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As you might know, Yolander and I teamed up last year to launch Freelance Theater — a site featuring audio plays (and other entertainment to come) for freelance writers. The idea was to do something different, taking a new and lighter approach to looking as issues facing freelancers.

Today we released our second audio play episode from the MadLance series: Late Shift. You can listen to it at Freelance Theater, in our playlist in the sidebar here at All Freelance Writing, or below in this post. This episode featured our first guest star, fellow AFW contributor Clint Osterholz.

We’d also like to announce some basic news for Freelance Theater moving forward. These MadLance episodes take much longer to write, edit, record, and produce than we originally anticipated. So rather than try to release episodes monthly, they will come out quarterly. However, that doesn’t mean you’ll have to wait months between Freelance Theater releases. We’ll be launching several smaller entertainment series where we can tackle projects independently in addition to the larger series. I’ll share more about that as soon as titles, schedules, etc. are finalized. I’m expecting them to be just as much fun to create though, and I hope you’ll enjoy them.

For now, enjoy “Late Shift” — a story about the lonely side of freelance writing.

That stupid groundhog really sent me up the river. I’m freezing, I’m barely able to feel my fingers, and I’m stuck between bumping my heat up to a level where things can technically live but paying roughly $1,000 a month for the privilege or freezing to death a rich man. Fortunately, there are a lot of freelance writing jobs out there to help me cover my heating bill, or maybe fund my trip to Pennsylvania to take that punk rodent out once and for all!

The Freelance Writing Jobs

1. Travel blogger – do you like to travel but hate the tourist traps? Do you know those hidden little gems of major destinations that no one else can seem to find? This might be an ideal gig for you. To apply, be sure to send along a brief summary of yourself and clips to former articles. Rate of compensation is $50 per 350-500 word article.
2. Relationship writer – a strong female writer is needed to help put together a book on sex, sexuality, and relationships. The total word count will come to roughly 40,000 words and is needed in the next 45 days, so you will need to prioritize this project strongly to finish it. To apply, be sure to send some of your strongest pertinent clips in and bid strong for a fair rate of compensation. Rate of compensation is based on bid through Elance.
3. Web content writer – a wellness company is seeking a writer to put together content for Facebook, a website, and a few web advertisements. You must have a strong SEO background, which will help you immensely in this case. To apply, I would recommend sending some of your best clips of copy, especially if they’re health/wellness related. Be sure to set a rate based on word count now. Rate of compensation is based on bid through Elance.
4. Academic ghostwriter – a professional ghostwriter is needed soon for an academic paper relating scientifically to software marketing. In total, you will need to cite 150 sources and write 100 pages, so you will need to ensure that you bid high enough to compensate yourself well. For this application, I would recommend sending in some great samples of your science writing. Rate of compensation is based on bid through Elance.
5. Manual writer – if you have experience putting together training manuals and user’s guides, this would be a great project to check out. Ecologic Leasing Services would like to retain your services to put together a series of documents for them. To apply, send in clips related to writing manuals. Be mindful of the work involved for fair pay, as there is a lot of research that will go into this project. Rate of compensation is based on bid through Elance.
6. Psychology ghostwriter – a psychologist has developed a theory on child/adolescent emotional development and would like to write a book about it, but needs help. The book should clock in at around 75,0o0 to 85,000 words with research so be sure to bid high on this project, as there will be a great deal of work involved. Rate of compensation is based on bid through Elance.
7. Manual writer – yes, another manual writer! This one happens to deal with SEO and a number of techniques involved in increasing it. You should have a pretty strong background in either SEO or manual writing for this gig, although both would obviously be ideal. Rate of compensation is based on bid through Elance.

Freelance Writing Job Tip of the Week

This is the most obvious job tip I have ever posted, but I think that it’s important. I know things might be slow for some of you–they sure are for me–but keep at it. Set a regular schedule to apply for jobs and do it. Stick to it, even if you get tons of rejections. I know it’s easy to get disappointed and maybe even give up, but don’t. I have lost jobs simply by not applying for them, only to later find out I was completely qualified and the person they went with didn’t work out. Apply, apply, apply. That’s your pep talk for the week. Now go DO it.

