Entries Tagged 'Freelance Writing' ↓
Last time, I talked about the importance of becoming educated if you want to start a freelance writing business. I talked about becoming educated about business, about the nature of freelancing and about writing itself. I want to use that last concept as a jumping-off point for today’s post.
You see, in my mind, there is no more important task for the freelance writer than really understanding her own writing, seeing where it fits in the larger context of things, and improving her craft.
I’ve said it before: one of the great challenges that the Internet presents is preserving quality writing. You see, great writing matters online. There are plenty of websites out there with poorly-written content that serve only to attract search engine visitors and send them on their way. While this may be a successful business model for some, to make your living as a freelance writer you need to move beyond this kind of writing.
Honing your writing craft is a part of that process. It takes a dedication to quality, and a commitment to continual self-improvement.
Let me give a real-life example. One of the newer areas of freelance writing I’ve been exploring lately has been writing sales letters. Six months ago, when I sold my first sales letter, I can honestly say that my first attempt was pretty sad. I had a lot to learn about how sales pages work, about the progressions involved, and about the kinds of voice that a sales letter needs in order to convert.
So, what did I do? I worked at it. I researched it (we’re back to education here, of course). I discovered that there are a number of approaches to sales letters. I found one that fit my personal writing philosophy and my style, and I practiced. Today, I’m writing sales letters on a regular basis, and they’re vastly improved over those first efforts. Not only that, I’m getting positive feedback that they’re working.
So, how do you do it? How do you go about honing your craft, in preparation for starting your freelance writing business?
There are plenty of ways to improve your writing, but here are some general principles you should keep in mind:
- You write. Plain and simple. Write every day. Write many kinds of things, test out different ideas, and see what you’re capable of and interested in.
- Beyond that, you need to be willing to critique your own writing. Set your writing aside for a day or two, and come back at it. Slash it up with a highlighter and pen, and then rewrite it. Keep doing this until you feel like the finished product is something worth selling.
- You also need to be willing to put your work out there for others to critique. Join a writer’s forum, post to a ratings-based article directory like Helium, or find yourself a mentor. Find people who are willing to give you some honest feedback about your writing, and be willing to accept that feedback.
Like most things in life, becoming a great writer is less about being inspired, and more about being dedicated to the task.
Follow The Journey: Other Posts In This Series
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Introduction
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Education
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Honing Your Craft
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Planning
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Building Your Portfolio
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Finding Work
photo credit: liveandrock
If I were to start my freelance writing business over, I’d do things differently. There are plenty of hurdles and unnecessary difficulties I’ve had to overcome, based on the way I came about it.
Still, I wouldn’t trade it for anything; however I got here, I can confidently say I’m more happy with my career today than I have ever been at any point in my life.
So, this series really is an effort to identify some of the steps I missed in my business, some of the steps that I did get right, and some of the steps that I maybe did out of order.
The first thing I’d do, if I were going to start a freelance business, is to get some education.
Now, I started my freelance business around the time I was working on my Master’s degree. I had plenty of academic education. I didn’t need lessons in grammar or style. As a humanities major studying history, I had to become an expert at very direct and precise writing.
Still, there were some important things that I didn’t know, that I couldn’t really learn in a classroom.
Business education
I dabbled, around the turn of the millennium, with my own computer business. It failed miserably, within a year of opening. There were a variety of factors that went into that failure. Some of them I could have prevented. For example, I had very little understanding of marketing, and even less understanding of how to do some basic business tasks such as keeping an inventory of commonly-sold items. And don’t even get me started on the accounting nightmare.
Some of these things, in retrospect, I could have learned in school. A course on marketing, one on business management, and one on accounting would probably have really helped shore up my business skills at the time.
When it came time to start my writing business, however, I had learned from many of those mistakes from my first business flop. I was able to avoid most of them. I set out to learn everything I could about those weak areas, to shore them up. Over time, I’ve studied all sorts of business subjects via books, blogs, ebooks and even just talking with other people in business.
Do I consider myself an expert in business today? Nope. I have what I need to run my business, and even see it grow by leaps and bounds, though.
Freelance education
If I were to start over today, I would try to spend some more time learning about freelance work and the freelance marketplace before jumping in. I’d spend time on blogs like this one and others. I’d ask questions about how the freelance marketplace works.
One of the ways that this hurt me, in the early days of my freelance business, was that I really didn’t understand the marketplace. I had a wonderful client who paid me a decent price for my work, and her work was nearly enough to meet my budget. However, when I went out and tried to find other work, all I could seem to find was offers to write $3 articles.
I didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t realize that, just like in other types of situations, you get what you pay for. Those $3 articles are, typically, very poorly written, often inaccurate, and just plain bad writing. I felt sheepish, though, bidding so much more than these low bids that I just left some opportunities behind.
So, how do you become educated about freelancing? There are plenty of ways. I mentioned reading blogs – that’s one way. There are also some decent books on the subject. In terms of eBooks, I’d highly recommend How to be a Rock Star Freelancer (read my review here). You can, just like with business, talk with other freelancers. Find out what they’re doing, what the business is like, and what you can expect.
Writing education
Writing online isn’t like writing for print. It certainly isn’t like academic writing, either. It’s a very different world. There are many aspects that, when you first start out, you aren’t going to understand.
