I’m happy to announce that today is my debut post over at Freelance Writing Job’s Business Tips for Writers.

In recent months, FWJ has expanded from a single blog into a thriving blog network, and I’m excited to be part of the team. I’m taking over duties for Men with Pens’ own James Chartrand, so I realize from the start that I’ve got some seriously big shoes to fill. I trust you won’t be disappointed.

If you’ve never been to FWJ, make sure you stop by the main site and familiarize yourself with Deb and the crew. Also make sure to subscribe to the Business Tips for Writers feed while you’re at it. I’ll be posting twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Thursday.

It takes work to become a successful copywriter. You’ve got to put in plenty of time and hard work to not only become good at it, but to get more clients and grow your business.

There are three essentials, I think, to becoming a successful copywriter. While you can get by and even make a living without following all of these things, once you really grasp them and put them in place you’re going to find success is chasing you, rather than you chasing it.

Over the past five years, as I’ve built up my copywriting business to a stable and successful enterprise, there are three basic ideas I keep coming back to, over and over again.

Hone Your Craft

Becoming a successful copywriter means being a good copywriter. By the time you’ve been in the writing business for a couple of years, a healthy percentage of your business should be repeat business. When I look at my books for last month, for example, I can see that 60% of my income came from previous clients.

You don’t get repeat business if your work is crap, if you don’t meet the client’s expectations or if what you write doesn’t give your client the desired results. Sometimes, this is as simple as taking the time to review and edit your work before you send it to a client. In other cases, you might need to spend some time learning more about the particular type of writing you’re wanting to do.

Being able to identify the areas you’re weak in is essential here. One of the best ways to do that is to take a look through your list of past clients. For example, do your blogging clients keep coming back while your sales letter gigs seem to be one-offs? Then maybe you need to spend some time getting better at writing sales letters.

Build Your Portfolio

One of the biggest assets you have in terms of getting new clients is a strong portfolio. When you’re first starting out, your portfolio is probably going to be pretty thin. It’s important, as you go through those first couple of years, that you set aside some of your best work and include it in your portfolio. Make sure, of course, that the client for whom you did the work is all right with you using the piece for your portfolio.

I don’t advise writing material solely for your portfolio, unless you really want to break into one type of copywritng and can’t seem to land any gigs in that area without a sample. The reason is simply this: it’s untested. Until you’ve given the work to a client who has said, “hey, this is exactly what I was looking for,” you can’t be sure it’s enough to entice a new client.

Learn from the Experts

One of the reasons many of my readers visit my humble little blog is because they want to learn something from someone who’s already in the field and doing well. Spending time reading writing blogs and books can only help you improve your craft and get more sales. You might even benefit from a writing coach, or a mentor of some sort.

In 2008, one of the most amazing experiences I had was going through the material from the Copywriting Success Summit. There was so much here that I could barely digest just a small percentage of it, but what I learned has been invaluable.

The 2009 Copywriting Success Summit is coming up in just a couple of months. This live event is being held in October, and is something you must not miss. I promise you that attending this summit and putting the things you learn into practice will add fuel to your copywriting fire and help you grow your business.

None of these three things are easy, and none can be done overnight. That’s why they pay off so well. In the end, a copywriting business is only as successful as the hard work you’re willing to put into it.

As many of you know, I’m a big fan of the folks over at Men with Pens. One third of that dynamic trio,James Chartrand, is one of the hottest name in the freelance writing business right now. He’s featured regularly on Copyblogger, and is also a regular contributor at a number of other sites.

One of those sites is Freelance Folder, where I’ve also been a regular contributor. Freelance Folder is for us one of the hottest sources for advice and information for the freelancer, whether you’re just starting out or whether you’ve been around the block.

Well, I’m excited to let you all know that James Chartrand and Mason Hipp, the current brains behind Freelance Folder, have joined forces to put together an indispensable book. If you want to:

• Overcome your limits as a freelancer
• Discover your true freelancer potential
• Grow your business
• Land more clients
• Add value to your services

Then this book is for you.

I’ll be offering a review of this book within the coming days, but I wanted to get it out there right now so you can have quick access to this awesome book. If you enjoyed Write for the Web, you’re going to absolutely LOVE The Unlimited Freelancer.

Happy new year to my freelance writing friends, old and new. I trust the holidays have found you well, and wish you success in 2009.

