Make A Living Writing

I recently got a question from MALW reader Dan Smith. He’s a cool guy (his URL is itsdansmith — great solution for someone with a common name!) living in the UK 300 miles from London, who’s built up a substantial freelance writing business on the side, while his full-time job is in business consulting. Here’s his story:

I’ve been a freelance writer for a few years now and I’m developing my career, so that the income I receive from writing can support my girlfriend and I comfortably, as well as in the future, any children we have.

Me and my girlfriend have been thinking about moving to London.  We have family in the city and every time we visit we love it and don’t want to leave. The problem is that with the cost of living substantially higher in London (for example, our mortgage on a 2 bedroom house is just short of £400 a month – the 2 bedroom apartments we’re looking at in London are around £300 a week), I need to increase my income.

I think ideally I’d like to carry on freelancing.  I’ve spent the past few years developing my career (although it has only been the last 8 months where I’ve really took a grip of it and pushed it forward) and it would seem a waste to slow this progression right down. However, doing a quick search on some job websites there’s a whole host of full time writing jobs available in London with salaries around the £30-35k mark (roughly $46-54k?), which would be a enough to live on, especially if my girlfriend got a job of around the same salary.

Yes, I could do what I do now and work during the day and freelance evenings, but the reason I’m moving to London is to enjoy the city.  I’ll probably still do some freelance work, but I don’t really want to be working from 9am to 9pm.

I’m just looking for a bit of advice really, Carol.  Should I develop my freelance writing career (I’d need to double my earnings) or should I take a full time writing role (and still freelance a little to supplement my income)?

Whew, lots of questions in there! But basically it boils down to: freelance, or full time? The answer depends a lot on your personality type and your ultimate goals for your writing career. On the freelance side:

Do you enjoy the hustle of finding clients, tracking down payments, the thrill of landing new accounts, the variety you get as a freelancer? The freedom to earn an unlimited amount and keep your own hours? Do you love working in your shorts?

Or do you hate networking, feel lonely in a home office, and feel nervous about finding enough work? Does the idea of getting out there and finding twice as many clients seem doable and exciting to you, or overwhelming? When you think about having kids around, would you like to be able to make your own schedule with them, or are you cool seeing them for dinner and on weekends while you work in town long days? Your gut reactions to these questions will give you some clues.

Also, could you maybe supplement your freelance writing with some freelance business consulting work like you do in your current full-time job? Maybe between the two you could have a full income from all freelancing?

On the full-time staff-writing side, my thoughts come from my experience having had two full-time staff gigs that lasted a total of 12 years.

First off, just because you see a bunch of full-time writer ads doesn’t mean you can get one of those jobs. Every employer I talk to who’s looking for full-timers tells me they get 200 resumes for every job. So odds are probably long on landing one of the gigs. Definitely secure a job before moving to London, rather than moving to London in hopes of lining one up! (And then your girlfriend also needs a good-paying a job in London, too, so there are a lot of ifs in that equation.)

A little insight on staff writing jobs: In my experience, they usually involve something like coming up with four story ideas, reporting them, writing them, and turning them in, each and every week, week after week, year after year. And all the articles are about one select beat. Or on the copywriting side, researching and completing a large volume of assignments each week for the company, about the same basic stuff.

I found over the years that there were a select group of people who could really hack it. Many came and went quickly, as they didn’t have that many story ideas, or lacked the work ethic and discipline needed to be that kind of reliable workhorse.

At one of my staff jobs, we were never fully staffed, and we even had one person go AWOL in the middle of a trade show the staff covered, who was never seen again. People with master’s degrees in journalism regularly threw in the towel.

Guess I’m trying to say: It can be a very intense grind…or you could love the challenge and the adrenaline of always having those deadlines looming. Your editor could be a screamer, or they could be an awesome mentor who’d take your writing to the next level. They could also be the type that thinks everybody should work 9 to 9. I had one editor who liked to begin ripping up the front page again around 6 pm and was never happier than when the whole staff stayed until 10. So a full-time writing job doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have so much time to enjoy the city!

Finally, ask yourself which sounds more secure to you — locking in one full-time writing job at a set salary (which may rise over time gradually, but generally won’t shoot up skyward)…or having a diverse portfolio of freelance jobs, no one of which represents a majority of your income, which give you unlimited earning potential, but likely fluctuating monthly revenue?

For me, in this era of outsourcing, layoffs, and economic uncertainty, I think having one employer sounds scary. They have all the power over my life. They fire me and poof! I’m losing my apartment in London. They also only pay so much.

I may be biased toward freelance in part because I earn substantially more now as a freelancer than I did as a staffer — and I was a well-paid staffer. Maybe you’re the kind of hustler who’d have a better income freelance…or maybe a staff job would pay more bills. Depends on how much energy you’d be willing to put into marketing.

