By Alexandria Ingham

Taking a long absence makes it harder to come back.

After having my daughter, I decided to take some time off writing and focus on helping her during the first couple of months.

I loved the time that I got to spend with her, but eventually maternity leave ran out and I needed to get back to writing for a living.

I know many people struggle to come back after a long period away – I took nine months off! I’d read of many people going back to freelancing and having to accept a lower wage – or being worried about asking for more after the break.

I needed extra pay to cover all the extra costs I’d have with my daughter.

Here are the steps I took to get ready for my comeback:

Update Your Website (Or Create One!)

A couple of months before coming back, I made sure that the Internet was ready for me. Maternity leave in the UK allows you 10 “keeping in touch days” where you can come into work, so I used them.

I updated my photo, improved the testimonials and updated my samples. I’d stopped promoting my website while off and let many of my blogs disappear into obscurity but it didn’t take long to put a plan together to update them.

Focusing on sprucing up your site beforehand means you can focus on trying to write to make a living once you’re back. You have the admin out of the way and can make sure that clients find you.

Find and subscribe to interesting blogs

I tried to stay on top of changes while away, but it didn’t work too well. I needed to catch up on the changes and quickly!

I started looking for blogs that covered my interests, such as this one, and spent two months before my start date finding other writing blogs, technology blogs (my main niche) and those covering Internet marketing.

Subscribe to a few of the interesting blogs that offer something useful and look over past posts. I spent evenings looking through posts and making notes and to-do lists.

Inform previous clients you’re back

Instead of finding all new clients, I contacted previous ones to let them know I was back. I wanted to know if they still needed content.

Once clients said they did still need content and were happy to see me back, then I let them know about the increase in rates.

Raise your rates

I was cheeky and doubled the rates I’d previously written at, which some clients were happy to accept.

Not all clients agreed to it. Some negotiations were needed. Some clients wanted a little more work for the extra rate (not double, just an author bio or for me to find images).

Then I got myself out there and marketed with the new rates in mind.

Don’t worry, start marketing

Don’t sit at home worrying about making a comeback. It doesn’t matter why you took a break or how long it was for.

Fear gets you nowhere. If you don’t ask, you don’t get!

Alexandria Ingham loves to write and learn new things. When she’s not writing, she’s learning about history, law, and anything new that comes her way. Learn more about her at alexandria-ingham.com.

Recently, I took on 200 new members of Freelance Writers Den. It’s always interesting to hear the stories of members and why they join.

One tale I hear from many of the writers. The details vary, but the basic drift goes like this:

“I’ve been making $8 an article on [insert name of your favorite content mill or bid site here].

Now I’m broke and never have time to figure out how to earn any more money. I’m burned out from having to write hundreds of articles quickly to make even grocery money.

Can you help?”

Yes, I can. I’m going to tell you to do something that may sound crazy, but trust me, it’s going to pay off big in the end.

Stop writing for peanuts.

I know. That sounds terrifying. But if you’re serious about building a lucrative freelance writing career, it’s really what you should do.

Why? When you write for a pittance, bad things happen.

What should you do instead? Write a few projects for quality clients for free.

How is writing for free a faster road to great freelance earnings than writing for cheap?

Let me tell you what you get when you do free-sample work instead of being underpaid and overworked by a bid site or content mill:

Clarity.

When you write for free, there’s never a confusion that this particular writing activity could turn into a living somehow, if you could just figure out how to crank out six or ten articles per hour, eight hours a day. With free writing, you know it won’t ever pay your bills.

You’re clear on why you’re doing this writing — because you love writing short stories, you need a writing sample for your portfolio, or you love the charity whose newsletter you volunteer to create.

It’s a step on the road to where you want to go. And because it pays nothing, it’s not a step you’ll be tempted to linger on. Instead, you’ll want to quickly move forward from your pro bono work to paying gigs.

Self-esteem.

There’s something about writing for laughably low rates that kills writers’ souls.