I have to say, I’m excited about what the new year is going to bring. If 2008 was any indication, 2009 is going to be the best year for my freelancing business yet. While there may be some tough economic times in the world, there’s no business I’d rather be in.

Why am I so optimistic? There are a bunch of reasons, but I get the most encouragement by looking back over the last year. In the past 12 months, here are some of the amazing things that have happened for me:

• I started this blog, which has grown my freelance writing client base by leaps and bounds. It’s also allowed me to meet so many interesting people, network with other writers and given me the opportunity to help other writers achieve their own dreams.
• I began my coaching program, which has allowed me to help a great group of writers get their start in the business.
• I’ve grown the business to the point where I’m regularly outsourcing work, allowing me more time to focus on the business itself.
• I’ve increased my business revenue, as well as my personal revenue, by a significant factor.
• Ive been able to work together with my wife, bringing her in as a partner behind the scenes of the business.

There’s plenty more, too, but those are just the things that come to mind.

2009 promises to see all sorts of new and exciting things. While I’m still in the process of refining my business (a process that truly never ends) I am thrilled to think about some of the irons I’ve got in the fire, and some of the projects that are yet to come.

I also want to take a minute to thank everyone who has regularly read this blog, and helped me reach each milestone. As of today, I’m happy to have just shy of 1,000 RSS and email subscribers, and I’m happy that you’ve joined me on this journey.

Here’s to hoping we all have a very bright future in 2009:

photo credit: Shermeee

Something has occurred to me recently that has really changed my perspective on communicating with my freelance writing clients.

Before I tell you what it is, though, Let me start off by telling you a story.

When I was a younger man, I was horribly shy.

No, strike that. Shy isn’t the right way to say it. I had plenty of friends, and was pretty outgoing in most social situations. I was very involved in student groups, even taking leadership roles.

My problem was that I couldn’t seem to talk to a pretty girl to save my life. I’d get all nervous, tongue tied. I’d be scared to death that I’d say something stupid, embarrassing or awkward.

And then I would say something stupid, embarrassing or awkward.

It was 1994, and the Internet was still a young pup (at least, the public side of the Internet was). Everyone that was on the Internet was on AOL or, like me, Prodigy. The web was still fairly new and something of a novelty; online services were where it was at.

Now, today we take for granted the online dating services. Match.com, eHarmony and all the others hit us with TV and radio ads. Back then, however, the best you could find was a sort of “classified ad” section on your online service.

And I did find it. And I used it. You see, I discovered that I could write to pretty girls all day long. I never had to worry about getting tongue tied, or that my shirt would be buttoned wrong. To make a long story short, that’s how I met my wife. If I’d have had to meet her in person first, chances are I’d have chickened out and we would never have met.

(And, yes, I know the whole “we met online” thing is old hat today. But, in 1994 it was still a bit of a novelty. It was fun to watch, as the years went by, the changing reactions people would have to us “meeting online.” In the early days it was a confused “huh?” After a while it became “ooh, that’s interesting. How do I do that?” Eventually it was “I have a friend who met her husband that same way.” Finally, today it’s “You got lucky. She could have been an ax murderer!”)

At any rate, here’s my point: I’m much better at writing than I am speaking. When I write, I can carefully craft what I want to say into a cohesive whole. I’m much more likely to close a deal in writing than I am in person or on the phone.

What does that have to do with clients? Plenty.

You see, most of my writing clients aren’t writers themselves. I realize that’s pretty obvious in itself, but hear me out.

At times, it’s easy to become frustrated with clients. Communicating with them about specs, project details and even costs can be challenging via e-mail. So, some clients prefer to talk on the phone or meet face-to-face.

I don’t mind face-to-face meetings or phone calls, especially when they result in more business. But I also know that my strengths aren’t in those situations. My strength is in writing – which is why they’re hiring me in the first place.

So, I naturally prefer to negotiate on my terms – in writing. But I realize that this, in many cases, puts my clients at a severe disadvantage. So anytime a client requests a phone call or meeting, I try to accomodate it.

And these days, I try to be more understanding of those requests. After all, some clients probably feel about written communication the way I used to about verbal. They’re not sure what to write, and when they do write it comes out awkward. In other cases, they’re just playing to their strengths, and I can’t begrudge them that.

