Ponderings on Self Employment & Career

I'm not officially self employed until 8th November. At the moment I'm on gardening leave from my old job. I have a few clients set up and ready to go though, and some I was already working with before I was made redundant. Despite the constant low-level panic about not being able to afford nursery bills come the end of November, it's going well.

I've been reading a lot of motivational, self-improvement based books and articles lately.

One of the books asks the question:

If you were starting completely fresh, in a world where anything was possible, what would you love to be doing?

The thing about being a free agent is that I'm free to do whatever I want. At the moment I'm doing social media marketing (and some accounts) but if I decide next week that I want to try doing some other type of work, I can give it a shot. The possibilities are endless!

When I sit and think about my "ideal job," what I would love to do, what would make me truly fulfilled and happy, it's writing.

But when I sit down and think, I shall write!! I usually come up with a big fat blank. I can update my blog easily enough, but I don't see this as something I could translate into a viable source of income. This is not content people would pay to read!

I love blogging. I love putting together a post and seeing how people respond to it. I love seeing the number of daily, weekly and monthly hits slowly creep up. I really love it when it becomes evident someone has actually read and maybe even enjoyed what I've written. Or when someone from the BBC calls me up and asks me if I'd like to be interviewed on their radio show - as if anything I have to say is of any importance or gravity! But none of this is going to pay my nursery bill!

I've thought about writing a book, but I'm not sure that's entirely viable either. These days, precious few people are able to actually make their living from books. Self-publishing on Amazon means that realistically you can only charge a couple of pounds per book and, only keep 70% of that charge.

Don't get me wrong; I'm enjoying the work I'm doing now, but mainly because of the freedom it gives me to fit my working hours around time with S, housework and the occasional bit of me time. The work itself is interesting because I'm learning about different clients' businesses... but it doesn't really set my heart on fire.

So my next big challenge is to figure out how to make a living from writing. A good enough living that I don't have to do too much of it!