects tend to be stress-filled, complicated, and behind schedule. This colors people’s memories of working with you, even if you were awesome.

  3. Learn to do more than one thing. Trust and convenience are important to employers. I think I’m an A-list copy editor and proofreader, a B-list writer, and a C-list animator, HTML coder, and video editor. But my editing clients hired me to do all of these because it was easier than finding someone new. 

“Learn to do more than one thing. Trust and convenience are important to employers. I think I’m an A-list copy editor and proofreader, a B-list writer, and a C-list animator, HTML coder, and video editor. But my editing clients hired me to do all of these because it was easier than finding someone new. ”

Q: What were the best parts and the biggest challenges?

A: Good bits

  • Flexible schedule. I could walk my kids to school or wait at the bus stop with them, and then go for a jog. If I got bored midday I could shoot hoops for 20 minutes in the driveway. I could attend midday elementary school plays without clearing it with someone. If the weather was lousy or traffic jammed up, it didn’t matter—I could work from home or go in late. I was paid to get the work done, not sit in an office all day.

  • Diversity of clientele. I could work on magazine ads for a bank, a scientific agronomy report, instructional animations, a blog post by a CEO, a video brochure for the latest cell phone, SEO for wood stain products, and a style guide for an engineering startup—all in one day!

  • Few office politics. Nobody’s afraid I’m going to usurp their position in the office pecking order. Because I worked from home, no one was ever offended that I had a nicer chair than them, or took two weeks’ vacation at Christmas, or hadn’t shaved that day, or was blaring electronic dance music.

Challenges

  • Irregular workflow. Some weeks I made $2,000, and in others I made $100. Unless you have an laid back personality (I don’t), those slow weeks are stressful, and spent looking for work. You need the self-discipline not to spend the big checks too freely, but rather save that money for the lean periods.

  • You’re never off work. I constantly checked my phone for unexpected work, which could come at all hours. People who knew I was on vacation would still send work requests: “If you can fit this in during any free time, that would be much appreciated.” Again, you need the discipline to turn off the phone during dinner or at your child’s band concert or while you’re sleeping or on vacation. You may miss a work opportunity, but you need to be okay with that.

  • You are your own HR and IT. Taxes, software licenses, the Internet is down, the client in Barcelona wants a video call, Obamacare registration, the printer’s out of ink, the client demands that I work 14-hour days this entire week, my monitor just died. All of these are your own problems.

 Q: Can you recommend any resources for people wanting to start freelancing?

A: Look for guilds or industry groups that help you stay current with the industry; some of these post job opportunities and rate charts. I belonged to the Northwest Independent Editors Guild for several years. Also look for local associations where you can network, such as the Idaho Editors and Writers Association. Again, to my earlier point, an editorial association was good for camaraderie and sharing best practices, but the work opportunities would come from networking at advertising/design association meetings. Also, don’t spend your time networking with small businesses like carpet cleaners and plumbers and insurance agents. They don’t have enough work for you.

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