“I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.” – King Solomon

One thing you can count on from me, when it comes to giving you freelance writing advice, is that I’m going to tell you hard work pays off. Freelance writing isn’t for the weak or the faint of heart; you need to plug away, every day, if you want to succeed. That’s a mantra I’ve recited since day one on this blog.

But sometimes, even when you do everything right, things don’t go the way you want them to go. A client goes out of business, or you get sick and can’t write for a week. Time and chance happen to us all.

It’s little comfort to know that this isn’t just the fate of the freelance writer. When you’re the one that chance and time are unkind to, it doesn’t matter that everyone else from the CEO to the street cleaner is susceptible to them, as well.

Time and chance can be more devastating to the freelance writer than to other folks. Most folks can miss a couple of days of work without worrying about losing their job; when a freelance writer misses a couple of days of work, they can lose clients, which has a direct impact on their bottom line.

Still, I wouldn’t be a writer if it weren’t for time and chance. I’ve been broadsided by fate too many times to count, in hundreds of little events, that have pushed me to the place I am today. It hasn’t always been wonderful; at times it’s been downright painful. But it has also made me who I am, and it has brought me some measure of success.

Success as a freelance writer has little to do with being fast or strong or wise or wealthy. Success as a freelance writer comes by meeting the challenges of time and chance head-on. It means taking the bad along with the good, taking the famine alongside the feast.

There is an advantage that freelance writers have over some other careers, however. As a freelance writer, I have a heck of a lot more flexibility. It’s easier to make adjustments when life happens. That’s the trade-off.

OK, I’ve got three quick housekeeping issues today. If you’re not interested, skip down to the header below and get right to the good stuff!

1. First, get on over to my post at Freelance Writing Jobs Business Tips on 53 Sure-Fire Ways to Lose Clients. That, or just subscribe to the feed and keep update on all of the useful tips and advice for your freelance writing business.




2. You should also vote for Angie’s Pangie’s blog over at CD Kitchen. If you don’t know, Angie Pangie is my beloved wife and an amazing cook. Take my word for it, she deserves your vote.




3. I also wanted to remind you that Thursday is the last day to secure your seat at Copywriting Success Summit 2009 at the early-bird discount rate (a $200 savings, 40% off the regular price!).
   
   

   This is the premier online event for writers (from beginners to veterans) who want to generate better-quality leads, win higher-caliber clients and earn more.
   

   If you want to grow your writing business, you’ll want check this out. Grab your seat at this online event before the $200 discount ends. And don’t forget they’re also including all of the sessions from the 2008 summit at no added cost.
   

   Go here now: Copywriting Success Summit 2009

All right, let’s get on with it, shall we?

Michelangelo and Freelance Writing

You probably don’t realize it, but Michelangelo didn’t want to paint the Sistine Chapel. You see, the artist who created the Pieta and David saw himself as a sculptor. Like any artist at the time, he knew how to handle a brush, but his passion (and most of his income up to that point) had been due to his proficiency as a sculptor.

Not only did Michelangelo see himself as a sculptor rather than a painter, he’d never attempted painting a fresco.

It wasn’t Michelangelo’s idea to paint the chapel. It was a scheme, initiated by Michelangelo’s enemies, to trip him up. They thought he’d do a bad job and be discredited. At the very least, they knew his work would be off the market for several years while he worked on the Sistine Chapel. They managed to convince the Pope that Michelangelo was the right artist for the job.

Now, if you lived in Rome in 1508, you couldn’t tell the Pope, “No thanks, I’m a sculptor.”

Inexperience wasn’t the only obstacle Michelangelo faced, however. To paint a ceiling, the artist has to be positioned on his back on top of a scaffold, for hours on end. The scaffold raises the artist within just inches of the ceiling.

For four years, Michelangelo painted in this way.

The details of Michelangelo’s ordeal were chronicled by Ascanio Condivi, one of Michelangelo’s students, and eventually his biographer. For more from Condivi (and the source material for this article), check out Eye Witness to History. Here’s a bit of what Condivi had to say about what happened after the Sistine Chapel was done:

“After he had accomplished this work, because he had spent such a long time painting with his eyes looking up at the vault, Michelangelo then could not see much when he looked down; so that, if he had to read a letter or other detailed things, he had to hold them with his arms up over his head. Nonetheless, after a while, he gradually grew accustomed to reading again with his eyes looking down. From this we may conceive how great were the attention and diligence with which he did this work.”

