It's never as difficult as you think it is - Writer and Editor Sian Meades-Williams
Sian started freelancing on the side 12 years ago, with one gig leading to another. When a job came along that was enough to cover rent, she left the security of employment without giving it much thought.
6 months later, Sian’s client folded and she was out of work.
She bounced back and found her niche, built relationships with clients, and grew and edited her own successful website. She now writes emails for a living and is crowdfunding her first book.
Sian chats to Steve about the lessons she's learned along the way, the fear she still feels sending pitches, and that one time the tax office threatened her with bankruptcy.
If you want to support Sian’s book, The Pyjama Myth, use the code BEINGFREELANCE for 10% off any pledge up to £100.
TRANSCRIPT OF THE BEING FREELANCE PODCAST WITH SIAN MEADES-WILLIAMS AND STEVE FOLLAND
Sian: I have actually been a freelance writer for about 12 years now. I went freelance when I was 25 after writing for various websites and kind of doing little bits and bobs in my spare time. And then I got offered a freelance job, which turned into another freelance job as it tends to, and decided that if I got offered a job that would cover my rent, I would quit my job, which was in advertising sales and paid lovely commission and was secure and lovely. I quit my job without even thinking about it. And then that website that I was so inexperienced to be editor of folded in about six months, which left me unemployed with absolutely no idea what to do or how to get a job or how to make it work. I mistakenly didn't think I had enough experience to get a staff writing job, so I bugged everybody I knew for work. I sent some terrible pictures out. I really went around being a freelance writer backwards until I started getting some commissions and I built up from there.
Steve: So how long was it between leaving that, your first big freelance job to actually first getting those various projects finally paying off and coming in?
Sian: I think that first year was incredibly difficult, but it was about six months of not really understanding what I was doing. And I think I was in a position where my rent in Southeast London was incredibly cheap and I still had some money from my previous job, so I was 25 and I was an idiot and I didn't necessarily think about how much money I was making because I still had money in the bank. It was really stupid, but it was hard. But I was making something and I didn't quite understand what I was doing and it's only now when I look back at it that I think actually, you really went around this ass backwards and there wasn't any help and there wasn't any guidance and I didn't know anyone else who was freelance at the time. And it was a really, really strange time where I had just taken a leap of faith. And the only reason I did was because I was just a blind optimist at 25 and just figured that it would work out. And I think that optimism is probably a really good thing for a freelancer. Bur so is budgeting and being good with finances and I'm better at that now.
Steve: So how many jobs would you need back then per month for example? So you were writing articles for what? For websites, for magazines? What kind of stuff were you doing?
Sian: For both. I had a really great gig at a private members club, which used to pay brilliantly as 12 years ago, magazines and websites actually did pay very, very well. So sometimes it would be huge amounts of money, but as is still the case, sometimes you get quiet months. I am a big fan even now of having a steady gig as a freelancer, I'm really bad at pitching if I know my rent depends on it. Whereas if I've got a gig that covers my rent and my bills, I am a really happy freelancer and I am more fun with my pictures and I'm more daring and I jump into things that sound really exciting. I really like having the security even though I also really liked doing my own thing.
Steve: When you're pitching, do you know the people you're pitching to? Have you built relationships with them or is it all cold?
Sian: It's a little bit of both. Sometimes I am pitching completely cold, which is terrifying to me. It never stops being terrifying. I do know some freelance writers who really enjoy it. I am convinced that someone is at the other end of an email connection just going, "Who is this idiot? Why have they emailed me?" And I think that's something that a lot of freelancers really struggle with because we put so much thought into our work, into our pitches and it's personal to us and it's especially personal if you know your rent is attached to it. There's a connection that we really want to make and if you've written a really good pitch and it falls flat, that's really difficult and I'm really interested in how writers and editors build those relationships, but sometimes I'm just emailing editors I already know. Sometimes I'm happy to call them. It really does depend on the relationship, but it's always nice to have just one kind of new conversation happening at a time and sometimes I've instigated that, sometimes editors come to me.
Steve: So as that first year came to an end and you hadn't gone back and got a full time job and you were managing to top up what money you had, how did it progress from there? How did it evolve?
