Set Yourself Up Well for Freelancing When You’re Full-Time with Karen Given

SEASON 7, EPISODE 4

If you consume media, are a media worker, or just happen to pay attention to what’s happening to the media landscape, you might have heard that the industry is having… a bad time, to say the least. Hundreds of reporters and media employees have been laid off this year as newsrooms are shutting down or downsizing.

Some who are affected by these cuts try to move on to another full-time job, but other times, a layoff can lead to the freelance life.

In this episode, Wudan is joined by guest co-host Karen Given

Karen is a freelance audio journalist, host, producer, editor, and voice coach based near Boston, MA. You can follow her on Twitter here. After more than 20 years working for WBUR and NPR’s “Only a Game,” she was laid off during the pandemic.

Karen chose freelancing after having a full-time job for decades and gives advice for others to do the same. She helps create a game plan for full-timers to consider. Karen and Wudan talk about maintaining relationships, understanding the freelance market, building your own brand and so much more.

Full Transcript Below:

Wudan Yan- Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Writers' Co-op. I'm your host and executive producer, Wudan Yan. If you consume media, are a media worker, or just happen to pay attention to what's happening to media right now, you might have heard that the industry is having, to say the least, a very bad time. In April, BuzzFeed shuttered their Pulitzer Prize-winning news division. In March, NPR laid off 10% of its staff across newsrooms and podcasts. Vox laid off 7% of its staff in January. Insider said they were going to cut 10% of their US employees. And also, like, podcasts aren't doing so hot either. Spotify laid off 600 people in January. I mean, okay, we're still talking about what happened this year, 2023. Vice is reportedly barreling towards bankruptcy. And sure, those are some of the higher profile ones. But to me, they're really just the tip of the iceberg. Some people who are affected by these cuts will try to move on to another full-time job. An editor I follow tweeted that after getting laid off from BuzzFeed, that was the sixth time he had been laid off from a full-time media job. But other times, a layoff for somebody on staff has driven them to freelancing. That transition can be weird, especially when all your eggs are in the basket of being employed full time. Suddenly, you're responsible for things like paying your own health insurance and making sure you earn enough to cover vacation days. You have to constantly pitch yourself to new clients or stories to different outlets. Whereas before, you could probably just Slack your team to see if you could cover something else. You become your own social media manager, marketing division, administrative assistant, program manager. And hopefully at the end of the day, there's still some space for you to actually do the creative work that you set out to do all along. If you've listened to this podcast over the last few seasons, you will know that our audience is primarily freelancers. But today I am doing things a little differently. This episode is one for the full timers. Because working in media and marketing can absolutely be at the economic whims of the world or out of touch white male leaders, and that's especially precarious when one company is responsible for your livelihood. Full timers need to know and consider a roadmap for going from a salaried worker to a freelancer. I have personally rejected the notion of ever working a traditional 9 to 5 job in media. And so I looked for a guest who has lived through this kind of tumult. That guest is Karen Given. Karen is a freelance audio journalist, host, producer, editor and voice coach—all things audio—based near Boston, Massachusetts. She's worked for more than 20 years on WBUR, Boston's NPR news station, and NPR's "Only a Game." She thought she was an NPR lifer. But then, in the first year of the pandemic, she was laid off. She's here to help us come up with a game plan for anyone on staff to consider before they're thrust into freelancing. We're going to talk about networking, understanding the freelance market, and so much more. These tips are so useful no matter what industry you work in. Karen, welcome to the Writers' Co-op. Thank you so much for coming on.

Karen Given- Hi, Wudan. Thanks for having me.

Wudan- So we're talking about layoffs and freelancing this episode. I want to start off by asking you what your career story is and how you came to freelancing.

Karen- Yeah, so my career story is completely bizarre in that I started at an NPR station, WBUR in Boston, as a work-study student. So I started there when I was 18. I grew up there. I stayed there for decades. I mean, like multiple decades. Almost 30 years. And I really hate to say that, because I don't feel that old. And then I got laid off during a pandemic. And it was tragic and heartbreaking and horrifying. And I kind of felt a lot like I felt like after my divorce. Which is, I was just so heartbroken, I couldn't imagine like settling down again. I couldn't imagine like picking a full-time job and just doing one thing and like hitching my wagon to some other corporation who might decide at a really inopportune time that they didn't want me anymore. So I just decided to freelance because it felt safer. And then I loved it.