If you take a staff job, I’d think of it not as losing your freelance momentum, but of that freelance work having paved the way to that point where you could land a full-time job in your new field. It built the experience and clips you needed to move ahead to the next part of your career. And as you say, you can freelance on the side, or can pick up freelance writing again later in your career if you hit the point where you want out of the staff-writing life.

For every writer, there are stages to their career, and different situations may be right at different times. You can learn a heck of a lot as a staffer, and it can reliably pay a lot of bills if you find a great situation. It might solidify your transition into writing as a career.

I had one full-time stint that was so awesome, such a great learning experience, and so much outright fun, that when they handed me my pay envelope I’d always say, “All this and a paycheck too!” (Thanks Don & Rami!)

Ultimately, Dan, trust your gut about which is the right way for you to go — and best of luck getting to London! Stay in touch and let us know what you end up doing.

What’s your thinking on which road is best for you right now — full time or freelance? Leave a comment and let us know.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe to Make a Living Writing to get free tips twice weekly on how to earn more from writing. You can also send me a question about your writing career, and if I think it’s of interest to my readers, I’ll answer it here on the MALW blog.

Photo via Flickr user foundphotoslj

There are so many types of writing gigs out there, it can be confusing for new writers. Which are the best opportunities to pursue? This is one of the questions asked me recently by budding freelance writer Barry Weymouth. He wrote:

I am currently about to finally get my degree in business finance, but I was a journalism major when I first started college years and years ago.  I have been in real estate and financial services for years now, but really looking for a new lease on life and never let go of the writing bug.  I do have a financial blog that a started [up] again just this week and now I want to take it to another level.

There seems to be so many opportunities out there, but how do you land them? Which ones are the best to go after and what are the ones to stay away from?

Is it best to work for one entry-level type job at a company (kind of captive to them I would say), or is it best to stay freelance?  It all seems a bit confusing and I just want to focus on the things that will be fruitful and not so much on anything out there that will be a waste of my time.

There are so many opportunities out there, Barry! It’s not your imagination. And as the economy recovers, there will be even more.

How do you land them? First, you find them — by networking, trolling online job boards, cold-calling, knocking on doors.  Once you’ve found opportunities, you land them by auditioning for them.

How can you audition for gigs? Many ways. Send writing samples. Send copywriting samples. Send your resume. Send a link to your blog. Pitch story ideas on the phone. Or build your blog audience, find advertisers for your blog and earn that way.

Which are the best kind of writing gigs to go after? The kind that are really well-suited to your writing experience, life experience, and interests. When I work with my mentees, this is basically what we focus on: What have you written before? Where have you worked? What types of writing do you like best? What industries did you find fascinating? What hobbies do you love?

Once you’ve answered those questions, you can seek out publications or companies that are a fit for you. Notice I said “seek out.” Yes, that’s right. You are the driver of your writing-career success. You will need to aggressively market your writing services to make a living.

You can avoid being overwhelmed by all the possibilities by focusing on writing opportunities that make sense for who you are. Don’t randomly apply to every writing gig you see. Pick a couple-three niche areas and focus on them.

If you don’t get results in a few months, try a few other niches that also relate to your experience and interests. But trust me, if you have a real-estate and business-finance background, you’re far more likely to find writing opportunities that have something to do with those fields than you are to find lucrative writing jobs about healthcare or horse grooming. If you love white papers, don’t apply to blog.

Why? Because when you do what you enjoy, you tend to do better. And better clips mean better future gigs.

Which are the types of gigs to stay away from? Writing assignments that pay slave wages — $10 a blog…you know the type. Avoid, avoid, avoid. Writing assignments you’re not interested in and eager to write. Also avoid.

I wish I could give you a magical answer to how to break into writing without wasting your time, Barry. But here’s how you’re going to find out what types of writing you like, can get gigs in, and pay well enough to be worth your while: Trial and error. Sometimes, you’ll try to go in a writing direction — for me last year, that was trying to crack the business-plan writing market — and it just won’t pan out. So you’ll try something else. Lather, rinse, repeat.

You can create a shortcut by focusing on what you’re best qualified and suited for, but you’re still going to have to experiment to find where you fit.

As far as full-time versus freelance…right now I’d say that full-time writing jobs are in very short supply. The woods seem to be full of laid-off journalists. But by all means, if you need the security of a steady paycheck, look for a full-time gig — or maybe a job within your fields of experience that involves some writing, and could serve as a bridge into writing as a career.

Personally, I had my highest-earning year ever in 2009, including the 12 years I was a staff writer for two different publications, so I may be biased toward freelancing! But as a brand-new writer, freelancing may also be a better way to go because there’s less deadline pressure and you can learn at your own pace.

