Make A Living Writing

Earlier this week, I discussed 11 ways to market your writing services. In this post, we’ll delve into 10 more marketing methods, this time using social media and the Internet.

1. Use LinkedIn. If you subscribe to one of the paid levels on LinkedIn,  you can send InMail messages to anybody you want. At the $25 level you can send three a month, at the $50 one, 10 a month. The people don’t have to be connected to you. You can just identify prospects and send them a pitch letter. Here’s the kicker: LinkedIn reports sending InMail has a 30 percent response rate. Apparently it’s just so new and novel that it gets you noticed. That’s right–for every 10 of these you send, three prospects will contact you. Killer!

Other ways I use LinkedIn: Look at the “Who’s viewed my profile” box and click on “More.” Sometimes you’ll get an exact name, and then you can send them a message. Great way to connect with prospects. LinkedIn is also a happening place for job ads–many of them are exclusive to the site. Just toggle the search bar to ‘jobs’ and put in your key words.

2. Publish articles on Biznik. Writing a strong, informational article on the networking site Biznik is a great way to attract attention and find clients. Each week, many members (including me) get a digest of the most highly read and rated articles of the week…great way to get your expertise in front of a large audience of business professionals.

3. Find contacts on Twitter. For those who haven’t discovered this 140-character wonderland yet, Twitter is like the Wild West of networking in that it’s wide open–tons of companies and publication editors are on there learning and meeting new people. You can do searches on key words (such as a publication name you’re targeting), find people, and follow them. They’ll often check you out and follow back. You can use their profile to learn more about them, lurk around and see what they’re into, build up your cred on the system with followers and insightful post, and then direct mail (DM) them a very short intro or pitch, or contact them on email. You can also attract prospects by tweeting about what you’d like to do, i.e. “Looking to connect with more business magazine editors.” Twitter is also an increasingly popular place to find job listings. I set up a list with a bunch of writing-job tweeters on my page, so I can see a realtime feed of them at a single click.

4. Use your blog. Your blog can be a place for you to slap up your daily musings, or it can be an amazing showcase for your best writing. Read great bloggers who discuss the art of this format–Problogger, Chris Brogan or Write to Done, for instance–to get a sense of how brilliant you need to be. Then write it, circulate it around in social media, and they will come. Leverage your blog to get better blog assignments from more highly trafficked sites, and clients will find you through reading your posts. Happening to me all the time these days.

5. Comment on other people’s blogs. Participate in popular blogs on your topic. Sign with your URL and mention your latest blog post to draw interested visitors to your site. Then…see #4. I just got a serious mentoring prospect from a single comment I left on the About.com site for freelance writers along with my site URL, for instance.

6. Email marketing. Build an email list from prospect nibbles you get and business cards you collect at networking events. Create an e-newsletter with business writing tips. Send information every couple of weeks or so to keep your name in front of prospects — maybe a tips article, or a piece of news you noticed that you think would benefit your potential clients. Be helpful.

7. Facebook fan pages. Got a blog? Set up a fan page for it. Even if you don’t, set up a fan page just for you as a writer. Hold contests, take polls, get people interested. A growing way to connect with prospects, particularly those looking for writers who understand social media.

8. Web video. Video is an exploding online marketing tool. Make a short video describing how you work with clients and put it on YouTube. It’s one of the most trafficked sites on the Internet. Need I say more?

9. Google local and Citysearch. A lot of writers aren’t aware of Google’s local feature that allows you to put your business on the little map that often appears at the top of keyword searches. Great way to jump to the top of natural search results. Likewise, Citysearch recently went back to allowing free listings. So go get yours. When I did mine, there was like a big one other writer on there for all of Seattle. Score!

10. Your neighborhood forum. If you’re looking for small business clients or local publications, check out local forums. I’m on one on BigTent for moms on the island where I live, and it’s an amazing resource for knowing what’s going on in my community…and a specialized, intimate setting to get out the word about my writing.

Are you finding clients through social media? If so, leave your success story below. If not, what questions do you have about how to go about it? Let me know–I’m happy to answer reader questions here on the MALW blog.

Photo source: Flickr user webtreats

In my mentoring work, I often find myself introducing my mentees to a basic fact of life for freelance writers: If you want to earn more, you’re going to need to market your business aggressively. Answering Craigslist or Kijiji ads is unlikely to get you $1 a word or $100 an hour gigs. To find really good-paying work, you will have to prospect.