Wudan- You said something really interesting, Karen, which is you kind of didn't want to hitch yourself to another full-time employee. I think so many people, and I've seen this too, go from full-time job to lay off, full-time job to lay off. But I think it's liberating to be like, there's one other possibility and it's freelancing, and I'd like to explore that.

Karen- Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I had seen—I mean, look, we've been in this industry. We see it all the time. Like, we see people we know who are incredibly talented and brilliant and wonderful. And we see them get laid off, and then picked up somewhere else, and laid off, and picked up somewhere else, and laid off. And I was just like, no, I don't want to do that. I want to have some agency over my life. I want to have some choice. And I want to live in a world where if one client goes away, I have others.

Wudan- And it was kind of a surprise, when you got the news from NPR. Is that right?

Karen- Yeah, it was. I mean, so the show that I was sort of hosting—I say sort of, because they never actually hired me as the host. But I was hosting it for two years and executive producing it. And they had been talking for a long time about the possibility that it would be canceled. So that wasn't a big surprise. But they had like, specifically pulled me aside and said: "Karen, you will always have a place here. If the show goes away. Here's what your new job is going to be." They had a title picked out for me and everything. And it just, you know, with the pandemic, it just couldn't happen. And it felt really personal, even though I know it wasn't.

Wudan- So you get laid off, Karen. How long did it take for you to kind of build up to a full-time, to you, freelance work schedule?

Karen- Yeah. So again, my, my situation was probably a little different than most people, because I got told I was being laid off. And then I still had to work for three months. I had to shut the show down. And then I didn't really start looking for work right away. There was this time period where I was going to try to bring the show back as a podcast. And so I went back to school for a few months and did a certificate program in entrepreneurial journalism. So I got laid off late June. The show ended at the end of September. I started looking for work around January. That's when I decided, like nope, I'm going to be a freelancer. I'm gonna put my boat in this freelance pool. And then I had all these conversations with all these people. Nothing was happening. I was like, I am gonna—I don't know, be poor, and not have any money. I had no jobs. And then it was like a two week stretch in March. At the beginning of those two weeks, I had no jobs. At the end of those two weeks, I was full up for the rest of the year.

Wudan- Such whiplash. Welcome, indeed. What was that transition like emotionally?

Karen- The hard part of that transition was definitely getting laid off and sort of all the emotions around that. But also, like, this idea that it's not all set, right? Like, when you are a full-time employee, you think you know what you're going to get paid for the rest of however long you stay at that place, right? And you're not, sort of, constantly thinking about what job is next, what job comes ofter this job. And emotionally, that's really hard for me. I'm still not entirely used to enjoying the downtime. Because there is still downtime, you know? Projects are super intense and while they're going on, I really don't have the time or bandwidth or really need to look for something else. But then they end, and I'm like "oh my god, now it's gonna take a couple of months to fill my schedule again." And I'm not really great at enjoying those months. So emotionally, I'm still struggling with that.

Wudan- Yeah, that always be marketing mindset still, I don't know, leaves a sour taste in my mouth, even though I know, and I have experienced, that it is the thing to do for continual work. And you're right, it's just so exhausting.

Karen- Right, right. Especially if you're me. And I tend to think that I can do more than I can comfortably do. So I probably take on more than I should at once. So like there's just literally, like, no time.

Wudan- And in your transition to freelancing, what kinds of things did you do to prepare yourself financially for that, since you had a few months?

Karen- Yeah, yeah. So, like, again, my situation was really unique in that I had been at BUR for so incredibly long that there was a very generous sort of severance package. So I stopped working at the end of September. I kept getting paid until May.

Wudan- Oh, wow!

Karen- Yeah, yeah! This is what happens when you're at a place for like 30 years, and you get a week of severance for every year you were there, plus an extra 10 weeks for good measure, right? Like it takes you for a long ways. I didn't actually get 30 weeks worth of severance, but I got a lot. So yeah, like, that was huge. And I also get paid out for all my vacation time.