Are you ready to come up with three or four great story ideas, report the stories and file them, each and every week? Or crank out polished white papers in short order? That’s the typical workload of a staff writer. When I started, it took me about six weeks to write one feature story! I would have washed out as a staffer.

To sum up: Look in the mirror. Who are you as a writer? What do you need financially? Answer those questions, and there’s your answer for how to become a freelance writer.

Got any time-saving writing-job-hunt tips for Barry? Leave a comment below and tell us about it.

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Photo via Flickr user karendalziel

Earlier this week I related the story of how I first blundered into my career in freelance writing. I eventually used my freelance clips to get a full-time, staff-writer job at a trade publication.

I worked there for five years, then at a business weekly here in Seattle for another six and a half. But after all the editors who’d hired me there left, the party was really over. By fall of 2005, I was ready to try freelancing again.

Only unlike when I was starving teen songwriter, the stakes were higher. I had three kids! And my husband wasn’t earning so much since our move to Seattle. I really needed to replace my full-time writer salary through my freelance work.

Here’s how I did it:

1. I had a couple of small freelance gigs I’d done on the side while working my full-time job. One was writing for a sister publication to the trade-pub I’d worked for, and they paid quite well. These became my initial earning base.

2. I called all the companies I’d covered at my business-journal job. I wasn’t looking for work, I just wanted to say hey, thanks for the memories, and the help, and for being a great source. To my surprise, several of them referred me work! One of them asked me to ghost-blog for him and write some advertorial articles for his company’s Web site. I hardly knew what a blog was back then, but I gave that a whirl. I didn’t know it yet, but that blogging skill was going to come in real handy.

Without hardly realizing it, I had become a copywriter. Once I figured out I was a copywriter, I started learning more about copywriting from Peter Bowerman‘s free Well-Fed Writer e-newsletter, and from others. Soon, I had a $1 billion private company as a copywriting client. I started to make more than I had as a staffer.

3. I networked with previous editors, including those ones I loved back at the business journal. They connected me with The Seattle Times and other publications that became major new accounts for me. When those editors went to new publications, I connected there, too.

4. I learned how to work the online job ads, only taking the time to target ads that were really perfect for me. This paid off in some great new clients. In-person networking at Media Bistro events in Seattle paid off well, too. I learned which events worked for me and which were a waste of time.

5. I turned every new article assignment into an ongoing relationship. When I turned in stories, I was always ready with more pitches. So I got more assignments. If a publication I wrote for was a sister-publication to other magazines, I wrote for those, too.

6. I thought big. When I ended up interviewing the editor of a national magazine for a local Seattle publication, at the end of the interview I just flat-out asked her if her magazine was looking for freelancers. I’ve probably earned more than $50,000 over the past five years from my willingness to ask that one question! I connected with her publication and was soon getting $2,000 article assignments.

7. I never stopped marketing. I found new networking forums to belong to, I went to Chamber of Commerce events, I checked online job ads, I asked around. Even when I’m fully booked, like I am now, I never stop sending queries and resumes out.

Some lessons here for other writers contemplating going freelance:

Start freelancing before you leave your job, so you have a base.

Tell everyone you know you’re freelancing.

Be willing to try new types of writing.

Get advice.

Never stop marketing.

Don’t waste time online.

Be brave.

Aim high.

Have you started freelancing in the past few years? If so, how’d you do it?Share the lessons of your success in the comments below.

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Photo via Flickr user = Bruce Berrien =

When I asked new writers for their biggest questions back in May, one of the responses I got was that readers would like to hear “what it was like for successful writers early in their career.”

So here’s the story of how I became a freelance writer. It happened in L.A.

In the beginning — like when I was 14 — I was a singer-songwriter. Banging away on my parents’ black baby grand, scribbling lyrics in notebooks and taking them to school to throw out so my mom wouldn’t read my rejects out of my trash. I dropped out of college halfway through to hang around Hollywood Boulevard and go to songwriting workshops, where I eagerly awaited a chance to have my work shredded by my peers.

Songwriting involved starving. It cost money to pay band members, to rent halls, to promote my group.  I needed a day job, so I worked as a secretary at movie studios and talent agencies. There, I learned to stay calm and poised while movie stars asked me questions, or big agents barked orders. I learned to have a snappy comeback. Eventually, I started my own script-typing business, feeding off my show-biz connections, and worked for myself.

Around the time I was nearing 30 — the age at which songwriters have to ask themselves whether they’re up for a lifetime of this starvation or they want to move on — the alternative paper L.A. Weekly was celebrating its 10th anniversary. So they had an essay contest.

It was like they created it just for me. I had moved back to L.A. to pursue songwriting ten years earlier.

