Our year in numbers
Reflecting on what we did in 2023
It's been another busy year at FFJ headquarters. So as we enter the holidays we wanted to take stock of what has been working well, both at FFJ and in our personal freelance work.
We think it is always helpful to be reflective at this time of year and to celebrate the small wins, as well as thinking about what didn’t go as smoothly as planned.
So we’ve delved into the stats to bring the numbers that tell the story of 2023.
The most exciting thing we have achieved this year we can't actually talk about yet but all will be revealed about The Project later next year. Â What we can tell you, is that we have been overwhelmed by the continued support towards our newsletter and podcast. A massive thank you to all our readers and listeners who keep supporting everything we do, and we're so chuffed that our resources are proving useful.
On the podcast front, we recorded another 3 series this year, taking us up to series 12! Even more thrilling is that we surpassed 50,000 downloads. Emma and I celebrated by going for a long run in the mud, visiting various pubs along the way.
The newsletter also keeps going from strength to strength. We now have over 3,000 subscribers and continue to share experiences, advice and guest voices every single Wednesday. The premium version of the newsletter, launched in September 2022, has exceeded our target, and is now produced every single week with bonus podcast episodes, pitch examples, resource recommendations, peek at my week and Q&As.
We also had our first ever Freelancing for Journalists awards with 7 categories each with its own sponsor. We received 333 entries and after some difficult decisions from our judging panel gave away £700 in prize money to our winners who also got a goody bag. Our 16 judges also awarded 3 highly commended prizes. We will be running them again in summer 2024 so watch this space for details.
Our Facebook community in which we share our Tuesday Triumphs, questions about all things freelance, opportunities, and do a bit of general networking now has 7,200 members from all over the globe.
Of course none of this would be possible without us being able to draw upon our own freelance journalism experience.
Over the past two years Lily has made a conscious effort to move away from money, health and lifestyle writing and rebrand as a running and fitness journalist. And her stats this year demonstrate that this move has been successful. Some 81% of her commissions during 2023 were running and fitness related compared to 61% the previous year. The rest of her writing was evenly split between personal finance and health.
She wrote 74 articles which were all commissioned from pitches and did 16 shifts. She worked across 12 different publications in the UK, USA and Hong Kong. Articles varied in length from 200 words to 3,000 words.
During the year she lost work at 3 clients due to budget changes, but she picked up work at 3 new clients and reconnected with 2 old clients.
She was delighted to do no copywriting work but did teach again at Sheffield Hallam University and Goldsmiths University.
Lily earned a whopping £90.03 in book royalties (never publish with an academic publisher) but was delighted with her £2,700 ALCS pay out.
Over to Emma’s numbers of the year now. She wrote more than 320 articles in her specialist health beat but thanks to a regular weekly news shift and some other places she writes the odd piece for, about 80% of those are news stories, she predicts.
The rest were features and investigations as well as 17 profile pieces. In all she worked for 10 different publications, 2 of which were new clients this year. Article lengths ranged from 400 to 3,000 words.
Emma also did 2 podcast series on specialist topics for a medical news site, doing all the planning, interviews and recording. In and amongst, was a small amount of teaching and dissertation supervision at Sheffield Hallam University.
This year she beat her previous best annual income total (just), including a £2500 ALCS payment but also did more free work than ever before, largely due to media work on a campaign for her daughter’s school, which led to 2 bylines and numerous appearances on TV and radio (and they won). It was an exhausting time when the work-life balance completely flew out of the window.
Take a look at your own year in numbers and tell us the outcome. Does it surprise you?
FFJ resources
To find out about the wide range of resources that Freelancing for Journalists can offer, head on over to our website. And if there is anything we don’t do that you think we should, we are always open to ideas so please do get in touch.
Triumph of the week
A trip to London to network at three Christmas dos
That feeling when
You have a news shift after going to three Christmas dos
We love to hear your feedback on everything we do, so feel free to drop us an email anytime at freelancingforjournalists@gmail.com
Bye for now!
Love this, congratulations to you both!
Congratulations both! Brilliant numbers. Also a huge thank you - been quite depressed about losing a client recently and work being slow towards the end of the year but doing this really helped me. I realised I may have lost one client but I actually gained three new clients this year, and financially I'm about the same as last year, so really not so bad. Helped remind me of the positives of this year and not just focus on the negatives. Wishing you both all the best for 2024!