Sian: I launched my own project, which is something that I'm a huge fan of doing because freelancing has quiet times and it's really nice to do something in those times. I launched a website called Domestic Sluttery, which was one of the first lifestyle blogs in the UK. It was the first website in the country to cover interiors and food. If you can imagine such a thing in the sway of lifestyle websites that there are today. I found myself, editor of a team of 12, I wrote a book. It really became something huge and I ran that as it was in that guise until about 2014 and a couple of years ago we launched that as a newsletter. So now I write emails for a living and I still run my own projects and have a lot of fun that way. But I think when you're freelance you get to be in control of making your own money and rather than wait for someone to say, "Yes, I will pay you for this," there are so many ways in which you can do it yourself.
Steve: Wow. I feel like we fast forwarded through that because at one point there must've been you going, "Hmm. domesticsluttery.com? .net? .co.uk?... And then next thing you were editing 14 people and writing a book.
Sian: Yeah.
Steve: So were you doing it in quiet time? Did you put a lot of effort into building it up? How were there suddenly people working with you? Was it bringing money in or were you using it as a portfolio? With the questions?
Sian: A bit of all of that. It was actually originally a test blog for a company that I was working for at the time and I wanted to go with them and say, "I've got a new idea, I think you should do this. It works with your portfolio." And then I realised through various internal reasons that it would be really foolish to kind of send it to that company. And I was right, that company folded and we just thought that actually this is still a really great idea. Let's jazz it up and put it live. So we jazzed it up and put it live and people got in touch with me and said, "I think this is great, I want to write for it." It was never a huge kind of boom financially, but it did make money and everyone was paid a small amount and it was great. And the newsletter now is myself and a co-writer and it's a brilliant project that is about women being amazing and independent designers and just it makes your inbox a better place and it's really fun and it's now my portfolio.
Steve: When it was making you money, was that via advertising?
Sian: Advertising and affiliate links as well. I'm a big fan of making money through editorial and I think if you do that very well, it doesn't feel like you're being sold to. Having worked in sales for a long time, I know that there's a really fine line and I think that's something that now all of my kind of copywriting experience as a professional and my previous sales background, I think that oddly ties into my work more than I anticipated it ever would. I really thought I was leaving the world of advertising and sales behind and then it turns out actually I'm really good at writing a media pack or selling myself and suddenly this job has actually become more useful to me than I expected.
Sian: But I think there are always kind of revenue streams that you can consider and I see it happening a lot with freelancers now kind of setting up their own newsletters or kind of working on podcasts and things and just wanting to take control of their finances in a way that isn't easy when you're a freelancer and you've got a lot of different accounting departments to work with who aren't unnecessarily paying you on time and no one being quite clear. Freelancing and finances are actually quite difficult. So if you are in control of a little bit of it, it's really beneficial.
Steve: What made you move from doing it as a website to doing it as a newsletter?
Sian: I really wanted control of my own time again, I think running a website is, it's a beast and the only way to grow that is to keep growing more and keep getting bigger. And just throwing more stuff at the same thing. Like websites are just, they get bigger and they get bigger, but the way they get bigger is actually, it doesn't work when you're one person who's quite exhausted and I really wanted something that I could fit around the rest of my freelancing and the rest of my day and just be a project that I worked on that is a brilliant portfolio and it's still making money and it's still fun. It's still growing, but I write exactly the same amount of content each week and I have a writing partner and we back and forth.
Sian: And we have a really fun time just creating really interesting content that is for the most part, completely free of popup ads and just that barrage of information that you get when you see a website and I think a lot of people are reading newsletters because they are so much calmer and cleaner and it's a much more intimate way of connecting with an audience to jump into someone's inbox. Not unlike podcasts, I guess, where someone is choosing to listen to Being Freelance or they're Doing It For The Kids podcast, they're listening on their commute and they're going, "I want to engage with this," and I think newsletters are similar.
Steve: Has it really helped having a collaborator then?
Sian: It's really fun. It's so lovely working with someone who has a very like-minded view and wants to create something great. Laura actually lives in Dundee, so we see each other kind of maybe five, six times a year if we're lucky, but she was a bridesmaid at my wedding. We won a PPA award at the Scottish magazine awards last year, so I got to go to Scotland and we got all dressed up and won awards and were very drunk in Glasgow, which was a riot.
