Entries Tagged 'Writing Advice' ↓

As I’ve taken on writing coaching clients these past few months, it’s been really interesting to talk with aspiring writers, and watch as they try to wrap their heads around the business of writing. I’ve found that most folks only need a very little help when it comes to the technical side of writing. Most of my coaching clients wind up learning a lot in two specific areas.

How the Writing Business Works

I recall, before I started writing for money, how I had this very distinct image of the professional writer. Like most people, I thought of the novelist. I pictured a cabin in the woods, overlooking a crystal clear lake, with a dedicated artist furiously banging away on her keyboard, creating the next bestseller.

It’s funny, because that image really isn’t what most writers’ lives are like. Oh, sure, there are some successful novelists who live that way. But most of the people who make their living from writing do it in a home office, at their kitchen table, or at a local coffee shop. In my case, it’s all three.

So, one of the things that happens in my coaching is that the illusory wall comes down. My clients get a chance to look behind the scenes, to see what the writing life is really like. I’ll walk them through a particular project, from start to finish. And more often than not, their reaction is one of surprise as they see that the writing business is a lot like many other small businesses.

The Characteristics of a Successful Writer

The other thing my clients often experience first-hand is a realization of what it takes to be a successful writer. They learn things about themselves, about what it would really take to make their living by writing. While working on a project together, one of my coaching clients described it this way:

Before this project, I would sit and write as my schedule allowed, and if I did not feel like producing much, I did not. This project made me realize that when there is time, there must be productivity. For me, transitioning from working a “day job” to being a productive writer is about being able to “turn on” the switch when I have the time to sit at the computer, focus on results, and produce.

And that, truly, is one of the first lessons you learn when you begin writing professionally. Back when I worked as a Network Administrator, I could blow off a Friday afternoon if I wanted to, usually with very little consequence. Today, if I blow off work time it has to be made up, and sooner rather than later. While it’s true I have more flexibility working for myself than I did when I worked for someone else, I also have to take things more seriously.

When I started The Writing Journey just over a year ago, this blog was something of an experiment. I’d run several blogs before, with relatively little success in terms of garnering subscribers. Some were personal blogs, devoted to a particular hobby. Others were attempts to blog in a certain niche area, in hopes of generating revenue via advertising or affiliate income.

The Writing Journey was different. Sure, I ran Adsense in the early days. And yes, I’ve found a handful of affiliate programs that I can really believe in to promote over time. But this blog was more about giving back: sharing my experiences as a professional writer, and helping other Internet writers achieve their dreams.

Through this blog, I’ve met many other Internet writers. I’ve formed business alliances, landed writing gigs, had the privilege of mentoring several writers, and just had an overall good time.

Unfortunately, late last year I let the passion slip a bit. Writing my regular blog post became something of a chore. I found myself struggling to find something more interesting, more useful, more inspiring than what I’d posted before.

A day or two without a post turned into a week, a week turned into a month, and a month turned into three. I broke the number one rule of blogging.

And what is the number one rule of blogging?

To blog successfully, you have to post consistently.

Now, I don’t feel too terribly bad about all of this; after all, this blog has primarily been a labor of love. Not blogging hasn’t horribly impacted my bottom line. Still, I’ve missed it. And, I’ve missed you, my readers.

I’ve also realized something: not every post has to be profound. Well-written, yes. Useful in one way or another, of course. But some of the most important lessons about being a professional writer are the simplest. It’s not nearly as important that I be clever in a post as it is that I post to begin with.

At any rate, without making any grand pronouncements of broad commitments, I do want to let you know I’m back. It’s been a long, cold winter, but I’ve missed you all. I hope to get back into the habit of consistently writing here, of interacting with you and helping you achieve your dreams, even as I’m living mine.

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.

There’s money in SEO writing. If you can do it right, you can make a killing. Understanding the inner workings of search engines, knowing the right keywords to pick and being able to insert them into your writing is a valued skill.

If you write on the Internet at all, chances are you do at least some SEO. If you surf the Internet at all (who doesn’t) you’ve seen perfectly-optimized SEO pages.

You’ve probably also noticed that, in many cases, perfectly-optimized SEO pages suck. The writing is contrived, sentence structure is awkward and those keywords - usually in various formats - are repeated ad nauseum. In other words, good SEO is often terrible writing.

Now, this isn’t always the case. You can optimize a page without having to make the SEO so in-your-face noticeable. (If you want to know more, go to SEO School. Naomi will tell you all there is to know about good SEO.)

What happens, though, when your client wants the SEO to be so thick you can cut it with a knife?

You have two choices: take the gig or don’t.

