Website: www.tiffanymaxwell.com

Specialty: Business writing, blogging, substantive editing

Rates: 0.45/word for writing, 12/page for editing

Do you have a product or service to sell, and need eye-catching copy? Perhaps you want to liven up your website with a regular blog, or start a mailing list to all your potential clients? Maybe you have all these things, but you want an extra set of eyes to proofread, or give your work a thorough substantive edit. Or perhaps written content is not your problem, but you’re a small business owner in need of a virtual assistant, or short term administrative help.

I can offer you the following:

Article writing and blogging – My style is concise and lively, with a voice that can range from candid and humorous to slick and professional, perfect for anything from pure entertainment writing or quirky ad copy, to serious press releases, and your business newsletter.

Substantive editing – With extensive experience in editing business correspondence, marketing materials, course manuals, and novels, I will make your work leap off the page.

Proofreading – Don’t need a major overhaul, but just a second pair of eyes? Send me any documents you need checked for spelling, grammar, or punctuation mistakes.

Let’s talk about the issue of taking our own work as seriously as we take client projects, and what we can do to make productive changes.

How Serious Are Your Own Projects?

Whether you write e-books, run a blog, manage other types of websites, are writing a book, or tackling any other work-related project of your own, do you take it as seriously as you take your client work? Sometimes I do. And sometimes I don’t. For example, I take this blog fairly seriously in how I treat it as a part of my business. On the other hand, I really don’t prioritize e-books, haven’t spent as much time on my book as I would have liked to so far, and even when I personally write a post here I treat it very different than client blog posts.

For example with client gigs I tend to come up with a list of post ideas I would be interested in writing. The client accepts that list or narrows it down to the number in their planned order (for some I just send our weekly ideas over, and for others I send more than they want to buy so they can pick and choose). For each article I usually come up with some clever spin to the title, outline the post, write it, edit it, embellish it with images or whatever it might need, and then have it ready to be published.

For my own blogs I tend to write more on a whim because something inspired me (like this post or any of my rants) or an idea popped into my head (like our last post about e-books). I just open WordPress and start writing. I proofread it quickly and then I publish. I don’t generally embellish posts here with lots of images — did a while back and there was no difference in readership for this particular audience so I don’t unless it really illustrates a point now. And when I edit I know I don’t have fresh eyes, so plenty of typos get through. That doesn’t really bother me. After all, I’m using an instant publishing platform for a reason — to share my ideas in a timely fashion, and not to create amazing pieces of journalism.

The real problem for me is that this “on a whim” approach to my own blogs leads to inconsistencies. Some blogs are rarely ever updated. Others like this one are updated more often (by me personally) because I’m thinking about the niche or industry more. And ironically it’s the blogs I neglect that financially support this site because I’ve refused to whore out to individual sponsors and don’t want to overload the site with network ads. And because I don’t prioritize my e-book projects I’m not selling as many of my own products here as I should. The inconsistency therefore hurts my overall earnings. I do well with my projects, but I can do quite a bit better.

I’ve decided to change things a little bit when it comes to my own work projects, and I’d like to share some of those ideas and plans with you in the hopes that they’ll help you prioritize some of your projects too. After all, our own projects can bring in income and attract new clients. They can be an integral part of our freelance writing businesses. And because of that they deserve much better than being put on the backburner while we throw ourselves into other things.

How to Make Your Own Projects More of a Priority

There’s one basic rule I’ll follow as I prioritize some of my projects more in coming weeks. I’m going to start treating myself as if I were a client. For me this involves e-books, a book, and a decent-sized network of sites to manage. All of these ideas might not apply to you, but go through the list and see if there are any you can implement to make your own projects a bigger priority during your work week.

