One of the best ways to earn more as a freelance writer is to develop niche expertise.

Assignments get easier and easier to do, as you learn where the good sources and statistics are for that niche topic. Developing story ideas gets easier too — as sources catch on that you write a lot on their subject, they start tipping you off about breaking news and emerging trends.

You learn more and more about your niche. Eventually, you find you’re irreplaceable for clients in this niche. Invaluable. Your rates go up and up.

Sounds great, yes?

There’s only one big question to answer:

How do you find your niche?

I’m getting this question a lot lately in Freelance Writers Den:

I can’t decide whether I want my writing niche to be A or B.

As soon as I figure that out, I’m going to get started.

Bad news — you will never discover your freelance writing niche by endlessly pondering what topic you should choose as your specialty area.

There is a proven way to do it, though. I know because it worked for me.

How I found my writing niche

One of my first-ever gigs was freelancing for one section of a newspaper, the real estate section. So I wrote a lot about real estate. I found I liked it. The more I did it, the more different aspects of it interested me — how real estate is financed, for instance.

I noticed there were good-paying clients in this niche — real-estate companies, real-estate trade publications. As time went on, I kept growing my knowledge of real estate so I could get more assignments.

My other early gig was writing about community news for an alternative paper. While I found it interesting, it didn’t seem like there was a lot of money in that. And it was pretty straightforward stuff that anybody could report. As the years went on, I pitched fewer of these types of stories.

Later, I was a beat reporter for a business weekly. I got assigned loads of beats — higher education, arts and entertainment, retail, restaurant, franchising, nonprofits, and more. I wrote a lot on each of these topics.

As time went on, I found I enjoyed some of these topics more than others. I noticed everybody and anybody seemed to want to write about arts and entertainment, so I drifted away from that topic.

As my knowledge got more sophisticated, my articles in these areas got more attention. That gave me more credibility as an expert in my topic.

Since I’m a former legal secretary, I loved the lawsuits. Other reporters didn’t want to read those long legal filings, so I became the go-to person to cover business bankruptcies. I learned to read businesses’ SEC filings and charities’ tax forms, too. Soon, I was an indispensable reporter for stories that required document-based reporting.

I was able to build a stable of great-paying freelance clients who craved this expertise. They were easy to land because I had clips to show them that were about their exact topic. These clients were thrilled to get me at any price, because they found it hard to get anyone who understood their industry.

To sum up:

1. I wrote a lot on many different topics, which helped me improve my writing.
2. As I wrote, I learned which topics I liked.
3. Of the topics I liked, I observed which niches paid well, and wrote more on those.
4. I kept developing more sophisticated expertise in my chosen fields.
5. Good-paying clients became fairly easy to land.

What types of niches pay well

I often hear from writers who despair of finding a good-paying niche because they don’t know about financial services, or technology, or healthcare.

Two things about that: When I started, I didn’t know anything about them, either. You can learn as you go, if you have an interest in an area.

And contrary to popular belief, those aren’t the only good-paying niches around.

Anything technical will do. For instance, I recently met a writer whose passionate hobby is jewelry-making. You think there are a lot of writers who know the technical aspects and emerging trends in metalsmithing?

Manufacturers who use that method and need their products described would probably love to meet that writer. Ditto for trade publications for jewelry-makers and other industries that employ metalsmithing.

The myth of the single niche

My story illustrates another point: You do not need or even want to specialize in one, single niche. If your one industry goes in the tank, then you’ve got nothing.

It’s better to carve out several different specialized writing niches where you can claim expertise. At this point, I have many different areas I write on frequently, including legal, tax, insurance, business-finance, real estate, and jobs & careers.

Want to know your best niches? Start writing, and let them find you. You’ll see what you enjoy writing about.

Analyze where you’re seeing the best pay, and keep writing on those topics. The marketplace will point you to your best-paying writing niches.

What are your writing niches? Leave a comment and tell us how you developed your expertise.

P.S. To learn more about lucrative writing niches, see the Great Writing Niches e-course in Freelance Writers Den.

It’s every writer’s dream: Great clients just call you, out of the blue, and ask you to write for them.

You don’t have to look at job ads, go to networking events, or make cold calls.

Think it can’t happen? I know it can, because I haven’t had to actively market my business for over a year now.

Marketing-types call this “inbound marketing.” In other words, the gigs just flow in, rather than you having to go beat the streets for clients.

