Specialty: Weight Loss, Exercise, Fitness, Restaurant Setup

Rates: 50 per article

I have been a freelance writer for around a year now. I do this in my free time. I love to write, and I always find my brain droning about things that would probably make an interesting article or two. I draw from my experiences in my businesses and my hobbies. I am an avid runner and cyclist. I used to lift a lot of weights also. These topics are things I have researched about in the past for personal reasons.

Website: writeall.yolasites.com

Specialty: Business, politics, economy, and inance

Rates: 0.30p er word

I have extensive experience in writing with three gained in grassroots community print and broadcast media while five was gained working in the marketing and communication field in the private and public sector.

I hold a bachelor’s degree in Journalism & Media Studies and Political Studies from Rhodes University, South Africa. I also hold a masters degree in South African Politics and Political Economy.

I am a very good well-published writer who is quite “at home” in a number of subjects. I have very strong analytical and creative thinking abilities which help me improve my writing continuously.

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.

Website: http://www.loriwidmer.com: http://www.wordsonpageblog.com/

Specialty: Risk management / insurance

Rates: 100 / hr.

Exceptional business and technical writing and editing expert ready to deliver success for your next project. Trusted writer and editor with proven record of driving readership following with compelling copy. Areas of expertise not limited to:

- Insurance
- Risk Management
- Business
- Finance
- Healthcare
- Marketing copy
- Press releases
- Collateral materials

With over 15 years of experience in magazine, Web, corporate, and educational writing, I have supplied content that generates results. To learn how I can advance your business goals, please contact me for a free consultation.

Specialty: Travel, Business, Health, Product Reviews

Rates: 50 per 500-word article

Kids Write Books, Montclair, NJ
President/Teacher
01/2008-Present
Provide private writing workshop for children K-2. Offer school-based extracurricular programs for elementary students interested in book writing and developing grade-level writing and reading skills.

Black Diaspora Magazine, New York, NY
Freelance Contributing Writer/Editor
04/2006– 05/2009
Wrote and edited articles for national publication for various departments including featured Cover Stories, as well as regular assignments for the Business, Health, Travel, International Politics, News and Arts & Entertainment Departments.

Managing Editor/ Staff Writer
06/1997– 03/2006
Responsible for 70% of the day-to-day input, creation, and development of the bi-monthly magazine. Coordinated materials for publication with writers, photographers, public relation firms and publisher. Managed flow of copy and art. Represented magazine at various media events. Managed editorial staff of 5. Wrote and edited articles for publication. Proof-read blue-lines and final proofs. Evaluated travel destinations for Travel Department. Evaluated products for Consumer Awareness Department. Wrote articles for Health Department.

GGC Publishing, Washington DC
Freelance Publications Editor 09/1999– 06/2005
Worked as a freelance editor for books in production. Worked with writers and publisher to create final proof. Edited company literature. Copyedited existing company literature.

I have always been surprised by the writers who argue that cheap writers, cheap clients and mills are pulling down the pay that everyone in the industry receives. As someone who has been lucky enough to manage a comfortable transition from content mill writer to full time writer with clients who pay well, I have a different take on the situation—I think the content mills, low paying gigs and the writers who take on these gigs are actually helping your business.

Reason 1: Client Differentiation

The existence of low paying clients has made it easier than ever to define your market. I fully realized this last week when I got the invitation from Bright Hub. The content they were commissioned to create was for a website that has a forum dedicated to discussion of a certain popular movie that is about to come out on DVD. All the article titles had the name of the movie in them and were very repetitive. The site owner was obviously trying to create SEO fodder.

Writing just a few of these 500 word articles at $20 a pop would have been monotonous and terrible. But I also realized that it is exactly the type of assignment I would never take on within my current business model. No matter what kind of topic I write about, I take on gigs that need articles with intrinsic value. Articles that teach, entertain and promote authority–not articles that simply bring in clicks–and that is what gives your articles a value that cheap clients can’t afford, which is why they are not your target market.

Reason 2: Some Good Writers are Out of Your Pool

These low paying gigs keep the hobbyists and uncommitted busy which means they aren’t competing with you. I’m not saying that content mill writers aren’t real writers or that they don’t have a burning desire to create–I’m saying that they are not business people. Many of them don’t know how or where to market themselves, but if you are going to run a successful business you have to either figure out how to do this or hire someone who can do it for you.