This often produces a reaction along the lines of, “I’m shy! I’m no good at networking.”

But there isn’t just one marketing strategy in the universe, there are many. So today I’d like to kick off a two-part post highlighting some of the multitude of ways to market yourself as a freelance writer. Today, it’s 11 different 3-D-world marketing approaches. Somewhere in here, there’s a strategy that would be a fit for who you are and the kind of writing work you want to find.

1. In-person networking. I know you don’t want to hear it. But in-person networking is not only very effective, it can actually be fun. Just think — you get out of your writing cave, have a drink and a nibble, and meet new people who could help you make more money. Unless you are catastrophically shy, I want you to try it.

Bring business cards. Walk around and introduce yourself to as many people as possible. Overcome any shyness you have about plugging yourself by spending most of your time asking others why they came, what they do, and if appropriate what they’re looking for in a writer. If that description doesn’t fit you, try to recommend them someone. Networking is about learning others’ needs and helping each other succeed, not shoving yourself down other people’s throats. You don’t have to be pushy–be helpful. Personally, I have been to two in-person networking events and got great connections that led to wonderful paying clients both times.

Experiment with places to network–I’ve had good success with MediaBistro events here in Seattle, but your city may be different. I’m told the Linked:Seattle in-person events rock, too. Find your networking sweet spot and visit it as often as you can.

2. Direct mail. I’ve never tried this, but many of the top copywriters in this field develop a prospect list, and then audition by sending direct mail–makes sense, huh? One of them is Pete Savage-he sent one DM letter and got $64,000 of new business, and he sells a kit that describes how he did it. I don’t usually plug products, but if you’re interested in copywriting work, this may be worth a look. I can vouch for Pete–he’s the real deal. I can give you one tip I’ve gleaned from Pete’s newsletters–I gather he advocates including a bumpy novelty item in the envelope. Makes it irrestistible to receipient…apparently they feel compelled to open it to learn what’s making the bump.

3. Cold calling. That’s right–just pick up the phone, call a company you’d like to do copywriting for, and ask for the communications or marketing manager. Or call the editor of a publication you’d like to write for. Ask them if they use freelance writers. Be ready to pitch your ideas for stories to editors, or your copywriting services to companies. Many will say no, but persistence can really pay off here. Everyone who tries it reports they get new accounts, and that every 10 or 20 calls, they get a “yes.” Give yourself an edge and check out their existing Web site or other materials before you can call, so you can point out specific weaknesses in their current marketing and describe how the materials you’d create would bring address their needs and bring in new customers.

4. White papers. Create a white paper about the value of your copywriting service, demonstrating the benefits to companies that use you. Much like the direct mail strategy, this one’s especially great if you want to write white papers for companies. If you haven’t written white papers, you should learn about them because they’re the hottest sales tool in copywriting right now, and they pay very well. Michael Stelzner’s your expert here, and he has a free training on this topic you can read online.

5. Free or paid seminars. They can be in-person, over the Web, over the phone, you name it. But holding a class in a topic such as “How copywriting can help your business” can put you in touch with many good prospects in one fell swoop. Some like charging a little for the class as you screen out looky-loos and get more qualified, highly interested leads who are more likely to become clients.

6. Free downloads. Create a helpful article article with advice or tips on how to communicate your business’s value or some other related topic, which ultimately leads to a conclusion that hiring a professional writer will help your business. Put it on your Web site as a free download in exchange for which you capture their email address. Presto,  you’re building a great marketing list and exposing your name to prospective clients while presenting yourself as an expert. (OK, this tip involves a computer…but it’s not social media, so here it is in the 3-D list.)

7. Tshirts and car decals. That’s right, think of yourself like any bike shop or car wash would, and promote the fact that you’re a freelance writer everywhere you go!

8. Contests and polls. Hold a contest for the worst business Web site and give the winner free home-page content, or write their bio page, or whatever you want to offer. Or take a poll on the most important thing to say on a business Web site, and give the winner a free consultation. Entrants will, of course, have to submit their contact information, giving you an instant list of companies that need copywriters. This one doesn’t just get you prospects and a great before-and-after sample, you could tell the local papers and get written up, too.

9. Charity donations. Doesn’t your kids’ school have an annual auction? Donate an article for a business, or a free brochure. Great way to let the whole town know you’re a writer.

