Visual China.
Titanium**Note: This article** is on WeChat*** Hydrogen Consumption (ID: hqingxiaofei), author |Cao Shuangtao, edYang Bocheng, Titanium** is authorized to publish. What is freedom?
Fromm, a famous psychologist in the 20th century, believes that there are two kinds of freedom: one is negative freedom, that is, freedom obtained from the constraints of the outside world; The other is positive freedom, that is, the freedom gained by having one's own power. When "freedom" is used to describe a profession, it is no longer as good as one might think.
Freelance writer is a new type of profession in which manuscript writing is the main income. It is named freedom because it gets rid of the external constraints of fixed places, "996" office hours, customer requirements, etc., and gains control over time and physical space.
Especially in the past two years, freelance writers have been highly sought after on social networks such as Xiaohongshu, and many bloggers have come forward to share their living conditions of "lying down if you want to", and the monetization experience of "relying on writing to achieve the small goal of buying a house", which has fascinated countless people.
But in fact, due to the overlap of the dual identities of the worker and the boss, under the work system of "piecework system", "file system" and "flow system", manuscript writing has become "freedom" under the coercion of the process of submitting topics, grabbing topics, and rushing to rush manuscripts. At this point, freedom became a relative concept, and freelance copywriters became emotionless typing machines.
30 years old, single, Shanghai drifting, naked resignation, any keyword can trigger nervous nerves, but I have walked through 2023 full of ups and downs with these labels.
On the evening of the day I resigned from the leader, I walked out of the creative park where the company was located, and took a deep breath of the slightly cool air, which was the smell of freedom. Previously, I had been working in an advertising agency for 4 and a half years, and the positions of copywriter and copywriter were one after another every day, and when I was busy, I often left work at 1 or 2 in the morning, and fatigue was almost visible to the naked eye.
Especially in 2023, the company will be affected by the general environment, and the control of personnel costs will become more and more strict, and some colleagues will not be able to stand it and resign, the reason is that they are physically and mentally ill and need to recuperate. People are gone, the work is still there, and there are no new colleagues coming in for a long time, and the rest of the people can only grit their teeth, and almost one person in my department is used for three people.
Even though I was living a decent life at the time, when work took up more and more of my time, the pain and struggle intensified, so I began to think about the meaning behind this kind of work and wanted to regain the initiative in life.
Naked resignation is indeed a thing that requires courage and confidence.
I first used three months to test the water, asked a friend to introduce the demand, contacted the editor who asked me to make an appointment before, and at the same time with 800 words of 100 yuan at a low price**in**and Xianyu to find a part-time writer, most of the articles focus on speeches with relatively large moisture, year-end summaries, etc.
It was not until he mastered two resource channels that were expected to continue to cooperate steadily, and determined that he could obtain a part of the stable income from freelance writing, so he decisively submitted his resignation to the leadership.
Although at the time of resignation, the leader still retained him with a salary increase of 2,000 and persuaded him to hold on a little longer, implying that a promotion was in sight. There are also many friends who kindly dissuaded, "The economic environment is not good this year, have you really thought about it?" "It's October now, and it's a pity that you can't get the year-end bonus after a hard year"...
But I still feel that rather than swallowing the empty pie drawn by the leader, the value of my time and emotional health are more important. That's it, with two copywriting side jobs that I just took over, I quit naked before I turned 30, I hope this is a gift for myself to turn 30, and I hope that 2024 can be a complete start.
The absolute freedom of time can make people let their guard down, and then gradually develop into two extremes, either self-discipline or casualness. When the breath begins to be disordered, life spirals out of control.
At first, there was no strict work schedule, I would write when I woke up, continue to sleep when I was sleepy, and sit on the balcony to read a book before I got a job to cultivate inspiration. I only need to spend 3 days a week writing to cover the cost of living for the week, and the anxiety of work is gone, and the peace of mind that makes me feel like I've found my ideal life.
Soon, with the end of a collaborative project with high demand, low return rate, and short settlement period, my freelance writing career began to feel a sense of crisis, and material and spiritual instability followed.
First of all, there is the instability of matter.
In order to obtain cooperation resources, I joined a lot of "writer groups", and submitted articles on Xiaohongshu and Baijiahao, and everyone did not refuse, even if a lot of work was not what I was good at and was willing to do, but at this time I didn't have much choice.
The first copywriting job that came to the door was some game manuscript advertorials, and the remuneration was only 20 yuan per thousand words, which was ridiculous, scolding the writer for not wearing dirty words, and he would not do such a job even if he was starving. Subsequently, I came into contact with a type of advertising advertorial called "Transaction Advertorial", and the overall manuscript fee is composed of the basic manuscript fee and the conversion of reading volume.