Wudan- Hmm

Karen- So I was able to kind of immediately put aside a really good chunk of money to be my safety net. And I was very, very lucky that I was able to do that. But I also just kind of stopped spending money on things I didn't actually need for a little while. Until I was really sure that jobs were coming in and that it was gonna work, you know?

Wudan- Makes sense. And I think, too, this is why unions are so important right now—

Karen- yeah

Wudan- —is to make sure that workers get fair severance or there's a severance contract or clause or so on and so forth.

Karen- Yeah.

Wudan- As somebody who's never been full time, I don't know the specifics. But I think this is a big conversation starting point among people getting involved in newsroom unions.

Karen- Yeah. Fun fact, the reason that we all got the severance we got at that time was because WBUR was negotiating with a brand new union at that time. The shop had just gone union. And so they knew they were having to lay people off, and the union negotiated for better severance for everyone, including me, who as management, I wasn't actually in the union. And it was amazing.

Wudan- Hmm

Karen- Incredible.

Wudan- Wow. So I kind of want to spend the rest of the episode talking about what we can do when we're in that limbo period, maybe. I was talking to a colleague who is getting laid off at VICE. And they also have a runway of a few months. And it's really hard to be in that position, and like know exactly what to do. So I wonder, Karen, in retrospect, what were the top, like, three things you wish you did while you were still on staff to prepare you for freelancing?

Karen- Oh, so while I was still working? Yeah. So I wish that I had, first of all, been more on top of what my actual job title was, and making sure that it reflected the work I did. Like, after I got laid off, I had to go back to my boss and say, like, "you know, I've been hosting this show for two years, and you never named me host. Is it alright, if I put interim host on my resume?"

Wudan- Mhmmm

Karen- Right? Because that opened up all these other jobs that I wouldn't be able to do if I hadn't been a host before. So I just had never, in all my time—because I thought I was going to be there for the rest of my life—I had never worried about what my job title was, or whether it really reflected what I was doing. I wish I had paid more attention to like my personal brand, instead of the brand of my show. I was always like tweeting, writing social media posts for the show. And then after I was exhausted, and had no more words in my brain, I might like, tweet out something of my own.

Wudan- Mhm

Karen- But I wasn't really sort of paying attention to, you know, sort of building my own personal brand and my own personal place in the world. And I wish I had done a better job of sort of keeping my network active and keeping in touch with people that I had worked with who were no longer at the place where I was working. Because, as it turns out, they all went really amazing places. And I started realizing, you know, I knew people at Stitcher and at Wondery. And at all these amazing, amazing podcast shops. Some of them I hadn't talked to in decades, which then it's really embarrassing, reach out and be like, "I don't know, if you remember me from like, 2002." So yeah, I wish I had sort of kept in touch with people.

Wudan- For the first point that you raised. Karen, and you said this when we were going back and forth in email too, and it surprised me, and it also made sense, like making sure your job title matches your job. How frequently would you want to have—say people listening to this are on staff—how frequently would you ideally want to have that conversation with your managers?

Karen- Yeah, that's a really interesting thing. So I can speak better to what not to do.

Wudan- Sure.

Karen- I had the same job title for 16 years. You should never, ever, ever—like you probably shouldn't be in the same job for 16 years. That was probably a mistake. But you should never, ever allow that to happen. And I was, you know, I was like, I loved my job. I loved what I did. I loved my coworkers. I loved the show. I was getting to do new and better things all the time. They were giving me raises. Probably not the raises I should have gotten, but I was making more money year over year. So I wasn't really worried about what it actually said on my job title. But this actually came up in a previous round of layoffs, because of course, this hadn't been the first round of layoffs. Like this industry, they come by often. And during a previous sort of round of layoffs, I had started reaching out to try to see if I could get a job that I was 100% qualified for that was at a shop where I knew bunches of people. I knew the hiring manager. He and I were super tight. And I was like "hey, you know I know that my job title doesn't reflect that I'm ready for this position but I completely am. Let me explain why." I didn't even get an email back. Like, he's a friend, and I didn't even get an email back. Because like, you don't know hire an associate producer to run a podcast department. Like, you just don't do it. And you certainly don't think that an associate producer has been running a national radio show.