10. Put out a press release. Have you expanded into a new field? Hired a virtual assistant? Moved your office? Many local papers have business columns that publish these news tidbits, along with your photo in some cases. If not your local paper, try your Chamber newsletter (you belong, right?).

11. Partner or reciprocal deals. Do you know a business whose products or services you  use, who could use Web content? Make them a barter deal–you do their site over in exchange for free stuff, including a free plug on their home page that you wrote the content.

Tune in later this week for the final 10 marketing tips in 21 Ways to Market Your Writing Services: The Social Media Edition.

Photo source: Flickr user Richard-G

Now that we’re getting settled into our new home at Make a Living Writing, it’s time to open the mailbag and answer a reader question.

Maureen recently wrote me with this introduction and a question about blogging:

I worked for years in book publishing, [for] 2 literary agents, then finding books to adapt into screenplays and teleplays.  I had a health catastrophe which has been straightened out in the past two years, thank goodness.  Before that health crisis occurred, I had already decided that I wanted to be the writer.  So I am an apt pupil to anyone who is a good writer, and able to support him/herself through this.

I’m outlining a book which will be less of a memoir and more of a cautionary tale to other people who suffered the same health problem, and don’t feel I’ll have any problems with that.  Also, drafting two screenplays.

My question for you is how does one successfully blog?

I’ll take a stab at this even though I’m not entirely sure what Maureen means. If you’re asking how blog format is different from writing articles, I think it is distinctly different — more casual, shorter and ideally offering links to readers that allow them to read more on other sites if they’re interested.

Don’t know if you saw this post I did on whether blogging is for you:http://caroltice.com/blog/15?PHPSESSID=0143b264a3dd5c61d815a9fef98522d5 – maybe useful in thinking about blogging success.

Or maybe you’re wondering how to physically get your own Web site where you can blog? There are lots of sites that can help you with that — just discovered this one recently, which is free:  Yola.

If you’re asking how you earn money by having a personal blog, I would recommend you check out Leo Babauta’s great free ebook on how he got 100,000 subscribers for his very lucrative blog, Zen Habits. Essentially there are only a few ways to make money off your blog — affiliate marketing, selling ad space for an up-front fee on your site, selling information products, and using the visibility to get other writing jobs.

For me, I feel like I am successfully blogging. I hope I’m a success in that I’m providing useful information to my community. As far as earning from it, I’m just launching my monetizing strategies. So I’ll have to see how it goes.

Also, what’s your definition of success — You have 100,000 subscribers? You make $100K a year with it? You get a major publishing-house book deal? You simply manage to post two blogs a week? You get a lot of comments? You get linked to a lot? You get to polish your writing and develop your style? You get article assignments from $1-a-word magazines?

Everyone defines success differently. Also, what’s your blog about? Different blog topics monetize in different ways.

I haven’t made a dime directly from my blog at this moment but consider it a huge success in building a community of writers who’re interested in earning more from their work. That has been my immediate goal, and I’m very happy with the progress I’ve made on it.

It’s helped me get great-paying jobs blogging for companies. The exposure has been great, I’ve met wonderful new writing friends some of whom will help me promote my ebook in future, and it has helped me learn a lot about how to write impactfully in this new format.

It also led to the great opportunity I got recently to be a regular blogger for the WM Freelance Writing Connection, exposing me to a whole new audience.

I’m getting 300-400 visitors a day, or was before the move, which I’m very happy about for just starting this blog in ’09. I’m hoping to explore ways to earn from my blog that help my community and don’t annoy them…count on all of you to let me know how I’m doing.

Maureen — write back and let us know if you start a blog, and if so how it goes.

Readers — how do you define blogging success? And how is your quest for blogging success going? Leave us a comment and tell us what you think it takes to successfully blog.

Photo credit: andyp uk

One of the questions I get a lot is how to negotiate a good rate. Writers who’ve written for mills usually have no experience with the dynamic of working out a rate with a client.

You’ve seen a million job ads that insist you send a rate quote, even though you’ve been provided almost no details about the proposed project. Or you meet a prospect at a networking event and they ask you to send a bid on the white paper they want done, or on rewriting 10 pages of their Web site. How to respond?

