Profile image for freelance writer directoryJennifer Mattern

Jennifer Mattern is a professional blogger, freelance business writer, consultant, and indie author. She runs numerous websites & blogs including All Freelance Writing, Freelance Writing Pros, NakedPR, and Kiss My Biz.

Jenn has 25 years' experience as a professional writer and editor and over 20 years' experience in marketing and PR (working heavily in digital PR, online marketing, social media, SEO, new media, and thought leadership publication). She also has 19 years' professional blogging and web publishing experience (including web development) and around 18 years of experience as an indie author / publisher.

Jenn also writes fiction under multiple pen names and is an Active member of the Horror Writers Association.

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Freelance Writer Challenge – Write Down Your Ideas

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Do you ever feel like you have so many ideas in your head that you don’t know what to do with them? Well then write them down! Perhaps you already do, but is your note-taking, idea-hoarding method really working well for you? Or do you manage to lose those notes anyway, making them useless for bringing those ideas back to life later on? Thanks to

Freelance Writer Challenge – Reset Your Alarm

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If you’re anything like me, you probably wish there was a little more time in a day. It sometimes seems like you just can’t squeeze everything in. What if there was a solution? How much more could you do if you found just one more hour in a day? I’d like to see you find out! The Challenge When you go to bed tonight, set

Freelance Writer Challenge – Make More Money

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Do you sometimes feel like your rates are too low? Are you afraid to increase them? When you earn a living as a freelance writer, you get to set your rates. You decide how much you’ll earn. But sometimes writers lack confidence. They worry that clients won’t think they’re worth what they want to charge. Not true (unless you’re insane and you think you’re going

Freelance Writers: 3 Tips for Taking Your Life Back

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Freelance writing is a great career. You have a lot of freedom you wouldn’t have in other lines of work. But with that freedom often comes mental overdrive. Sometimes we work too hard. I think it has to do with the “feast or famine” mentality of freelancing. When work is coming in, we might feel like we should say “yes” to everything offered, because we

2009 Freelance Writing Goals: Mid-Year Check-in

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At the beginning of the year, we tend to set our freelance writing goals, or resolutions. But sometimes we take a set it and forget it approach. Now that we’re in July, we’re a bit more than half-way through the year. I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the progress we’ve all made so far. Take a look at some of

Is the Freelance Writing Market in Piss-Poor Shape?

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I came across an article called “The Reason Freelance Writing is in Such Piss-Poor Shape” on TumbleMoose.com. In it, he claims that freelance writing is in bad shape because of sites like Elance where the so-called global market leads to extremely low bidding (making it hard for other writers to earn a decent living). While these kinds of thoughts are common, they’re not exactly correct.

How Not to Hire Freelance Writers

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On Mondays I usually post a list of freelance blogging jobs here. Today though I found myself somewhat disgusted by the blogging jobs I found. Based on those ads and their requirements, I wanted to offer a few tips for those considering hiring freelance writers. Here’s what you should not do in your job ads (and why): Don’t ask for custom samples unless you’re paying

To Query or Not to Query: Part Six

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Today we’re finishing up our interview series with our guests: Chris Bibey, Angela Booth, Jenna Glatzer, Kristen King, Allena Tapia, and Anne Wayman. I asked each guest to share some parting words of wisdom or advice for other freelance writers. I hope you’ll find it a fitting close to our series. Here’s what they had to say: Chris Bibey 1. Be willing to speak with

To Query or not to Query: Part Five

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This week we’ll be finishing our series with successful freelancers, where we’ve been talking about queries, platforms, and finding freelance writing jobs. A major aspect of query-free freelancing is building a writer platform–your visibility and demand. There are many possible elements to a writer platform such as blogs, a professional website, published books, microblogging (Twitter), and speaking engagements. (If you’d like more examples, check out

To Query or Not to Query: Part Four

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In part three of our series, our guests told you flat out what they thought of querying, and how important they considered the query process in building freelance writing careers. Before that, we found out how our guests land most of their freelance writing jobs these days. And today we’ll turn back the clock and find out how each of these writers landed gigs during

Specializing in Article Writing – Where to Begin

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Today I’d like to answer a series of questions sent to me by Matt on a webmaster forum I frequent, where I often talk about freelance writing issues. I hope my advice to Matt helps other new freelance writers out there. I’ve broken his message into several parts to make things easier. Note: Where you see references to “DP” we’re talking about the DigitalPoint forums.

