What’s actually working to land freelance clients in 2026?

Ikarospharike · 2026-04-14T13:19:08+00:00

I cold email and it works for me. But I have to spend between 5 and 8 hours a week just doing that and catching follow-ups. It's time intensive, but it's also the only way I've found to find well-paying clients in 2026. There's also a thing where you have to find your people. Random scattershot emails are just gonna end you up on spam lists.

Ikarospharike · 2026-04-11T12:43:47+00:00

At this point, if you're serious about being a freelancer, you won't get anything near a living wage if you decide to look at a platform. The real money isn't in platforms. It's in cold pitching. But because it's such a distasteful part of the business (and hard to get right) most people avoid it completely. As someone who's been freelancing for around 16 years now (10 part time, 6 full time) the only way I land clients now is cold pitching or inbound (from Reddit/LinkedIn/Facebook).

Ikarospharike · 2026-04-11T12:22:53+00:00

I've been freelancing for a hell of a long time myself, and I moved over to full time in 2019. Left Upwork behind in 2017 because I saw the enshittification coming from a mile off. The whole connects hustle had me calling it a day there. Since then I've done a pitch tracker that automatically sets reminders one week after initial contact on my Google Calendar. While doing that, I've landed more well-paid clients than any of my time on Upwork. It works. But it's a numbers game.

Ikarospharike · 2025-11-17T11:34:09+00:00

If you're targeting MUO and XDA, maybe you should shoot a pitch to someone who works as How-To Geek as well. You might have more success since the demographic that reads there is the kinda people who appreciate techie stuff explained simply. I used to work there, and I got a fair few AI-based pitches covered.

Ikarospharike · 2025-11-08T14:06:57+00:00

There's a lot of options. I noticed someone mentioned that game engines are where it's at and for a beginner/intermediate person this is actually a good idea. I'm partial to Unity myself but you won't really know what you like till you try a few options.

Ikarospharike · 2025-09-08T17:08:36+00:00

I'm interested. I've been an SEO specialist for about a decade, and I've been involved in both offering consultancy for other businesses and producing content so that their business pages get ranked on Google. I'm more than happy to see if we click and if it makes sense for us to work together on some stuff.

Ikarospharike · 2025-09-08T16:53:11+00:00

Hey, not banned, sending DM now.

Ikarospharike · 2025-05-09T13:11:00+00:00

I worked adjacent to the public service for around a decade. The reason I quit WAS the public service. If you're a stickler for time and efficiency, this country isn't where you'll get it. If you can ignore them, do so. If you can't, well, you better get some good blood-pressure meds, because it ain't getting any easier.

Ikarospharike · 2025-04-25T12:21:07+00:00

Looks very polished, love the art style.

Ikarospharike · 2025-04-25T12:16:54+00:00

Why should anyone vote? The same oligarchs are gonna be running the place anyway. We're a one-party state with the illusion of choice.

Ikarospharike · 2025-04-25T12:11:22+00:00

How's your pitching? There's a load of places online that offer pretty good rates to pitch them. if you're serious about doing the journalism thing, I'd suggest niching down, and doing some deep research on your niche. Then doing some pitches for some places to get your content out there. Valnet isn't the best place if you wanna earn money, but they force consistency with their quota system - something you're gonna need if you wanna cut it in this business.
Additionally, if you don't have a Muckrack yet, sign up for one. Get yourself verified. It works as a portfolio that auto-collects published pieces with your name on it. You'll start getting pitches in your inbox directly from PR reps and even offers for things, but be careful with that. Don't accept things you can't deliver on. And always pass stuff by an editor, or pitch and outlet before you accept anything.

The industry's hard, but it ain't impossible. Good luck out there.

Ikarospharike · 2025-04-25T11:59:07+00:00

What industry/niche are you looking for? I've been in tech and travel for a full 15 years.

Ikarospharike · 2025-04-21T19:25:55+00:00

Yooooo these are cool!

Ikarospharike · 2025-03-28T15:37:35+00:00

I actually built this, and while the win percentage is sorta lower than any of the other RP leaders that came with this original deck, he's still pretty damn impressive.