Here are some of the negotiation strategies I’ve used:

1. Be vague. If you absolutely must submit a bid to be considered, give them a big range. As in “In the past year, I’ve done copywriting jobs ranging from $.30 to $1 a word. I look forward to learning more about your project so I can pinpoint an appropriate quote for you.” This way, if they’re a penny-a-word or $10 article type of client, you can screen them out fast and move on, but if they’re paying anything remotely appropriate, you can hopefully stay in the game long enough to learn more. Then you can decide if the pay rate makes it worth your while.

2. Ask, ‘What’s your budget?’ If at all possible, get the client to tell you what they can pay. Try to put the onus back on them to quote a price. Every time I’ve done this, I’ve discovered the figure they had in their heads was bigger than the one I had in my head. I asked a business-book agency this question recently, with the thought that I’d ask for $10,000. Their figure: a range of $17,000-$21,000. Let them speak first, and get paid more.

3. Defer quoting. Ideally, you’d like a prospective client to get to know you well before you put in a bid. So I resist blind bidding in response to online ads. When I respond to job ads that ask for a price quote, I usually indicate that I’ll need more information to develop a quote. This gives me a chance to show how thorough I am, while putting off quoting, hopefully until after I’ve had a more detailed conversation with the prospect.

4. Don’t lowball bid. Many online job solicitations and jobs on portals such as elance or odesk set up a competitive-bidding contest where the job will go to the lowest bidder. I personally don’t get involved in these, as when you win, you lose – you’ve gotten yourself a slave-wage gig. Though I’ve heard from people who say they’ve ended up with good-paying clients through these sites, I believe it’s a real long shot, and there are better ways to get good clients. In general, companies that would hire whoever bids lowest regardless of qualifications aren’t companies you want to work for.

5. Bid per-project instead of by the hour. This is always a better way to go for both sides. You know exactly what you’ll be paid, the client knows exactly what they’ll have to pay, and if you’re new and it takes you a bit longer to do the project, the client doesn’t suffer for it. Clients also seem more satisfied with per-project rates than when they’re thinking, “Sheesh, this guy is making $95 an hour!”

6. Bid by the word instead of by the hour. One quick, easy way to come up with a project bid is to simply add up the proposed wordcount and multiply. I usually bid somewhere between $.50 and $1 a word, depending on degree of difficulty and client size. As with a flat fee, this gives the client the reassurance of knowing exactly what their project will cost.

7. Consider all the hours involved. Remember that projects take a bit of time to get set up and rolling, especially with new clients – files need to be created, initial emails exchanged, contracts negotiated, meetings taken. You should bill every hour of this time, and figure those hours into any per-project bid you submit.

8. Know industry rates. Try to do some research to help you determine an appropriate rate. You should belong to some writers or copywriters forums online where you could describe your project and prospective client, and ask members to comment on your rate proposal. I’ve gotten really useful feedback this way.

9. Get details. I’ve developed a questionnaire at this point for clients to fill out to help define their project. One of the biggest problems in copywriting is that companies know they need some content…but they’re often very fuzzy on exactly how much, what form it should take, when they’ll need it by and other issues that can greatly affect my quote. I’ve had proposals for 400-word quick blogs turn into 700-word fully reported stories I’m ghostwriting rather than getting a byline on. Scope creep is a major problem in the writing world — so get it in writing so you can renegotiate for more if the client changes the project parameters.

10. Make a counter-proposal. There is no law that says you have to accept the first price a client throws out there. See How I got paid $300 a blog on The WM Freelance Writers Community for details on how to successfully bid up your contract during negotiations.

I’m proud to report that I took my own negotiating advice this week. I was approached out of the blue by a major company I’d actually had on my list of prime targets, to write articles for their site. I was excited…until I heard their rate, which was a lot lower than I was expecting. I told them I was surprised by their price, and could they do any better? They raised their flat fee $50 a piece immediately. I could easily end up writing 50 or more articles in a year for them if the relationship continues…if so, that’ll be $2,500 more I make just for asking the question.

Got any other negotiating tips? Feel free to share them with the group…let’s get this party started on the MakeALivingWriting site!

Photo source: andyrob

Time to subscribe!

Hi all –

It’s been a rocky week trying to get everything working here on the new Make a Living Writing site. A couple problems remain that only you, the reader, can resolve.

If you subscribed on RSS to this blog back on caroltice.com…you need to resubscribe if you want to keep getting the posts. If you’re on email, we should be able to enter you from here. But if you’re on RSS, we don’t have your contact info, and apparently we cannot flow you over here. You have to do it.