How does it work?

You need a strong online presence, so those great clients can find you, check you out, and decide you’re the one they want.

Essentially, you’re going to build a network of information online that draws clients to you.

It takes a little work, but it’s so worth it.

You don’t need to be a search engine optimization (SEO) genius, either. You can start getting found by taking a few basic steps.

Here are the elements you need:

1. A strong writer website. We talked about writer websites already in this series, but it’s worth repeating. Wherever else you’re seen online, prospects are going to trail back to your website to read your work.

So get as many great clips on there as you can. And make sure they can read them, without having to download anything.

Most importantly, stuff your writer website with words prospects might use to search for you. If you take a look at my tagline, you can tell what I’m trying to rank highly for on search.

You may not believe that putting a key phrase in your site’s headline or tagline can possibly make a difference with all the websites out there in the great, big Interwebs. But it really will.

You won’t believe the quality of clients that are using natural search to find writers, either. I’ve been hired by several Fortune 500 companies now off searches on Google or LinkedIn for writers in my city.

To help your writer website pop up high on searches for freelance writers, keep updating your site. I have a “favorites” sidebar I like to put new articles into, to keep refreshing my content. If it’s a slow month, I try to find a static page to rewrite a little.

Many writers have their blog hosted on their writer website, which is another way to keep adding content.

Tweeting your article or blog post URL adds another link back to your site, which helps, too.

2. A strong LinkedIn presence. Fully fill out that bio and stuff your profile’s tagline with search terms. Mine says “award-winning writer, blogger, copywriter, and writing mentor.” Those are the gigs I’d like to do more of, so I’m helping people who need those types of writing and mentoring help find me.

Make sure your LinkedIn profile links to your writer website, or offers a portfolio of clips right on LI.

Also fill out the “skills” tabs available on your profile with the writing types you do. Skills are basically another way for search engines to help prospects find you.

3. A “hire me” tab on your blog. Especially if your blog is your main online site, it’s critical that you put a up a “hire me” tab that spells out to visitors that yes, you are available to write for others. I know more than one writer who has immediately gotten good-paying offers after adding a “hire me” tab.

4. Consider more profiles. While you might not want to bid against the universe for gigs on Elance, oDesk or Guru.com, it can be good to have a profile posted on heavily trafficked, highly ranked freelance portals. I call this strategy “lurk, don’t work.” When I got an ebook-ghostwriting nibble from one quality prospect, I discovered they had come across me from a Guru.com profile I’d put up years ago and forgotten.

5. Keep updating everything. What keeps your website and LinkedIn profile ranking well is continuous updates. Try to get on both your profile and your writer site once a week and change something. Do a status update on LinkedIn once a week or so that talks about a writing assignment or challenge you’re facing. Answer a question on there. Participate in your groups. Keep expanding your connections (with people you know, not everyone who sends you an invite.) Tweet a link back to a clip.

Yes, it’s a bit of work to create and update your website and LinkedIn profile — but not much. Once your site is up, you shouldn’t need to spend more than 15 or 20 minutes in a typical week.

Is that more work than developing customized prospecting emails, or sitting through those Chamber luncheons? I don’t think so.

And there’s nothing like the feeling you get when the phone rings and a prospect says, “I saw you on LinkedIn, and was wondering if you have some availability to write for us.”

Next up on Marketing 101: How to market your writing if you have no clips. Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss upcoming installments of this 21-week marketing series.

Waterfall: MEJones – stock.xchng

Do I have your attention now?

That headline was pretty grabby, huh. Sort of made you have to click on it to find out how to get good clients.

That’s the magic of a well-constructed headline. It works like a magnet to suck readers onto your blog — and not just any readers, but exactly the readers you wanted. The ones who’re interested in just what you have to offer.

If you know how to write a compelling headline, it can also make editors love your query letter.

It can make businesses read your emailed letter of introduction and give you call.

Great headlines get you good-paying writing gigs.

Then, when other businesses and publications see the headlines you wrote for your clients, they call you up. They can’t wait to have you bring your writing savvy over to their website.

You’re done marketing your writing business. Your strong headlines do the job for you.

Why doesn’t everybody write great headlines?

It’s sort of an art form unto itself.

Lots of us who came up through journalism and newspapers weren’t trained to write headlines. That’s an editor’s job, we were told.