Worst Gig of the Week

NEW online magazine accepting submissions from aspiring writer’s in the following genre: Fiction Romance (Short stories only)
Word count: Not more than 4,000 words
Criteria: All manuscripts should be in the form of a WORD document attachment. Double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 or 14 font
Romance style: ALL styles accepted!
Compensation: Currently, freelance writer’s will not be monetarily compensated. However, this will not always be the case.  Prospective candidates will be given further details.

First of all, I had to fix the HELL out of the formatting on this so that you didn’t read a double-spaced article with less than two sentences’ worth of content. The title of the ad, hilariously, was CALLING ALL WRITER’S!!!!! The image called to mind a vast landscape, rocky and desolate, with sad, despondent scribes and their typewriters, ink pens, and laptops in a state of disarray. Then a shaft of light penetrates the thick black cloud cover and the writers look to the sky, smiling, as they’re offered a horrible non-paying gig writing in a genre glutted with mediocre-at-best writing by a grammatically challenged editor. Somehow, I’m not as grateful as the desperate writers in my mind. And neither should you be. Anyone who can’t pay you now isn’t going to magically find capital later down the road. If they do, consider it a bonus. But I’d only consider this gig if I got clubbed with a brick and it somehow shorted out the part of my brain that responds to reason.

If you’d like to look through longer aggregated lists of freelance writing jobs to help you save time in your job search, All Freelance Writing recommends Anne Wayman’s freelance writing jobs at AboutFreelanceWriting.com.

I’d like to introduce you to All Freelance Writing’s two newest bloggers:

1. Dan Smith — Dan will be resuming Jenn Escalona’s do-it-yourself series for freelance writers. A new DIY project will be posted on the first of each month.

2. Catherine L. Tully — You might know Catherine from her blog posts at Freelance Zone. Catherine will be covering a new series here, on writing for print (magazines and newspapers). We’ll be able to share more about the final schedule for these posts shortly.

I hope you’re as excited as I am to have these two new writers on board. You also might have noticed that near the top of our sidebar you can now access all posts from various contributors (except mine — my coder’s working to fix an issue with my author link). We’ll soon be adding author profiles to these pages as well. In the meantime, you can view author profiles at the bottom of each post if the writer posted their bio (and if they haven’t yet, a bio will be posted soon — it’s a new feature we just added).

On top of that, we have a few new categories here (the Finance category for example). Most aren’t visible, but will be shortly–home office, productivity & organization, work at home parents, and news writing.

Keep an eye out for other bigger news coming this week, including the next episode of Freelance Theater, the launch of the All Freelance Writing marketplace, and more!

Do you have a “go to move” when it comes to marketing your freelance writing services? Many people like to send query letters, some send cold emails, and others rely solely on word of mouth. Have you ever thought about the benefits of cold calling? Believe it or not, this is a great way to drum up new business.

There are thousands of companies out there who need the services of a freelance writer. Some of them know they need the assistance of a qualified writer; others are still on the fence. Either way, with a cold call to the right person you are sure to put yourself in position to land a new gig.

But I don’t like cold calling! This is something that I hear time after time. I agree that it can be difficult to pick up the phone, dial the number of somebody you have no relationship with, and attempt to sell them something. You are going to get turned down more times than not. And guess what? Some people are going to be very rude about it.

Even though being turned down is a big part of cold calling, so is finding new clients. As you track your successes and failures you will eventually get to a point where you know on average how many calls it takes to land a new client. For instance, in my past line of work as a sales manager for a background screening company, 25 cold calls would work out to one new client on average. What did this mean to me? Simply put, if I made 25 calls per day I could expect some level of regular success.

If you are reading this and thinking “no way” I urge you to reconsider. With each cold call that you make the process becomes more and more enjoyable. You have to start somewhere. What better time than now?

Starting tomorrow we’ll have some announcements related to All Freelance Writing and Freelance Theater. In the meantime, why not catch up on some other posts related to freelance writing and blogging? Here are a few to get you started. Maybe you missed them earlier in the week.

• 6 Ways to Check on a Job Poster and Avoid Scams
• Freelancers vs. Salaried Employees
• Freelance Funny of the Day (video)
• Worthy Tip: Staying Professional
• Templated Writing: One Way to Speed up Your Writing
• How to Build Your Professional Writing Services Business
• Freelance Writing Income: What to Expect
• 9 Tricks I Used to Triple my Adsense Earnings in 30 Days
• Query That Rocked for Writer’s Digest