So, what do you think? I know freelancers on both sides of this issue. There are some who will not – under any circumstances – take calls or meetings. Others prefer it. How about you?
photo credit: Foxtongue

For a couple of weeks now, the discussion has been going back and forth between Men with Pens and Freelance Parent about the costs of starting up a freelance writing business. One side argues that you can start up a freelance writing business on the cheap, with a couple hundred dollars or less. The other side argues that a freelance writing business has the same kinds of startup costs that any other small business has – and that you’re going to put out ten times that amount or more.

I’d encourage you to follow those debate threads. Each side makes some good points, to be sure. If you pin me down and force me to offer my opinion, I’ll say that any small business, whether they’re freelance writing, plumbing or basket-weaving, can benefit from a significant cash investment in the beginning.

Now, for my part, I started out with no investment. I fell into the freelance writing business quite by accident. I put nothing but time into the business in the beginning, and I did just fine.

(Of course, that’s part of it, isn’t it? If you don’t have cash, you need to have time. Ideally, you’ll have both.)

However, it wasn’t until later on in my freelance writing business, when I was able to invest some money in some tools of the trade, some new office equipment and some marketing that my business really took off. It also helped that I found a mentor who’d been where I had been who could teach me a thing or two.

If I were to start my freelance business today, I’d spend some money. I’d make sure I had the right computer and the right work environment. I’d hire a writing coach for at least three months, and I’d buy Freelance Rockstar Freelancer and Write for the Web. I’d spend some money on marketing. If I wanted to make money blogging, I’d get into Blog Mastermind. I’d probably even hire a Virtual Assistant to help me keep organized.

So, what are the real costs of starting a freelance writing business? I can honestly say I’d put them somewhere between $0 and $20,000. Am I trying to play both sides of the fence here? I suppose I am.

The real cost of starting a freelance writing business is this: It is the amount of capital you can raise, spent in the most efficient way possible. For every dollar you can’t spend, you have to make it up in blood, sweat and tears.

Starting capital doesn’t guarantee your success, just like the lack of capital doesn’t guarantee your failure. But having some startup cash for your freelance writing business does increase your odds of success.

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

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: A Jump-Start

How to Start Your Freelance Writing Business: The Costs

photo credit: (UB) Sean R

We’ll pick back up on this series later in the week, folks.

In the meantime, I want to tell you about a great way to get your business off the ground. The guys over at Men with Pens are running a contest with a top prize of almost $12,000 in writing business resources, including a month of coaching from yours truly.

Go Enter The Men with Pens Sticky Business Contest today!

(Incidentally, it’s Harry, James and Charlie at Men with Pens who are responsible for my new theme today, as well. If you like it as much as I do, get over there and have them design your site.)

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

Now, I won’t pretend to know it all when it comes to landing freelance writing work. After all, my first gig was one that the client approached me about, rather than the other way around. In fact, some of my more successful long-term client relationships have been that sort: people who sought me out because they believed I could meet their needs.

Still, you can’t build a business by expecting people to show up on your doorstep. I’ve said before that opportunities aren’t made, they’re painstakingly crafted. To be successful, you’ve got to get out there and make some sales.

Freelance bidding sites

You know these sites. Elance, Guru, Scriptlance and so on. These sites offer a place for clients to post a project and freelancers to bid on those projects. I’ve had some success over time with this kind of activity, and my work on these sites has led to at least a couple of long-term clients.

I could (and probably will, one day) write a series on these sites. There are so many different elements that it’s hard to know where to begin. Rather than trying to do that here, let me just offer four of the most important things I’ve learned about bidding sites:

• Ignore the abysmally low bids. Just because someone else is working for $2 an article doesn’t mean you have to. It just means you have to demonstrate added value to get those higher rates.
• Customize every bid. Yes, it takes time. But you really need to engage the potential client if you’re going to capture her interest. Speak directly to her needs, both written and unwritten, in your bids.
• Showcase your best work, and plenty of it. Include links to your freelance writing portfolio, and attach a relevant sample to your bid. In my case, a link to this blog increases sales by a significant factor.
• There are plenty of different styles of work at these sites, from copywriting to SEO articles to blogging. Pick one and focus on it to maximize your success.