Of course, if this is your first visit here, please feel free to subscribe for the first time! Generally I post free tips and thoughts about how to earn more from your writing twice each week.

There’ll be lots of great stuff coming up, including special subscriber discounts for my upcoming ebooks. Hope to be giving you details on that before too long.

Until then…if you missed Content Mill Week over at The WM Freelance Writing Connection…head on over there for a full week’s worth of perspectives on this often-controversial subject. Here’s my entry from last week: Content Mills: Why Aspiring Writers Should Avoid Them.

This is my last double-post that’s going on both sites…so if you’re getting this from caroltice.com, migrate over here and subscribe so you don’t miss anything.

Thanks all!

Source: derrickwa

Source: laurenatclemson

I’m excited to report the next step in the evolution of this writing blog…welcome to MakeALivingWriting.com, the new home for my blog about the business of writing.

Why spin the blog off to its own site? I increasingly find myself in two businesses — the business of getting my own writing clients, and the business of helping other writers, through this free blog, through one-on-one mentoring, and soon through my ebooks. Over time I may add a community forum and other features here. Befittingly, MALW is my commerce site, and now my named URL can be the place to learn about me as a writer. I’m excited to see this split finally happening — I think it will inspire a lot of new creativity in both sites.

MALW gives all of my writer services a place to live, apart from my portfolio for writing clients. The new site will also allow me to do some things I’ve wanted to do but my caroltice.com site wasn’t formatted for it — have a blogroll, recommend books, potentially allow a very select few ads, have room for promotions, polls, and possible partnerships…and get a retweet button that’s working properly, to name a few! My old blog was coded by my teenage Web developer and had a number of technical issues. I’ve now broken down and am using a real pro, so everything should work a lot better. Costs more…but worth it.

The RSS/email subscription features is up and going here on MALW for new subscribers…and I’m looking into whether existing subscribers have to subscribe over here or whether we can transfer you over. For now, there may be a bumpy week or two while we get all the features up and going.

Welcome your feedback on this move! Thanks for being readers.

Make a Living Writing blog reader Susan Glenn emailed me a while back to ask for more information on how to convince corporate clients to pay higher rates for your services.

Source: borman818

“Tips about how writers can articulate their worth would be very interesting,” she wrote. “Not what does the writer NEED, but what is professional writing WORTH to the client — especially relative to other professional services they retain.”

Great question…so today I’ll share a bit of the speech I give prospective clients who ask me about rates. One of the things I’ll frequently say early on goes something like this:

“If you’re having a bidding contest to find the lowest price, I’d like to tell you right now I’m going to lose. I will not be your lowest bidder, and I don’t generally work with companies that are only concerned with how little they can pay for writing.

“I work with business owners seeking exceptionally talented writers who can help establish them as the pre-eminent thought leaders in their sector. They need to communicate in a sophisticated, compelling way with their target audience.

“That’s what I will deliver for you — authoritative content that communicates that you are the most knowledgeable source for information in your industry. This will attract quality clients, build Web traffic, and will pave the way for you to charge more for what you do.”

Of course, when presented with it that way, most of my prospects rush to say, “Oh, that’s me! I understand that I need to be the authority. That’s just what we need to do.” And discussions of how little they can get me to work for tend to evaporate.

They get it immediately — I’ve helped them put their finger on what it is they’re really in the market for. They need content so compelling and strong that it will enhance their brand and company reputation, and bring them more business. Not every writer can give them that — but I can.

Once you’ve framed it that way, if they balk at a rate, I tend to point out that paying, say, $1,500 for a custom-written article they can get republished in newspapers, use on their site, hand out as fliers, email to their prospect list, expand into a white paper, and otherwise use FOREVER to promote their business and drive Web traffic at no additional charge is the marketing bargain of the century.

Compare it to the cost of placing a single decent-sized print ad! To doing one radio spot, or putting up one billboard! The reality is that having strongly written information about your company is a real deal, even at prime rates.

I find most writers don’t think about their services through the client’s eyes. Writing is usually part of companies’ marketing budget — and in that context, it’s very affordable compared with many other forms of marketing spend.

So ask for a great rate, and explain why you’ll be worth it. You’ll be surprised how often you find yourself with a wonderful new client who’s happy to have you, and willing to pay you what you deserve.

For more about negotiating rates, see my post for the week on WM Freelance Writing Community - How I Got Paid $300 A Blog.