Wudan- Right.

Karen- So like, it was just—you know, 16 years is way too long. I would say, I wouldn't look at it in terms of years, though, I would look at it in terms of responsibilities. Because I think, I've heard people say things like, "oh, well, I've been in this job for two years, and they haven't even offered me a new job title." And I'm like, well, what are you doing that wasn't part of your job before, that is a significant departure from your your job before? Like, for example, I started out as a producer, and then I was a reporter. Well, reporting is a pretty different job than producing. And then I was a host. Host is a very different job than reporting. So yeah, I think when you have a big shift like that, and you're doing something that is different than what's on your job title in a significant way, that's when you should go.

Wudan- That makes sense. And now, are you...because you've refined your job title, kind of after the fact, how has that impacted the freelance work that you are now getting hired to do?

Karen- Oh, yeah, it's huge, right? I mean, if I wasn't able to say that I hosted that show, then I wouldn't, I don't know, what is it, 40 minutes from now be hosting another show, right? Like, I get offered things because of what I've done. And in that case, you know, truly, in that case, hosting a show, you know, I can point to however many episodes I was in the host chair for, and I can say I hosted it. But most people, the things that we do aren't quite that public, right? So if it was something other than hosting, if it was executive producing the show, and that wasn't a part of my job title, it would be pretty much impossible for me to get an executive producer job, right? Because nobody knows who's really running the ship from the outside unless you have the job title. Whereas host, you know, I can send links to, I don't know, 75 shows that I hosted and say "here, look at me host." You know?

Wudan- Yea,h and in podcasting, there are like dozens of behind-the-scenes jobs.

Karen- Right. Right. Most of the jobs.

Wudan- Most of them.

Karen- Vast majority of the jobs are behind-the-scenes.

Wudan- Exactly, exactly. I want to talk about—and pivot a bit to talking about building your personal brand. And what advice do you have to do this in a way that doesn't like rub against your employers'—

Karen- —yeah—

Wudan- —guidelines or contracts or anything else?

Karen- Yeah, I mean. So I mean, I think a lot of people try to build their personal brand with "here, let me say super smart things about this topic, right?" And that can run up against guidelines, because often, your super smart things are going to fall into this sort of editorial space, you know? And that can get a little bit tricky. Again, I can speak to like what I did, which is I decided that the thing I was sort of becoming known for, and that I wanted to be known for, was sort of sharing my knowledge, right? So instead of starting to, I don't know, tweet about industry trends, or I could have started to tweet about sports—believe it or not, the show I worked on for all those many years was about sports and I could tell you what I thought about various sports things, which, the truth is, not very much, so they wouldn't be very interesting tweets. But yeah, but I decided that what I wanted to do is sort of become, I don't know, it's such a dorky phrase, but like a thought leader in how to tell stories.

Wudan- Yes.

Karen- And I decided that that was something I was super passionate about, I knew a lot about, I loved sharing about. And the funny thing is that I share tips that I sort of think of them in terms of "these are tips for people who are new to the industry." But as it turns out, most of the people who hire me are not new to the industry at all. And they read my tips, and that's why they hire me. So it's like this amazing thing that by putting out information that I see as being information for people who are new to podcasting, or just storytelling, I'm able to sort of prove that I'm a good storyteller who you might want to hire to do your project.

Wudan- Yes, you've established yourself as an expert. And if those things come up on top of somebody's social media feed, you are suddenly top of mind.

Karen- Yes, exactly. And it reminds people that I am a freelancer. I'm not, you know, I'm not taken. You can approach me.

Wudan- Definitely. And, too, I want to add that I've heard about people on staff...different staff jobs have different rules. But it's possible to look into those rules and see if the job prohibits you from freelancing, which can be really big.