Others have been grabbing titles off content-mill dashboards, where the headline is pre-written by the SEO department.

Bottom line: Lots of writers don’t have any experience or training in how to write headlines. And their careers are suffering as a result.

I have reviewed hundreds of writers’ blogs, and I can tell you, bad headlines are an epidemic. I scan a typical blog, and I can’t even figure out the topic. Nothing makes me want to click through and read more. I’m not surprised when I see there are no subscribers, no comments, and nothing is getting sold.

So if you learn to write good headlines, you can really stand out.

What’s wrong with most writers’ headlines?

Three quick headline-improvement tips:

1. Use key words. Headlines like “Watch out for the red flags,” or “Another day” (both ones I’ve recently read) don’t tell me what the post is about, or who it is for. So search engines don’t find it when I search on what I want to know. And I don’t read it.
2. Tell me your topic. What will I learn about if I read your post? Your headline needs to tell me, so I’ll want to click over and read it.
3. Leave a little mystery. The headline of this post told you there’s a way to write headlines that will bring you great clients, but it didn’t tell you exactly how.  You needed to read the post to find out.

I have a confession to make.

I didn’t write that headline — Jon Morrow did.

Jon is one of the best headline writers around. He wrote the Headline Hacks report on how to create sure-to-go-viral headlines that Copyblogger uses as a guide for its writers.

His blog posts often get 1,000 retweets or more. Maybe you read How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise and Get Paid to Change the World, or A 7-Step Guide to Mind Control: How to Quit Begging and Make People Want to Help You. Yeah. That guy.

How does he do it? I’m going to find out, and you can listen in.

Come hear Jon’s headline-writing tips on a free call. It’s time for our monthly Freelance Writers Den’ Open House call, and I’ve roped Jon into coming to share his headline secrets.

All you have to do is register over on Jon’s site — we’ll send you the info on how to tune in for the call tomorrow at noon PST/3 EST.

If you’re like me, shortly after 2011 ended you wondered: “How much did I earn from freelance writing this year?”

Last year I did a marketing analysis…and this year I wanted to take it a step further and do an income analysis.

Not because I dream of being inundated by people who’d like to sell me products and services because they think I’m rolling in dough (ha! three kids…college tuition…). No.

It’s because looking at where your writing income is coming from is a very important exercise.

You learn a lot about how to improve your business for the next year. I want you to do this math for your writing business, too, as it will help you make better use of your time and earn more in 2012.

I had a goal of cracking six figures because I had narrowly missed that level in 2010, and that pissed me off. I’m very self-competitive that way.

A quick glance at the reports in my handy Freshbooks invoicing system tells me this year I made it. Still a few small tinkerings to do to make sure every gig is included and everything’s in the right column, but as a rough estimate, I’m there.

Just to be clear, I’m talking about what I earned from freelance writing — not including income from my work here helping other writers earn more. (My net freelance income was also a bit smaller than my gross as I did some subcontracting to other writers.)

If you’re wanting to mention to me that the economy kept right on sucking in 2011…yes, I noticed. Still, the freelance-writing market is so large that if you really go after it, you can still find plenty of business and earn well.

How’d I do it? Freshbooks has this great feature where I can instantly view revenue by client, so I have a ready breakdown for you.

Here’s a description of each major client I had in 2011, roughly what percentage of my income came from each client, and how I found them.

Takeaways:

