Make A Living Writing

I often hear from freelance writers who say they suck at marketing. They hate cold calling! They’re too shy for in-person networking! Prospecting — ugh! Social media marketing — who has the time!

They look at online job ads, and then complain about how crummy most of the advertising companies pay. They’re stuck writing for low-pay content sites…because, well, they just hate marketing.

Recently, I realized there’s one form of marketing these writers probably already do very well. Here’s how you do it:

Do an amazing job on every assignment you have, for every client you have right now.

Your best form of marketing is always creating really stellar writing, each and every time out. Some important reasons why:

1. Repeat business. Exceed expectations and be ready with more story ideas or copywriting project proposals, and your existing clients will keep using you. That’s a lot less work than having to pitch and get one-off assignments from a long string of different clients. Who needs to prospect when you’ve got a steady stream of work coming from current clients?

2. Referrals. Editors get together and dish about who’s a great writer. They ask each other who to hire. Small-business owners go to chamber networking events and talk about tradespeople they use. If you’re outstanding, you’ll get mentioned. Presto! New clients without you having to cold-call anybody.

3. Better clients. Your awesome clips are your ticket to the big time. Write a sharp advertorial article for a startup, you could be writing one next for a $1 billion company. As it happens, that exact thing happened to me, so I know it works. I also got my first staff writing job for a trade publication — at a really substantial salary — off $100 article clips I wrote for the L.A. Reader. Every once in a while, I meet a writer whose strong clips on a content site got them a good-paying private client. Even in an environment that has a generally bad rep, outstanding work can take you places. That’s what I love about this career — you can literally write yourself to where you want to go.

4. More free time. As much as I’ve come to love the thrill of the hunt in active marketing, if you’re fully booked with lucrative clients and don’t need to block out time to write queries, call prospects or attend networking events, well…that’s more time you can spend with the family.

My work is out there online, marketing my writing services, every minute of every day. So is yours. What’s it saying about you? If it’s powerhouse stuff, it’ll be your marketing machine. If it’s mediocre, it’ll send a string of loser clients your way. You can shape your career direction just by delivering big on what you’re writing today.

Final note — my online buddy Jenn Mattern of All Freelance Writing is the guru on this passive-marketing lifestyle — if you’re interested in this type of marketing approach, you might want to check out her book, The Query-Free Freelancer.

Photo via Flickr user Intersection Consulting

I was asked recently to write about the art of scheduling a vacation as a freelance writer. (Have to apologize that I can’t remember who asked me!) But it’s important to take breaks from the writing grind, especially in this new-media world where so many of us have daily blogging deadlines.

Personally, I’m supposed to post like 7-8 blogs a week for one business Web site client alone!  So I know how hard it can be.

But writers can and should break away — and when I say vacation, I don’t mean the kind where you lug along your laptop and hole up in your hotel room while the rest of your family members swim with dolphins or hit the bike trails. The time spent away from your ordinary writing routine is critically important and can be transformative. For me, it’s my time to think about the big picture — where is my writing career going? Where do I want it to go?

The change in my mindset starts right away. Even as our car is pulling out of the driveway, I’m usually scribbling down new story ideas, thoughts about new markets to query, marketing techniques I haven’t tried…I come back with a whole fresh list of action items. It’s amazing the insights you can have when you’re not locked into your usual deadlines.

Here are my tips for creating a truly refreshing vacation:

1. Plan far in advance. Taking off for a week on no notice isn’t going to work. I rarely plan a vacation less than two months into the future.

2. Start notifying clients early. As soon as you know when you’ll be gone, start prepping your ongoing clients for the reality that they will not be able to contact you for a period of time. As in, “I’m going to be turning this piece in a few days early, as I’ll be gone starting on X date and I want to make sure you have a chance to ask any questions you might have before I go.” Or “This will be the last piece I can do until September, as I’ll be out the last couple weeks of August. I’ll pitch you some ideas before I leave and you can get back to me on them when I return.”