Here’s what I’ll do:

• Set aside dedicated “project time.” – For me that will likely be 2-3 hours each work day. That means no screwing around with Twitter and other sites during that time. And it means I won’t overload my schedule with so much client work that I lose time for my own projects. They both bring in income, and both need to be nurtured equally. It doesn’t mean I’ll take on less client work overall, but rather that I’ll keep it as consistent as possible so a week of overload doesn’t lead to the bad habit of neglecting my own work.
• Set self-imposed deadlines. — “I’m going to do x, y, and z” is fine and dandy as a place to start. To-do lists have always been a big part of how I get so much done. But I can do more. I’m one of those people who works best under pressure. I have deadlines for client projects in most cases, so projects get completed by those deadlines. But my own projects are always more open-ended (like the Query-Free Freelancer e-book I wanted to release months ago). Thing is, I get so distracted with other things as they come up — tech problems, blog post ideas that are timely and need to be covered, client work, etc. — that I say “I can always work on that later.” But later never seems to come. That needs to change. I need to assign specific deadlines to each project. I’ve already started that here by assigning myself to Tuesday and Friday blog posts on All Freelance Writing (although to be fair I did miss Friday’s “deadline” last week because I forgot to publish before going away, so that post went up Saturday). I need to also break my book down into mini-projects with their own deadlines to keep me moving along smoothly. And the marketing boot camp e-book needs a serious deadline. But there’s the problem — how do you keep your own deadlines? You won’t fire yourself, so what kind of reward or punishment would it take to make you take those deadlines as seriously as you take a client’s? For e-books I think it’ll be easy — it’s about the direct income. You don’t get paid until you finish. With blogging it’s a bit tougher, but I’ll work harder to stick to those post deadlines (and let myself be a bit more free-spirited by periodically posting on a whim at other times during the week). If you have any self-imposed deadline tips, please share them in the comments. I’d love to hear your ideas.
• Focus more on planning. — I already do a fair amount of planning when it comes to my projects, but I could be a bit better about the details. For example, I’d like to put together a list of blog post titles I intend to tackle in coming months, so I can work on them early if I have extra time during that “project time” I’ll be setting aside. I’ll outline my blog posts (I already outline my own larger projects thoroughly). I’ll go back to using the planner I bought specifically for this site. Yes, I have individual planners for individual projects — I’m a paper planner kind of gal (electronic notes just become more clutter to me and I don’t want to be connected to electronics day in and day out). I already schedule out each individual day. But my own projects don’t get worked into those schedules as much as they should because although I know there’s a lot to do, I’m often left feeling overwhelmed by it and I don’t know what to tackle next. I’m hoping the planning calendars will help with that.
• Keep the bottom line in mind. — Money is an excellent motivator. When a client sends me $xxxx to work on a project, it’s easy to jump in and get the work finished so we can move on to that next set of blog posts, the next report, or whatever it is I’m working on for them. And since we’re talking about projects that are tied to our freelance writing businesses here, we need to remember that they can also impact our bottom line. For example, if you want to finish an e-book that you plan to sell think about your sales targets and how much profit you’ll earn based on those projections. Let that motivate you to do more. If you blog but you don’t earn much (and you want to), find ways to better monetize your blog. Try new ad models for example. As you bring in more money you might find that it justifies having you spend more time on the site on a regular basis. If you don’t want to earn from them directly, look at how you can use it to attract more clients and bring in more income that way. E-books are the big one for me in this area because I know I’m hurting myself in that income stream area by not completing the two e-books I already started. But it will apply to this site too. While it makes money, it doesn’t make enough to pay for all of our contributors, designers, coders, etc. who I periodically have to bring in. And because it doesn’t earn enough for that, it certainly doesn’t bring in enough money to justify the time I put in personally when compared to other areas of my business. And I don’t want to continue using my other sites to support this one.  They should be contributing to my bottom line independently, and I certainly wouldn’t keep most of them if they weren’t profitable enough. So either it needs to get to the point of supporting itself income-wise, or I’ll be cutting back on how much I spend here come 2011. I’ve always been good at monetizing sites though. I just have to rework the strategy here a bit, and we’ll see what happens. I keep putting it off simply because I haven’t had the time to review the kinds of offers we’ll be promoting here. In the future though you’ll see more affiliate promotions and more of my own products being released. I think it’s a better option for this audience than partnering with less than ethical “sponsors” notorious in this niche, and affiliate products will either be personally reviewed by me or coming from colleagues I know I trust already — no random garbage. But I often forget about the income side of things as I focus on content (I do the opposite with some other sites), and I think a better balance is necessary on all counts.
• Increase review times. — Look. I’ll never run a typo-free site, and I’ll never succumb to the grammar nazi crowd. If they can’t handle occasional typos, they shouldn’t be reading things on instant publishing platforms. It isn’t technically possible to stay timely in that sense and still have fresh eyes when you proofread. I’m not willing to let blog posts sit for days or weeks or more just so I can be “fresh” when I edit them And I’m not willing to have an outside editor work on my posts when here they’re designed to be rather personal in nature. That said, I can certainly revamp my process in a way that will hopefully catch more — the same way I handle client blogging. For me that means I’ll type most articles in a word processor (as I did with this post) rather than directly into the blogging platform. I’m not crazy about the idea, but I’m willing to try it for a while. By doing that I can proofread in a basic text mode in the word processing program first, then put it into WordPress and format it, and then do a final edit in preview mode where I can see how it displays on-site. However, very short posts and quick announcements will likely still be done on-the-fly. I’m just talking about more substantial posts here.
• Clean up the past. — In addition to increasing my review time on upcoming posts and projects, I plan to go back over old posts and clean them up a bit. I’ll add tags if there are none. I’ll add meta details where I skipped them before. I’ll make sure posts are formatted fairly consistently with things like subheadings (we used different formatting with old designs, so I’m sure some old ones are screwed up on the site with the current stylesheet in place). And I’ll give them all a solid read-through and fix any glaring errors I see. If links are now dead I’ll remove them or redirect them. If I find typos, I’ll fix them (although I’ll probably still miss plenty). If something is seriously outdated, I’ll add an edited note in the content. I won’t change old content beyond things like typos without an editorial note being included. That’s because I don’t want readers to worry about posts suddenly being deleted or changed to hide things like some other bloggers have been known to do. But if an opinion changed you might find a note in the post to that effect which links to a more up-to-date article explaining the change of opinion.