Sian: It stops the freelancing day being lonely even though she's not sat in an office with me. I don't think you necessarily need that, but having a connection, having a network as freelancers is a really valuable thing. Otherwise I think you go a bit mad. It's not necessarily good for me to sit in my flat for two days and not leave. But I do it sometimes and it's nice to have someone check in with you and just say, "Are you okay? Do you need to go out and get a cup of tea or something?" And just kind of keep you in check. And I think it makes my writing better as well.
Steve: So to rewind, so what happened next after you started Domestic Sluttery as a freelancer? Like did that have an impact on you getting other work or did they just run alongside each other?
Sian: It was hugely influential for the rest of my career. And I think it still is actually. We use the newsletter now as a shop window almost for our own work. It's meant that I've been hired to write newsletters for other publications. It's very much an all encompassing way of saying, "Look at the work I can do." And that's a really nice thing and I think Laura approaches it in the same way as well. It's really nice to have a place where your work is there and it's the work that you're proud of and I know that a lot of editors and a lot of people in the areas that I write, are subscribed to Domestic Sluttery, which is really cool.
Sian: But I think, yeah, getting known for being the woman who writes emails or queen of newsletters as someone once called me, it's a really nice thing. It's a niche that hasn't narrowed down the topics that I write about, so that's a really nice way of working because I cover travel for some clients, I do kind of food and drink for others or write about London or like I jump around a lot of different areas, but if you give me emails, I'm very, very happy there.
Steve: But Domestic Sluttery isn't the only email that you send out as you, right?
Sian: No, I also send out the Media Industry newsletter freelance writing jobs, which goes out every week. It does exactly what it says on the tin, it is a collection of freelance paying, part time writing gigs, and they're all based in the UK. It's a really fun thing to do that sort of happened by accident. I had had a really rough stint as a freelancer for about eight months. I had to postpone the second year of my MA because I just wasn't making enough money to go back to school. And then when work finally picked up again as it always does, I suddenly had all of these kind of alerts and job places I was looking at and all of these freelance jobs were coming in and I couldn't do anything with them. And there isn't a platform for freelance writing gigs in the UK. So I made one because that's what I do. I can't leave well enough alone, but really if there's something that needs doing, I think I really have to do it and I did and that was over a year ago and now I help lots of people get jobs and get commissions and it's a really lovely thing.
Steve: That's so cool. So it's nice from that personal side of things, but also it again proves, I guess to everybody that you do the whole newsletter thing, but also there's the potential then to have a newsletter sponsor to bring you revenue as well.
Sian: Yeah, absolutely. It's really useful having a newsletter sponsor and it is something that I would do anyway. I set up page on Ko-fi to get kind of donations after a lot of subscribers were asking for that, so if someone's got a job or a commission, they can buy me a digital coffee or I think I've changed it to cup of tea now. Yeah, and it's really nice when those come in because I mean we're not talking kind of tens of thousands of cups of tea each week, but it's personal and it means something. And I understand as a freelance, looking for work, how hard that is and I really wanted to make it a little bit easier and a little bit more fun for the freelance writing community because it sucks and it sucks the joy out of it. That search is really, really hard and it's especially hard every day when that work just isn't coming in and I really think that the newsletter helps a lot of people with that every Thursday, just make things a little bit easier for people.
Steve: You said at the beginning, you've been freelance for nearly 12 years and yet it sounded like one of the toughest years came about a year ago. So I'm wondering what happened in the lead up to that and then what happened that suddenly made, you called it like a rough stint. So what suddenly made that so rough?
Sian: I don't know. But it was a feeling that I got across every freelancer I spoke to was just having a tough time. And in the grand scheme of things actually I probably wasn't earning much less, but I was still funding my MA and that meant that while I was being able to eat and pay my rent, I didn't have a spare three grand laying around. So I noticed it from that sense. So it was just that cushion and that buffer zone, which is kind of what I'm talking about with the having that part time job that pays the gigs that wasn't there and everything felt like it was a hustle every single day and sometimes it is. Sometimes freelancing is like that and that's great, but I don't think I'd ever had that for such a sustained period of time and it's really difficult to see when that's going to flip back. And maybe it will flip back again. Maybe it won't. I think that's just something that is the way of freelancing.
Sian: But now I have a really good project that came out of it and I think that's one of the things that is really good when you're working on your own stuff is to kind of focus on that when you can't search for jobs anymore because there are really only so many job applications you can write in a day. There are so many pitches you can do in a day and sometimes you need a break from that. And if you have your own projects as well, it's really nice to at least still be creative and focus on something that's really yours and good and makes you remember why you're doing all of this work in the first place.