Freelance job sites

There are a number of these out there, but many of them have the same info every day. Two of the ones I check regularly are John Hewitt’s PoeWar and Deb and Jodee at Freelance Writing Jobs. These sites have plenty of potential, but they’re also more competitive. Whereas you might find a dozen gigs a day with eight or ten competitors at Elance, you’re going to find 20 gigs a day with 200 or 300 competitors at these sites.

Beyond that, though, these sites offer a different type of work that what you’ll find at the bidding sites. Here you’ll find a higher concentration of blogging gigs, for example. You’ll also find more long-term assignments and actual “jobs,” if that’s the thing you’re looking for.

Cold calls

I’ve done cold calling, to be sure. If there’s a niche that you’re an expert in, or perhaps have a special knowledge of, it’s all right to contact webmasters of those sites and offer your services. Your rate of success with cold calls is going to be lower than it is with the other methods, but it’s something to try. You may find that you have a knack for this type of sales (I don’t) and make a killing.

Networking

If bidding sites have provided me with some of my long-term clients, networking has provided me with the rest. Whether it’s using social media to connect with other freelancer writers who are looking to outsource, or whether it’s a client’s recommendation to a colleague, word of mouth is still one of the best ways to land clients.

Networking is a bit tricky, though. You can spend all day networking and never land a client. You can network with someone in your field just for fun and wind up forming a long-term partnership. For me, it’s hard to know early on what kind of fruit networking will bear. While you can’t rely solely on networking to get you writing gigs, don’t count it out altogether.

———-

So, what about you? Where do you find your freelance writing clients?

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 by EveryNobody

As several folks mentioned in the comments from the previous post in this series, having a good business plan doesn’t mean that your business is going to succeed. Now, NOT having one can have a seriously detrimental effect on your business, and even put it under. But the way you execute that plan has a lot to do with your success.

Today, I want to talk about the next step on your writing business journey. Once you’ve built that business plan, you should naturally start trying to land a writing gig or two. I’ll talk next time about where to find writing work, but for now I want to focus on something that will help you immensely when it is time to do that:

Building your portfolio.

A good portfolio is, in my estimation, one of the most important assets of your freelance writing business. It displays the quality of your work, demonstrates the depth of your skills and gives potential clients a reason to choose you.

In the print world, a portfolio generally takes the form of “clips.” Clips are, in many cases, articles that you’ve written that are literally “clipped” from the newspaper or magazine you’ve been published in. The challenge with online writing is that much of the writing you do will be “ghostwriting” – that is, you won’t get the byline.

This was one of the challenges I faced early in my freelance writing career. I started out writing in one niche for a single client. When it came time for me to branch out, I found that I had no work samples to show prospective clients. In my case, I worked around it by getting permission from my client to refer potential clients to my articles on her website. But I’d have been much better off if I had a solid body of work I could point to.

So, let’s get practical for a few minutes. What makes a good freelance writing portfolio?

A good freelance writing portfolio is accessible.

If you want to showcase your talents to a prospective client, you need to make it easy for the client to see your work. That means reducing the number of clicks required to see your portfolio. That might mean you set up a website with work samples. It might mean you keep copies of some of your work as MS Word documents, to be attached to emails.

My best portfolio tends to be right here. This blog is one of the most important resources for my freelance writing business. I found that, once I started including a reference to my blog on my freelance writing bids, my sales went through the roof. In fact, bids that included my blog outsold bids that didn’t by a margin of 2 to 1.

However you do it, though, you don’t want to make your client look under every rock on the Internet for your work. I’ve been published all over the web, including some big names in the writing business like Freelance Folder and Freelance Switch. While I could send clients links to those articles, it’s much more convenient for the client if I include them as attachments.

A good freelance writing portfolio is diverse.

Every freelance writer has his favorite style of writing. Certainly a part of what you can do to market yourself as a writer is to brand yourself as the expert in a particular niche or style of writing. Still, the Internet is a funny place. What’s popular today may not be tomorrow. To make it over the long haul, you must have a diverse set of skills. On top of that, having a diverse set of skills means that you have a more diverse set of potential clients.

I keep, at any given time, more than two dozen work samples in my portfolio. It includes the best examples of my sales writing, blog writing, website copy, SEO keyword articles and several other types of writing. I also try to vary the niches, as well, showcasing some of my areas of expertise and interest.

A good freelance writing portfolio showcases your best work.

It should go without saying, but your portfolio needs to be error-free. Even if it’s work you’ve published already, it’s worth an extra proofread to make sure everything is as it should be. Simple grammatical or spelling errors can cost you potential clients.