Well, those are my plans for the time being. I’m sure I’ll struggle with some and change will be slow at first, but it’s all about taking steps in the right direction. And I really do think that treating my own projects more like client work will help me stay on task and get more done. What about you? Do you think you take your own projects as seriously as you take client work? Do you wish you could? What projects are you working on, and what things do you think you can do to take them more seriously when it comes to working them into your schedule and making sure they’re of the highest quality possible? Share your thoughts in the comments.

What I’d like to do now is give you a quick rundown of the goal of the book club, and then gather some feedback from you so I can set things up on the tech side in a way you think would work best. :)

Purpose of the Book Club

We talk a lot about what’s going on in the blogosphere. We share great links on Twitter. But there’s more to learn about freelance writing and publishing than what we find on the Web. Sometimes we need to tackle subjects in greater depth, and I thought the idea of a virtual book club would be not only a great way to do that but also a nice way to support some of our colleagues who write these books.

How Will it Work?

This is the part I’m still trying to figure out. I have a few ideas. I’ll pose them here, and let you weigh in with feedback in the comments before I make a final decision.

1. I could setup a blog post category for the book club and we’ll simply have announcements there, you can sign up for that month in the comments of the initial monthly post, and we can hold discussions in the comments.
2. I could look into adding a forum to the site with new sections / threads for each book we feature. This would require signing up for a membership to post in the forum though, and there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to find a simple enough solution that will fully integrate with the site.
3. We could have announcements and book choice polls here on the blog, and have the actually discussions as Twitter chats.

Your thoughts on these or other ideas?

Also, whenever possible, I’ll try to get the authors involved in some way such as stopping by to comment. Again, that’s not something I can guarantee.

June Book Choices

If the virtual book club sounds like something you might be interested in, leave a comment choosing one of the three books below. I’ll leave it open to votes for a week from today, and next Friday I’ll announce the final choice for the first book club selection. Then you’ll have a month from that day to get a copy of the book, read it, and prepare to discuss it as a group (I recommend buying them to support the authors, but you might already have some and you can certainly get most at a library).