The partner first sent a file package, wrote an article of its own brand according to the competing product, and made it clear that "the manuscript fee is 100 yuan, the ROI is 500 yuan at 1:3, 800 yuan at 1:4, and 1500 yuan at 1:5. But after writing for half a month, I found that ordinary people can basically only get 100 manuscript fees, and they don't rely on writing to get rewards, but on rubbing edges or luck.
The most reliable way is to join the Freelance Alliance's group of writers, but the process of building trust with the owners is long. If you want to stand out among the writers, you need to establish a good cooperative relationship with these group owners who can go to the "publisher", as long as you can receive more jobs and the effect is explosive, you can receive more manuscripts.
An automotive advertorial, the requirements are 3000 to 5000 words, and the manuscript fee ranges from 500-1500 yuan, at that time, I have to "meticulously craft" each manuscript, and it takes a week to write a 3000 to 5000 words of finished manuscript, write an outline, submit the first draft, and revise it 3-4 times.
The settlement is unstable, which causes mental instability.
It is difficult to find cooperation channels and write articles, but the most difficult thing is to settle the payment. When you find a job, whether you are about to go to bed or are about to go out, you can hardly refuse, and refusing once means that people may not look for you next time, and if you want to make money, you have to accept it.
If you're unlucky, settlement is a long road. Especially channel media, most of them are often part of Party A's marketing campaign, and there is a certain payment cycle, if Party A does not settle the payment, as a co-writer can only wait. For example, an interview I wrote at the beginning of my resignation, and after the manuscript was published, there was still no settlement for three months.
This is a matter of drought and flood not guaranteeing harvest. On the one hand, it seems that there is a stable cooperation channel, but on the other hand, it has to face the instability of income, when the situation is good, it may earn an average of 800 yuan a day, and when the situation is bad, it may directly make ends meet.
Only when I really did freelance work did I find that freelancing is like the emperor's new clothes, which looks glamorous on the outside, but seems to be deceitful on the inside.
Freelance writing is a game that pushes oneself to improve for the purpose of survival, and the most important thing is to keep the core stable.
Although the two stable part-time jobs have brought me a regular income every month, it is far from enough compared to my salary when I was working. What motivates me to keep looking for new projects is more anxiety.
Anxiety comes from some detours.
At first, I wrote 5 articles through an intermediary, each of these articles has been revised several times, from overturning to revising the wording, the process is repeated, but I also got 3000 yuan manuscript fee, I thought that this was the end of the matter, and later I saw my own article on a certain ***, but found that these articles were signed by someone else's name.
After communication, it was found that the original manuscript fee for each manuscript was 2,000 yuan, and the middleman made at least double the difference. Later, I found out that this is one of the common routines in the copywriting circle, but I am not disgusted, but grateful that it allowed me to learn the norms and routines of copywriting in the process of constantly revising the manuscript, and even got the opportunity to sign a contract directly with the platform.
Another anxiety comes from the allocation of time.
With the improvement of copywriting ability and the establishment of stable customer resources, the guaranteed income is stable, and the unstable is the upper limit. Therefore, self-discipline is particularly important, we must learn to set a limit for ourselves to write several manuscripts a month, and how to coordinate the rest time and writing time, otherwise we will fall into a state of unsatisfactory work, and working more than ten hours a day is not enough, and finally collapse ourselves.
Of course, there is also a sense of gain in the freelance writing process.
Especially when writing character manuscripts, I can get in touch with elites in different fields, and every conversation has something new. In the process of interviewing female creators, I lived the life of elite women, learned about their vision of making the social issue of "female power" seen by more people, and felt the vastness of the spiritual world of others.
It is this kind of dialogue that makes me understand the importance of pleasing myself, and that a person who knows how to love himself must be a person who lives a relaxed life and has a rich spiritual world. When the spirit is abundant enough, then every gesture is the moon and the galaxy, and the body and mind are naturally stretched.
A good piece of advice is that if you don't have a strong enough kernel, or don't have a strong backing, don't try a full-time freelance writer lightly.
On the one hand, many freelance writers lack adequate social security and are unable to resist sudden risks, and if they fall seriously ill or injured in an accident, they may become impoverished due to illness and return to the pre-liberation period overnight. On the other hand, you're likely to live for a long time under the discussion of "this guy isn't a normal person".
At this time, you must have at least one person around you to support you, encourage you when you are anxious, and support you when you are worried about no income.
For freelance writers, "freedom" is always a relative concept, if you only stay at a shallow level of negative freedom, although you will feel a moment of happiness, but after getting rid of the shackles of office hours, jobs, etc., it may be followed by panic, and this "freedom" will also make us lose connection with others and the world, so as to make us more anxious.
But when you achieve positive freedom through self-discipline, you will be able to feel and show your own strength, and you will be able to make your own choices guided by your own will and judgment, which must be a very hard and long process. When you see an article that brings a satisfying return, when you don't have to snort, you feel that everything is worth it.