Along that line of thought, it’s important also to realize that, by including something in your portfolio, you’re saying “I can do this again.” As such, the work you do for a client needs to meet that same level of quality. There’s nothing more frustrating for a client than to see great work in the portfolio followed by a substandard deliverable.

So, what about you? Do you have a freelance writing portfolio for your business? If so, what kinds of things do you include, and what form does it take? Feel free to include a link to your portfolio 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

Today I want to continue talking about how you can get started with your Freelance writing business. Before I get too much into it, though, I want to send you off to read about why these tough economic times really are the best time to start your freelance writing business (Make sure to come back, of course, when you’re done reading it.)

Let’s talk some about planning, shall we?

One of the biggest reasons small businesses of any sort, including freelance writing businesses, fail is because they don’t have a solid business plan. I can tell you from personal experience that this is the case, because it happened to me.

it was 2000. Our second child had just been born, and I was working at a power plant as a Network Administrator. I had just been hired from a contract position to full-time, and was in a great place in terms of my career.

Still, I was already showing signs of IT burnout. I wasn’t happy with my job. I’d been selling computers and fixing computers on the side for years, so we decided in July of 2000 to start our own computer business. I quit my IT job, rented an office, and hung my shingle.

Six months and $30,000 of credit card debt later, my business folded. I went back to the IT world, defeated.

There were many reasons my business failed. One was the economy; in the fall of 2000, the economy started a downward trend. That’s a factor that can’t be ignored, but it probably could have been overcome.

No, the bigger component to my failure was this: I didn’t plan my business. I didn’t have an organized marketing campaign, a thorough understanding of the local market, specific business goals and milestones that I was working toward, an understanding of inventory control or any sorts of overall strategies. I just took out some ads and hoped people would call me.

Needless to say, this wasn’t the best of strategies. I had some folks call me (mostly through word of mouth; I wasn’t yet a skilled copywriter). But it wasn’t nearly enough.

So, how do you plan your freelance writing business? Just like you plan any other business. You study your market. You write a business plan. You develop specific strategies, goals, and tactics.

Now, I could go through how to do this, but let’s be honest: it’s been done. I’m not going to be able to tell you anything about writing a business plan you can’t find elsewhere. So, instead, let me point you to the best resource I’ve found for planning a business: The Small Business Association Small Business Planner. Give it a look, especially the sample business plans.

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 juhansonin

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

(I’ll be continuing with my series on how to start your freelance writing business on Monday, but I wanted to hold it off just through the weekend. I received an email yesterday from Yaro Starak regarding his Blog Mastermind program, and thought my readers might find this information valuable. Enjoy this message on behalf of Yaro.

DISCLAIMER: the links below are affiliate links. I do earn some money if you enroll in Blog Mastermind by clicking on them. However, I encourage you to enroll whether or not you do it via my links, as I think Yaro’s advice will prove extremely valuable if you have any interest whatsoever in making money from your blog.)

Unless you are an Australian you probably don’t know this.

The Australian dollar has dropped dramatically, from 95 cents US a few months ago, to about 68 cents US as I type this.

Why this matters to you is that Yaro Starak’s blog coaching program, Blog Mastermind, charges admission in Australian dollars.

I’ve already raved about this program before and if you don’t believe me, just do a search on Google for “Blog Mastermind Reviews” to see what other people are saying.

It’s the only program of it’s kind that teaches you how to make a full time living from blogging only part time, and is led by one of the best blog teachers I know of.

Already over a 1,000 people have taken part in the program, with many satisfied graduates earning good money from their blogs.

YOU CAN SAVE IF YOU ACT BEFORE MONDAY

If you paid for entry into the program right now with a credit card that is in US dollars, you would save roughly 32% off the entry fee, because the course fees are in Australian dollars.

If you ordered the $97 month for six months plan, your credit card statement would show about $66 as
long as the Aussie dollar remained where it is now.

For the $497 AUD prepaid package, where you get the entire program up front, the cost on your US card would show roughly $338.

Note of course these prices are subject to change based on the current exchange rates, but it doesn’t look like the Australian dollar will climb back up any time soon (but who knows!).

It really doesn’t matter though, because Yaro is changing his pricing from Monday and will be charging in American dollars then. So you only have until Monday to save.