Karen- Yeah

Wudan- I have one colleague in mind who was laid off, but she also freelanced a lot, writing features on the side. And during a short stint where she had to go freelance, she was building up her own credibility. She was working in a different medium. So yeah, that definitely helps. It doesn't quite apply if, for some reason, the employer has prohibited you from freelancing.

Karen- Yeah, that's hard. But in my world, in public radio and podcasting, most employers don't, and they actually see it as a benefit, especially if you're a reporter. You know, they want your clout as a reporter to grow. So unless you are reporting for a direct competitor, they're usually okay with it. And if not just okay with it, then actually supportive of it.

Wudan- I think the rise of newsletters, where you build your own audience, rather than relying on an established newspaper or magazine, also gives an outlet for people to establish themselves as an expert too in other ways.

Karen- Yeah, yeah. And newsletters are like, I mean, they can feel like a drag. I just had to write a newsletter today. I was like, "I have no time for this." And the newsletter is all about, like, "I have no time for this." You know, write what you know. But no, newsletters, I mean, they're incredibly inexpensive to start. You can really build them—you know, like best practices are like, oh, you should, you know, you should have a set schedule of when you drop, you know,—I say drop as if it's a podcast—of when you send out your newsletter. And I, I don't manage that. And my newsletter still manages to grow, you know? So they are definitely a thing where you're gonna get more out of it, if you put more into it, but they'll meet you where you are, like, whatever time you have, whatever you have to share is worth sharing,

Wudan- I would very honestly click on your newsletter that says, "I have no time for this" because that feels extremely relatable.

Karen- Maybe I need to change, change the title of that one

Wudan- Change the vibe. I mean, newsletters are also a way for you to keep in touch with people who might be following you who might be in your—I don't love the word network—but people you already have relationships with. Like, maybe they already want to hear what you're thinking.

Karen- Yeah, yeah. No, they they definitely are. They're a way to sort of like break the ice sometimes, you know. "Oh, sorry, we haven't had a chance to talk recently. But I saw this on your newsletter. It made me laugh, you know?" I just find having a newsletter is an absolute net positive for me.

Wudan- So with regards to keeping in touch with people you know in the industry, maybe, you know, you talked about the what not to do, which is reach back out to people who you haven't talked to in 10 years. But how would you want to ideally approach that? What kind of frequency do you envision?

Karen- Yeah, I mean, I think that something as simple as paying attention to LinkedIn, and when people you know post things that are interesting and smart, or, you know, post that they have a new job, say congratulations. I mean, I don't think it has to be like, let's go out to coffee all the time. Right? Nobody has time for that. Right? So I think something as simple as, you know, paying attention on LinkedIn, or Facebook, or Twitter or Instagram or wherever you're connected to people that you know in your industry, and just interacting with them. I think it can be as easy as that. And, yeah, I mean, I also think that my goal, when I'm not looking for something, is to be helpful.

Wudan- Mhm

Karen- Right? So when I don't need something from you, I'm gonna reach out and see if you need something from me.

Wudan- Yeah, I wish more people did that.

Karen- It's not that hard.

Wudan- Yeah, I have worked with so many coaching clients who think that maintaining connectivity with their network is so unusual to them that it has to be a to do item on their planner. Or it has to be like a 30-minute time block on their calendar, because they understand that keeping in touch with folks is really important in gathering new work or just getting the word out about whatever you're working on.

Karen- Yeah, yeah, it is. And when you become a freelancer, at least when I became a freelancer, I realized that so much of it happens this way: through people that you know, and connect to. And so, like, I'm one of those people who will create my own way to stay in touch, you know. So I connected with this one woman who I'd never met. But she and I had a similar background. And I saw something she was posting on LinkedIn. And I was like, "hey, I can't believe we've never met. Looks like we're doing similar things. Let's talk." And so we had a little, you know, chat. And then, I don't know, a couple of weeks, couple months later, we chatted again. And a couple of weeks or months after that, she emails me and she's like, "I have an idea. Let's get on Zoom." And so we get on Zoom, and we started a, like, basically a Zoom group for people doing what we're doing, you know? So that we have that group of people who we can say, "hey, what should I charge for this? Or has anyone ever done that? Or, you know, my client wants me to do this thing I've never done, can you show me an example of one of the ones that you've done, so I know how to do it?" You know, like, so that's been huge, just having, you know, finding a group of people, developing that group of people where we're all helping each other. And so, you know, we have like a little Slack group going. And whenever someone has something that's just like a dilemma, like, at one point—so I do some teaching. And when I was teaching as a full-time employee, I charged $300 per class. Which, I mean, you know, whatever, it wasn't making me money, but I was teaching to sort of add to the world and that sort of thing. And then when I became a freelancer, I needed to make money off of it. The first time I did it, I charged $300. And then like thought, "I think that wasn't enough." So I went to my group, and I said, "yeah, how much should I have charged?" And they're like, "Karen $3,000. You should have charged $3,000." And I was like, "no, no." And in fact, I should have.

