Agreed. You must do a lot of work that pays fast?
Sorry for all the posts!
I do a lot of work, yes, but I still manage to not be over stressed. It doesn't pay after a period of months like magazines, but it's far less rewarding as a writer. That said, I'm enjoying it
Typically I get paid at the end of the month or soon after project completion.
To break it down:
98% of my work is from Kijiji or Craigslist. I have a really well-worded ad I post for writing services that gets a lot of hits, so I repost it about once a month (prior, I was posting a generic ad and not getting any hits... I took the time to research what a good cover letter should be, and implemented that into my ad). From there, word of mouth spreads, etc. I am constantly replying to any ad I find looking for writers.
1/3 of my income is regular blogging work I invoice for at the end of the month, about 8 blog postings per week. Sometimes I do other things for these clients, like web site writing, etc. Because I am a regular, some of the clients are kind enough to credit me for one blog per month or so, which I can use on my portfolio.
1/3 of my income is repeat clients, but the work is sporadic. Like web writing companies that subcontract out to me, or throw me assignments.
The other 1/3 of my income is one-time jobs like resume writing, editing, web site writing, business plans, etc... but these all have potential to turn into repeat business
Some of these are also large projects, for example right now I'm in the middle of writing up to 100 articles for a construction company... and this has led to a few web site writing jobs and possible future twitter/facebook account management.
It's writing, and sometimes my name goes on it... it's good for now, but eventually I'd like to branch out into magazine freelancing, newspaper freelancing, etc. I am super jealous of you magazine writers, and journalistic-writing is my background.