What does all of this have to do with freelance writing? I don’t think I have to paint you a picture. Here are the lessons I walked away with from Michelangelo’s tale:

• Expanding beyond our comfort zone just might open up new opportunities. Don’t be afraid to try new kinds of freelance writing, especially if you’re new to the game.
• Don’t let your enemies or detractors get to you. Chances are, history will forget their names anyways.
• Being the best freelance writer you can be sometimes means keeping your gaze upward, whether you want to or not.
• Dilligence in the face of difficult or tedious work often yields amazing success. Don’t believe me? Just take a look:

If you’ve spent any amount of time online looking for writing tips, you’ve probably come across the essay 13 Writing Tips by  Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club (and several other novels, as well). In that essay, Palahniuk offers some excellent advice for writers. As with many novelists, however, much of his advice is aimed at the budding novelist, such as tip number ten: “Write the book you want to read.”

However, I’d like to take a look at his first writing tip and tell you how I apply it to freelance writing. Here is that first tip:

Number One: Two years ago, when I wrote the first of these essays it was about my “egg timer method” of writing. You never saw that essay, but here’s the method: When you don’t want to write, set an egg timer for one hour (or half hour) and sit down to write until the timer rings. If you still hate writing, you’re free in an hour. But usually, by the time that alarm rings, you’ll be so involved in your work, enjoying it so much, you’ll keep going. Instead of an egg timer, you can put a load of clothes in the washer or dryer and use them to time your work. Alternating the thoughtful task of writing with the mindless work of laundry or dish washing will give you the breaks you need for new ideas and insights to occur. If you don’t know what comes next in the story… clean your toilet. Change the bed sheets. For Christ sakes, dust the computer. A better idea will come.

As much as I love my business, there are times when I don’t feel like writing. There are times I downright hate writing. I don’t hate it the way that I hated configuring Cisco routers near the end of my IT career, but there are moments when I’d rather be doing just about anything else.

So, I do what Palahniuk recommends, after a fashion. When I’m really struggling with staying on task, staying motivated or just keeping from being totally perturbed at what I’m writing, I write in shifts. I set the timer to write for 90 minutes, and i plow through. When my 90 minutes are up, I stop for fifteen. It’s sort of my reward for being a good little writer.

During my free time, I might read a book, play on Facebook, play a video game or even take a 15-minute catnap. The important thing is to disengage – get free of my writing for a few minutes – so I can come back recharged.I’m not looking for “new ideas and insights” in the way that Palahniuk talks about. I’m just looking for a distraction – something to take my mind away from the writing for a little bit.

I guess there’s one more thought to add to this mix, too. I’m at the place in my writing business where I don’t have to take every project that comes along. I can turn down a project, or pass it on to one of my writers, if I think it’s going to be too monotonous or boring.

So, what about you? Do you use built-in “egg timer” breaks in your day? Do you need them with every project, or just with certain ones?

Today’s post is a guest post from David Gurevich. David contacted me with this post idea a while back. I think it’s a good addition to my 178 Ways to Improve Your Internet Writing post. Enjoy!

When we write, we leave the clutter and junk of our lives behind, and enter a world of possibility, where anything can happen.  Yet our words are ultimately for other people.

Now matter how beautiful the dream, the original vision, it must be clearly communicated for other people to experience it.

Here are 50 tips to improve your writing. If followed, your writing will drastically improve.

1) Have a trusted editor.

This is number one on the list because it’s that important. An editor takes the decent stuff you throw at them, cuts out the words that aren’t 100% effective, and adds their perspective.

It’s like taking a diamond to a specialist for cutting.

2) Use the active voice.

For the most part, say what people do. Don’t say what is done. John plowed the field, not, the field was plowed by John. Active phrasing keeps your prose alive and interesting.

3) Know grammar – that way, you’ll know exactly what rule you’re breaking.

Read one of the books that make grammar fun like Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. It’ll make you laugh and teach you something, too. If you want to break the rules, just first make sure you know what they.

4) Always think twice when you use a big word.

It doesn’t matter if you know what eschew means, and it doesn’t matter if your audience might. Use the simplest words you can. It is easier to read and it’s more interesting.

5) Know your audience. Coal miners are very different from astrophysicists who’re different from High Schoolers.

Writing is meant to be read. Make sure you know who your readers are, how they think, and what they like. Write to meet their needs.

6) Keep paragraphs short and to the point.

Simplicity.

It’s effective.

7) Don’t use colloquialisms needlessly.

It’s tempting to include slang or new phrases to make your work sound hip and relevant.

But you risk a lot. First, you stand to alienate those who don’t understand. Second, it can lower the quality of your writing. And finally, with the rapid pace of change, a phrase everyone knows now may be archaic in a few years.

8.) Edit. Always edit.

Write something, then edit it, then edit it some more.

9) Focus on writing. Turn off the cellphone – no multitasking.

If you want to produce great writing, then dedicate time to doing just that – writing.

A little distraction is OK. Some people, after all, work better with music playing or other stimuli. What you need to avoid are things that require a significant amount of your attention, and so distract you.

Music, OK. Instant messaging? Not so good.

10) Adverbs are OK, but like fatty food, cut back on them.