Wudan- Yeah. Did you ask for more after that?

Karen- Oh yeah.

Wudan- How did that pan out? Yeah, nice!

Karen- Yeah. Like, based on that conversation, I set a new rate. I mean, that wasn't a one-hour class. That was a long class, but I set a new rate for my classes. And yeah, it's, it's basically 10 times what I was charging before.

Wudan- That's amazing. I want to talk more about rates too, because I'm sure there's a bit of a shock going from a staff job, where you are paid a fixed amount per year, to all these different dollar amounts across the board for all these kinds of jobs. What surprises Did you run into when considering what freelance rates were versus full-time rates?

Karen- I don't even think—I don't even think they're comparable, right? Like, I don't think you can say, "oh, this is my full-time rate, so I can work out a freelance rate based on that."

Wudan- Mhm.

Karen- Partly because the work I do is in different levels, right? So some of it's harder and leans more on my expertise. And some of it's not as hard but is fun. And I want those jobs. And I know I'm not going to get those jobs if I charge my highest rate for them, because there's lots of other people who will do them for a lower rate. So yeah, I don't have one, rate. I have lots and lots of rates based on lots of different things. And it was a huge shock. Because I had hired freelancers at NPR, and what we were paying is nowhere near what it actually costs to do this work. I had no idea how poorly we were paying. So sorry, so sorry, to all the freelancers. It was really terrible. So yeah. So when I first came out as a freelancer, I was basing what I was charging on what I had been paying. And I had an hourly amount in mind, and I tracked my hours. And I also didn't have a good sense of how long it took to do these things. And I tracked my hours. And I was like, "oh, yeah, I want to be making $100 an hour, and I just made $30 an hour for this massive project"

Wudan- Right.

Karen- Like, that's, that's not good. So yeah, it was a big...it was a big shock.

Wudan- So if your workplace already isn't paying freelance rates that are acceptable for industry standard, or whatever, how can you get a broader understanding of the range of freelance rates for different scopes of work when you're still full time on staff?

Karen- Well, I think there are two things. First of all, there are all sorts of places where this information exists, right? So in the audio world, there's something called AIR, which has rates for audio workers. There are listservs where jobs are listed. But I think the other part of that, it's not just noting what people are paying for different jobs. It's also understanding how long it takes you to do those jobs. And that, I mean, I knew I was fast, and I am pretty fast, but I didn't really have a good sense of how long I was spending on each project. And so I kind of wish that I had spent—you know, just check in every once in a while and be like, "okay, well, this, this story that I'm doing, I'm gonna track my hours on this story, so that I know how long it takes me to do a story." Because I knew how long it took on the calendar, right? Like, I know if I'm going to do an episode, I gotta start at least a month or two ahead, because scheduling takes so long, figuring out who your sources are going to be is takes so long. So it's not a lot of hours, but it can just take a long time on the calendar. And I knew calendar-wise how long it took, but I didn't know hour-wise how long it took.

Wudan- Yeah, so many people are reticent to track their time, in a very funny way, I think. Because it either feels tedious, or maybe they mentally think that a task takes so long. And in reality, it doesn't. Yeah, like I think that's a possibility, too. So I think that's great advice. Like, if you are full time right now, track your hours to see how much time you spend on a particular project of a given scope. And, like, keep that information in your back pocket.

