Book Review of Six-Figure Freelance Writer – A Holistic Guide on Finding Freedom in Freelancing

Written by Amy Suto

Book Review by Meg D. Edwards

Six-Figure Freelance Writer – A Holistic Guide on Finding Freedom in Freelancing by Amy Suto

I was drawn into author Amy Suto’s world by her charming Substack page, Make Writing Your Job. When she offered to send a copy of Six-Figure Freelance Writer to any writer who reviewed her book. I signed up!

I began reading Amy’s self-published book with low expectations. I have never skimmed a ‘how-to- succeed’ book that wasn’t predictable, repetitive and low in actual useful information.

But I cannot criticize Six-Figure Freelance Writer – A Holistic Guide on Finding Freedom in Freelancing. It is a charmingly written book packed full of information, practical advice and serious insights into the life of a freelancer. No filler or cliché examples. Amy Suto is a very successful writer, so I shouldn’t be surprised!

Amy began her life as script writer (working herself into a stress-related auto-immune condition at one point) but today she is a successful freelancer, making six-figures, who concentrates on memoirs. Her good health and happy life serves as a testimony to the choices that she has made.

Today Amy has achieved a working life where she works less but gets paid much more than she did when she was exhausted. She has written this comprehensive guide to help other writers achieve a sustainable life as a freelancer while avoiding burn out and illness.

The best path to creating a good work/life balance is pretty clear and simple: work for yourself. Amy argues that when you work for others you are always at their whim and you never have full control of the value or quality of your work.

Amy is confident about her work, she knows that she can ‘deliver’ and that her clients will pay top dollar for working with her. Amy is always ‘hopping on a call’ or talking about ‘deliverables’ or even referring to people as having a ‘bandwidth’.

When it comes to practical advice, the book is a veritable feast. Amy breaks down budgets and accounting and provides real plans. She also dives into pricing for your work, a complicated process that is made much easier by her solutions.

Scattered throughout Six-Figure Freelance Writer are referrals to other authors and books, and I intend to read a few of them. In fact, Amy’s book is such a good reference book and tool that I am loathe to give it away.

If I was a younger and had much more energy, I would jump right on her recommendations. But just the thought of trying to keep up with this level of productivity is exhausting.

However, even if I need a lie down after reading Amy’s section on outsourcing and contracting out (so much new technology for me to figure out!) I have still picked up many valuable lessons about organization, efficiency, accounting, pricing, and the art of negotiations.

Amy’s writing is easy to read and clear as a bell. My only sticking point was that she frequently dropped an ‘aside’ into the middle of a sentence, inside a parenthesis and with an exclamation mark, as I did in the above paragraph.

She did this a lot. To the point that I felt like my inside reading voice was doing rather a lot of yelling. However, it’s a useful and cheerful style of incorporating a side thought, and eventually you adjust to the efficiency of it and stop reading it as so exclamatory.

Amy is an absolute queen regarding charging for the work that you produce. Her advice is this: If you find yourself stressing about dealing with too many deadlines or answering queries from new clients, raise your rates. In fact, every time you increase your workload, raise your rates.

According to Amy, when she raised her rates she lost some clients but gained others. The ones who stayed knew that they wanted the excellent product Amy knew she could produce, especially if she had the time and energy to do her best work.

When Amy decided to focus on freelancing in 2020, she felt brave to charge $35 an hour. In 2023, when the book was published, she was charging $350 an hour.

This is an interesting, well-organized book that supplies both practical and philosophical theories on how to be the most efficient and successful freelance writer you can be

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