Is it rude to talk about how much you earn?

Only if you're a woman, it seems.

A few years into freelancing around my two young children, and while pregnant with my third, I had my ‘lucky [financial] break’.

I launched an online course, it took off and soon I was running a lucrative online course business, turning over £100,000+ a year with very low overheads.

Until then, I’d spent a good five years quietly panicking about money. My husband and I are both self-employed and we have had many lean periods.

When friends suggested going out for dinner, I felt like it was always me saying “somewhere cheap, yeah?”

They had salaries and - at that point - no children, and so the financially precarious freelance mum life I’d been living was quite different to theirs.

We were always able to cover our bills and this is - especially by today’s standards - fortunate. It was the extras, or ‘luxuries’ that were off limits.

So when I had enough money coming in to actually put some aside in savings, I was elated. I couldn’t believe I’d managed to create this career from home, on my laptop.

(After losing my actual job, as a copywriter, because I’d had a baby.)

I’d had a book published, The Freelance Mum, and off the back of it, I’d started growing a community of women on Instagram who were also working around kids.

I was already teaching skills through my courses like how to get press coverage for your business (coming from the perspective of an editor/journalist).

And I wanted to now teach other freelancers how to launch their own online courses and create their own neat income from doing it.

Many of them were up for it. They launched courses, some started earning huge amounts of money and I felt my mission was powerful:

I was helping fellow freelance mums to earn good money in a flexible way.

But some people were not at all happy. They started saying things about me. Loudly unfollowing me (other women, mostly).

One woman wrote a scathing article that was clearly about me, suggesting it was uncouth and unhelpful to talk openly about how much we earn.

I had a bunch of lovely loyal people in my community check in on me after that, as they could also see it was in response to something I’d said.

You see, part of my approach was to be open about the income I was generating from these courses. It felt like an important part of the story.

Also, I was teaching business skills and business is very much linked to earning money. Yes, we have a mission. But we need to earn from it in order to live.

Some of my fellow freelance mums were earning money from making jewellery, clothes, doing graphic design, coaching or consultancy work.

What they earned wasn’t relevant to their product. It was relevant to mine, though.

But because I’m a woman, and want to be liked, and think I always need to be ‘good’ and ‘nice’ and ‘comply’, I thought I’d fucked up.

Maybe I never should have disclosed my earnings?

However, there were always messages from people who:

1. Felt inspired, seeing what was possible.

2. Were using my courses to earn good money themselves. They were delighted.

And so I chose to keep my focus on the success stories - and the women who were feeling motivated to carve out their own careers from home.

Though there was always a niggling feeling that I’d somehow done the wrong thing and had come across as boastful or insensitive, which was never my intention.

When Farrah Storr - a successful Substacker - wrote a piece asking: Is it wrong to admit how much you earn? - all those feelings resurfaced.

Both the sense that to be open about what you earn, as a woman, is helpful for others. And also that women are chastised for their honesty, when it comes to money.

And yet, I love hearing what other women are earning from their Substacks, non-fiction books deals, ghostwriting projects and other writing commissions.

It helps me to understand what I can reasonably expect from my own journalism, books and Substack platform. It feels sisterly, rather than boastful.

The societal messages about money and transparency

What I’ve found in the past is that men tell us we probably shouldn’t open up up money, while women question whether we’re telling the truth.

I had people email me specifically to ask if I was lying about what I was earning when my online courses business took off.

Other women were cancelled for opening up about how much they were earning for their online work.

So with my Substack, I’ve been a little guarded about what I’m earning.

Though it’s a very welcome monthly income stream that supplements my other writing work and feels like my ‘bread and butter’.

But what I am willing to do is bring others along with me by sharing what I know about…

1. How to start and grow your own Substack

2. The secret to monetising your Substack

3. New ways to grow your paid subscribers on Substack

And I also published a piece early on about how I managed to grow that online course business and turn over six figures in the first year.

I will share all the ways I make money, as a writer. I will share contacts, ideas, links. I will continue to give other women a leg-up, because it fits with my values.

I’ll just keep the specifics, in terms of my earnings, for my tax return.

What do you think: should women (and men) be open about what they earn?

Annie x