Now, I’ve read enough of your blog posts to know that many of you think that “cheap” writers are bad writers and are, therefore, not competition. This is incorrect. They are not competition because many of them don’t know just how much they could be making or how to get there–not because they suck.  That’s why blogs like this one are so important–there are good writers out there who need to stop being coddled and instead need a life preserver. We are that life preserver.

Reason 3: It’s Hard To Make It

Let’s say you need to gross at least $55,000 per year to live comfortably. If you were to try to make this working for an average of .04 per word (which is more than many content mills and low paying clients pay) then you would need to write an average of 52 articles per week every week of the year (which means no vacation or sick time). I don’t know about you, but if I had to write about 10 articles every day 5 days per week with no break ever I wouldn’t last very long. That means that not only are the writers who are doing this not out there competing with you but they will probably give up sooner than they would if they found the same success as you, which again keeps them from ever reaching your market.

What You Should be Worried About

Just because your business is safe, that doesn’t mean that content mills, low paying clients and the writers who encourage them aren’t damaging the industry in some form or another. The net is filled with crap content that somehow manages to rank highly, all-purpose websites like Ehow show up in Google search results as though they are topic experts while they bury real authority content, article writers are using Wiki or some other single source to create their own derivative (and basically plagiarized) content, there is little fact checking going on, and traditional journalistic standards are not being followed. (As an example of this, one Demand-produced USA Today piece featured a health and technology writer writing about getting hotel upgrades. This could have been saved by the addition of in-article citations, interviews or something kind of , oh, journalism-y). These are things that I personally think more of us should be upset about and complaining about. But that’s just me.

For the past two weeks I’ve seen a great number of posts on various writing blogs about how freelancers must fight against stereotypes and adopt certain conventional behaviors in order to “make it.” As a freelance writer who personifies many of the freelance writing stereotypes we are supposed to be fighting against and who, apparently, embraces no conventional behaviors but who does manage to make a living, I’d like to set the record straight about how little each of these points have mattered in my career–and I’d like to get your feedback about how they do (or don’t) affect you.

So here are my favorites:

Freelancers are people who don’t work well in a corporate environment. When I first read about this myth that freelancers are people who were (or are) unable to “make it” in the corporate world I disagreed violently. I mean, just because we are freelancers doesn’t mean we have not or would not make it in the corporate world. After all, I left a successful career in order to freelance so I already had made it.

But then, when I really thought about it, I remembered that I was never really happy in that environment. I hate dress codes, meetings, restrictive schedules, commutes, seminars, speaking engagements, working with other people—all the things that a corporate life entails. So how did I succeed there? I sucked it up and faked it for years and you know what? I would not have been able to do that for another 30 years until retirement. Nope, not at all. So for me, this myth is true… and I don’t care. Does that mean my freelance writing career is doomed? Does that mean I have to pretend that this myth isn’t true for me? Um… really this doesn’t generally come up in conversation nor does it affect how well I do my work so I don’t think it really matters.

You can’t be a successful freelancer if you hate working with people. I don’t hate people. I like people. I’m fun, easy to get along with, and I sometimes enjoy hanging out with people. But I hate working with people, so I don’t. That doesn’t mean I can throw all my interpersonal skills out the window though, because I do have to occasionally talk to people on the phone and through email—but come on. That is so not the same as working with people. You don’t have to go into an office, listen to someone’s boring stories about their weekend or look at their vacation pictures and pretend to care, you don’t have to collaborate, consult, or do any other partnering exercise if you don’t want to. As a ghostwriter you need to interview people and be comfortable with a back and forth–but if you have ever worked in the corporate world then you know this is not the same thing as a team environment–something I avoid like the plague.

Freelancers who want to make it cannot wear bunny slippers all day while writing and simply must get dressed and, if necessary, put on a bra. Okay, I don’t actually have bunny slippers but I do wear my memory foam slippers a lot and I often stay in my pajamas all day.  There is just no reason for me to get dressed if I don’t feel like it. If getting dressed helps you become more motivated or focused then by all means have at it. But if you are better off working in a comfy flannel PJ set, sans brassiere, with slippers that make you feel like you are walking on a cloud, what’s the difference? Sure, my boobs are going to sag earlier than my corporate equivalents–but does that really have anything to do with my ability to write and communicate for clients? This myth that you have to wear clothes and (gasp) real shoes is crazy. No one but you knows what you are wearing. Unless you have an in-person meeting. I would totally put on a bra for one of those.