You start thinking somewhere deep down that $8 is all you deserve. That your writing must not really be very good. When in fact mill pay is low because their business model is broken. It’s nothing to do with you.

The way writers are treated on content mills can be unpleasant, too, along with the low pay.

Pretty soon, you feel scared to even pitch anywhere better.

Every time I see a writer comment on a forum that “content mills are a great place to get started,” I just cringe.

Honestly, I have to say I don’t think it they are, if your dream is to pay serious bills from your craft and not just earn a little date-night money.

If you simply need to get a few samples and do some practice writing, start your own blog. That way you’ll have control over what gets published, and be creating a site you could build and monetize if you want, and you’ll keep the rights to all your posts.

When you do a volunteer project for a local business, small-town newspaper, or local charity, you have the pride of knowing you wrote for a real-world client and pleased them. That work can get you noticed and often lead to the next client, too.

You’ve proven you can write professionally, and it feels good. That helps you pitch paying clients with confidence.

Clips.

Besides the skinny paychecks, cheapo articles for content mills often don’t produce any viable clips for your portfolio. Maybe you get lucky here and your Demand article ends up in USA Today online or something…but those breaks seem to be rare.

We all know many editors throw queries right in the trash when the writer’s bio line reveals their whole experience is writing for Textbroker or Demand Studios. This is another reason writing for mills is a trap…you often don’t get any clips that help you move up.

When you do pro bono work for legit companies or nonprofits, you end up with real samples that can impress prospects and get you hired for real-pay gigs.

Marketing.

When you write for $8 — or $15, or whatever the pittance is — you never have time to market your business and find better clients. You’re trapped in a gerbil-wheel cycle of having to write every waking moment just to keep the lights on.

When you let that go and focus on the long-term goal of finding real paying clients, you realize there’s only one way to get them.

You’re going to have to aggressively market your business. So that’s what you do.

Because you’re hungry. And you want to find those clients fast, so you can make real money and avoid having to crawl back to a cubicle job.

Raises.

It’s impossible to get a raise from super-low rates to anything reasonable. Raises are usually incremental, but getting a 10 percent raise on $8 isn’t going to change your life. You’d have to get a tenfold raise for the pay to start to amount to anything, and that just ain’t gonna happen.

And you can’t get that raise anyway, because mills almost never raise their rates. These are clients whose pay won’t ever change, so you’ll never move up.

To create a freelance business where pay will steadily grow, you have to find a different kind of client — the kind where after six months or a year, you could get more money.

If you’re too broke to quit writing for cheap right now, come up with a savings plan now that could free up a few weeks of your time to try the free-writing strategy for building your freelance writing business.

Then challenge yourself to stay away from Craigslist ads, content mills and the like for just 30 days. Nobody I know who’s tried this has ever had to go back to writing for peanuts.

Have you written for free, or for cheap? Leave a comment and tell us what you do and why.

Let’s face it — most blogs don’t pay for guest posts. It’s considered a marketing activity by the writer, who gets a link back to their site.

That can be worth it, too. I’ve gotten some amazing connections and clients from blogging on popular sites.

But I believe writers should be paid for their work. And sites that take guest posts still get a piece of writing out of the deal.

So I did a crazy thing…

Back in late 2010, I did something sort of nuts — I decided to start paying for guest posts.

At the time, my audience was pretty small and I was still earning most of my living from freelance writing.

It didn’t make economic sense on the face of it. I just thought it was the right thing to do.

I needed to put my money where my mouth was. I hoped I might inspire (or is that shame?) some other bloggers into paying for posts as well. I also hoped being different from the norm by being a paying writing market might get this little blog some attention.

And it worked

On both fronts, it worked! Make a Living Writing has received loads of attention, subscribers, and traffic from being published in many digests of paying markets. Even better, quite a few sites decided to pay after seeing me do it.

