Do You Really Want To Work At Home?

• Eases Work-Life Balance. Writers can turn out copy when spouses are at work and children are at school. Volunteer hours can often be worked out if desired, and pressing errands can be scheduled into your writing breaks.
• Reduces Costs. As an editor at a local college, I had to pay for the gas to get to my building, and once I arrived, I had to purchase a parking space for my car to sit in all day. Meanwhile, my big old house was cranking out heat or air that no one used, and a dog walker came to let my dog out...at a price, of course. And, let's not forget that editors have to dress like editors 5 days a week!
• Ability to Determine Hours. Writers are a fickle bunch. I tend to hit my writing stride around 9 p.m. But my supervisor at my marekting job wanted newsletter material at 9 a.m. every day. As an at-home worker, I can use the hours that I function best to get my articles polished.
• Privilege of Setting Pay Rates. Those who write in the biz tech arena get to set their own hourly wage. Even trade pub and magazine writers can determine if they want to work with a particular publication after checking out their rates.
• Great Variety of Jobs and Clients. Every day is different in the freelance world! If you're a writer whose attention easily wavers, you'll enjoy this aspect of freelancing from home.

• Intense Administrative Management. As a writer in the world outside your home office, chances are that you had editorial assistants, secretaries or interns to help manage the flow of things. Even as an employee in another profession, you probably had payroll departments, legal departments and/or administrative support to help you get things moving. This is simply not so with a home-based freelancer. It's all you. Let me say that again: It's All You. The one thing I miss most? An IT department!
• Constant Search for Jobs and Clients. Most freelance writers work on a project basis (if they're biz-tech writers), or are paid on a per peice basis (for magazine contributors). This means that the search for that next gig never ends.
• Blurred Line Between Work and Home. You'll get to miss the distance of an office when your phone rings past 5 p.m. and the emails just keep pouring in!
• Variations in Monthly Income. It takes the planning of an accountant and the discipline of a scrooge to manage finances when you're unsure of the amount that you'll receive month-to-month.

The true take away here is that working at home is more difficult than working outside of the home. The lack of support and distribution of work alone are enough to make some freelancers crawl back to their editors- and that's the ones that survive the undertaking! Working at home is by no means a decision that should be entered into lightly, and those who thrive in the situation are those who are the most qualified, the most disciplined and the most ambitious, not to mention those that have carefully and meticulously planned the transition.