Freelancers who want a real money-making career as writers cannot sleep until noon on weekdays and must work some sort of traditional daylight-hour-based schedule. The best argument for working a traditional 9-5 schedule that I read is that freelancers want to be available to their clients—and I totally get that… but I do it a little differently. In each of my contracts I have a guarantee that I will respond to all emails within 1 business day unless there is a holiday. This comforts potential clients but also leaves me uncommitted schedule-wise and means I don’t spend all day waiting for an email or phone call that may or may not come. I have clients all over the globe so it is really impractical to try to be available for them all during their normal work schedule. But also, I don’t work for my clients. I work for me. I need to be available for my boss… which is me. I have to work the schedule that allows me to be at my best—not the schedule that someone else works.

Since this is one of the most popular myths about successful freelancing, I have a little theory about it. I think a lot of freelancers work a rigid schedule because they are afraid that they might not work otherwise–and they could be right. They may also be concerned that their friends and family will lose respect for what they do if they do it at all hours. But remember, it is YOUR career. YOU define it, not anyone else. You may have to be available for the occasional scheduled client phone call, but that doesn’t mean you have to work 9-5. Think of all the successful WAHPs out there who have to work nights and weekends–are they less successful than freelancers working 9-5? Are they worse freelancers? What about people in school, caring for a loved one or doing anything that requires them to work a modified schedule? Even if you are like me and just sleep late because you prefer writing at night or you like to spend time at the beach between 9-5, it really does not matter. No one even knows you are doing it. Just do your work, do it well, and get it done before the deadline.

So the way I see it, you don’t need to worry about whether or not I wore clothes and a bra as I typed this (hint: I didn’t), you don’t  need to worry about being available 24/7 based on someone else’s schedule (hint: if you set guidelines at the start, you don’t have to), you don’t need to worry about being a corporate failure (hint: you’re a leader not a follower; an independent thinker not a conformist), and you don’t need to worry about your hatred of collaborative environments (hint: some of us just work better alone). Worry about putting out quality work to your clients by the deadline while fitting in a little marketing and networking. If you are in the early stages of your career, you might be a little less flexible and may have to put in some more hours, but you can still do that the way YOU want to. When I decide how to run my business, I think of Mr. Wizard from Tooter Turtle, “Be just vhat you is, not vhat you is not. Folks vhat do zis are ze happiest lot.”

Thoughts?

Why is it that so many freelance writers can’t seem to grasp the concept of working smarter, not harder? Sometimes when I talk to writers or read other freelance writing blogs I feel like I’m going insane — like this is an alien concept or something.

To summarize: in business it’s always better to work smarter rather than harder. That means it’s better to earn more by doing less than to have to do more work to earn the same amount of money.

This is the backbone of the content mill / residual income site debate for example (spent a good chunk of my morning reading a few posts on the subject, hence this post). Yet it’s an aspect too often ignored. If you can earn $2000 per month churning out 200 articles a month or you can earn the same by writing 20 (requiring a similar time investment), then you choose to write 20. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. That’s smart business. Anything else is just completely nonsensical from that business perspective.

If you’re a hobby writer, write as much as you want for as little as you want. No one cares what token pay you’re earning but you. But (as I mentioned in a comment elsewhere this morning) freelancing is not a hobby. It’s a business. It’s not the same as other forms of small business in that it’s also more of a lifestyle, but bottom line is that it’s still a business. You can write and not be running a freelance business. That’s fine and dandy. But if you run a freelance business, then get smart about it instead of continually making excuses for why you’re not earning more or trying to encourage others to follow suit irresponsibly (as far too many bloggers have been doing lately, forgetting that when they write about freelancing they’re writing about and giving advice about… you guessed it… BUSINESS!).

/rant

Freelancing vs Running a Business

To super-summarize, James’ point is that freelancers should be willing to spend more money outsourcing projects if it will increase their billable hours. On the surface it makes a lot of sense–very basic business sense at that. What do I mean by that?