• Social media is increasingly important. Without my LinkedIn and Twitter activity and working on my writer website SEO, I would have been out about one-third of my entire income.
• Keep marketing. Even though I have a stable of great clients, you can’t ever get complacent and stop marketing. As I look down this list, more than half of this work came from new clients.
• Ongoing contracts help create steady income. You want to target magazines and businesses that are big enough to send you a steady stream of work, rather than one-off projects. That really cuts down your marketing time, there’s less feast-or-famine cycle, and it gives you the peace of mind of starting each month with a good chunk of your revenue already booked.
• Keep growing your network. You can never know enough editors and writers. I got a couple of key referrals that led to interesting, lucrative projects.
• Blog in a high-profile place… I was surprised to see how many clients came from the visibility I get from one of my big blogging gigs. Any time you get a chance to write for a high-traffic website where you think prospects visit, you want to do it. Better yet, target this type of client as a goal for 2012. More than one-third of my clients called me after seeing my other work online.
• But don’t blog too much. In 2010, I had more blogging work and earned less. Blogging isn’t the highest-paying form of writing out there, even if you’re getting $100 or so a post, which is my goal. Blogging is good for visibility and I find it fun (obviously!), but save some room for articles, white papers or other better-paying writing assignments.
• Think recession-proof industries. I was also surprised to see how much of my income was focused in financial-services firms. Between them and hospital — another recession-proof area — that’s close to one-third of my total income.
• Keep stretching. This was a year of breakthroughs for me. I did my first government contract, taking a leap into a writing type and client type I hadn’t done before. I also took on a chunk of a business book, writing 3,000-word chapters that each required piles of research. You have to be willing to take some risks and learn new things to move into new, high-paid areas and keep your income growing.
• There’s lots of good business-writing gigs in articles and blogs. As my chart shows, you don’t have to know how to write longform direct-mail letters or ad copy to earn well as a commercial freelance writer. All my corporate work was articles and blog posts this year, plus an annual-report project.
• It doesn’t take a lot of clients to earn a good living. I made three-quarters of my income off about six clients. If you target quality prospects, you don’t need a huge client list to earn well.
• One-off projects suck. I think one of the reasons I earned more this year is I concentrated closely on driving more business through fewer large clients, rather than doing more small accounts. Each client takes administrative time, so fewer is better. I made a decision about mid-year to drop several small-business clients because I felt it was too inefficient to earn that way, and I think that instinct was dead on. As soon as I cleared those few small accounts out, I got huge new projects from better-quality clients.
• Watch your fees. If your clients pay you via PayPal, you are paying as much as 3% in fees. I saw roughly $9,000 of payments come through on PayPal, but I paid almost nothing in fees, as Freshbooks offers a special deal where I only pay $.50 a transaction. I estimate that saved several hundred dollars of income that might otherwise have been sucked away in transaction fees.

I’m not expecting to earn as much from freelancing in 2012, as I’ll be concentrating more on writing my own ebooks, teaching, and creating useful content and live events for members of Freelance Writers Den. But it’s good to know that if I need to, I can earn a good living just from freelance writing.

Want to earn six figures in 2012? You might want to listen in on a free call I’m hosting Thursday at noon PST: “How to Write Headlines So Irresistible, Big-Money Clients Beg You to Write for Them.” I’ll be interviewing the best headline writer on the Internet, Jon Morrow of Copyblogger, and getting him to spill his headline secrets. Register here.

Today, I only want to talk about one tiny thing. It’s usually less than three inches long.

But it can have an outsized impact on your freelance writing income.

Have you guessed? I’m talking business cards here, people.

That’s right, the marketing tool that’s older than dirt.

There’s a reason business cards are still around. It’s because they’re useful.

Even if you have no plans to do in-person networking, I want you to get some. (There’s really no excuse since you can get free ones from places like VistaPrint.)

Why do you need business cards in today’s digital world?

Because you never know.

You never know when a casual conversation at your kid’s school will turn up the news that Joey’s dad heads marketing at a medium-sized company in an industry you know.

And then you start fumbling around and scribbling your number down on a napkin? That’s not very pro. And that scribble will be easily lost or mislaid.

And then you open your purse and take out a business card and hand it to his wife? Now you’re talking.

Next, Joey gets that card and sticks it on his desk, where it hangs around for a few months until he suddenly realizes he’s swamped.

He needs a freelance writer. And he doesn’t really have time to look through 300 resumes off a Craigslist ad.

Then he says, “Didn’t I get a card from a writer recently?” He looks around his desk, and there you are.

Most businesspeople keep cardfiles of business cards, so the card allows your info to hang around their office until a prospect is ready to use you.

How to make your business card better

Here’s the thing about most business cards: They’re boring.

When you’re a freelance writer, you can’t let that happen to your business card. That little square of paper is an opportunity to show you are a word stylist.

Mine shows my title as “CEO and Janitor,” which almost never fails to get a reaction.

Linda Formichelli’s says “My clients think I’m swell.”

You want something on there that starts a conversation, and gives a sense of your personality. Otherwise, you haven’t made the sale that you’re a creative writer.

You can also use that often-blank other side of the business card to make your card one that’s never thrown away.

How? Put an offer on it — 15% off your first project, or a free half-hour consult. Whatever makes sense for your business.

Now that card is never hitting the trash — that’d be like throwing away money.

21st Century business cards

Beyond the writing, what can you do to make your business card special?