So I wrote an essay about what coming to L.A. to be a songwriter was like for me and my friends — namely, like slowly being crushed between two large rock walls. They printed it and paid me $200.

I pretty much never looked back. I had discovered a kind of writing where you got paid. And didn’t have to worry about whether the drummer was going to decide to take psychedelic mushrooms and the overnight party bus to Vegas to put in 12 hours at the blackjack tables instead of showing up for the gig. I literally called friends over and handed them my four-track recorder and my microphones and said, “Here — take this stuff away. I don’t need it anymore.”

Writing prose was empowering. I didn’t need anyone else to do it! I could execute this all by myself. I had all the intruments I needed inside my head. I thought it up, I talked to people, found facts, worked on it, went down to the mini-mart on Thursdays, and boom, there’s my name. Wow! I was a byline junkie from day one.

From there, I got another assignment from the Weekly right away. But then I took a third assignment I got in over my head on, and bombed.

I then pitched their rival, the L.A. Reader (now dead) about some protest I was going to. I ended up writing for the Reader for years, reviewing books, writing cover features for $300, community news for $50.

All the time learning, learning, learning. I’d haunt my editor’s office, latest issue of the paper in hand, saying, “I noticed you changed my first sentence from this to that. Why?” I got better. I wrote faster. I started to earn more from articles, and type scripts less.

Soon, the Los Angeles Times had a contest in the real-estate section. They wanted do-it-yourself fix-up stories. Again, tailor-made for me — my husband and I had just spent several years camped on our living-room floor fixing up our charming hovel in Culver City. I wrote a humorous, “our hearts were young and dumb” tale of our remodeling mistakes.

I won, they printed, I got paid. The editor there said, “You’re funny! I want you to write for me all the time!”

I’d been writing prose for about nine months, and I was writing for one of the largest daily papers in the country.

I was massively intimidated, felt hugely inadequate, and as a result it often took me six weeks to write a feature for them. But my editor put up with it and took the time to mentor me, because my writing was fresh, and honed, and really brightened up their section covers. And I was willing to work hard, beat the street, and find great stories.

Around this time, it started to dawn on me: I am a freelance writer.

Maybe I should take this freelance writing thing seriously! I love this, and it could be a career. So I took some classes through UCLA Extension in journalism, magazine writing. I learned more. I got better gigs.

One day, my husband said, “Why don’t you stop typing scripts and just write articles?” And I did. Not long after that, he was losing his job, and I applied for this weird full-time writing job I saw advertised, for a trade publication based in New York. They looked at my Reader covers, my L.A. Times covers, they gave me a writing test, and told me of 24 writers they auditioned, I was the only one who wrote something they could publish. The job paid $45,000 to start. And so began my 12 years as a staff writer, in which I learned many new skills, filed three or four stories every week, and laid the ground work for my second stint as a freelancer, which I’ll write about later this week.

Looking back over this, I see some defining points to why I was able to build a successful writing career, basically from scratch. I think these traits would be helpful to anyone looking to get into freelance writing.

1. I  didn’t develop a lot of writer insecurities, because it didn’t dawn on me that I was a freelance writer. I was just having fun!

2. When I hit roadblocks, I immedately looked for a workaround. It never occurred to me to stop because of one “no.” I liked being published too much!

3. I was willing to study my craft, both with my editors and by going back to school.

4. I got a lot of positive early feedback that encouraged me. I entered two contests, and won them both. This made me feel, “I must be good at this!”

5. I looked for opportunities that were a great fit for my background.

6. I developed a thick skin early on and was open to criticism of my writing.

7. I had run a home-based business before, so I had some knowledge of the hustle and administrative skills required to make that work.

That’s the story of how I wrote my way into a career as a writer. How did you get started? How did you keep going? What skills did you bring to it that made you successful?

Leave a comment and tell us your story. Later this week, I’ll tell you how I broke into freelance writing all over again, 12 years later, in 2005.

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Photo of singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards via Flickr user ibm4381

This is the story of the greatest freelance writing gig I ever turned down. It happened just last week.

About a year ago, I met an editor at a MediaBistro networking event who develops online content for a very large software company. Based here in Seattle. Yeah, that one.

In shmoozing him up, I discovered that he was best friends from childhood with one of my past editors…an editor who’d loved my stuff. He also knew another beloved editor of mine as well. To sum up, he was my dream prospect!

He didn’t have anything immediately, so for once I did a really good job staying in touch and following up.

And last week, he finally called me with an assignment. He needed someone to write a half-dozen articles, one a month, over the next six months.

The catch: It was on a brand-new version of one of their software programs. Hmmm…I’m not much of an early adopter, so I wasn’t using this new program yet. Small, dim alarm bells began to chime in the back of my head. But I was so psyched to work with this client!

