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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

One of the most common questions I get asked by my readers is “how do I get started writing online?” In some ways, I feel underqualified to answer the question. Like I’ve said before, I sort of fell into my writing career while I was doing other things. I hobbled together my writing business rather haphazardly.

If I were to start over today, I’d be more organized about it. I’d avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made over the past five years. I’d put energy into the projects and ideas that were a good fit for me, and I’d let all of the extraneous stuff go.

To be sure, you can’t exactly do that. You can’t mystically experience what I’ve experienced, and some of the things that are a good fit for me aren’t going to be a good fit for you. There are lessons that only experience can teach.

I can certainly share my experiences here, pass along things that have worked for me, identify some general pitfalls to avoid. I can identify writing resources that have helped me immensely. I can talk about the freelance business, share my setbacks as well as my successes. I’ve done all of those things. All of these things provide benefits to you, but they don’t tell you how to get started.

So, over the next week or two, I want to offer my plan. I want to tell you how I’d do it if I could do it over again. Along the way, I hope we’ll have some interesting discussions, and that you’ll offer me your thoughts and questions in the comments section.

Follow The Journey: Other Posts In This Series

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Introduction

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Education

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Honing Your Craft

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Planning

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Building Your Portfolio

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Finding Work

photo credit: Jon_Marshall

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

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

I’m a Writer, because I blog or write Standard Operating Procedures for a Living.

I’m a Writer, because I’m a Dungeon Master and write adventures for my friends.

Late last summer, at the Gen Con gaming convention (One of the biggest in North America), I’ve met many awesome people from the Role Playing Game (RPG) industry (and others like myself, sitting at the edge of
it) and many of them are Writers.

I don’t know why they are Writers, but I’m a Writer because, given the opportunity to write about the things I love, I would do it 12 hours a day. Hell, I’d rather write than sleep!

Along with spending time with my family and gaming with my friends, writing makes me satisfied and happy. It brings me in the Flow: Time just stops existing while I spew stuff my mind makes up on the spot, my fingers flying on the keyboard at a speed that nearly matches my excited geek diatribes.

I’m a Writer, and I post my stuff on the Internet because I chose to ignore my doubts and stopped listening to my Inner Demons. I knew I had talent and I’ve managed to get a lot better  since I started blogging 1 year ago.

I would like to become a published author of RPG material. I’d love to write the sequel to Robin Laws’
Rules of Game Mastering. I’d go absolutely geek-crazy to see my name on a Dungeon/Dragon/Kobolds Quarterly (RPG magazines) article.

If there was a way to make a decent living out of it, I’d quit my job in 5 minutes and never look back.

Thing is, in the RPG industry, gamers won’t pay 400$ for a printed game system. While some would spend it for getting a graphics cards just to play this One computer Game, you won’t see this happening in the
RPG industry.

Writers are paid like crap and amateur writer/fans often give out their work for free.

That’s not freaking fair but that’s life. I understand why it’s like that and thank god that the people in the industry are so nice. Quite often, just having a quick chat (or better yet a game) with a designer you admire makes up for all the work you poured into that adventure you wrote to run for their company at a game convention.

I don’t have the courage to leave my current job and jeopardize my family’s security to pursue that dream. I do it in my free time and I make plans, dark, sinister plans.

You Writers deserve better.

That’s why I bought a new copy of Mutants and Masterminds, that’s why I bought a Harley Stroh (a young rising Adventure Writer) D&D adventure at Gen Con . That’s why I gave Wolfgang Baur money to write a D&D adventure and why I bought his Kobold Guide to Game Design.

Guys, you may be paid peanuts, but you deserve all the support you can get.

Same thing goes for the talented, gutsy bloggers out there. You deserve more recognition for the awesome RPG stuff you’ve been writing these last few years.

My latest crazy idea is be to find a way for RPG bloggers to get access to better ad revenues and explore ways to be paid for the good material they put out. So far, things are promising.

Guys, look at what Joss Whedon (Creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Wolfgang Baur are doing and find something to break the current system.

Therein lies the solution, or so I would like to believe.

Toying with perceptions, making truth out of lies and unmaking the impossible, isn’t what being a Writer is all about?

If you’ve arrived at The Writing Journey today for the first time, be sure to check out some of my most popular posts, over in the sidebar. There you’ll find plenty of solid writing advice, both practical and inspirational.