But I’ve neglected a critical last step here — to connect you to those paying markets so you could rake in some cash.

Fixing that now. Here’s my personal list of blogs that pay around $50 a post or more, from my own writers’ guidelines page. They’re listed in the order they began paying for posts, most recent first:

1. Your Online Biz — Thrilled to have inspired Darnell Jackson to top me — he began paying $100 a post in March 2013. Nice job, Darnell.
2. Write Your Revolution — Sarah Russell’s blog joined the ranks of $50-a-post paying markets in February.
3. Be a Freelance Blogger — Sophie Lizard has joined the smart set and now pays $50 a post.
4. The Renegade Writer – Excited to add Freelance Writers Den’s Other Den Mother Linda Formichelli to the list of people who’re taking the high road and paying $50 a post.
5. ReadLearnWrite – Paying $50 a post after seeing my Problogger post about paid guesting in Feb. 2012.
6. David Worrell’s blog, Rock Solid Finance (formerly Your Inside Guy) was the first niche blogger to jump on board my bandwagon and start pay $50 for guests posts back in late 2010. So I think he’s the coolest. You should definitely read his blog.
   
7. Freelance Switch – they pay around $75 per post. So I think they’re cool. And now I even guest blog for them on a regular basis myself. (They are owned by Envato, which has a half-dozen other sites that pay, too.)
8. HouseLogic – This site operated by the National Association of Realtors pays $1 a word — I had an opportunity to interview their editor a while back for an article for The 2013 Writer’s Market. If you’ve got a good twist on a shelter story and strong reporting skills, you know where to go now.
9. One Spoon at a Time — Paul Wolfe was inspired to start paying $50 a post back in Fall 2011. This one was inspired by my announcement…feels good to know I’m helping to create new paid markets for writers.
10. OnText – OK, they only pay $40 a post. But maybe some of you would like to know anyway, I’m betting.
11. Patch – AOL’s Patch.com, as of this writing, often pays $50 and up for short blog-postlike articles.
12. Make a Living Writing — can’t forget to mention my own site! Still proudly paying $50 a post. (Due to overwhelming response, I now only take guest posts from students or grads of Freelance Writers Den or Jon Morrow’s Guest Blogging course.)

Those dozen get you started. Fortunately, a couple other bloggers have been busy compiling more helpful info on blogs that pay, and now there are several other good lists out there — and I’ve collected links to all of them here.

How to find 100+ more paying markets

Two are by Bamidele Onibalusi of the newly renamed Writers in Charge (formerly YoungPrePro), and one is by the abovementioned Sophie Lizard of Be a Freelance Blogger. One older list is from the freelance-training site Matador. The assignments range from blog posts for niche bloggers to fully reported online feature articles for major national magazines’ online sites.

Here are links to those below:

•  Writers in Charge’s original list of 30 paying markets (which really lists 33)
• Sophie Lizard’s 2012 list of 45 Paying Markets (has good deets on the rest of those Envato sites I mentioned above)
• Writers In Charge’s 2013 list of 45 More Markets (which really has 46).
• Matador’s 2010 list of 27 markets feature a wide range of pay rates up to $1 a word+ and Matador is itself a paying market, as Oni notes on one of his lists. Rates may have changed at some markets since this was published, but it’s a nice compendium of higher payers.

I got curious and compared all these lists to see how many listings were unique. Eliminating all the duplication between the lists and counting my 12 above, there are nearly 120 unique paying websites and blogs listed in all. Nice, huh?

I’m thrilled to have helped add a few names to these lists of places that pay. Possibly my finest achievement here on the blog.

Now that you know how many markets pay, I have to ask:

Why not get paid?

As a blogger, you’ve got a choice when you look to guest post. If you’re going to guest post for exposure, I say, why not get paid, too?

I recommend making paying guest markets your top priority. That’s what I’ve done and it’s allowed me to earn quite a lot while also getting attention for my writing and my blog.