Karen- Yeah. I am tracking this conversation right now.

Wudan- Thank you.

Karen- So on toggle timer—

Wudan- Perfect.

Karen- We are at—because I want to know, like how much time am I spending doing things like this? So I track everything. I track everything related to my work, so that I get a sense of, I know that I should be putting a certain amount of time into work I'm getting paid for and work I'm not getting paid for. And I should be putting a certain amount of time and work I'm getting paid my highest rate for. But I also know I want to save time for work that is at my lowest rate, because that's important to me, you know? So I track everything.

Wudan- I think a lot of the points that we're threading through, like keeping in touch with your network, understanding freelance rates, tracking your time, all of this blends together in a way too, and I think with community, which I'm hearing you talk about, like your Slack group, it's such a good way to maintain those relationships, your network to understand like, how long things can charge. Or does it make sense to charge hourly or project rate? I think there's a lot of power, if you're on staff, and you want to like maintain relationships with your colleagues and friends who are freelancers. And then it's a lot easier to casually ask, "oh, like, what are you making on that project?"

Karen- And, you know, I find it's so scary to ask that question. But I get asked it all the time, and I don't feel weird at all answering it. Right? Like, it's one of those questions that feels very, very, very scary to ask. But once you start asking it, you realize everybody's asking it, and it's fine.

Wudan- Yeah. I get that question too. One funny story I have is a friend of mine, who was on staff at a magazine asked me what that magazine paid me to do a freelance piece. And I told her, you know, a few thousand bucks. But it really only took me like eight hours. And she was shocked. But I also think her reaction was like, good for you. Like, our magazine paid, you something within our budget, and you have the expertise and know-how to make that really efficient. So you can use other time that exists to do other things.

Karen- Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Wudan- Karen, my last question for you relates to how you would compare your life as a freelancer now to what it was like to be on staff? I mean, you mentioned job stability early on, do you feel like you have more stability or control over things right now?

Karen- Yeah. So it's definitely not more stability.

Wudan- Yeah. Mhm.

Karen- Right? Like, stability of knowing month after month, what you're gonna get paid, how that's gonna work out. But so much more control. Like so, so, so, so, so much more control. Like, I get to choose now. I get to choose if I want to be super busy. I get to choose if I want to take January off and work from my parents house in the desert. You know? Like, I get to choose if I want to go to lunch with my husband, and then work late to make up for it. Right? Like, it's just such a different mindset. And I love it.

Wudan- Yeah, it's definitely a different world. But I too would agree that there's a better way to integrate work with life and the ways that you talked about

Karen- Yeah, like if I choose to go on vacation and be on vacation, that's a choice I'm making. If I choose go on vacation and work a little and make some money, that's a choice I'm making, right? And these are all choices that I get to decide for myself. Whereas before it was, you know, some other entity deciding for me. And me not having any control over that decision.

Wudan- And you don't have to ask for permission now.

Karen- No. I joke around a lot. I'm like "my boss. She's so mean. She wants me to work all the time." But I'm my boss, and I'm not mean at all.

Wudan- I think that's the perfect note to end on. Thank you so much, Karen for taking the time to talk to us about going from full time to freelance.

Karen- Thank you. It was fun.

Wudan- Thank you so much to Karen for coming on the show. You can follow her on Twitter @klgiven or learn more about her work at karengiven.com. Because the state of the world right now, the worksheet I've prepared for this episode will be available for free. We have also put together a layoff to freelance survival guide on our store, which combines multiple resources and business planning, coming up with potential clients, and so much more. So for those who are considering freelancing after getting laid off, this is for you. And if you're a Patreon member, you can use your 30% off code to get that on sale. I will talk to you all next time. Thanks so much for listening to the Writers' Co-op. If you've enjoyed our episodes, please rate review and subscribe on the listening platform of your choice. These reviews help more listeners discover us. You can join us on Patreon an All-Access member level at patreon.com/TWCpod. This gets you access to discount codes for events, for other objects online, and our safe and inclusive online Slack community. The show is hosted by me, Wudan Yan. Our producer is Margaret Osborne and our editor is Susan Valot.