You can join here.

When you go to the payment page you will see prices of $97 or $497 depending on what you choose.

Those prices are in Australian dollars, so the discount will show up if you pay with a US dollar credit card, assuming the Aussie dollar was still weaker when you ordered.

THE $97 MONTH PAYMENT PLAN IS GOING TOO

On Monday Yaro is also eliminating the $97 a month pricing plan. He said he does have plans to bring it back, but because of his bank and online shopping cart system, he can’t charge in USD for recurring subscriptions.

Until he changes his system or they upgrade the features, there won’t be a $97 a month option, only a $497 prepaid course option.

To put it in simple terms – If you want to join Blog Mastermind, the cheaper price deadline is Monday, so you better decide soon.

Here’s the order page.

Good luck with your blog and make sure you tell me what you think of Yaro’s course if you join.

I don’t make a bunch of money from my blog. In fact, if I have $50 a month from affiliate sales in a month, I throw a party.

A very tiny party. Hey, it’s only $50.

Still, my blog is one of the most profitable pieces in my business model. How is that possible?

In short, I get a ton of freelance writing work from my blog. Here’s how:

I get clients through blog-based social networking

One of my biggest clients is one of my blog readers. She followed the blog for a long time, and we eventually struck up some conversations on Twitter. After a while, she trusted me well enough to offer me some writing assignments. For the past several months, I’ve brought in anywhere from one third to one half of my income from this single client.

I use my blog to showcase my best material

When I using a bidding site to compete for freelance writing gigs, the competition can be pretty fierce. After an initially strong run on one particular site, we saw our bid acceptance rates drop dramatically. We couldn’t figure out why it happened that way. Eventually, though, we discovered that bids we put in that included a link to The Writing Journey sold better – by a factor of about 5 – than bids that didn’t link to The Writing Journey. This was the case across the board, whether it was for an ebook, blogging, website copy, or even technical writing gigs.

I earn credibility and prestige through my blog

Without The Writing Journey, I probably wouldn’t have a post at Freelance Switch, and almost certainly wouldn’t be a regular at Freelance Folder. I’m not a superstar, by any means. But my blog is strong enough so as to support a reputable presence around the blogosphere. This, in turn, leads to credibility in my writing business.

So, what about you? How do you use your blog to support your freelance writing business?

***UPDATE FOR AUGUST 2, 2008: I HAVE JUST TWO COACHING SPOTS LEFT FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST. SIGN UP NOW TO START OR REJUVINATE YOUR FREELANCE WRITING CAREER!***

photo credit: skippy13

It’s no secret that I plan to open a writer mentoring program in the future. I spend at least a little bit of time, each day, working on the program. I’m exploring many options, too. I’m looking into what kinds of resources I can bring to the table. I’m exploring potential partnerships, looking at software packages and designing curriculum. Some of the possibilities are pretty exciting, and I think those of you who’ve been waiting won’t be disappointed.

I don’t know how soon the program will be ready to launch. There are a lot of T’s to be crossed, and a lot of… lower-case j’s to be dotted. Rest assured, it’s coming. I’m hoping to have a real timetable in the coming weeks, and you’ll be the first to know when it does launch.

Not a week goes by, however, that I don’t get someone asking me when we’re going to start. That’s an awesome encouragement, and part of what keeps me motivated to keep working on the project.

In the meantime, I hate to see new writers struggling. On top of that, I know how hard it is to get a writing career started, or to try to restart one that’s stalled.

I do what I can here, on my blog, to help writers achieve their dreams. And, I’ll be doing more once the mentoring program begins. At that point, I’ll be able to help literally hundreds of folks.

For now, I want to do something a little extra. For a limited time, I’ve decided to open up coaching opportunities for a limited number of my readers. Specifically, I want to help some of you:

• Propel your writing business ahead
• Learn to write with impact, conviction and, authority
• Make money writing online
• Understand the complex inner-workings of the Internet Writing business
• Map out your own pathway to freelance success

How will I do that? Well, as a stop-gap measure designed to help at least a few of you out until the mentoring program is in full swing, I’ve structured a personal writing coach program that begins today. In this program, I give you:

• Four hours of personal attention to help you with your writing career
• A customized coaching program that most suits your needs
• My perspective as a seasoned freelance veteran
• A hands-on analysis of your writing
• Communication via E-mail, chat, or any combination of the two

Now, my time isn’t limitless. I wish I could help every one of my readers in this way, but I can’t. That will come, down the road, when the mentoring program opens up. For now, I can only accept a total of 5 clients into this coaching program. I’m not promoting the coaching program anywhere else, and this blog post is the only time you’ll hear about it, at least for this month.

