Posted by on Jan 26, 2009 in
Getting Jobs When I first started freelance writing, I took on jobs that were absolutely dispicable. They were boring. They didn’t pay enough. They were quite demanding considering the pay. They required me to insert keywords that didn’t make sense. They made me question writing as a profession. I’d dread putting my fingers to the keyboard, something I otherwise couldn’t tear myself away from. I had some writing jobs that threatened to keep me from being a writer.
Since then, I’ve promised myself that I would never take on writing gigs that I would not enjoy. Part of me thinks, “You have to take the good with the bad.” Sometimes I wonder if it’s a bad idea to turn down a writing gig in my first year as a full-time writer when there’s a recession and thousands of people are losing their jobs everyday. It’s kind of like when your parents tell you not to throw away food because people in other countries are starving. But, I just can’t bring myself to say “yes” to a job, when all good sense is telling me to say no.
So, before I take on a writing job, I find out as much information as possible so I can imagine myself doing the work. Is it something I’d look forward to doing? Or something I’d put off until the last possible moment? Is it something I’d be proud of? Or something I’d hate myself for doing? Choose your freelance writing jobs carefully and watch out for those that threaten the passion you have for writing.
In December, one of my biggest regular clients had to take a break from projects. That was not good news for me. At the time, that client represented a large part of my monthly income. While I had a few projects lined up for the next few weeks, it wasn’t enough to make up for the lost income. Financially, I had not put myself in a good position.
Typically, our clients can come and go as they please. Just because you have a writing assignment today doesn’t mean you’re going to have that assignment tomorrow. Given that our business is so unpredictable, it only makes sense that your income shouldn’t made or broken by any single customer. I took for granted that I’d have that income and I knew better.
I’m never so comfortable that I don’t market my services and apply for new writing gigs, so it didn’t take long to fill up my calendar. Yet, I continue to remind myself not to get complacent. A single client shouldn’t account for more than 15%-20% of my monthly income. Anything above that is risky.
I wouldn’t turn down or fire a client simply because they accounted for a large portion of my income. Instead, I’d increase my emergency savings and continue to keep my portfolio updated in case the client and I ever decided to part ways.
Posted by on Jan 21, 2009 in
Blogging Since I started freelancing full-time, I’ve been paying a lot more attention to top bloggers - those withhundreds of thousands of page views per month and tens of thousands of subscribers. It’s not so surprising that they all have a few things in common. If you’re trying to become a top blogger - or something remotely resembling it - these are some habits you might want to put into use.
They make daily or multi-daily blog posts.
You can count on a minimum of one post per day from the top bloggers. It used to be that blogging once a day was all that you needed to become a top blogger. Not anymore. Now the highest subscribed blogs have several blogs during the course of a day.
The have very meaty posts.
And even though they’re posting several times in a single day, the posts all contain very good information. I don’t think I ever see a one or two paragraph, “take a look at this article” type of post from a top blog.
They have guest posts.
The abundance of guest posts surprised me at first. I was under the impression that guest bloggers were a turnoff for readers, but obviously not. To be a top blogger, you don’t have to know it all yourself and maybe it turns readers off if you try to pretend that you do. Now, I think guest posts are quite refreshing and an awesome way to get new ideas and content on your blog.
They have a personable tone.
To me, there’s nothing worse than reading a blog that has a drab tone. Write like you’re talking to your best friend, not to your refrigerator.
They’re well read.
The blogs that I see performing the best always have links to other blog posts, news articles, and books.
They’re well connected.
Top bloggers also know the who’s who of their niche. I notice a lot of them mentioning, “I talked to Mr. Top Niche yesterday…” I’ve never been a fan of interviews, but I’m not a top blogger so who am I to say that it’s the wrong thing to do.
It didn’t happen overnight.
Every once in awhile, top bloggers look back and talk about the journey to where they are today. Not once has any of them said, “I started blogging three months ago and now my blog is a huge success.” In fact, they often warn against that type of mentality, letting readers know it’s often the 3rd or 4th blog attempt that hits it big.
Posted by on Jan 5, 2009 in
Writing Rates New freelance writers often mistake writing for cheap as a viable way to break into the freelance writing world. I think it works for a select few, but not for many. It’s like the hundreds (probably thousands) of reality tv show contestants who hope to further their singing/acting/modeling/miscellaneous entertainment career. It hardly ever works. It the same for freelance writers charging low rates.
Let me tell you my story. When I first started writing, I was writing for a penny per word and sometimes less. I didn’t think I had to accept these low rates to get established, I thought it was all that was out there. The first time I increased my writing rates it was from 2 cents a word to 4 cents a word. I thought I was doing great. In retrospect, I could have been doing so much better than that, I just didn’t realize I could.
This is what I can tell you about those penny-per-word jobs - they won’t get you established. They’re not credible and chances are, they’re probably not giving you credit for your work. So when you need writing samples to get higher paying jobs, you don’t have any.
If I were doing it all over again, I wouldn’t take on those low paying jobs. Instead, I’d take some time to figure out the niche or writing type I wanted to specialize in. I’d create an online portfolio and a blog on my niche. I’d write 5-10 blog posts on the blog and use those as samples in my portfolio. If you need to show off a type of writing like sales copy or press release, you could create samples based on a mock situation (it’s how you’d create a portfolio in college anyway) and put those in an online portfolio.
Accepting low rates for your writing doesn’t get you established. Of the successful writers I know, there are only a few (less than 5 including me) who got started on the low end of the paying spectrum. That says a lot about the need to be cheap to jumpstart your career - there isn’t one. I’m telling you this because it took someone else telling me to get me to stop accepting low wages and start getting paid like a professional writer.