3. Work ahead. Unless you’re writing breaking news that must post the day the news breaks, you can work ahead on all your assignments. I’ve noticed some of my fellow Entrepreneur magazine Daily Dose bloggers writing and pre-scheduling posts up to three months ahead of when their blogs are due!

4. Save money. Unless you are a really good planner, it’s likely the month you vacation in will see an income drop. So on top of the vacation expense, try to sock some money away to cover that loss.

5. Set automatic notifications. Most email programs will allow you to auto-respond to messages to let folks know you won’t be responding right away. Make sure you turn those on and change your voicemail message before you go. I’ll often send a message to all my editors before I go to start them thinking about assigning me when I return, by letting them know when I’ll be back and how much open time I’ve got.

6. Really unplug. When you go on vacation, try your best to stay out of those Internet cafes. If you must, maybe take one hour at some point in the week to just clear out email. But otherwise, don’t just be physically away from your desk — remember to really let it go mentally and enjoy every precious moment of your vacation time.

Photo via Flickr user epSos.de

It occurred to me recently that there is one easy step freelance writers can take to earn more. I’ve used it a lot in the past year. It’s one I think many writers overlook, so thought I’d mention it today.

Ready? Here it is:

Ask for more money.

That’s right — even in this terrible economy, even though there seem to be a million other writers growing on trees…you can still ask clients for more money. Often, you’ll get it.

I got approached to write for a major business site not long ago by a content house that was providing the site with articles. I was quoted $250 an article. “Really?” I said. “I’m surprised at that rate, considering where these articles would be going. I do similar articles for clients of similar stature for $300 and up. I think $300 is pretty much the bottom rate I’d consider for this type of work.”

And presto: I got $300 an article.

Another 20-blog package I wrote started with a $200 apiece opening bid. When I said, “Gee, but it’s rush work…” they quickly raised the rate to $300 a post.

You can ask longstanding clients for a raise, too. I was writing for $85 an hour for a major private company, and at year-end I asked for $95 an hour, saying I felt I’d gained a lot of expertise in their business that made me more valuable. They grumbled slightly…and then gave it to me. That one probably translated into $8,000 or so of extra income over the next two years, for no additional work.

In talking with my mentees, I’ve found it’s common for writers to simply leap at the first rate offered for a job, and then feel locked into that rate forever. Know that an assignment offer may be intended as the opening of a negotiation, not a take-it-or-leave-it situation. New writers often get so excited when they get a work offer, they don’t think about whether the pay being offered is adequate for the assignment or calculate how many hours it will really take.

Before you leap, ask yourself whether you could make a case for a better pay rate. Does it require specialized expertise? A drop-everything rush not every writer might take on at this late date? Is it for a publication or Web site with a reputation for quality they need to burnish? If you can think of a reason why more pay is warranted, you’re crazy not to at least mention it to the prospect.

What’s that you say? You’re shy? Intimidated? Practice asking for more money in front of a mirror, or with a friend. Join Toastmasters. Whatever it takes to increase your confidence to where you could ask for more money.

There’s a basic rule in writing as in much of life — them that asks, gets. Asking for more money also has other benefits besides potentially getting you a raise.

1) You come off as more professional. Professionals negotiate, as opposed to just jumping at the first thing they’re offered. They’re not that desperate.

2) You feel empowered. You won’t do the assignment while always wondering if you could have gotten more for the work.

3) The worst they can do is say “no.” I can’t think of a gig I lost by asking for more money. Sometimes I’ve heard, “Sorry, that’s the limit on our budget,” and then had to decide whether I wanted to accept their opening price. But if you’re polite, calm and professional about it (never angry, snarky or rude), you usually have nothing to lose by raising the issue.

4) You hone your negotiating skills. Your negotiating ability is key to helping you move up the earning ladder. So consider each offer a chance to practice negotiating.

Have you asked for more money and gotten it on a writing assignment recently? Leave a comment and tell us how you did it.