The normal rate for this coaching program will be $250 per month. For August only, I’m going to set the price at $150 per month. This lets you get a chance to see if you benefit from the program, and it gives me a little leeway to experiment on you. Mwah ha ha ha!

The program will run at least through the end of the year, and folks who are currently enrolled will have first pick of the slots for each following months.

The first five of you who enroll will get the spots in this exclusive program. Go to the sign up page and get started now!

(Before you read today’s post, check out Yaro’s Blog Mastermind opening page. He reopens the program at 10 AM today. If you want to learn to make money blogging, sign up. You won’t regret it.)

If you want to make it as a writer, you’re going to have some bumps along the way.

Make no mistake about it. You’re going to have a client who drops off the face of the earth right after you send her $500 worth of work. You’re going to farm out some work to someone who proves to be unreliable. You’re going to lose a gig somewhere, not because you couldn’t land the client, but because you couldn’t find the damn order in the middle of your chaos.

In my freelance writing business, I’ve been going through some growing, although most of it hasn’t been painful. In the last three months I’ve landed several new clients and found cause to bring some other writers into the fold. I’ve even been able to bring my wife, Angie, on board to help me keep tabs on everything and to help get new clients.

Yes, there have been some dips and hurdles, but overall this growth is good.

I’d just like to say, while I’m here, that Angie is amazing. She’s got something like a 60% conversion rate when bidding projects already. We wondered at first if it was beginner’s luck, but the gigs keep on coming. Yeah, my portfolio is impressive. I do excellent work, and it speaks for itself. But she’s got the goods when it comes to hooking clients and getting them to really consider hiring us.

Along with this growth, I’ve had to modify my business plan. I’ve written many times about the need for both vision and flexibility in that vision. While you can’t guarantee that a given endeavor will or won’t succeed, you can adjust as needed to ride the unexpected waves.

What am I getting at with all of this? Just sharing my journey, folks. That’s what this blog is about, after all.

I’m curious about your stories, though. If you’re a freelancer, are you working solo? Have you had growing pains, and what sort? If you’re not yet making a living with your writing, what do you envision in the long term? Will it be just you, will you have a writing team, or will you just have support staff?

I’ve got a post today over at Freelance folder called How Freelancing Is Like Network Administration. Give it a look, and feel free to add your comments.

While I’m on the subject, though, I’m curious about something. I do most of my writing in good old Microsoft Word 2007. I’ve had clients request everything from Notepad to Word Perfect formats. Usually, I can just write my material in Word and export it. I even do that with blog posts, making sure to paste the text in the HTML editor in WordPress so as to avoid all those goopy Microsoft Word HTML add-ons.

What I’m wondering is this: how do you write? Do you use one of the “writing-room” type programs, or do you use a Word Processor? Tell me why your method is best; I really just need an excuse to dump Word!
photo credit: House Of Sims

As you all are well aware, I’m not in the “Make Money Online” blog crowd. Like I said the other day, I blog when I’ve got something I think will be useful to other writers. I write about common mistakes, ways to improve your writing, and even about some of the online writing tools that I use.

I tend to focus on the “how to be a better writer” and “how to be a better freelancer” side of things, rather than “how to make money online.” There are plenty of folks out there who are willing to tell you how to make money online, I don’t need to do it.

Unfortunately, a lot of those folks are little more than charlatans and thieves. There are lots of bad guys, and just a handful of good guys. One of the good guys is Yaro Starak. Yaro’s free Blog Profits Blueprint was in many ways the inspiration for this blog, and is a good part of the reason that this blog is so successful today.

Yaro’s got a new free 30-minute video, just released today, called “Conversion Blogging.” The video focuses on leveraging your blogging efforts into a full-time income. In the video, he talks about how to get away from becoming a “page view slave” who makes pennies a day on their blog, and making a real income.