1. The Money Book for Freelancers, Part-Timers, and the Self-Employed by Joseph D’Agnese and Denise Kiernan
2. The Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman
3. The Wealthy Freelancer by Steve Slaunwhite, Pete Savage, and Ed Gandia

The books that don’t get enough votes this month will get pushed to next month’s list in addition to a new book.

I hope you’ll place your votes if you plan to take part in the virtual book club, and I hope you’ll share thoughts on how you’d like to see us run it. :)

Publishing a nonfiction book can be an excellent addition to your writer platform, whether or not that’s the reason you’ve written the book. Even if a published book doesn’t directly help prospective clients find you, it can make you a more attractive hire. Why? Because publishing a nonfiction book in your area of expertise makes you more credible than the competition.

Given that I still haven’t decided whether I’ll pursue traditional publishing avenues or self-publish The Query-Free Freelancer, I thought it might be fun to learn more about self-publishing. Today we’ll do that, and from the man to literally wrote the book on the subject–Peter Bowerman, author of The Well-Fed Writer and The Well-Fed Self Publisher. Here is our recent interview:

When did you first decide to self-publish, and which was your first self-published book?

I decided to self-publish my first book, The Well-Fed Writer (2000), after only half-hearted attempts to attract a publisher. Guess I’m a control freak at heart!

What convinced you to self-publish rather than seek traditional publishing outlets?

Not sure what gave me the sense that I could do it (since I had zero experience in publishing of any kind), but what I was sure of was that the “deal” being offered by conventional publishers was no box of chocolates: You give up the rights, give up control of the creative process, control of the timetable and almost all the profits. And then you’re still expected to do most of the marketing yourself. And if anything, that scenario has gotten worse for authors since then.

An author with a $20 retail book might make $1 a book through a publisher. Even on the low end (i.e., through the bookstores and Amazon, where you’re giving up 55% of your retail), I’ll still make 4-5 times that. Sales on my own site? I can net $14 or so. And that doesn’t even count the potential to market companion ebook products to web site buyers – that they’ll purchase along with the hard-copy book, and which represent pure profit – often $20-30 more, on top of the profit on the hard book.

I know you’re at least on your fourth book now (through the Well-Fed Writer series). How has the experience made the self-publishing process easier for you (or more challenging)? Do you feel more pressure now that you have an established series, or has the process become more comfortable?

Good question. Having just released my fourth book, the process is easier. I know what I’m doing, and what things need to happen when. Plus, I have an established group of people out there in my industry – call them the “key influencers” – who know me and my work, respect what I’m doing, know I put out quality products, and are happy to promote my work to their communities. So, that’s made it easier.

But yes, there is some pressure to keep feeding the machine you’ve created. It’s like being on a train that’s already moving. It takes on a life of its own to a certain extent. As long as there are things you could be doing – new products, teleseminars, coaching programs, etc. – but aren’t yet, you’ll feel some pressure. But I guess it’s good pressure. Bottom line, it’s a nice feeling being in a place where you’ve established yourself, and know that whatever you create next, there will be people who’ll happily buy it.

What kind of an effect has self-publishing nonfiction books had on your writer platform, and your ability to attract clients?

Hard to gauge. I know I’m respected by clients who discover I write books as well, and I’m sure it’s translated to some work, but it’s not something I shove down people’s throats. Maybe I should more. But being an author doesn’t prove that I can write good copy for my clients, and that’s what they’re paying me to do. I certainly didn’t write my book mainly to enhance my platform for my copywriting business, but it hasn’t hurt.

If other freelance writers are considering self-publishing as a part of their writer platform, what do think their biggest challenge will be with the process?

Well, whether you’re self-publishing or conventionally publishing, everyone starts in the same place: coming up with a topic that’s marketable. Using my books as an example, I knew there was a market for a book (The Well-Fed Writer) offering a complete blueprint for starting your own lucrative writing business (as opposed to another simply straight “freelance writing” book – most of which discuss avenues of dubious financial potential).