Steve: Yeah, I like that. So you said that you wrote a book when you did Domestic Sluttery but you're writing another one at the moment, aren't you?
Sian: I am writing another book but it is not a done deal yet. It's a book called The Pyjama Myth, which is the freelance writers survival guide. I say it's not a done deal yet because I'm actually writing it with Unbound and they are the brilliant, wonderful crowdfunding publisher, which means that I have a crowdfunding total to hit before that book is created and made and it goes out into the world. And it's going really well, it's on target and everything's great and I really hope that freelance writers will find something really valuable in this book.
Sian: I'm basically writing the book I wish I had when I'd started freelancing because as we've already discussed, I really went about it in a stupid backwards way. So I've learned a lot about getting it wrong and I really want to talk about kind of the ways to not do that, but also I don't want it just to be my voice. I feel like that would be incredibly boring. I've one talked to a lot of editors and case studies with other freelancers and really create a book that is valuable and has a lot of other experiences in it. Because my experience as a freelance writer is very different to everybody else's. It's absolutely, my favourite thing about freelancing is that everybody does it differently and everyone's career looks different.
Steve: So how does that work with Unbound? So they're an actual publisher, but they only publish things which have been crowdfunded, would that be right?
Sian: Yes. I hear Unbound talked a lot about as kind of a Kickstarter for books, which I can understand the comparison, but I think they go a little bit further as a publisher than that. So I pitched the idea to them. That's what I was doing a week before my wedding, which was poor timing on my part. So I did, I had a meeting with them about seven days before I got married, the contract arrived just before I went on my honeymoon. It was a roller coaster of a week. So I don't have a deadline for funding unlike kind of a Kickstarter project. I would hope there was kind of a certain time, I would love to have this book out next year. But they are with you kind of every step of the way. So they work on the design, they work on the cover, they work on making sure the rewards that you're offering people are really strong.
Sian: So a lot of my rewards are aimed at the freelance community. So I will work on pitching with you as a reward or I can kind of work on kind of freelance advice. But similarly, if you're not a freelancer and you want to support, I will make you brownies. It's a very popular reward because my brownies are really nice and there's an option to go book shopping with me and stuff like that. So there's some really fun stuff in there as well. And it's supposed to be inspiring and get a kind of community behind you rather than just putting a book out into the world.
Steve: Yeah, I'm all over these brownies, I've got to say. You mentioned, you know, the heart of that book is getting right for other people for things that you got wrong. So, I'm just wondering what some of those, as I always finish this podcast by saying, "If you could tell your younger self one thing," but it sounds like you've got lots of things. Like what were the things that you in particular felt you got wrong and how you fixed them?
Sian: I was threatened with bankruptcy by HMRC, so I wouldn't do that again.
Steve: So if you're listening around the world, HMRC is the UK's tax, the government's tax people. Basically none of us like to see HMRC on an envelope. God, what happened?
Sian: I didn't have enough money to pay my tax. I think I took it with a pinch of salt in the same way that you can occasionally pay your phone bill a little bit late and... I know, I know I was an idiot, Steve, I was an absolute absolute idiot. But I really hate that no one teaches you how to be a freelancer, or in my case an adult it seems. I feel like there's a lot more advice for young people around finances now, but I wish budgeting and tax was taught in schools instead of those stupid PSE lessons we have because it's so important and I don't understand why this isn't part of business studies. So I would really address tax and finances in general because I am a much happier freelancer now I know how much money I'm bringing in and how much money is going out and just where I am at with everything each week because it means I can plan to go on holiday.
Sian: When you know when you can schedule in time off, that helps you kind of remain happy. I would tell my past self to take more time off I think, which seems counter intuitive as a freelancer with a lot of different projects and just someone who works way too much, but I am a happier freelancer when I am nice to myself. I think a lot of the time we kind of fall into the trap of going with time is literally money as a freelancer and when you kind of pull back on that, I think good time is money and time well spent is money and kind of weighing up the fact that you cannot be a good freelancer if you've been working for 14, 15, 16 hours a day, you can't do it. You will be slightly below average at best and that's not why you got into the game.
Steve: hat did you particularly put in place to fix your finances?