I use one of the most obvious ways — instead of paper cards, make business-card magnets. Those get tossed onto the front of the filing cabinet and then stay there forever.

The minute you hand it over, people feel the weight and start looking it over. You’ve made an impression.

Magnets cost more than business cards, so I’m saying, “I take this seriously. And I’m not cheap.”

Also, when’s the last time you threw out a refrigerator magnet? They’re so useful!

If you’re really slick, you could put a QR code on your business card that leads savvy recipients to more information about you — maybe a special offer page on your writer website, or a free report they can read.

You can also give your business card social-media style with new formats such as Meet-meme, a baseball trading-card style business card that can include lots of your social media stats…and a QR code, too.

There are loads of eye-catching new twists on the business card you could try. For inspiration, here’s a great post that’s got 21 different examples of ways to use QR codes on business cards.

Whatever strikes your fancy in business-card style, get business cards. They’re as much for you as they are for prospects.

When you hold those little rectangles in your hand, you can’t deny it — you’re a freelance writer. You have a business. You’re looking for clients.

Now, you’re ready to go out and promote it.

Do you have a business card? If so, share what makes your card stand out.

Next up on Marketing 101: How to get a steady flow of new-client nibbles without a lot of work. Click here to see the first episode of Marketing 101…it’s an important one. Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss upcoming installments of this 21-week marketing series.

Business card photo: contracox on stock.xchng

by Reesy Floyd-Thompson

Writers are often taught the first rule of writing is, “Write what you know,” and the second rule is, “Specialize.” But what if what you know represents the worst of society, or inspires strong not-so-nice opinions?

What if what you know has been the source of a lot of pain and shame, or your specialty is just plain unpopular?

Hold on to your keyboards folks, my drama is a doozy.

My husband is incarcerated.

More to the point, I’m married to a murderer.

If you have read this far, breathe. The worst is over.

Having this reality does not make me one of the cool kids, but living this reality provides the setting for lots of interesting stories.

How do I take what I know and turn it into something the average person might care about? When I write about my life, I write with C.A.R.E.

Try these four techniques to make your personal drama more relatable:

1. Write Commonalities. We are constantly bombarded with messages on how we are not the same. But sameness helps us relate to each other.

Write the synonyms of humanity by focusing on universal themes of love, marriage, commitment, happiness, pain, and forgiveness. In my writing, I draw parallels with long-distance relationships or long deployments. Tap into those things people understand and the part they don’t understand becomes less relevant.

2. Write Authentically. I love true crime stories and this one is no exception. I’m honest about all aspects of this life, from the good (yes, there is some) to the absolute horrific.  By showing I’m a “real” person, it helps minimize fear and misconceptions.

Authenticity is twofold. Be genuine in telling your story but allow the audience to be genuine in their response, which may include harsh criticism. Relatable doesn’t mean writing to make people like you. It simply means telling your story in such a way it strikes a chord with your audience, even if that chord is anger.

3. Roast Yourself. When you read my big reveal, it probably conjured up the image of women feverishly hanging on at the prison gates for the next notorious serial killer. Let me assure you, I’m not that girl.

However, I’m an African-American woman with a man in prison–a walking, talking cliché. I wasn’t voted most likely to have a man in prison, yet here I sit with this reality. I don’t take myself too seriously and neither should you. Humor is the best way to crack the veneer of “We have nothing in common” and get to the core of kindness.

4. Expand Your Message. The ups and downs of having an incarcerated spouse have all the elements of an epic love story (take it from me), but focusing squarely on this angle is not the way to reach a broader audience. Crime affects all of us in one way or another, from increasing property values to diminishing neighborhoods and schools, which affects education.

And what about convictions of the truly innocent? Are we all at risk? Open your message. Use research and hard statistics to expand and emphasize your point.

We all have unique personal drama. By using a little C.A.R.E., freelance writers can specialize in the art of making their story relevant, no matter how unrelatable it may seem.

What personal drama would you like to write about? Leave a comment and share your story.

Reesy Floyd-Thompson lives a double life. She is a freelance writer and marketing consultant who specializes in public relations writing at ReesyFloyd-Thompson.com. Reesy is also the founder of Prisoners’ Wives, Girlfriends, & Partners (PWGP). She blogs and writes a monthly column about life with an incarcerated husband.

Is life with your writing clients a few sandwiches short of a picnic?