Here’s the full list, along with Michael’s comments on each:

1. Copyblogger: As the undefeated champ, this blog has held the number-one spot for three straight years!  The baby of Brian Clark, this blog keeps winning because of its excellent and educational articles.
2. Men With Pens: James Chartrand and Harry McLeod are the dynamic duo who continue to deliver rich content and community discussion.
3. Freelance Writing Jobs: Founded by Deb Ng, this site is the first stop for freelance writers seeking new work and great articles (and it remains a top winner since this contest began).
4. Write to Done: This blog delivers a steady stream of excellent articles for all writers and is the product of top blogger Leo Babauta.
5. Confident Writing: Looking for encouragement? Joanna Young will help you take your writing to the next level.
6. The Renegade Writer: Linda Formichelli and Diana Burell, authors of a book by the same name, help freelance journalists find inspiration.
7. Remarkable Communication: One part writing, one part marketing and one part selling, this excellent blog by Sonia Simone will help any writer succeed.
8. Writing Journey: Looking for a great stop on your writing journey? Bob Younce’s blog will refresh and energize you.
9. Freelance Parent: Two moms, Lorna Doone Brewer and Tamara Berry, provide excellent perspective on writing while balancing time with little ones.
10. Urban Muse: Susan Johnston covers a wide range of excellent topics that all writers will enjoy.

Congratulations to everyone!

On top of that, though, the work I do can make a difference in my world. Sure, not every gig is world changing. But some are. And what I do right here is, too. The fact that my work can have a purpose beyond just earning a paycheck is one of the things that sustains me on a daily basis.

I have a guest post today over at Freelance folder calledFreelancers: 3 Principles That Can Change Your World. Go give it a look, and let me know what you think over there, and let me know how you use your career as a freelancer to change your world.

You know the days I’m talking about. You sit down in front of your computer with your morning coffee, and you feel empty. You’ve got nothing. No inspiration, no motivation, no desire to be sitting there. For a brief moment, even the thought of a cubicle is appealing. At least in a cubicle you could blow off some of your day doing something nonconstructive, if you really worked at it.

Of course, it doesn’t take long thinking about that cubicle before you start to snap to your senses. No, you’ve got the best job in the world. You wouldn’t trade it for anything.

You just don’t want to be doing it today.

Words start flowing, but then they all start flowing together. One article seems to read just like another, and every time you finish a page you count how many more you’ve got to do before you can be done for the day.

You’ve got a touch of freelance burnout.

I get to feeling like this about once a month or so. I’ve learned, however, some techniques that help me to get past it, refocus my efforts, and start loving what I do again. While I can’t promise these techniques will work for everyone, they do pretty well for me:

Switch up your editorial calendar

When you’re writing an ebook or a series of articles, you can get so focused on one topic that it becomes utterly boring. Take an hour in the middle of that ebook to work on something else. If you don’t have any other client projects, write a blog post, or work on your novel for a little while. Sometimes just letting the creative juices flow in a different direction is enough to rebuild your steam.

Take a day off

I know, I know. We’re freelancers. We don’t get days off. Well, I’m here to tell you that if you don’t take a day off from time to time, you’re going to crash and burn. Don’t worry about the work; it will be there tomorrow. So will your bills. Give yourself a day, or an afternoon, to refocus. It’s likely that when you return to work tomorrow, your productivity will skyrocket, making up for much of your “lost” day.

Read something inspiring

Whether it’s a Dilbert cartoon or whether it’s an inspiring post from your favorite freelance blogger, sometimes you need someone else to remind you why you’re a freelancer. Go back to a favorite post from days gone by and really read it. Visit some writing blogs, or try to find a new writing blog out there. Read a passage from Stephen King’s On Writing, or even just sit down with a good novel.

There are plent of other ways to refocus your freelancing efforts. What have you tried? What works for you, and what doesn’t?

I can honestly say, my little blogging break has done me a world of good. It’s allowed me to focus on the things in my freelance business that really matter, sort out some priorities, and hone in on my core competencies and primary objectives.

Thank you all for your patience, and thank you for coming back today. You’ve been missed, truly.

__________

photo credit: shioshvili

When I first met married my wife back in December of 1996, I loved her and her 2 year-old daughter with everything that was in my being. I thought, as we drove away from the courthouse in downtown Indianapolis on that cold day, that there was no way in the world I would ever lover her more.

I was wrong.

You see, in March of 1998, our daughter Elisabeth was born. It was a rough pregnancy, and it was a bit tenuous right after Ellie was born, but we came through it all right. In fact, we came through it stronger than ever. By December of 1998, I realized that my love for Angie was bigger than ever. I loved her more than I ever thought I could.