Don’t substitute adverbs for effective description. Things can be done quickly, furiously, happily, whatever. The problem arises when you rely on those adverbs to describe things that are better shown.

For instance, you might write, “He furiously shut the door.” That gets you a B. It’s decent writing. But if you want to make it A level writing, you might want to describe with verbs and nouns what happened.

Adverbs are also a problem when they become too excessive in and of themselves.

11) Use imagery and central metaphors to build emotional impact.

Have themes to your work. Use powerful images and metaphors to build a lasting emotional impact.

12) Break up long sentences with short ones. And vice versa.

13) Write in a natural tone. Nothing stilted that would make your friends give you a questioning look.

If anything you write would make a close friend break out laughing – and not at your wit – then there’s a problem. Think of your poor reader. Now go, make your writing simpler. Use as few words as possible to say as much as possible.

14) Join a writing group. Group pressure means results.

15) Hold yourself accountable. Make goals and meet them.

Start small. Promise yourself that you’ll work at least 10 minutes a day on that big project you’re passionate about but never do. Then meet that goal. Before you know it, 10 minutes – which you can easily do – becomes 20, then 45. And at that point you’re making real progress on your dream of writing.

16) Know when you’re done.

Orwell thought his book 1984 wasn’t edited well enough. If he had listened to himself, he’d have kept working on it, and we wouldn’t have a classic. Now, you absolutely need to edit your ass off and make sure everything is great.

But there also needs to be an ending.

17) The vast majority of writing doesn’t use swearwords.

18) Cut out any unnecessary words.

Read a paragraph you’re not happy with. Find every single word that doesn’t need to be there and delete it. Readability will skyrocket.

19) Feel free to disregard your first draft. It’s just paper or kilobytes.

You don’t need to stick to your first draft. Feel free to start all over again.

20) Using “I” is OK if done correctly.

You’re taught as a kid that “I” shouldn’t be in your papers. That’s not always true. When you have a relevant opinion, it’s not a sin to put yourself in the paper. You’re the one writing it after all.

21) The more you write, the better you become.

I swear that I used to suck at writing. Teachers told me I had to redo work. I might still suck – that’s your call – but hours and hours of practice writing have improved my ability a lot.

Even if you’re not happy with your writing as it is, it will get better. Just work at it.

22) Read great literature.

23) Give yourself a writing space.

24) The best way to succeed is the Butt in Chair method. You sit, you work. No questions.

25) Realize that a critic may be wrong.

26) Have a consistent writing schedule.

27) Favor the most concise style, but you don’t have to be Hemmingway.

28) Don’t betray the readers trust with something absurd.

29) In writing, you first create a world – then have to follow its rules.

If casting a spell requires an animal sacrifice in chapter 1, then requires herbal potions in chapter 4, and finally in chapter 10 doesn’t require anything (George, our beloved protagonist, just starts slinging fireballs with no explanation), you’re letting your readers down.

Follow the rules that exist in your world. Consistency!

30) Have a writing ritual. Myself, I always have a cup of tea first.

31) Avoid cliches.

Cliches are best avoided. The problem with them is that they are too easy, and that they don’t necessarily add a lot to your writing. You want to be original.

32) Avoid excessively witty, self-serving in-jokes.

A witty self-serving in-joke would have been to write “avoid cliches like the plague.” There is, as always, a fine line, and err on the side of respecting your readers.

33) When being creative, suspend your inner critic.

You want to try something new? Cut off the electricity to the inner critic center in your mind, and start writing! Magic is happening.

34) Listen to your inner critic after being creative.

After you have a creative breakthrough, you then have to take the hard road of editing and revision.

35) Know the difference between British and American style.

36) Whatever you write about, do your research first. Know what you write about.

If you want to convincingly write about a car salesman, learn how they think. What phrases they use, what makes them happy. Knowing those details will shine through your writing and give it authenticity.

37) Show don’t tell for the most part.

38) Tell, don’t show, when doing otherwise would be boring or plain stupid.

39) Make your writing have an exciting, forward pace.

40) Don’t overuse ellipses or dashes.

Some authors liter their writing with… way too… often. Or – they uses dashes far too often – making things that don’t deserve it have it. Ellipses and dashes can be very effective. Just don’t abuse ‘em.

41) You start writing to please yourself, but succeed by pleasing others.

42) Don’t be afraid to describe something that has to be described.

43) Fancy fonts, underlining and bolding work – in business writing. Not fiction.

Different genres have different stylistic rules. Always write stuff that works without highlighting, italicizing, or whatever. But remember to take advantage of the presentation options you have.

44) Always prefer the word “said.” Grunting, snorting and chortling gets old fast.

45) Believe in yourself.

46) Be dramatic by being subtle.

47) Write for your readers.

Mentioned several times, but explicitly said here. Don’t write for yourself. Write to help your reader out, to entertain them, or to inform them. Their needs must be met, and you need to meet them.

