It's been another busy 12 months for Freelancing for Journalists so we thought it would be a good time for an end of year review.
We aim to be as transparent as possible so here's a frank round-up of the FFJ projects that have been gaining traction and the services that have been flattening out in 2021.
Podcast
First of all the podcast - which has always been at the centre of everything we do. This year we decided to fully commit to securing sponsorship for each series. This has enabled us to offer the podcast for free and make it sustainable going forward.
There is not only our time to cover (we are freelance after all) but also our guests to pay (yes we are a podcast that actually pays its guests) plus our producer and research assistant.
The series has continued to grow, with downloads rising by 30% in 2021, to more than 24,000 overall. We have worked with some great, freelance relevant organisations such as the Freelance Journalism Assembly, Response Source and Cision and even managed to pick up an IPSE award for our efforts.
The most popular episodes across series 4, 5 and 6 have been Training and Qualifications, Ghosting and completely from left field our How to appraise yourself episode, which was essentially Lily and Emma having a natter about their future goals.
UK listeners remain our biggest audience (53% compared to 60% in 2020) but our international reach is widening. Our second biggest audience is now the United States (14%), followed by India (7%) and we have listeners in 125 countries including Panama, Kyrgyzstan and Zambia.
Newsletter
Our other big success, albeit one that doesn't bring us any income, is the FFJ newsletter. Launched at the back end of October 2020 its readership has steadily risen and we now have 1,624 subscribers.
Our most viewed newsletters have been our recent three discussing Twitter verification which really hit a nerve with our community and led to us launching a campaign.
Interestingly we find that many people actually read the newsletter via a social media link rather than through subscription meaning some posts reach almost 2,000 views.
Facebook group
The Facebook community where we invite freelancers to ask questions, share successes and help each other out, has doubled in size to 4,800 members.
In the past year there have been 2,000 posts and more than 7,000 comments.
Popular topics have included questions about whether you need shorthand as a freelance journalist (a topic we will cover in series 7 of the podcast next year), whether to put VAT on invoices and commissioning editors looking for pitches.
Mirroring the podcast, the majority of members are based in the UK, followed by the US and then India.
Webinars and work experience
So this is where things get a little less rosy. It is clear to us that the webinar bubble which took off during the pandemic has all but burst.
At the beginning of 2021 we enthusiastically launched a 12-month webinar programme anticipating that take-up would remain steady. And in the first few months it did. But as the year went by and people returned to more face to face events, interest inevitably dwindled and Zoom fatigue set in.
We ended up cancelling one webinar due to the lack of interest and found that by the summer most people were purchasing watch back later videos rather than attending live sessions.
Across the year we held 10 webinars, including two special Guest Sessions, attracting 276 participants in total. Our developing ideas and pitching webinar in March sold 53 places but by September this had halved to 25.
We have reflected on the change in demand and decided to instead offer our webinars as video recordings which will be available via our online Payhip store in 2022.
The only caveat here is our Journalism Work Experience Initiative which continues to be hugely popular. Both the May and October sessions sold out enabling us to provide remote work experience opportunities to 200 people this year. We will continue to run the scheme twice a year in 2022 and will launch each tranche via a live webinar although a recording will be made available.
Journalism work
So you might be thinking that Lily and Emma now make the majority of their income from FFJ. It is true that revenue from FFJ grew in 2022 due to podcast sponsorship, the launch of the FFJ Quick Guides and mentoring / training opportunities via Journalism.co.uk and the European Journalism Centre.
But the income generated from FFJ is actually only a small part of their freelance pie although it did come in handy when they both took off the entire summer school holiday.
Lily earned the majority of her income from freelance journalism (38%), followed by 28% from teaching and 20% from side hustles such as running coaching, consultancy, guest talks and bits of PR. As a result the FFJ pot for Lily was just 14% of her income.
Knocking shift work on the head also had a dramatic impact on Lily's story count. In 2020 she racked up 242 stories, but this year it dramatically reduced to 58. This is due to her focus on features and long reads and the reduction in news stories.
She has picked up two new steady clients - Runner's World and Trail Running magazines, and says her journalism highlights of the year were writing about running in the Outer Hebrides, exploring ethical porn for new publication The Sl'eau Down and being shortlisted as a finalist in two categories at the Headline Money awards.
Emma earned three-quarters of her income from freelance journalism and won Freelance of the Year at the Medical Journalists’ Association (MJA). Within that 75% there is some new editing work she has been doing for Nursing Times as well as features and news shifts for regular clients including Pulse and the BMJ.
As a health journalist, she was quite pleased to not be writing about Covid at least some of the time, but in total authored 250 articles in the past 12 months.
Adding more strings to her bow, she also did some consultancy work for a production company and recently stepped into the role of Vice-Chair at the MJA. Next year she has also been asked to put together a short education podcast series for a specialist medical title. Teaching at Sheffield Hallam and Derby universities made up about 11% of her income with FFJ the remaining 14%.
What Lily and Emma didn’t realise until they did the end of year sums is that they earned almost the exact same income despite their freelance pies looking pretty different which just shows there’s lots of ways to make a freelance journalism career work. See you in 2022 everyone.
On the podcast this week…
We’re talking all about Moral Choices. Two freelance journalists, Miranda Levy and Alice Draper help us navigate ethical and other dilemmas you can be confronted with as a freelance journalist, including how to set boundaries and how to avoid conflicts of interest. Listen wherever you usually get your podcasts or click on the button below.
What’s coming up
In 2022 there will be three more series of the podcast and some new projects to announce. If you need some guidance to tide you over, you can always check out our Quick Guides on Finding Work and Pitching, Branding and Networking, Developing Ideas and Finding Sources and Finances and Contracts.
We do love to hear from you all, so if there’s anything you think we can help with or a topic you would like to see covered, do either shout in the Facebook community or send us an email at freelancingforjournalists@gmail.com
Triumph of the week
Finishing work for a nice break before the New Year :-)
That feeling when
You have a great story, your pitch was commissioned, you write it, then the constant onslaught of Covid news keeps knocking it off the news list...
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!