When I left the IT field to get my Master’s degree, things were hard. I was struggling with depression and anxiety, and there were days where I was barely functional. Angie saw me through those times, and by the time my freelance writing career began to kick off, I realized that my love for her was, yet again, bigger than it was before.

I was thinking last week about my college days. I recall a particular professor, Wilbur Williams, who was in his 60s when I first met him. He often talked lovingly about his wife, Ardelia. He told how, in their decades of marriage, they had continued to grow more and more in love with each other. My wife and I were very much the same.

Professor Williams used to describe love as a cup. When you first meet and fall in love, your little cup fills up pretty quickly. As time goes on, though, you replace that little cup with a mug. If you don’t continually work to fill up your mug, you’ll feel less and less in love. By the time you hit one, and then two, and then three decades of marriage, you’ve got a giant bowl, and it’s either full of love for your spouse, or it’s not.

That’s why so many relationships fail. As we grow older, our capacity for love grows. If we fill that with something other than love for the other person, it mucks everything up.

———-

What does this have to do with writing?

Well, a writing business , if you’re doing it right, will continue to expand in its possibilities. You’ll find new ways to sell your writing, new clients, new types of writing, and even other sorts of related business. If you don’t give your business the nourishment it needs as it grows, everything gets mucked up.

My successful little writing business, which was once a little bitty espresso cup, is now a full-fledged Starbucks Venti. If it gets any bigger, it’ll become a bucket.

To keep things going, to keep things from getting mucked up, I’ve had to find new ways to fill my cup. I’m working with some other writers to see just how much qaulity content we can produce. I’ve brought on an administrative assistant to help organize our gigs and help keep all of our ducks in a row. I’m mapping out long-term plans, diving into new types of writing business, and finding creative ways to add significant value to my end product.

To be sure, I’ve made mistakes along the way. Like my marriage, my freelance career hasn’t always been a bed of roses. But also like my marriage, I am more committed to and enjoying my business today than I ever have before.

And that’s the lesson for today, folks: if you want to be successful as a freelancer, don’t fight growth. Nurture it, care for it, and do it right, but don’t fight it. If you do, you’ll find yourself less committed and less satisfied than you could be.

I’ve spent some time thinking, ever since the Pen Men took their little blogging vacation during the summer, about how this blog has evolved. When I started The Writing Journey, I wanted to offer Internet writers advice about writing online, finding gigs, using article directories and the overall writing process.

Everything was humming along just fine until a wrote a post called Bang Your Gong: A Call For Action From The Internet Writing Community. For me, that post started a process where I really had to think long and hard about how I was going to help Internet writers achieve their dreams; getting my vision, discovering my voice, establishing my brand.

Since then, I’ve even started coaching a handful of writing clients. This program is a stopgap measure, designed to allow me to help other writers while I’m in the process of developing my membership-based writers training program.

Because my freelance business has grown by leaps and bounds, I find myself constantly juggling tasks, and putting one against another. When that happens, as anyone else in the freelance business can tell you, some aspects of the business model are bound to suffer.

For me, the part that’s suffered has been my blog. My posting frequence has been rather sporatic over the summer, becuase of all these growing pains.

I’m not apologizing or complaining, mind you; I’m not Darren Rowse, and I don’t intend to be. My business model doesn’t rely on my blog for success, and daily posting has never been a hard and fast rule for me.

However, in order to help other writers achieve their dreams, I feel like a more consistent posting schedule would be in order at The Writing Journey.

All that being said, I’ve decided to follow the lead of the Men with Pens and take a bit of a break.  I’m not going away forever, not by any means. I am, however, going to take the next 11 days off.

In that time, I’ll be working up some new content for the blog, as well as spending some extra time on my membership-based writer’s training program. When I return on September 15, 2008, I’ll have a more regular posting schedule for you, with posts three times a week.

Now, I know I’ll be missed while I’m gone. Try not to take it too hard Enjoy yourselves, out there elsewhere in the ether, but be sure to come back on the 15th and we’ll all get reacquainted.

For the past couple of years, Michael has done a “Top 10 Blogs For Writers” post, and it has been amazingly successful. Essentially, you leave a comment at this post explaining why you think a given blog is worthy of making the Top 10.

In the past, our friends Harry at James at Men With Pens have made the cut, as has Freelance Writing Jobs, Copyblogger.

This is the first time Michael’s run the contest since The Writing Journey started. Go visit Michael’s blog, and let him know how much you appreciate what you read here.

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?

photo credit: Photographika