For example, understanding the difference between web copy and website copy is important if you’re going to freelance online. Knowing when to use a personal tone and when to use a professional one is important, too. It doesn’t hurt to have some understanding of the basics of copywriting, either.
For my part, I came about this all backwards. I learned, first, how to write SEO articles. Granted, SEO is an integral part of web writing, and it’s an important skill to have. But there were other skills, such as copywriting, that I had to learn slowly, over time. I learned new ways of writing in response to business opportunities that I was missing because I didn’t possess the required skills.
If you start your freelance writing business with several types of writing skills at your disposal, you’re going to have a leg up on the competition.
How do you learn to write? Again, you’ve got lots of options. The one difference with learning to write is, in my estimation, that all of the study you do won’t do you much good unless you practice the techniques. Writers become better, in many cases, simply by writing and editing their own work.
So, what about you? If you have a freelance business, are there areas you wish you’d been more educated in when you started? If you’re not freelancing yet, do you think it’s realistic and important do learn some of these things?
Follow The Journey: Other Posts In This Series
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Introduction
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Education
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Honing Your Craft
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Planning
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Building Your Portfolio
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Finding Work
photo credit: Menlo School
One of the most common questions I get asked by my readers is “how do I get started writing online?” In some ways, I feel underqualified to answer the question. Like I’ve said before, I sort of fell into my writing career while I was doing other things. I hobbled together my writing business rather haphazardly.
If I were to start over today, I’d be more organized about it. I’d avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made over the past five years. I’d put energy into the projects and ideas that were a good fit for me, and I’d let all of the extraneous stuff go.
To be sure, you can’t exactly do that. You can’t mystically experience what I’ve experienced, and some of the things that are a good fit for me aren’t going to be a good fit for you. There are lessons that only experience can teach.
I can certainly share my experiences here, pass along things that have worked for me, identify some general pitfalls to avoid. I can identify writing resources that have helped me immensely. I can talk about the freelance business, share my setbacks as well as my successes. I’ve done all of those things. All of these things provide benefits to you, but they don’t tell you how to get started.
So, over the next week or two, I want to offer my plan. I want to tell you how I’d do it if I could do it over again. Along the way, I hope we’ll have some interesting discussions, and that you’ll offer me your thoughts and questions in the comments section.
Follow The Journey: Other Posts In This Series
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Introduction
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Education
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Honing Your Craft
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Planning
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Building Your Portfolio
How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Finding Work
photo credit: Jon_Marshall
Over the last week or so, I’ve written about freelance setbacks and failure in your writing business. While it’s worth thinking about such things from time to time, I want to look at the flip side today.
I want to talk, just briefly, about success.
A funny thing, success. You work for it, day in and day out. You toil and sweat and push for it, hoping that tomorrow will be even better than today.
The funny thing is, though, that success can be a bit elusive. If you’re not careful, it can sneak right up on you. In fact, you can get so busy working hard, trying to be successful, that you miss success when it comes.
Success can take different forms, too. Sometimes, your idea of success can be very different from how success actually manifests itself in your life.
For example, you might feel like your writing business will be successful when you land a sizeable project, or when you get a new big client. While you’re digging around for that big project or client, though, you’re doing plenty of smaller gigs for your regular customer base. You’re paying your bills, you’re feeding your kids, and you even have a few bucks left over for pizza night.
You might not recognize it, but that’s success.
I’m not suggesting that you have to settle for “just getting by.” In fact, I believe quite the opposite: if you settle for just getting by, you’re ultimately going to fail. If you run your business that close to the edge for too long, it’s going to get knocked out from under you. It’s tenuous, at best.
What I am suggesting, though, is that you take a minute, every now and again, to think about what success means for you and for your writing business. What are the things in life that truly make you happy? Do you have those things? If so, you may be successful without even knowing it.
From time to time, I like to go through my blog stats and see what brings people to my shores. While search engines aren’t my main source of traffic, they do bring in quite a few people. I’m always interested by what searches lead people here.
I found one yesterday, though, that seemed to hit home. Someone plugged this into a search engine, and it landed them here:
Every time i build up hope then i fail.
Now I don’t know about you, but it sounds to me like this particular web surfer has had a rough go of it. It sounds like he’s had his share of setbacks, that he’s seen some dreams fall by the wayside. I feel for this reader, I really do. I’ve been there.
But there’s a problem here. I think the reader has some cognitive distortions.
What are cognitive distortions? Simply put, cognitive distortions are ways of thinking that don’t reflect reality. Here’s an example of a cognitive distortion:
My daughter forgot her lunchbox today, therefore she must not like my cooking.
A cognitive distortion often takes the form of a fictional cause-and-effect relationship. Here’s another example:
My boyfriend left me because I’m a worthless person.
Unless you believe that the universe itself is out to get you, “Every time i build up hope then i fail” is a cognitive distortion, too.
You see, I’d argue quite the opposite of my reader’s supposition. I’d argue that hope, while it doesn’t guarantee success, is one of the prerequisites to success.
While I don’t believe that positive thinking is enough to bring something into being, I do think that positive thinking combined with informed and dedicated action will eventually produce results.
So, what do you think? What advice would you offer to my visitor?
photo credit: Ligadier Truffaut