48) Use punctuation appropriately.

49) Mix long paragraphs with short paragraphs.

50) Keep things moving along.

Take pride in your hard work, and reward important landmarks. Keep working hard and having fun. You’re the most amazing person, even if only to those who love you. You owe it to them to write your best!

David Gurevich is chosen by companies to make abstruse issues simple. You can check him out at his blog, Health and Life, a Medical Blog , where he blogs – logically enough – about health and medical issues.

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.

I haven’t done a links post in quite a while, so I thought I’d give you a little glimpse at where I’m spending my quality time online these days. I think you’ll enjoy each of these links:

• Michael Stelzner of Writing White Papers has opened up nominations for the Top 10 Writing Blogs of 2009. The Writing Journey made the list in 2008, which thrilled me to no end. Make sure to get over there and nominate your favorite writing blog today – the deadline is next Friday.
• Speaking of Michael, he and Peter Bowerman have an amazing free webinar called Generalist vs. Specialist: Which Is Better in a Tough Economy? coming on September 17, 2009. This is going to be a head-to-head debate between two copywriting superstars—one who is the king of a big niche and the other who is a very famous generalist. You need to register, and there are a limited number of spots, so get over there today.
• Jennifer Mattern over at All Freelance Writing has an interesting post on residual article income. As you may remember, I experimented a bit with residual income-based article directories in the early days of this blog, with relatively poor results. Jennifer offers some excellent thoughts on the promises and disappointments involved in these kinds of sites. Not sure I agree with all of it, but it’s still a good read.
• Do you read Seth Godin? Not everyone’s a fan, I know. He’s got some terse and insightful thoughts on Positive thinking this week. Take a look.
• If you haven’t been to Freelance Writing Jobs in a while, you should visit. Deb Ng has expanded the site into a full-blown blog network, and it’s seriously sharp. Check the Business Tips blog at FWJ on Tuesday, September 8. I have a reliable source that says the day’s post will be interesting.

There you go. That should keep you busy for a while.

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 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

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

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

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.

Photo by by mandj98

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

It doesn’t happen very often, but it has happened to me twice in ten days.

Last week, I had a client kick a project back to me. The client didn’t ask me to revise the project; instead, he said “I’ve already paid you for this half, don’t bother with the other half. This just isn’t what I was looking for.” Upon reflection, I realized that he was right; I’d written the material with a fever of 101.6, and it wasn’t my best work. Not by a long shot.

I had another client, just today, email me saying that she was dissatisfied with my product. In her case, I bit off more than I could chew. Because of that, I didn’t produce the deliverable in a timely fashion.

Now, I’ll gladly take my licks here. In both of these cases, I made mistakes. In the first, I let a product go out, not realizing that it didn’t meet client specs. The fever, well, that’s incidental. I should have known better than to try to write in that condition.

In the second case, I just overestimated how many hours were in a day, and how much time I’d have to meet the client’s expectations.

So, what do I do?

I’m going to do what I’ve always done.

I’m going to admit my mistakes.

I’ve done that, right here. Confession is good for the soul and, while those two clients likely won’t read this, I’ve already contacted them, offering my apologies and trying to set things right. I hate for there to be bad blood between me and anyone, for any reason.

I’m going to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

This was a tough lesson to learn. My instinct is to become indignant. “I was sick! You have to give me another shot!” is what I want to say. But I realize something: as a freelancer, I alone am responsible for what I deliver to clients. If it’s not my best work, every time, then it’s not good enough. If I’m sick, I need to ask for an extension. Better yet, I’ve decided to push out my editorial calendar a bit, just to get a little bit of extra wiggle room for emergencies. So, rather than offering a turnaround time of a week on a project, from now on I might ask for ten days, or even two weeks.

In the other case, I’m learning to let my assistant handle more and more tasks. She’s amazing at what she does, and when I’m overwhelmed she helps me sort it all out. I’m learning to let her help prioritize tasks, figure out which ones can wait, which ones can be outsourced, and which ones I have to jump on right away.

I’m going to focus on the positives.

it’s easy, when a client drops you or when a project gets kicked back, to start dragging yourself through the mud. You start telling yourself you aren’t good enough, that you have no business writing for a living, that you suck at business. But those are damn dirty lies, folks.

I’ve worked with more than a dozen clients in the past month. The overwhelming majority are thrilled with my work. If I extend those numbers out to the past year, I’ve only had three incidents where clients didn’t like what I provided, out of more than a hundred. Those aren’t bad odds.

So, I’m going to dig through some old emails. You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones that put you on top of the world for a full day after you get them. The ones you print out and tape to your desk, just like my kids do when they bring home a test with an “A.”

So, what about you? What do you do when you have a setback of your own making?

photo credit: Dawn Ashley