Turn Your Expertise Into Cold, Hard Cash
· March 25th, 2025 ·
Hey friend 👋
Last week I signed up for a half marathon. Yikes.
I’ve been a runner on and off since high school, but training for a distance race is a different beast. You can’t just go out and wing it.
You need a plan, a pace, and a goal.
Funny enough, building a freelance business is very similar.
This week I want to talk about something that held my business back for longer than I’d like to admit. And I’ll share exactly what I did to break out of it.
Enjoy!
Best,
🐦⬛ Cody – Founder @ Ravenwood Writing Academy
P.S. (If a friend sent you this, welcome! Take two seconds and sign up in one click here to make sure you keep getting my free newsletter.)
📬 Letters From My Desk
Stop Trading Time for Money (Do This Instead)
For a long time, my freelance business worked like a vending machine. Clients put in money, I output an article, transaction complete.
Sure, doing this paid the bills. But it had a ceiling I kept bumping my head on (sigh… this happens a lot when you’re 6’6″).
This is the “classic” freelance writing model most people follow, especially early on.
Unfortunately, the only way to make more money in this model is to work more hours. We all know there are only so many of those.
I loved my niche and my clients. I did not love my hours.
So I took a hard look at what I was doing and restructured the way my business runs so it no longer trades time for money.
Here’s what I did and how you can do it too.
The Time Trap
There’s a good chance you’re selling time disguised as deliverables. You might not even know you’re doing it.
You quote clients a per-word or flate rate fee for a project, deliver the piece, and move on.
What you’re really getting paid for is the hours you took to produce that work. That’s okay if you’re as consistent as a Swiss watch.
Most writers aren’t (including me).
If you want to build a sustainable business that supports the life you want to live outside of work, this approach stops working faster than you might expect. Especially if you aren’t interested in working 50+ hours per week.
Here’s why:
Clients who buy time shop around. They compare rates and push back on price. They vanish when a cheaper option shows up. You’re a replaceable vendor to them.
What you want need to be is a partner.
How I Stopped Selling Time
Shortly after quitting my job as a nurse to pursue writing full-time, I decided I needed to go after higher-end clients.
That’s not the same thing as raising your rates. If someone told me that back then, it would have saved me a lot of time and headache.
🔑 High-end clients don’t just pay more for the same things. They need something different.
After realizing this, I changed what I offered.
I positioned myself as an expert who understood the client’s business, not just as a writer. I offered things like:
- Content strategy planning alongside execution
- SEO audits
- Thought leadership curation from the ground up
I help clients figure out what they should be saying, to whom, and why. Rarely do I just write whatever they hand me a brief for.
You might be surprised to hear that the work isn’t always harder. Just different. But at the end of the day, it’s worth exponentially more.
When you approach a client selling expertise, perspective, and outcomes, it’s a much different conversation than when you’re selling hours.
What to Sell Instead
As the freelance market continues to change, now is the time to start thinking about what you bring to the table beyond the ability to string sentences together.
Ask yourself: What do I know that my clients don’t?
Maybe you understand SEO better than the marketing manager hiring you.
Maybe you’ve written in their industry long enough to spot gaps in their content strategy they haven’t noticed.
Maybe you know which content formats are actually driving results right now and which ones are a waste of their budget.
That knowledge has value. By selling your time at a fixed rate, you’re giving away your expertise for free.
Your job isn’t just to write.
Writing is how you make your client’s content work, but it isn’t what you’re selling.
When you start treating your expertise as the product, you increase your earning potential without becoming a servant to the clock.
One Concrete Starting Point
A total overhaul of your business isn’t necessary.
Next time you deliver a piece, include one short paragraph of strategic context.
Tell your client:
- What you considered while writing this
- Why you structured it this way
- What they should be thinking about for the next piece
Adding this to your deliverable takes five minutes. It signals that you’re thinking. Clients who see that start relying on your brain, not just your words.
Once you establish this as the norm, you break the ceiling.
🙏 My One Ask
Case study writing is one of the best examples of expertise-first work. Clients hire case study writers because they trust them to extract a compelling story that drives results.
They also pay A LOT more for it.
If you want to break into one of freelance writing’s highest-paying niches, my on-demand Case Study Accelerator program walks you through the exact steps you need to take.
It’s normally $197, but you can get started today for just $147 (deal expires at 11:59pm on March 27th).
🏆 Cody’s Top Picks
This is the part where I share some of the content I’ve been enjoying lately. Hope you enjoy!
(This section may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I’ll earn a small percentage, which helps support this free newsletter at no extra cost to you.)
- 📖 I’m reading… “Frostbite” by Nicola Twilley. Refridgeration has reshaped our relationship with food. This book dives into the history and ramifications of this for our diets, health, and environment.
- 🤖 I’m doing… A lot of 3D printing. I got a new 3D printer a few months ago and am having a ton of fun with it. It’s crazy how far this tech has come in the last few years.
- 📺 I’m watching… “One Piece” season two on Netflix. If you’re in for awesome visuals, zany villians, and a loveable crew, you don’t want to miss it.
- 🧠 You should remember…
“What you don’t necessarily realize when you start selling your time by the hour is that what you’re really selling is your life.” — Barbara Ehrenreich, author
🧐 Your Questions, Answered
Have a question about freelance writing? Drop it in the form below and I’ll answer it in a future newsletter!
Last Week’s Question: “I’ve been writing for years. Granted a lot of it has been writing papers for school while I work on my Master’s degree. I’ve also published in a small town paper, just to get experience. How can I become a freelancer? Do you recommend a good place to start?” -Amie
Answer: This is a super common starting point for freelance writing. Academic writing proves you can research, structure an argument, and meet a deadline. Those skills transfer. You also have a portfolio ready thanks to your work with the paper. And don’t overlook your Master’s degree background. That’s a sign of a specialty most writers don’t have… and clients pay more for expertise.
My advice: Build a simple portfolio with 2-3 of your best samples, start pitching local small businesses in your niche, and go from there. The first client is always the hardest. After that it snowballs. Good luck!
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