And if you have a blog you’re looking to build, consider paying for guest posts. Just a suggestion.

Ever gotten paid for a guest post? If you know more paying markets, please add to my list.

If you’ve been stuck working for peanuts for freelance clients you can’t stand, you’re going to love this.

It’s a way to find better clients by tuning into your own feelings.

The fun thing is, your main guide to additional freelance success can be an emotion you might not associate with business that much. But it’s one we all really enjoy feeling.

Have you guessed what it is?

A few hints:

“Do what you ___ and the money will follow.”

“All you need is ____.”

“God is _____.”

That’s right. Could it be that simple? Yes, it can.

How to love your way to higher rates

I recently encountered the theme of employing love in your business twice in the past few weeks. Which was enough repetition to finally bring it home to me what a road to riches this emotion can be.

First, my pal Linda Formichelli sent me a chapter of entrepreneur and Sufi teacher Mark Silver’s book, Unveiling the Heart of Your Business. The chapter was on how to raise your prices using your heartfelt feelings as your guide.

When you think about a range of prices, sense your level of discomfort. If you tune into it, Silver says, you can discover the point where you feel love and harmony when talking about a price — and that’s where your rates should be.

Forget about market research and what competitors are doing. What feels right at heart? Where you can radiate positivity and love when you say that price? That’s the right price for you.

Try saying your proposed prices aloud and notice what happens with your body. Too low, and you’ll feel uncomfortable. Same with too high.

Open a loving heart to what you deserve to be paid, and you’ll see what to charge.

The formula for freelance love

Next, I headed to SOBCon, where one of the speakers was someone I’ve enjoyed learning from before — leadership expert Steve Farber, author of The Radical Leap Re-Energized.

Steve teaches people how to be bold and fully actualized in their careers.

One of his core sayings was a theme of SOBCon this year. It’s a simple formula for skyrocketing your freelance earnings and your job satisfaction level, too. It goes like this:

“Do what you love in the service of people who love what you do.”

I don’t know any better way to describe how to end up making a great living as a freelance writer doing projects you’re thrilled to write.

This formula has two sides. First, you need to figure out what types of paid writing you enjoy most.

Then, you look for people who truly appreciate your talents, and will pay you well as a result. When you get the love going both ways, you have a terrific project — one that will create a great sample, get you a glowing testimonial, and be a pleasure to work on.

That tends to lead to more work you love with other great clients. If you haven’t noticed, the good ones tend to talk to each other and will refer you.

How to make the leap from losers to lovers

If you’re stuck doing assignments you dread for clients you loathe right now, you’ve got to make some changes to your formula to grow your income.

It can seem impossible to turn this around. But you can.

Start by changing one side of the formula. Maybe you just start working only for clients who appreciate you more and drop the whiners and boundary-pushers.

Or you only write about topics you adore.

Gradually, get these two to line up. Find the clients who love your work in your favorite type of writing. And boom! You’re there.

My freelance client love story

Here’s the story of a client love affair I had once that shows what can happen when you live Steve’s credo.

This client approached me (which I always love!) through LinkedIn. They were a Fortune 500 company I happened to know and adore. Obviously, they had a marketing budget to spend on editorial.

I shop their stores and had covered the company in the past as a reporter. They were big fans of my more recent magazine articles on business topics. I thought their CEO had the highest ethics and admired how the company treated its employees.

They wanted me to write newsletter articles for their business clients about some of their services, the sort of business-writing challenge I enjoy. I’d get to talk to their customers and managers to write the stories, something I also find fun.

Then they asked me to bid it. I said it sounded like $1 a word.

They thought about it and got back to me and said, “That’s not enough. We think it should pay $2 a word.” And they did.

Find the writing you love. Find clients who love how you do it.

Not only will your income explode, but you’ll find yourself loving your freelance writing life, too.

Are you doing what you love for people who love what you do? Leave a comment and describe how it’s working — or what you’re doing to move in that direction.