Most people have full time jobs that aren’t very fulfilling or personally satisfying, and there are those who wished they could make money off a passion or hobby. Well, that’s possible. If you’re interested in trying to turn your interest into a money-making venture, a good way to see whether you can make decent earnings at freelancing is to start moonlighting.
Plunging into a new career headlong without any backup or Plan B isn’t a smart idea, but progressing into a venture carefully can produce some good results. If you’re interested in sideline jobs to see if you can make money from your hobby, here are some tips to get started:
Google is your friend. Type “(yourhobbyhere) freelance jobs” into a search engine and see what sort of returns you get. You may find job posting boards with people looking for your talents. “Freelance writing jobs”, for example, produces thousands of returns. Click around and follow some leads. Look at what the job market is like, what the pay rate offered is, and what clients are asking for to see if you might be able to do some work in your spare time.
Start slow. Don’t go nuts thinking about the potential and jump into a venture without looking at whether you have the time and ability to see the job through. Many offers may look tempting, but when you sit back to think on your home situation, you might realize you don’t have enough free time to finish the job by the deadline or that you’re lacking certain tools and skills.
On the other hand, be confident. What holds many people back from pursuing something they love is a lack of belief in themselves and their talents. How do you know you won’t succeed if you don’t try? At worst, you’ll learn some valuable lessons that will help you improve, and at best, you’ll realize that you’re fantastic at what you do and can certainly make a living off your hobby.
Be realistic about what you can and can’t do. Faced with something we want badly, we can convince ourselves of being able to come through on all manner of things. As much as people can talk themselves out of potential opportunity, they can also talk themselves into something they regret later.
Some great tips for figuring out whether you have the time to afford sideline freelancing is figuring out your weekly rate of production versus your daily rate, which I explain in this post. Harry also wrote a good post that helps to calculate an accurate estimate of the time it’ll really take to finish a job (except he uses math. Dude… I hate math…).