Ditto with The Well-Fed Self-Publisher, a book offering a complete blueprint for profitably self-publishing your book. Not just telling you how to self-publish, but (as my subtitle – accurate, mind you – promises), how to indeed turn one book into a full-time living. And that’s the key – you have to make sure you separate yourself from the pack somehow.

And of course, for many writers, the biggest challenge will be “MARKETING.” The very word is enough to terrorize writers, but having come from that background, I have been able, in my books, to demystify those often-scary concepts so they’ll work for you not against you.

Do you have any favorite self-publishing resources that other writers may want to consider?

Well, the book that inspired me (and thousands of others), of course, is Dan Poynter’s, The Self-Publishing Manual. This guy is the godfather of self-publishing, started doing it back in 1977 (hard to imagine…), and has updated the book a zillion times since.

John Kremer’s, 1001 Ways to Market Your Book, is another classic. A ton of great ideas. But know that John will be the first to tell you that you can only do 4-5 really well!

Brian Jud – Beyond the Bookstore, for those books that have “special sale” potential (i.e., can be sold in large quantities to different entities).

Shel Horowitz’s Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers.

These are the ones that come to mind.

Peter just released his fourth book in The Well-Fed Writer series, which combines the information from his first two books. I asked him to share some information about his latest release:

I just released the updated edition of my original book, The Well-Fed Writer, which includes the heavily updated content of BOTH original WFW titles, the original and the 2004 companion volume, TWFW: Back For Seconds. The book is a comprehensive “how-to” guide to starting your own lucrative “commercial” freelancing practice – writing for businesses, and for hourly rates of $50-125+. The downsizing of the economy has created a lot of opportunities for talented, creative, strategic-thinking writers to execute projects for companies whose marketing departments are either gone or scaled, as well as for smaller companies who never had large communications departments, but instead, have relied for years on freelancers to pick up the slack. It’s not a cakewalk of a business, but compared to most “freelance writing” directions (i.e., magazine writing, short stories, newspaper freelancing, etc.), it’s a surprisingly accessible opportunity and one that pays far better than most other writing directions.

For more details, visit www.wellfedwriter.com, where you can subscribe, free of charge, to my critically acclaimed monthly ezine as well as my blog.

About Peter Bowerman

Peter Bowerman, a veteran commercial freelancer, speaker and business coach, is the author of the award-winning 2000 Book-of-the-Month Club selection, The Well-Fed Writer; its 2004 companion and triple-award-finalist, TWFW: Back For Seconds; and the 2009 updated compilation of both (under The Well-Fed Writer; www.wellfedwriter.com) – all self-published. His books have become how-to “standards” on lucrative commercial freelancing – writing for businesses and for rates of $50-125+ an hour (something he’s been doing successfully since 1994). He chronicled his self-publishing success (52,000 copies of his first two books in print and a full-time living for seven-plus years) in his third book, the award-winning 2007 release, The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living. www.wellfedsp.com.

Books

Sure. Most bloggers won’t ever convert their blog content into a published book, but it is a possibility if you feel inclined to pursue it.

You can go several routes here. For example, you might decide to self-publish a book by combining your best blog posts. Another option would be to pitch publishers on a book closely tied to your blog content, but not using your existing posts (or editing them a good bit first).

Columns

You’re already used to writing regular resources within your niche. Why not pitch a column to your area’s newspaper or even a larger website? You may be able to get a paper to purchase print rights to existing content you’ve written, or you may decide to offer completely fresh content (especially with larger publications).

E-books

If you can turn your blog content into a book, you can also turn it into an e-book. E-books are a great way to pull together your best content, edit it to improve the flow, and then market your blog or earn a bit of income. This can be especially useful for assembling beginner-level content (for example, if you run a blog on freelance writing, you might pull content directed at beginning writers, without including posts targeting more experienced writers – a sort of “how to get started” guide).

Reprints

There are plenty of websites, e-zines, and other outlets who would be interested in re-publishing your existing content. You can use it for promotional purposes by offering it for free (with a link to your blog), or you can sell reprint rights.

Have you done any of these things to get more mileage out of your blog posts? How else can you get more from your blog?