Maybe your client insists you attend their staff meetings without pay. Or they pay 90 days after checks are due, only after you nag them a half-dozen times.

Then there’s the screamer. The company that has your work gang-edited by an eight-person team. The magazine editor who sends back your work covered in red ink. The solopreneur who wants to instant-message you at all hours, seven days a week.

And, of course, the one who pays you one-tenth what you should be getting paid.

Whatever the particulars, it adds up to one thing: Your client is a Pain In The Ass.

It can be sort of fun to complain about your PITA clients. “Can you believe they did this?” you moan to your writer friends.

But even more fun is resolving your PITA problems and having only pleasant, productive, positive relationships with your clients.

Here are my five tips for keeping your client list PITA-free:

1. Make initial contracts short. I like a 60-90 day initial contract. This gives you a natural opportunity to redefine your working relationship after a short period of time. Once you find out your client is desperately needy or really wants 750-word blog posts, not 250, this is your chance to raise your rates — or to bow out and move on.
2. Clearly define boundaries. Without exception, PITA clients are boundary-pushers. Whatever they should reasonably expect from you, they want more. So make sure you spell out exactly what you are doing for the money. You want to know when things are due, how soon they pay, the length of your piece, how many interviews they expect, when you’ll need to be available for calls or meetings…the works.
3. Ignore them. Often, PITAs want loads of your time. Simply be unavailable, at least sometimes. You don’t have to answer that email, phone call, or instant message right away. You want to communicate to them that you are busy and they are not your only client (even if they are). Make it clear you are not going to be their 24/7 on-call staff writer at freelance rates…or you’ll find that’s exactly what you’ve become.
4. Charge them more. It’s amazing what doubling your rate can do for your feelings that a client is a PITA. Suddenly, their annoying foibles don’t seem as oppressive. Whenever you feel frustrated, you can always take a look at your bank balance to remind you why you put up with them.
5. Say goodbye. In the end, you’ve got to weigh all the factors: How bad do you need the income from this client? How stressed out are you by them? If you asked for a raise and they’re not going for it, and you feel like you’re gonna puke every time you have to talk to them, it’s probably time to give notice that you’ll be moving on. The bonus? Often, as soon as you do, a better client comes along. You’ve just made room in your life for something better, so it has a chance to appear.

No matter what strategy you use to rein in your PITA, remember the most important rule: Stay professional.

Yes, I know they throw tantrums and talk nasty. But don’t you do it. Leave all your doors open and bridges unburned — never know when you might want to use them again.

Have you had a PITA client? Leave a comment and tell us how you dealt with it.

Anyone who has spent a week looking at the writing jobs posted on Craigslist knows online job ads are not a great source of top-paying clients.

The best clients, you find doing your own proactive marketing.

However…there are a few creative ways you can use job ads to find good gigs.

The key is to not let online job ads take up too much of your marketing time. You need to scan the ads quickly and move on to more effective marketing methods (namely, just about anything else).

I went through more than a year solid where I was scanning the job ads nearly every day. After a while, I got it down to a system and didn’t spend more than about 15 minutes a day on it.

How did I do it? Here are my seven tips for how to quickly find good leads in the job ads:

1. Look at the ads for full-time jobs. Yes, you’re not really looking for a full-time job. But when a company is advertising for a full-time person, my experience in 12 years of staff-writing jobs says that means the publication or company is now freelancing out that staffer’s workload to avoid overloading the remaining staffers.

Concentrate your attention on the companies that are a perfect fit — you know their industry or read their publication.

Maybe they need someone to fill in until they complete their job search? Maybe they also use freelancers regularly, as well as in-house writers? You won’t know unless you ask.

The full-time job ad simply provides me with a good contact. So if it’s a company or publication that fits my expertise, I go ahead and apply. I say, “Hi there, not looking for full-time, I’m actually a happy freelancer. But I have the skills you need (I usually throw in a few relevant samples here). Do you use freelancers?”

I’ve scored several great new editor connections this way over the years, including two in the past year or so that paid $1 a word. It’s a great way to get your name in front of people that use writers, at a time when they may well need help.

2. Be picky. As I hinted above, you don’t want to apply to a lot of online job ads, as most will be a waste of your time. So skip everything that asks for free samples, or says you can write about any topic you like, or that they have unlimited assignments. These are never good gigs. Be very wary of blind ads, where the company isn’t identified. You’re looking for the ad that seems like it was made for you — it mentions the exact expertise you have, and the company checks out as a real, decent-sized, going concern. That’s the one you want to take the time to apply for.

