Work at Home: Profile of Freelance Writer Lisa Kroulik

Lisa Kroulik has found her voice as a freelance writer and online article writer. And she feels now that she has found that voice, there is no stopping her! She hopes to be doing this type of work until she retires. Lisa is an inspiration to would-be writers everywhere in showing that following the dream of writing for a living can be accomplished!

Business Snapshot

Lisa has been writing online since March 25, 2011. She gave her notice at her day job on April 27, 2011. She took a ten-day vacation to see how much money she could make writing online. At first, it was less than the $12.50 per hour she made at her regular job. But most days now, she doubles that rate. And some days, she evens makes three to five times more than that. She has tried approximately ten various online formats for which to write, including HubPages. She became disillusioned with many of those sites, and currently only writes for HubPages and Textbroker.com. She currently spends a block of time each day writing articles for specific clients. She has found it is best and most profitable for her to work through direct or team orders because they pay better than open orders where anyone can sign up to write a particular article. There has been enough work for her to keep her busy for the last year and a half.

Regarding HubPages, Lisa appreciates this format because she can write about whatever she wants. She tries to write one hub ( article) per week. She feels appreciated by the feedback from HubPages readers who comment on her articles. Especially when she writes about a subject near and dear to her heart: abusive relationships. She has been writing for HubPages for 18 months under the name of nybride710 and has written 106 hubs.

Lisa's workspace is a desk and computer in the corner of her bedroom. That's all she needs, and there were no startup costs because she already had these things in her home before she started her writing career. She writes 5 - 8 hours each day. She usually starts after 9:00 a.m. when her girls are at school, and stops around 4:00 p.m. She takes approximately one hour each day to eat lunch and do errands. She will sometimes write an extra hour or two at night when her family is asleep.

Lisa's favorite topics to write about include: abusive relationships, mental health, Minnesota history, Christian testimony, her writing career, finances, health, travel, parenting, relationship issues, articles for legal blogs, articles for heating and air conditioning blogs, adult education, business profiles, home and family, and press releases.

Personal Snapshot

Lisa is 44 and lives in Minnesota. She has been married to her husband Darrell for the past two years. This is the second marriage for Lisa and a first for Darrell. Lisa's two daughters from her previous marriage live with them, as she was awarded full custody after her divorce from her first husband. The girls are 16 and 13.

Lisa finds the flexibility of working from home an awesome plus for her family life. Her two teen girls need to be driven to activities, and she can work her writing schedule around those activities. Her family also likes to vacation often in Summer, and she no longer has to ask a boss for time off. She is her own boss! She acknowledges that she doesn't get paid for the days she doesn't work, except for passive earnings from Hub Pages, which is currently over $100 per month.

Background

Lisa graduated from high school in 1986 and bounced in and out of community college. She finally earned an associate's degree in 1993. She has thought of going back to school to get a bachelor's degree but could never decide what she wanted to do.

Lisa has always wanted to be a writer, but before the internet, the only way she knew to be a writer was to become a journalist. Since it's a very competitive business and Lisa is shy by nature, she gave up on that career. For the next 25 years, Lisa moved from one job to the next. Most of her jobs were in data entry or clerical.

Miserable in her last data entry job, and not being able to advance without a higher degree, she started researching writing from home. She found the website,"Freelance Writing Jobs" which led her to experiment with all the websites listed above. And the rest, as they say, is history! She enjoys working from home because not only does she not have to get up at 5:00 a.m. anymore, but she also saves money on gas by not having to drive 35 miles round trip anymore either.

Pros

Lisa feels there are many positives of working from home as a freelance writer. The first is being able to do something she loves. She also loves the flexibility and the fact that she is making better money now in her dream job as a writer than she was making in her previous job. She also finds great satisfaction in the fact that she has personally taken control of her career and made her dreams of becoming a writer come true.

Cons

Lisa feels the cons of this career are that it can be lonely and isolating and provides no vacation pay. She also has some anxiety about the work running out.

Financial outlook

Without putting in a quite a full-time effort, Lisa currently makes approximately $30,000 per year. The amount she makes can vary from month to month depending on what jobs there are available to her.

Advice to Future Online Writers

Her advice to future online writers is to be very persistent because you will face rejection in the beginning. Finding the sites to write for that work well for each writer takes time. It does take time to build up to a steady income, so one should not expect to be making a full-time income as a writer overnight.