We investigated a little more, and discovered the program doesn’t run on Macs, which is what I use. I’d have to buy a computer to do the gig!

My husband was in favor of buying the new computer and taking the gig. But he’s always in favor of buying new toys.

At this point, the alarm bells were louder. In reality, the assignment would be for me to buy and break in a whole new computer AND software, and quickly become an expert in using it so I could write about it. I don’t ordinarily write a whole lot about tech.

I was starting to get the ugly, real picture. I wasn’t actually a fit for this gig.

If I took it, I’d stand a decent chance of sucking at it. And that is the one thing I don’t ever want to see happen. The last thing I need is to disappoint a client at a major corporation.

So I passed.

My hope is another assignment may come along from this client that’s a better fit for my background, which is mostly writing about a range of other business topics. Maybe I’m nuts and should have bought the computer and given it a whirl. But my feeling was the huge ramp time that would be involved to essentially acquire a whole new expertise area probably would have meant I earned less net in the end, as I’d have less time for other clients.

I’d also run the risk of alienating an editor and never getting any future assignments from him.

The whole experience was a reminder to me that writers need to not jump at every offer that comes down the pike, no matter how great they may sound at first. Ask yourself, “Is this assignment really me?” I try to stay with assignments where I can answer that with an enthusiastic “yes.”

Ever turn down a major gig? If so, leave a comment and tell us about it.

Photo via Flickr user roland

Earlier this week, I wrote about the many ways being fully booked helps your writing business. Obviously, I had a decent stable of clients…but I wasn’t at capacity. Finding a few new clients put me there.

Several readers asked if I could discuss the marketing strategies I used to help fill up my schedule. I’m happy to do so. I think many writers are wondering what the best marketing methods are, particularly what Web sites and online strategies are really useful.

So I will now reveal the single best place online for freelance writers.

First, the raw data: Below is a look at how I got each of the new clients I’ve landed over the past six months or so, which led to my being fully booked.

1.  Major TV network’s business blog — I found this gig through my weekly Gorkana alert, which offers job listings for a few specific areas in business, including finance and healthcare.

2.  Agency through which I blog and develop Web content for lawyers — I answered a Craigslist ad… I don’t exactly recall where, but I must have either seen it on About Freelance Writing (thanks Anne!) or on Writer’s Weekly (thanks Angela!).

3. Two small-business blog clients, both in business finance niches – These both found me through reading my blog for Entrepreneur magazine.

4. Fortune 500 company — They found me on a Google search for “Seattle freelance writer.”

There you have it. Have you guessed what the best place is to be for freelance writers? That’s right — it’s everywhere. As many places as you can be. Each place you are, each strategy you use, increases your odds of success.

Niche job lists are good sources of leads for specialized writing jobs.

Craigslist is full of junk, but if you keep scanning those ads, every once in a while you can find a very solid client.

Your great bylined work online is out there, marketing your business, 24/7.

Companies are finding writers through natural search on Google.

If I hadn’t had a broad-spectrum approach to marketing online — checking a lot of places, and really making the effort to make all my current online clients’ work shine — I wouldn’t have found all these clients. Just one important caveat: Be a skimmer, and don’t spend all day poking around the Internet looking for leads. I try not to spend more than 2-3 hours a week looking for job leads online.

I’d also make the observation that four out of five of these clients are on the copywriting side. My observation is that while publications are still tough to break into right now, copywriting is booming…so it’s not just where you’re looking online, but what you’re looking for, that’s important. Keep an open mind. Try new types of clients — you may find whole new areas of writing you discover you really like. That’s definitely my story.

Where are you finding good writing-job leads? Leave a comment and let me know. I’m sure I haven’t found all the great ways to market online yet!

Photo via Flickr user jared

Earlier this week, I talked about the opportunities out there now that the economy is finally starting to recover. Today I want to talk about one really cool niche I think few writers even consider that could bump up your earnings: Company magazines.

Many big companies put out magazines. Some are for their own employees. Some are for various segments of their customers.

In some professions, there are magazines they can get customized for their business — you’re looking at an example in healthcare in the photo above. That’s a customized healthcare magazine hospitals are buying a template of, and then inserting a bit of information about their facility and bingo, they’ve got a magazine to send to everyone who lives near the hospital. Somewhere, there’s a company creating that magazine and hiring writers to write those articles.

My experience is company magazines are decent- to very-good-paying markets. In part because the knowledge is a bit specialized, and in part because company magazines are just not considered a sexy, glamour place to write like a national newsstand magazine. They have to pay a bit more usually to get quality talent. They also pay well because often their circulations or viewership is HUGE!