3. Look at site-specific job ads out of your area. I’m selective here — if it says anything like “meet with us weekly at our Akron offices,” I move on. On the other hand, if the ad title mentions a city, but the ad text doesn’t describe anything that needs to be done in person, and it mentions my expertise, I go ahead and apply if the company seems legit.

Just ask right up top if they’d consider someone working remotely. Play up your expertise both in their field, and your expertise in working remotely.

4. Watch for paid listings. Companies that place paid ads are usually established, legitimate organizations. Specialized job boards and organizations’ job listings are often paid situations. These companies are telling you something when they take out that paid ad — they want to post in more exclusive places as they don’t have time to wade through 300 resumes.

To me, a paid listing qualifies that client right away as a good lead.

5. Use social media. If you’re not looking at the jobs on LinkedIn, I highly recommend it — many of the listings are exclusive to the site. And LinkedIn listings are paid listings, which as we’ve just discussed is highly desirable.

LI is a great place to find full-time job ads you can piggyback on with your freelance request, as per #1. You can also try to use your connections to get a referral attached to your application, which I’m told greatly increases your odds of getting the contact’s attention in the pile of resumes they are likely receiving.

Twitter is also a growing place for freelance gigs. Not only can you tweet about the work you’re looking for, but you can use Twitter’s search feature to troll for jobs. Some of the sites mentioned above are on Twitter tweeting about listings, so you could get a jump on the masses this way.

There are an increasing number of job-focused tweeters, too — I’ve checked out  @WritersDigest, @FSsJobs (that’s Freelance Switch), @tweetajob, and many others.

Even Facebook is getting into the act lately — I’ve been spotting some interesting-looking listings going up from Facebook4Freelancers, which has a lot of writer listings.

6. Look for niche job boards. Get off Craigslist and find more exclusive job boards. These usually focus on one niche area. For instance, as a business-finance writer I’ve had good luck with Gorkana Alerts (they’ve got alerts for healthcare and media, too). You’ll have to do some sleuthing to find where your best ads hang out, but it can be well worth it if you find a good board. I got one of my biggest, long-term blogging gigs through my niche board.

7. Try the Junk-Free Job Board. Inside Freelance Writers Den, we’ve developed a job board that scans dozens of the mass job-ad places, screens out all the junk, and then only presents better offers (thanks to some tech help from Ty). Some weeks there’s hardly anything on it — a testament to how few good jobs can really be found online. But the few listings we have tend to be quality, and all are a cut above the usual $5-$10 article offers. You save a ton of time by not having to wade through the junk, and quite a few Denizens have already gotten good gigs from them. The bonus: I pass on a lot of freelance offers I get these days, and when I do, I often add that lead to the job board, too.

In this market, it pays to get creative when you’re looking for clients. If you’re not able to go out and do in-person networking, a discerning scan of the job ads can help you turn up good clients without leaving home.

How have you found good clients through online ads? Leave a comment and let us know.

See the previous installments of Marketing 101 for Freelance Writers starting here. Next up: how to make a classic marketing tool super-useful. Subscribe and you won’t miss any of this 21-part marketing series

Have you picked up some new lingo recently?

Retweet. Blog. Hashtag. Friend. Like. New words, and old words with new meanings.

Freelance writers should pay close attention to these changes. Because words are powerful.

New words signal a shift in our culture. The way we communicate is changing — and I believe it’s going to transform how writers earn a living in the future.

What’s happening now reminds me a bit eerily of the old Twilight Zone TV series’ episode, “The Parallel,” in which an astronaut returns to find Earth is similar to — but not exactly like — the planet he left.

One notable change: He can’t read anymore, because the language has evolved in a different direction. His child has to teach him how to read again.

Otherwise, he’ll be left behind in a bewildering, familiar-yet-strange society.

This is where freelance writers who don’t know social media are right now.

There’s a new language that’s emerged, and a new way of connecting. If you don’t understand it, I believe you will soon find yourself in a parallel world — one where you will struggle to earn well.

Eventually, you may find yourself with a limited potential client pool, as social media spreads into every corner of media and business life.

A couple comments I’ve heard recently:

“What’s a hashtag, anyway?”