Obviously, the video is a way for Yaro to introduce you to his blog mentoring program, in the same way that the Blog Profits Blueprint does. But even if you just watch the video and read the blueprint, I promise you’ll find something that’s worthwhile, that you can apply to your blogging efforts. Even if you’re like me and use your blog more to get clients than you do to make money, Yaro’s got plenty of sound ideas about generating blog traffic that you should listen to. On top of that, his ideas about “pillar content” are especially insightful and tremendously useful, particularly if you’re just starting out blogging.

Give it a whirl, and then feel free to come back and let me know what you think about it.

People ask me, on a pretty regular basis, how they can get started writing on the web. What’s especially interesting about this is the fact that some of these folks are the same ones who, three or four years ago when I started this gig, sort of snickered. They figured I’d fallen into some crazy scheme that would bottom out in a few weeks.

Five years on, and it hasn’t exactly bottomed out. In fact, things are going swimmingly.

My purpose on this blog, as my regular readers are well aware, is to help Internet writers achieve their dreams. There are several ways I go about doing that:

• There are my regular blog posts, of course. While their frequency can vary, I try to always post at least a couple of times a week, though my unofficial goal is four posts a week.
• There are my guest posts, like I have over at Freelance Folder. My ongoing Violent Truths column and my Seven Deadly Freelancing Sins series are examples. I’ve also been featured on Freelance Switch, Remarkablogger, Freelance Writing Jobs, Meryl.net, and many other sites.
• There’s my writers’ mentoring program, which I’ll be talking about more as we get further into the month of July. I’m still hammering out a lot of details, but I’ve got some interesting surprises coming in that area that I think you’re going to be absolutely thrilled about.
• I also occasionally offer product reviews that I think will be useful to my readers. I don’t do paid reviews, but I’ll often do affiliate reviews. Affiliate reviews are ideal because they allow me to unleash both barrels when it comes to a product. Like the Pen Men, I refuse to review something that I think is completely useless or overpriced.

That’s where I want to spend some time today, on that last bullet point. I want to briefly cover four key products that I consider extremely useful for the new freelancer. One of them is free, and you can get all four of them for less than $100. If you’re just starting out as a freelancer or if you’re exploring the freelance route, each one of these resources will give you a huge boost – if you follow their advice. Understand that I put my own word behind these products. I won’t recommend something to you that I don’t fully believe in myself.

Rockstar Freelancer

I’ve done an extended review of this book previously. I still recommended it as an important resource for new freelancers. Several of you have purchased this book and I haven’t heard any complaints. Check out the review for more information, as well as a link to buy the thing.

Men with Pens’ Write For The Web

To my own dismay, I haven’t yet reviewed Write For The Web here. This book is the perfect companion, though, to Rockstar Freelancer. What Rockstar Freelancer doesn’t tell you about Internet-specific writing, this book does. Oh, and did I mention who the authors are? None other than James Chartrand and Harrison McLeod of Men with Pens. Their advice has proven to be indispensable, even for an old hand like me. These boys know their stuff.

Ninja SEO School

Naomi Dunford over at Itty Biz is, in my mind, one of the sharpest small business consultants on the planet. At the very least, she’s the wittiest. Her SEO School is a well-written, highly readable and amazingly reliable guide to Search Engine Optimization. The best part about it is that she truly advocates for good writing, and recognizes that SEO is only as good as the rest of the writing involved.

Blog Mastermind

Yaro Starak’s Blog Profits Blueprint is available for free download. I’ve said it before, and it holds true to this day: This document was instrumental in convincing me to start a blog, and was also instrumental in helping me get the blog traffic that I have. I haven’t had a single week where I’ve had fewer subscribers than the week before, and Yaro’s Blog Profits Blueprint was instrumental in that. Yaro also has a blog mentoring program that you might consider if your focus of freelance writing is going to be your own blog.

Some of you may already know this.  Others may not.

For the majority of the early part of my writing career, I wrote under a female pen name.  My alter ego produced literally thousands of articles on parenting, pregnancy, conception, and child rearing.  Chances are pretty good that, if you’ve spent any time researching some of these topics, you’ve read my work.

While I enjoyed the work and it helped to catapult my writing career, the time finally came when I needed to break out, and develop my own brand. 

Check out The Violent Truth of Branding over at Freelance Folder today to learn how I did it, what worked for me, and what pitfalls I fell into along the way.

—–

While you’re at it, make my friend Ritu happy by visiting my post, “The Exponential Power of Collaborative Effort“ over at Marketing Hackz today, too!