You might be asked to write about a company product or service in your article, but many times I’ve found the requirements are no different from articles I might write for a consumer magazine in the same niche. The company just wants to build customer loyalty by providing useful information for their type of customer.

Note that some of these magazines are online. Corporations including Dell and American Express have huge online magazines, for instance. Many have multiple online magazines for various audiences — for instance, here’s Microsoft’s magazine just for professionals who’re certified in Microsoft software programs, MCP Magazine.

My advice: Any time you’re in a store of any kind, look around at the reading material and see if they put out a magazine. You might just turn up a great new possible market to pitch. If you can’t find a masthead, just contact the company’s corporate communications head and ask who to pitch. If you see a company with an online magazine, do some sleuthing and try to find out who’s in charge. These don’t tend to turn up even in the Writer’s Market and other guides, and they don’t tend to post writer’s guidelines, so you’ll have to be a little enterprising to connect with their editors.

Pitching the magazine of a company you patronize gives you an immediate inside edge — you already know their stores or products and like them!

Here’s some information on just a few company magazines below:

Curves gyms: Diane is their magazine all about exercise and healthy lifestyles. Looks like it comes out four times a year.

Costco: This is probably one of the best-known company magazines around — Costco Connection has a circulation of 8 million, making it one of the most-read American magazines! You can scan their issues online to get an idea of the content.

American Express OPEN Forum: Their online small-business magazine is one of the most highly regarded business Web sites on the Internet. Highly retweeted. And I don’t just say that because I’ve written a few things for them.

Tractor Supply Co: Out Here. If you live in a rural area, check out the lumber and farm-supply chain Tractor Supply’s high-quality magazine for its customers, which is all about rural life.

Best Buy: @Gamer is a new magazine they’re just launching for their game-buying audience. Word is it launches this month, so be on the lookout.

Have you noticed any interesting company magazines? If so, leave a comment and let us know about them.

Photo via Flickr user pr1001

I hate to get cranky on everybody, but I’ve had it with the whining about  how hard it is to find good-paying freelance writing assignments in this terrible, down economy. The fact is, there are a lot of signs of recovery out there. A couple of them:

Retail sales have been rising for several months now.

I’ve had about 10 really solid leads turn up in the past two weeks, way more than I’ve been seeing in recent months. My own personal economic-recovery indicator.

Do you know the first things that happen at the beginning of a recovery?

• Savvy companies start to ramp up their marketing — a recent FedEx study showed 42 percent of small businesses said they were contemplating increasing their marketing budgets. FORTY-TWO PERCENT! Know how many small businesses there are in the U.S.? Oh, more than 20 MILLION.
• Magazines begin selling more ads and adding pages or expanding their number of annual issues.
• New magazines are born — I counted six of them in just one week in my recent Wooden Horse newsletter.

My point: It’s time to stop using the recession as your excuse for not earning.

There’s plenty of writing work out there right now, and there’s going to be more. You can get in on the start of this up-trend, or you can be one of the last to jump on the bandwagon. Put it out there now, because the universe is starting to respond.

I got an email out of the blue this week from a Fortune 500 corporation looking to start a new e-newsletter for its customers. I would bet that this sort of thinking is taking place at many, many big companies right now. They all want to be first in line to get their share of the recovery. And they’re going to need skilled writers to help them achieve that goal.

It seems like twice a week now, I’m talking to some small business person who needs social media explained to them. They’ve heard they need a blog or articles on their site, but they have no idea how they promote that online and use it to drive traffic. The opportunity in this niche alone — presenting complete social-media proposals that include promotion and blogging or article-writing — is huge.

I speak from experience, since 2009 was my best-earning year ever — you can defy the downturn. And now, it’s not even as much of a downturn anymore!

So it’s time to stop moaning about low-paying content sites that rip you off, rear up on your hind legs, and start marketing your writing business. Send queries. Meet prospects. Use LinkedIn or Biznik. Put up a billboard. Whatever’s your speed.

You’re out of excuses, so get out there and find clients who’re willing to pay you a living wage. More and more of them are out there every day, now that the economy is finally thawing.

Later this week, on this blog and on WM Freelance Writing Connection, I’ll be talking about a couple of specific niche opportunities for you to think about as you make your marketing plan for growing your business in 2010.

What will you do to capitalize on the recovery? Leave a comment and let us know your strategy.

Photo via Flickr user psd

I have a writer friend I’ve stayed in touch with over many years. We recently met for lunch and caught up on who we’re writing for these days. She’s always struggled to earn as much as she needed to support her family, and our lunch reminded me of why.

She rattled off a list of very interesting prospective projects that seemed to be waiting in the wings. Some were potentially very lucrative.

The problem? I’d heard about many of these same projects months back. She was still in a holding pattern, waiting for them to materialize. In the meanwhile, she hadn’t earned much.