“My editor told me to send the related links with my story…what does that mean?”

When I see a blog-post headline like, “Another Day,” I know that blogger doesn’t understand Internet search and how important headlines are now.

What’s happening here?

Writers are getting left behind

These writers are slowly making themselves obsolete, because they don’t know how to communicate online.

I don’t tell you this because I want to scare you.

I want you to see this coming and get ahead of it.

Why you should learn about social media

Writers who aren’t on social media often tell me they don’t do it because they don’t get it. Where’s the payoff?

So here’s what social media has done for me lately:

• One editor I found on Twitter last year assigned me ten $2,000 online articles.
• I routinely locate hard-to-find sources I need by asking my network on LinkedIn and Twitter.
• I connected with the founder of a major corporation (unreachable through ordinary corporate-PR channels) whom I urgently needed to speak to for a book gig by commenting on his blog.
• I discovered business-finance sources I needed for one story no longer check email, and can only be contacted on Twitter.
• A top blogger contacted me for a guest post after seeing one of my posts linked on Twitter, which led to several awesome writing opportunities.
• I make $100 an hour training small business owners on how to socialize their blog posts.
• I got lucrative blogging gigs for both magazines and businesses based on my social-media audience and knowledge of social-media promotion.

It’s already an advantage if you’re social-media savvy

But a year or two from now, you may be unable to develop queries and get the interviews you need for today’s online markets. Which are growing bigger and more lucrative all the time.

So if you haven’t already taken the plunge, get started and learn it. There’s plenty on this blog about Twitter and LinkedIn (even more here), and more all over the Internet.

Yes, it can seem intimidating when others have thousands of followers.

But I can promise you, it won’t be easier to start next year.

Are you active in social media? Leave a comment and tell us about how you use social media as a writer.

I’m not the greatest writer ever to pick up a pen.

In fact, I marvel at the work of more skilled writers almost daily.

I consider my husband who went to UCLA Film School to be the creative genius of the family.

I certainly feel I’m a competent writer. But I’m not outstanding.

So how do I earn six figures as a freelance writer? (Yep, happened again last year.)

How do I pull that off, when hordes of more talented writers can’t seem to keep their fridge stocked on what they make from their craft?

Here are the reasons I believe I’m an outstanding earner, even though I’m not an exceptional writer:

• I’ve got positive vibes. I like myself, think writing is really fun, and know I have a lot to offer clients. I think prospects pick up on that.
• I’m willing to put myself out there. When the economy went down in 2009, I learned how to market myself as a freelance writer. From scratch. I went to in-person networking events, answered online job ads, got on social media… I became a marketing machine.
• I love to learn new stuff. When I discover an obstacle to my earning more, I climb right over it. Technology is not my strong suit, but I slogged along and learned how Twitter worked. I learned about SEO. I learned three different blogging platforms.
• I’m kind of a dork. What can I say? I was a legal secretary for years. My dad sold life insurance. I used to think this was a shameful history, until I started making big bucks writing on legal and insurance topics. Often, these gigs are not for national magazines, but they pay the bills like you wouldn’t believe. Speaking of which…
• I don’t need my name in lights. While a lot of writers dream of seeing their byline on the covers of glossy national newsstand magazines, I’m not hung up about where my work appears — or if my name is even on it. I’m open to both publications and businesses as clients. That flexibility keeps my income growing.
• I can’t resist a challenge. When a client throws me an assignment about something arcane — say, actuarial forecasting — I’m delighted. I get bored if I’m writing on the same topic all the time, so I welcome writing gigs that force me to stretch.
• I negotiate. Where most writers seem to jump at the chance to work for any rate no matter how bitty, I’m a student of the art of dealmaking. I’ve earned tens of thousands more over the years by making counter-offers and holding out for a rate I believe is fair.

What skills have helped you earn well from writing? Leave a comment and tell us about your strategies.

P.S. Here’s how you can become a high-earning writer: Get the knowledge you need to land good clients and run a successful freelance-writing business in today’s fast-changing media world. The Freelance Writers Blast Off Class – a 4-week course I teach with Renegade Writer Linda Formichelli — starts next week. (Congrats to Christen, who won a ticket to the class’s Participation level in my Friday contest, and to Jason, who won a ticket to Audit the Blastoff.)

Due to the holiday, Blast Off registration has been extended through tomorrow (Tuesday).