If you take the gig, you’re going to have to get pretty damn creative. Chances are you’re still going to wind up with a piece of work that’s less than stellar, at least in terms of its readability. But, hey, you’re not an artist, right? You run a business, and businesses need to make money. Besides, if you don’t write it, someone else will.

If you don’t take the gig, you can go on with your own writing integrity. You can take satisfaction in the fact that you’re not contributing to the wealth of crappy writing on the Internet. By keeping your high standards, you help raise the overall quality of information on the Internet.

A few months ago, I took a gig that had some very specific SEO requirements. The keyword density was very high, so much so that I’m pretty sure Google won’t catch the page on those keywords (although MSN or Yahoo search might). I went along my merry way, wrote the article, and sent it to the client.

The client loved the article. Unfortunately, I hadn’t hit the SEO requirements, so the client bounced it back to me for a revision.

I realized, as I began writing the revision, just how intense these SEO requirements were. The client wanted specific word pairings that just didn’t work linguistically. (A similar example would be the keyword, “Tobacco Virginia.”)

At this point, though, I didn’t have much of a choice. I reworked the article, trying to preserve the quality as best I could. The result wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great either.

After finishing the work, it occurred to me: there was a third option I’d missed. I could have challenged the client’s requirements from the start. I could have pointed out the difficulty of the awkward word pairings, and offer other suggestions. Maybe the client would have taken the suggestions and let me do the work, maybe not.

I’m not an ar-teest, not by any stretch of the imagination. However, I do believe that great writing matters online. Just because we web writers don’t have the kind of editorial gatekeepers that print writers have doesn’t mean we can just let quality go. There has to be some kind of middle ground between using the tools we need (like SEO) and creating something that’s readable, clear and correctly uses the language.

Today, I’m hesitant to work gigs with more than just basic SEO.

What do you think? Am I being a snob here? Am I being unrealistic? Or is it sometimes worth it to sacrifice a sale in favor of the quality writing principle?

Image by elblogdeffuentes

In this age of instant connectivity and social media, there really isn’t a good reason for freelance writers or other web workers to become isolated. Truly.

Still, it happens. You can become so involved in your work, in producing the content you need to produce, in dealing with clients, paying bills, hiring writers and everything else involved in the business that you wind up spending a majority of time on your own.

Is this isolation a bad thing?

Experts tell us it is. Depression is one of the most common conditions affecting web workers, according to studies. As a freelance writer, you can easily go a full day without hearing a single other person’s voice, and that can become a problem.

I’m at one of those places right now. Business is, well, busy. I’ve got lots of irons in the fire. I’ve got projects left and right. I’m pounding pavement constantly to find new clients as the economic downturn claims old clients as victims. The business is humming along fine, but it’s taking more hours to produce the same results.

What that means is I spend no time on Twitter. I comment less and less on other blogs. I log out of Google Chat, knowing that it’s all too easy to become unfocused and distracted.

Distracted, that is, by social interaction. You know, that stuff that makes life worth living. The stuff freelance writers need to keep from going loopy.

Now, I consider myself lucky. I’ve got a family that I can socialize with in the evenings, and I’ve got friends I can enjoy as well. That’s enough, for now, to keep my minimum social needs met.

In the long run, though, I think we all need that interaction that comes from interacting with our peers. At some point, we need that give and take. Not only does it keep us sane; it also helps us sharpen our skills.

You see, the more you interact with other writers, the more likely it is for you to become a better writer. We freelancers tend to be “as steel that sharpens steel.”

So, how do you address the problem? In concrete terms, on a personal level? Well, here’s my approach:

Pick a certain amount of time - maybe 15 minutes, 3 times a day - that you’ll get outside of your work and outside of your head, and connect with other freelancers.

Pick a medium. Whether it’s Twitter, chat, blog commenting or whatever method you usually use to interact with your peers, get going with it.

Don’t stress about missed opportunities. Do you have unanswered emails sitting in your inbox where you’ve dropped out in the middle of a conversation? Pick up on them if you want, but don’t beat yourself up. We all do it, and anyone else in the business will understand.

Be ready to explain. The minute you go active again, you’ll have folks who’ve missed you call you out. “Where you been? Are you hiding from me? Are you alive?” that sort of thing. You don’t have to go into detail. You can just say, “been horribly busy” and send them a link to this post. They’ll figure it out.

So, what about you? Have you had this sort of thing happen to you?

(On a side note, this post was inspired, in part, by Losing Your Sense of Self Because of Your Business over at Men with Pens. Thanks James, for making me think!)

Photograpy by by rephotography