“I’m still waiting to hear,” she told me of many of the projects.

Which reminded me of one of my rules of earning well as a freelance writer: Be a writer, not a waiter.

My mentees bring this home to me as well. Often, they’ll get a nibble from a prospective client or editor…and then…paralysis. Weeks of waiting. And maybe that nibble turns into a client…but often, it doesn’t. Personally, I got four really awesome-sounding emails from four different, new possible copywriting clients late last week. I was kinda stoked! And then Monday came, and none of them got back to me. This happens — it’s just a reality of life as a freelance writer. There’s a lotta flakes out there.

To avoid wasting time on prospects that don’t pan out, here are my rules for coping with prospective projects that aren’t confirmed yet:

Don’t get excited about them.

Don’t “leave room” on your schedule for them.

Don’t stop marketing your business.

Don’t turn down other firm assignments, even if they’re not as good as the nibble.

Don’t expect them to pan out.

In my experience, many businesses that explore copywriting don’t ever end up doing their projects. Editors who make vague noises of interest but never translate that into an actual assignment are also not uncommon. So don’t get your hopes up prematurely, as it can put you into a deadly waiting game that costs you big money. This way, if a new client actually inks a deal with you, it’s an exciting and pleasant surprise — as opposed to the disaster that occurs when you pencil in a chunk of pay and mentally count it as income you expect this month…and then it gets delayed, or never happens.

When you have a signed contract, a confirmed assignment, and/or a deposit check in hand, then put the article or copywriting project on your calendar and consider it a “go.” Until then, remember — writers earn from writing, not from waiting.

Photo via Flickr user batega

I do a monthly “weigh-in” with my mentees, where we all talk about our goals and accomplishments for the month. One of my mentees noted this week that April was a slow month because “I spent the first two weeks of April recovering from being busy in March.”

Wait just a cotton-pickin’  minute there. Two weeks recovering? It is impossible to earn well if you need two weeks to get over it after you have a rush period.

As it happens, I had an insane rush the last two weeks of April. Two small-business clients needed four blogs apiece, another Web site needed a blog entry plus social-media links, I was blogging once or twice a day for BNET, plus three weekly blogs for a national magazine, and four fully reported articles were also due for various other clients. It was high-intensity, round-the-clock crazy. And if I let any deadlines slip, I might lose a client, or at the very least see thousands of income push into the next month. That latter is an insidious development I try to avoid as it always leads inevitably to lower annual earnings. Losing clients obviously I try to avoid as well!

I recovered from this deadline onslaught by taking all of Saturday off, as I always do. If I really want to recharge, I also don’t turn on the computer at all on Sunday…I think this time I might have just checked in for an hour or two. I garden, read to my kids, go for walks, cook, stretch, see friends. Then on Monday, I’m back at it.

I think a lot of new writers are coming into this field without ever having had to file on a regular basis. I filed four stories a week for more than six years at one point in my career, for instance. What that experience gave me is strong writing muscles. The more you research, write, and meet deadlines, the more you learn how to do it time-efficiently and without wiping yourself out. That ability to keep yourself healthy – and to bounce back, recover quickly, and be ready for more work — is key to upping your earnings.

No matter where you’ve started in writing and where you’re at now, you can think about how to make your writing work more sustainable. As you move up, you’ll get more difficult assignments, tougher editors, tighter deadlines. And you’ll need to be able to handle it all in stride and be ready for more next week.

What do you do to recharge after a big pile of writing assignments get filed? Leave a comment and share your tips.

Photo via Flickr user steve.ie

Are you attracting the caliber of writing client you would like? Many writers complain they only seem to draw lowball-payers with drama problems.

My mentee Katherine Swarts asked this week:

Does anyone have any suggestions, when it comes to professional and social networking, for conveying an upfront image that says “Top-quality, top-pay work only”? I’m tired of fending off individuals and amateur entrepreneurs who want someone to dash off a resume, college-paper edit, self-published-book edit, or write a press release for $50-100. They usually approach me directly, so simply ignoring them as I would a content-mill ad isn’t an option.

I’m sorry to report that loser clients strike even experienced, high-earning writers… But there are some concrete steps you can take to cut down on the number of loser pitches you get and increase the number of solid leads. Here are my tips:

1.  Look at what your Web site says. Let’s travel on over to Katherine’s Web site, SpreadTheWordCommercialWriting. It’s a pretty solid site, but it could be better. I’d add a picture of Katherine right there on the home page — remember, people hire people, not faceless sites. I also recommend having at least a partial bio right on that landing page, with a few of your top client names showing, as I do on mine. Think about your site like a prospect — what do you want to know? I think primarily, it’s “Who is this writer, what types of writing do they do, and who have they written for before?” Try to get brief answers to those right on the landing page. Since Katherine’s URL has “commercial writing” in it, that helps.