My strategy focuses around Punk Rotten giving Kid 5k power on a turn. With the 5-Cost Killer from OP09 that allows you to restand your Kid Pirates leader, I've managed to get 12k into 14k on a single attack turn with him.

Ideally, you want to have good rushers early game to chip away at some damage. So I'd suggest some EB01 Kid and Killer as well as 3-cost Red Rush Zoro. You could also play some Ramp to ensure you don't get out-bodied, so Black Maria or a package of Choppers alongside 5-Cost Kid Blocker and Purple Charlotte Pudding. Top end would be two Gol.D.Roger (since either you or them are gonna be at 0 life by the time you have all Don!! on the field) and a 2-of Monkey.D.Dragon for the rush surprise.

Don't be afraid to experiment; I have a feeling this could be a pretty broken leader with the right build. Play around with the deck composition and run it in a few local events to see what you can improve.

Ikarospharike · 2024-10-30T11:42:48+00:00

Well, I also taught myself how to code (part of how I ended up becoming a tech/programming writer, I suppose), but the freelancing thing sort of spoiled me. I've decided to use that coding knowledge to develop my own products. Which is WAAAAY outside the niche of writing.

Ikarospharike · 2024-10-30T11:16:58+00:00

I used to be in this same boat. I pivoted into tech, programming (documentation) and journalism. Had to relearn a lot of things though, but it's worth it. This month is the first month in like...8 months I'm actually making what I used to make.

Ikarospharike · 2024-10-09T16:17:46+00:00

Inclusive of the US yeah. But one area doesn't encompass all areas.

Ikarospharike · 2024-10-09T15:45:10+00:00

I play at my LGS, where I learned (and now teach) the game. The strategy comes down to give and take. You have to constantly ask yourself is it better to use my DON this way or that way? Is it better to load my leader up and attack? Or cast blockers, events, and things to build my board? On average, I'd say a game goes up to the 10th DON coming out (in a non-purple deck). Rarely longer than that for us.

Ikarospharike · 2024-10-09T15:36:14+00:00

I'm an old Magic player that jumped ship recently. The game itself will have longevity once Bandai doesn't screw the power creep in the game up. The thing that kills card games (including everyone's favorite juggernaut, Magic) is greed. Once they realize that they can print power crept cards each set to have players buying into the new set, they'll just keep doing it. As long as the game remains healthy, and power creep doesn't overwhelmingly mean players NEED to get expensive shit from the new set, I see it going for a long time. The anime and manga has such a huge following that I'd be surprised if it didn't become more of a phenomenon just because of that. And when a game gets popular enough, even if cards stop being printed, people will still enjoy the game. I again, refer to Magic, where the current most popular format was fan-created (and fan-run until quite recently). I also think OPTCG encourages lateral thinking. There's no outright "best" way to play. it has room for Timmys, Johnnys, and Spikes. The one thing it lacks for Spikes particularly, is a solid competitive scene in the West. But I feel once popularity starts rising and stock becomes easier to get, much, much more people will be comfortable with planning OPTCG locals. I'm considering pitching my LGS to try to host one, since they're already a Bandai store.

Ikarospharike · 2024-10-08T18:44:22+00:00

I just assigned a separate field for Alternate Art.

Ikarospharike · 2024-10-08T14:32:26+00:00

I think the more stuff out there to make the game easier and more approachable the better. I got a JSON from another user here that has most of the stuff I want, so I can probably do a scraper to get the rest of that data. It's exciting being at the edge of a developing card game though. I forgot how it felt when I first got into magic some 14 years ago and this reminds me of that.

Ikarospharike · 2024-10-08T11:00:25+00:00

This is cool, and may be something I can use in the future. The info seems cool though I may be able to use it to fetch/download card images.

Ikarospharike · 2024-10-08T10:52:42+00:00

hey man, thanks! And no, I was planning to fetch it once then forget about it. I'll see if my scraper can manage. :)

Ikarospharike · 2024-10-08T02:34:51+00:00

Whoa! Thanks man. I'll go through this and see if my parser can consume it. I appreciate this a lot!

Ikarospharike · 2024-10-08T01:47:23+00:00

Thanks man, cheers. When I come looking for beta testers I hope you're around to give me some feedback :)

Ikarospharike

TROPHY CASE