Let’s assume you’re a writer in need of a new website. You have reasonable Web design and coding skills. You could do it yourself. The question James asks is whether or not you actually should. On the most basic level, here’s the thought process behind outsourcing your new design:

If you design your new website yourself, you’re not being paid for that time that could otherwise be spent on additional client work (billable hours).

It makes sense, right? You want to maximize your billable hours so you can earn more, and more, and more. This is what basic business tells you (although I’m not saying James specifically mentioned all of these things)–you should outsource that design work. You should outsource your bookkeeping and accounting. You should outsource as much of your marketing and SEO as possible. You should outsource your customer service and order processing (get a virtual assistant). You may as well outsource your own writing while you’re at it (like a sales page for your new product). For that matter, you could even outsource your client work, allowing you to hire cheaper writers to do the work while you keep the difference for bringing in the clients and handling final edits.

In other words, outsource as much as you can, so you have as many directly billable hours as possible to take on paying (or higher-paying) work.

Why I Disagree with Outsourcing all Non-paying Tasks

First let me be clear. James says that freelancing is a business. I think he’s correct to a certain degree. Freelancers should plan their business and marketing strategies. They should market themselves constantly like any business. They have to ultimately make money in order to be sustainable. I’ve worked in a variety of situations – as an employee with large organizations, as a small business owner (my PR firm), and as a freelancer. And while I’m one to constantly tell you here that you have to treat your freelance career as a business, there are limits to that. Why? Because there’s one important distinction:

Freelancing is not only a business. It’s first and foremost a lifestyle. Many folks get into freelancing because they want to work independently. They have no interest or desire to start playing the role of project manager, dealing with other contractors constantly (and I’ll tell you from experience that getting someone else to do something right can take just as long, if not longer than, just doing it yourself).

Freelancers aren’t looking to run formal businesses for the most part. Those who are will usually go ahead and register those businesses. I know several who wanted to play the role of boss rather than solopreneur, and they went on to start content firms where they outsource all of the actual writing to others while they just edit and deal with clients.

On top of that, where does it really end then? By that same logic of saying you should always strive for more billable hours, you could also say that you should work twice as many overall hours. Why? Just because they’re there, and you’re not monetizing them yet (but could). But getting out of the grind is often a goal of freelancers, and again–it’s about a lifestyle and not just making more money.

Now am I saying that you should never outsource? Absolutely not. But my feelings are that you should always choose what’s best for you, as long as you’re able to reach your ultimate income goals. Those freelancers who want to keep earning more and more usually do so by formalizing their business and / or creating ancillary products. But those who simply want to enjoy working from home don’t need that. They may not need to shoot for $250k or $100k or even $50k per year. All they may truly want is to earn enough to fully suppport themselves, or enough to complement any other household income (such as one spouse working to bring in extra income while still being able to stay home with the kids). There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, again though, as long as they’re able to reach their income goals.

When Should You Outsource?

I’ll agree with James on a fundamental level: if you’re looking to increase your income, and you find you’re spending a huge amount of time on non-income-generating activities, then outsourcing is probably a good bet.

Another thing to consider is your current financial situation. Many freelancers simply don’t have cash on-hand to outsource, even if they wanted to. If you have extra funds and you’d like to pass some of the burden on to someone else, by all means, go for it.

If there’s a task you hate doing, go ahead and outsource it. I’ll give you an example. I ran a Web directory that archived deep links of articles all around the Web. It was a fun project then, but adding links was absolutely mind-numbing. So I hired two people to do it for me. I’d give them article topics, and they would find quality content and add the links with custom descriptions. It worked out for everyone. The directory ate up less of my time and didn’t bore me to tears, and they were paid to do work they found exceptionally easy (and for some reason enjoyed!)