Running through her tabs, her bio just has a few association and certification links, and needs beefing up. She’s got some clips (though I’d like to see markets cited with the article links), testimonials (nice!), and she does a newsletter (very nice!). So a mixed bag here, and the home page needs substantial strengthening so it screams “I’m a pro, and these are the types of writing I have experience in.”

2.  Look at the layout of your Web site. Katherine knows her bright-yellow and blue layout isn’t the most professional look, but she doesn’t know how to update it. This is a problem I hear about all the time. Two words: Solve it! Either take a class to do it yourself, or hire somebody to overhaul your layout with more professional colors. That bright-yellow reminds me of some cheesy direct-mail ad.

Cheap Web help is readily available — for about a year, I used a teen from my high school’s digital design program. They need final projects to work on! Writer sites are not that complicated, and some appropriate tones and clean organization would help. One problem I see a lot on WordPress-based writer sites is their blog about some arcane niche topic dominates the home page while their resume and clips are shunted aside. Not the best strategy for getting better-paying work. Put those white papers and feature articles front and center instead.

3.  Look at where you’re networking. When I first started actively networking for my freelance writing business back in ’08, I went to a few local events in my small town. I was a bit startled to have experienced networkers ask me, “Who’s your ideal client?” I didn’t know what to say! I hadn’t really thought about it that much. When I did, I realized my ideal clients at this point in my career weren’t going to be at these local events — they are medium- to major-sized corporations and $1-a-word magazine markets.

So I changed where I network, got off my fanny and humped it into Seattle to go to big-time networking events. What do you know — I met the editor of Costco Connection, an editor of Microsoft Office Live…way better and more appropriate clients.

If you’re not getting the caliber of clients you want networking where you are, hit a bigger market or explore some other events until you hit the right mix. Maybe consider sucking it up and joining one of the pro groups such as BNI, where people are more serious about their business and understand marketing costs. Also, plug your authority more — maybe post some articles on BizNik that display your expertise.

4.  Look at what you’re saying when you network. Do you have your elevator pitch down on what you do? Does it include a specific description of the type of writing work you’re looking for? Hone your pitch to deflect losers. “I’m a freelance writer” leaves you wide open for anything, where “I’m a freelance writer who focuses on national women’s magazines and healthcare-industry copywriting” communicates more professionalism and a sharper sense of what you want.

5.  Look at where you’re querying. If you’re thinking publications, are you taking the time to search the Writer’s Market or other databases to find top-paying markets to query? Are you crafting well-polished queries tailored to those markets? If you don’t ask $1 a word markets for assignments, you usually don’t get them.

Photo via Flickr user levaine

I got a new client recently that I was very excited about. It was an ongoing account for eight short articles a month, from a decent-sized, established company. They had a big list of topics ready to go. I thought it sounded just great.

Then I started trying to work on the account, and everything changed. This client turned out to be a crisis-creator. And even though it represented more than $1,500 a month in income, I dropped them.

It turned out the client didn’t really want short blog-type pieces, they wanted full-blown reported articles. They also wanted me to interview their experts and ghost some of the entries for them (a fact they hadn’t mentioned up front). Their experts weren’t very readily available, I’d have to try and try to reach them before finally getting an interview time, so deadline panic became the norm.

It quickly became clear that this client was a massive pain in the butt. Also, the services they really wanted I would have billed at three to four times the rate I’d quoted them for the “quick blog pieces” they originally claimed to want.

Some writing clients are really dysfunctional and tend to create crises in your schedule. If you end up with a crisis client, you have to decide if it’s worth hanging onto them or not.

I have another crisis client right now. They pick their topics v e r y   s l o w l y…then they take forever to OK a story outline. Then…the minute they approve it, it’s due in one week flat. Kinda crazy.

But they’re paying me $1 a word, and I’ve decided they’re worth it. Which brings me to my main rule of crisis clients: They need to pay a lot.

Often, you get the deadly combination of crisis-creating client AND they pay sorta crummy. Those two do NOT go together!

When I worked as an entertainment-industry secretary back half a lifetime ago, I saw that the production office often had a sign posted on the wall. It was a triangle with the corners labeled “Good,” “Fast,” and “Cheap.” Below it would say: “Pick any two.”

Clients who want good work done fast because of their crisis-creating proclivities need to pay top dollar. Otherwise, you’re letting them turn their crisis into your crisis.

Don’t let that happen! My philosophy is that your crisis is my opportunity. I happen to have the ability to turn around complex stories fast — if you need that, pay the freight.

Photo via Flickr user alancleaver_2000