Photo via Flickr user borman818

Lots of freelance writers use social media — LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and the like — as a way of finding clients, finding sources, and staying in touch with other writers. But I think few are aware of the emerging writing niche of getting paid by companies to write on social-media platforms.

The most basic social-media jobs involve writing Web content or doing social-media strategy for corporations, helping them with their social-media presence. Many companies are at the stage where they know they should be in social media, but they don’t really know how to do it, and they are turning to outside experts. It’s sort of a gold-rush moment in the field, since it’s still an emerging medium.

If you’ve been using social media yourself — you’re blogging and posting on community forums and major social sites, or running your own niche site and optimizing it for search — you should realize you have expertise that companies are paying for.

Because it’s such a new field, pay is all over the map. You can tell it’s starting to be a real job niche, though, because niche job Web sites have already sprung up to aggregate these jobs, such as jobsinsocialmedia.com. Recruiter Jim Durbin, the site owner, says pay depends mostly on your credentials and job history. If you’re a brand-new writer with your own blog, you’ll probably start out not making much. If you have copywriting experience or an agency or big-company marketing background, you could find yourself making $120,000 a year in a social-media strategy job.

Recent trends on Indeed.com show jobs that include the phrase “social media” in the description have gone from basically nothing a couple years ago to nearly 1 percent of all jobs listed on the site! I got more than 18,000 job listings for that keyword on a recent search, many for major companies including Radio Flyer, Avis, Hewlett-Packard, Coca-Cola and Office Depot. Big nonprofits including World Vision are looking, too.

Here are some of the major jobs in social media and descriptions of what they do. Maybe there’s a great new area in writing for you to help grow your income.

• Blogger. Most writers are familiar with blogging by now, but may not realize that companies and publications are paying well for blogs. Personally, I made more than half my income this month from blogging for companies and major publications. Pay ranges from squat to more than $100 a post.  To earn more, think about specialized, unusual expertise you can leverage, and target bigger companies and publications that need to project a top-quality image.
• Community manager. I wrote recently on WM about my cool friend Tony Kehlhofer, who landed an amazing part-time, work-from-home gig as a community manager for Lego’s new massive multiplayer online game for tweens, Lego Universe. You can read over there about the training he got so he can now monitor and respond on behalf of Lego to kids as they’re playing the game. I talked with a recruiter recently at a division of Spherion for my AOL story who said he’d recently filled a similar full-time community manager gig for a big company that paid $120,000 a year. Generally, if you’re already making a big-time marketing salary,  you can command these kind of rates.
• Social-media strategist or digital strategist. If you’re someone with a LOT of social-media experience, who understands what works and doesn’t in drawing people to a Web site, you can earn big in this role. Social-media strategists often oversee a social team developing on a company’s online marketing strategy. This person decides what the company needs to be doing in social media — what messages they should be sending, what sites they should be active on, the works. Copywriting coach Chris Marlow says most of the work is still freelance — but it’s going for upwards of $200 an hour. Working under this top-dog can be social-media marketing specialists and associates who help execute the strategy, tweeting, setting up Facebook fan communities and keeping them active, and so on.
• Online customer service representative. This can be a bottom-rung place to get started. It’s like the social-media version of a call center worker. Online reps troll social sites for mentions of their company, and then respond if needed. Had an interesting personal experience with this recently — got to jawing on Twitter with another writer about taxes and how we’d gotten IRS notices. I mentioned TurboTax didn’t seem to know how to do the adoption tax credit, I’d gotten a revision letter both the years I took it using the software. Next thing I know, a TurboTax rep DM’d me on Twitter to ask if I needed help! I told him about the problem and he said he’d report it to the company. What a feel-good customer experience! Somebody got paid to reach out to  me on there…and you could, too. These folks are also sometimes known as “online reputation defenders,” crusading online to burnish their brand’s image.
• Search engine marketing associate. SEM associates work with a Web site to make sure it’s optimizing its results in natural search on Google and other engines. Some of you are already doing this for your own sites, and could apply what you know to a paying gig.

Photo via Flickr user webtreats