If you don’t have the skills to do something, that’s another good time to look at outsourcing. Let’s go back to our original scenerio, but assume you have no idea how to code a website. It could take a rather long time to learn, and that much of a time investment probably isn’t worthwhile unless you plan to be doing a lot of design work in the future (I won’t say never to learn something new – doing so is actually the best way to know if your contractors in the future are doing things well to begin with). I’ll give you another personal example. I’ve designed and coded several sites in the past. I’m also exceptionally fussy about design work, and the only designer I’d consider had a long waiting list the last time I checked. I’m planning to redesign and re-launch one of my blogs soon, and it couldn’t wait. I opted to do the new design myself. It only took a few hours (during this past weekend, and since I never schedule work on my weekends for clients, it didn’t touch my billable hours). However, while I can code a static site fairly quickly, I’ve never coded a WordPress theme specifically. Learning to do that has been on my to-do list for ages, but now just wasn’t the time since I have a large client load, an e-book and book in the works, and a content strategy to plan for the blog re-launch. My plate is full (and I’m not nearly as fussy about the code–I can always clean it up quickly if I need to ), so that part of the new design I’ll be outsourcing. My skills aren’t at a level where I could churn the blog theme out quickly enough to make it worth my while.

When Not to Outsource

There are several situations where, while outsourcing sounds like a good idea on the surface, you probably shouldn’t do it. Here are a few examples.

If there’s something you’re incredibly fussy about, and you know up front you probably won’t be happy until you do it yourself, then just do it yourself. As long as you have the skills to get the job done fairly quickly, you’ll probably save more time going that route than having to deal with educating your contractor about your market and mission and then evaluating their work and getting them to tweak things until they’re just right.

If you don’t want to take on that project manager role, outsourcing might also be a bad idea. Let’s say you’ve recently raised your rates, but you still have a few older regular clients on your old rate system. You know they won’t pay your new rates, but you also don’t want to give up the steady work. You can do one of three things:

1. Bite the bullet, raise their rates, and be prepared to lose them if needs be (what I suggest) so you can focus on the new market you’re targeting.
2. Keep doing that lower-paying work yourself just to keep them on board, but sacrifice higher-paying work in the process.
3. Pursue higher-paying work yourself, but keep those clients on your roster. Outsource their work to a cheaper writer, and try to keep everyone happy.

Again, #3 sounds good in theory, and may very well work for some. However it also carries potential problems. For example, you will likely have to train those writers to take over in your style (which your clients are accustomed to, and why they keep coming back to you). You will have to deal with the administrative side of paying those writers (records you never had to keep before). You will have to take time to proofread and edit their work more than likely. You will have to deliver it to the client. You also may still have unhappy clients on your hands to deal with if your sub-contractors just aren’t meeting their expectations. In other words, there are real headaches involved, and things take time to deal with. In fact, they may take enough time that you would have earned more overall by just writing them yourself (what you were trying to avoid).

You always need to consider your ROI (return on investment), but it shouldn’t necessarily be your be all and end all–remembering that we’re talking about more than a business but a full lifestlyle in freelancing. What that means is that you need to compare your options. Will you get better overall end results by investing money through outsourcing, or by investing time to do it yourself.

I’ll give you another example: I would never outsource my overall marketing and PR strategic planning to a firm. Why? Because to find someone with credentials that match my own, it would cost too much to make it worth my while. I already intimately know my market and various audiences, as well as the tactics and tools of the trade. I know how to get the best return for my time in those areas, and it’s in my best interest to use those skills for myself (as opposed to using them for someone else – which is why I gave up the firm to focus on writing full-time to begin with). By using those skills for myself instead, I’ve attracted more work than ever, including income increases. If, however, I didn’t have my background in those areas, I would probably waste a heck of a lot of time playing around with marketing tactics that just don’t deliver in the grand scheme of things (wasting time and losing money). If that were the case, I would say outsourcing would be a good bet for me (if not my full marketing campaigns, at least outsourcing to a trainer to help strategize and teach me what I’d need to know to implement those campaigns without them). The same would apply to just about any skill.

At nearly 2000 words, I’ll leave it at that for now. While I understand James’ perspective as a small business owner myself, I also view things somewhat differently. And that’s okay–reasonable people often disagree. What I’d really like to know are your thoughts!

Do you think you should outsource whenever possible to increase billable hours? Do you take a completely DIY route? Why?

I’ll pick up this topic again next week to talk about how my rate-setting strategy and schedule planning is already designed to maximize earnings–basically an alternative approach to earning more as a freelance writer without having to take on contractors when you don’t want to. I’ll also be taking a look at how combining those two strategies may give us the best of both worlds. I’ll even give you a basic checklist of my own expenses as a writer–where I spend money as an example of my approach of being able to build a thriving freelance writing career, even if you start from next to nothing. Check back in early next week for that!