Sian: My very excellent husband created a freelance spreadsheet for me, which will tell me exactly what money I am making, when it is going to be paid and how hard I'm working. There is a lot of admin that comes with being a freelancer and it is my natural happy place to hide from all admin and all scary letters and just ignore it and just hope that it deals with itself, which is an awful thing as a freelancer. But when I don't, I instantly feel like I can take on the world. I'm just like, "I am good at this. I'm an excellent adult. I'm a brilliant freelancer, yes, I've got this. I can now do that really scary pitch." And it just honestly makes me better at the rest of my job because I really feel like if I can do that horrible, scary thing, then I can pitch that editor I've been really nervous about pitching or I can write that difficult article or kind of tackle that feature that's not quite working.
Sian: It's the hardest, absolute hardest thing for my own mental well-being and my own anxiety and mental health. And yet it's the thing that has the biggest impact and it's never as difficult as you think it is. For all of the talk of freelancing that I do. I have had a couple of stints of not freelancing in the 12 years and I had a job for about eight months that was full time. And obviously after that I'm just like, "Well I'm not paying on account for next year because I'm in a full time job." So I really reduced my payments on account and obviously the year after where I'd suddenly been freelancing for the whole year, it was thousands of pounds and I just hadn't taken that into account. And it's a real shock to the system and it's incredibly difficult. There needs to be just more help for freelancers around tax. There just has to be.
Steve: So you mentioned going for a little while into a full time role. Did you carry on freelancing on the side of that?
Sian: Not the whole time, but that was where Laura and I started working again. So my writing partner on DS and for my publishing company, Gadabout Publishing. We'd worked together on the Domestic Sluttery website, but we had spent a lot of time back and forth since then commissioning one another and working together on huge projects. So without that stint, I don't think I'd have gone freelance again. But while I was... I really hated the job that I ended up in, it was incredibly tricky for a lot of reasons, but I did start a newsletter on the side at that point where newsletters and tiny letters especially became quite big. And I got one in my inbox one day and I was like, "I could do this, I could do this really cool thing that I can set up in 20 minutes and I could do something fun with my lunch break right now."
Sian: So I did it and I set up a tiny newsletter and that was without even realising it, a total career changer for me. And it suddenly became this very much the highlight of my week very quickly. And it was called the Friday Wishlist, which was a column that used to be on Domestic Sluttery. It then became something I tried as a Twitter thread. It was literally a list of nice things I liked with a little bit of humour thrown in, which sounds so kind of simple. And I think that's why people liked it, but with the use of affiliate links and kind of enough subscribers, that paid for huge chunk of my MA and it made me realise how much I love the format. So...
Steve: It's funny how these things work, isn't it?
Sian: It's funny.
Steve: One thing I have to touch on, you just sort of like, you know, accidentally dropped in there at some point, my publishing company Gadabout Publishing, I think. So, I'm sorry, what? What? Where did that fit into all of this? What's that?
Sian: When we relaunched Domestic Sluttery, I think we realise that it's a really fun tongue in cheek name, but when we wanted to register as a limited company, which is a minefield in itself, we really wanted a company that could be all encompassing of a lot of things and now we, any kind of newsletter projects that we do as the company, we run through Gadabout which means two tax returns, but it's really nice having a kind of overarching company to say, "Actually we do this for a lot of different companies." So Laura and I also write the newsletter for the Simple Things magazine and we've worked for kind of other fashion brands as well, and that's all kind of under Gadabout and maybe hopefully other newsletters in the future. It leaves us a lot more open to that than just kind of having one name.
Steve: Yeah, so you trade as a freelancer as Sian Meades-Williams, as a sole trader as we'd be in the UK, as an individual, but you're also the director of Gadabout Publishing Ltd along with your collaborator, but that's purely, mostly anyway at the moment, for the newsletter stuff?
Sian: Yeah. We have both and deal with that and every freelancer, I think, does what is right for them. I know a lot of freelancers who are now VAT registered. I know some people who do run their businesses as a company, and I think they are all decisions that are so individual to every single freelancer. And what is right for one won't necessarily be right for you. Yeah. It's really tricky to kind of navigate that path and I think it changes as well. Just because I'm a sole trader now doesn't necessarily mean that that will be the case 10 years down the line. I think one of the things I like about freelancing is that you get that flexibility and you can change and do what feels right for you at the time. I think that's really important.