Before AI took over, there were many full-time freelancers. Now, there are fewer of them, and those lucrative and stable freelancing jobs can be hard to find. Like most freelance writers, I’ve been impacted by AI’s swift takeover of content creation, and that has led me to write about a topic that I thought I would never have to face unless I chose to: part-time freelancing.

Is part-time freelancing real freelancing?

Most people learn how to earn money from freelancing by beginning with freelancing on the side or enjoying freelancing as a side hustle. However, what about if you are forced to keep freelancing as your part-time income? Are you still really in freelancing? By my definition, here are the questions to ask yourself to see if you’re a “real freelancer”:

• Are you working with real clients?: Regardless of whether the client is a small one-person operation, or a large company, it’s the same either way for your concerns. A real, live person or business is asking you to work for them to create content. That means that you are a real freelancer with equally real client needs!

• Are real people actually paying you for what you create? A good friend of mine told me that the best way to determine if you’re actually successful or not is to ask yourself this one question: is someone giving you money for what you are creating? Since all clients value money more than anything, the biggest way for you to see how valuable you are is to have them willingly hand over their money to you!

• Are you in the black or in the red?: I’ve already written about expenses for freelance writers, as you may remember. I talk about this important benchmark in my book, The Starving Freelancer, too. If you are in the black at the end of the month, then you’re a real freelancer! Sure, that number may not be as high as you’d like it, but it’s still there and you’re still making money over your expenses each month!

• Are clients seeking you out?: You may become aware that clients are searching for you. Perhaps this is through analytics and metrics. Or, it could be as simple as someone contacting you via a referral from another client. Anyone who is looking for you and your services counts in this way. If someone is searching for you, specifically, then you are a real freelancer!

Freelance your way

Realistically, this was the case pre-AI, but it’s especially relevant post-AI; you are a real freelancer if you are earning any amount of money from what you create for real clients. The actual amount of freelance income that you earn doesn’t matter as much as some people may want you to believe. The bottom line is that if you are successfully freelancing, you are a real freelancer.

But that’s just my perspective on things. And I admit that I’m a little biased since I’m still feeling somewhat salty about the fact that AI took a lot of business from me (and most professional freelancers that I know). What do you think? What makes a freelancer real for you?