To Query or Not to Query: Part Three

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In the second part of our series, our guests shared with you the type of writing they most often do for clients and how they personally get most of their freelance writing jobs. I hope you’ll notice the recurring mentions of things like repeat work and referrals. No matter how you choose to start out, these are the kinds of things you should always strive

To Query or Not to Query: Part Two

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In part two of our interview series with successful freelancers, we'll take a look at the different types of writing they do and how they personally land most of their writing gigs. Why is this important? As I mentioned previously, query-free freelancing isn't the only option available to you as a freelance writer. While the Web 2.0 world makes it much easier for new writers to build a platform and their visibility early on, other tactics still have a place. You'll get a glimpse of what other pros are doing, and how some things changed over the years for a few of them.

It's also important that you understand queries or query-free approaches to freelancing can vary depending on the type of writer you are. For example, query letters will have a larger role in freelance magazine writing than they would on the Web. On the other hand cold call pitching might work in commercial writing, but it might annoy editors with national publications.

I'm regularly asked how writers earning decent rates find their gigs (or where they find their gigs). For me it's the query-free approach where my clients most often find me. I understand that alone isn't very helpful for a new writer. Our guests come from a mix of backgrounds, from ghostwriting books to writing for corporate clients, and here they share how they find new work.

Let's get to it. I asked our guests what types of projects they most often take on for clients and how they land most of their freelance writing jobs. Here's what they had to say:

To Query or Not to Query: That’s a Question for the Pros!

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I announced previously that we would be hosting a sort of round table interview series here with successful freelance writers to discuss querying, platforms, networking, and the process of landing gigs. While I fully support the query-free way of doing business because of my own background, I know it’s not the only way to manage your freelance writing career, and I’ll never pretend here that

Land More Freelance Writing Jobs by Questioning Your Clients

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Do you spend enough time questioning your clients (and prospective clients)? You should! No. I’m not suggesting that you get into a spat with a client about how they want you to handle a project. I’m talking about good old fashioned information-gathering. If you spend some time looking at public responses to job ads from writers (bidding sites, forums, etc.), you would notice a common

How to Get Freelance Writing Referrals Even if You're New

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New freelance writers have a lot on their minds. More experienced writers often tell them that they need to build a presence, start networking, and focus on getting referrals instead of simply searching job boards (the best gigs are rarely found on job boards). But they don’t want to hear it. They don’t want to wait a few weeks to a few months to have

5 Tips for Better Twitter Networking

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One of the great things about freelance writing is the fact that so much of our marketing and networking can be done through just that–writing! While I’m all for professional sites, forums, and blogs in just about any niche you could work in, one of the “new” tools helping writers reach out to their network is the microblog (like Twitter). If you’re a writer who

Why Freelance Writers Need a Professional Website

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I’m a big believer in creating a Web presence as a freelance writer. Frankly, you couldn’t give me an excuse I’d consider good enough for not building a professional website (although some have tried).  Let’s explore why I feel they’re so vital, and why it may be worth setting up a professional site even if you already maintain a steady client load without one. What

"Web Content Writing" Is Not a Dirty Word

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Yikes. Can you believe there are still people out there who think “Web content writing” is nothing more than the garbage $5 and under gigs involving poor English and rehashed articles? I guess I thought we were beyond that, but I came across a post somewhere earlier today (can’t remember what it was I was reading) which lumped “Web content writing” in with things like

The Importance of the Web in Building Your Writer Platform

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The Web makes building a writer platform much easier than it would have been years ago, with more of an emphasis required on local networking, securing major media coverage, and setting up speaking engagements. Now in no way am I saying those things aren’t still important. The Web just makes them less of a requirement as you have far more tools and resources at your

Write for Magazines Without Writing for Magazines

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I’ve shared this tip with freelance writers at All Freelance Writing previously, but it’s worth mentioning again here. If you’re open to the idea of ghostwriting, and you’d like to write print features, you can do it query-free. Really. No pitching of publications required at all (not on your end at least). How? This strategy works best for writers working with commercial clients (especially PR

Query-Free Freelancing Means Creating Your Own Demand

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If you want to become a query-free freelancer, you can’t just wait around hoping clients are going to find you. You need to create demand for your work. Today I’m going to share a story about how I not only did that, but how I created demand in a relatively new market by identifying a need and choosing to fill it. Those who have known

Freelance Writer Business Plans: How In Depth Should They Be?

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When you first launched your freelance writing career, did you compile a business plan or marketing plan? Do you update it every year? How in-depth are your plans? Do You Need a Business Plan at All? I’m a big believer in research and planning. Without it, it’s impossible to make decisions that are going to give you the best return on the time or money

Get Paid to Build Your Writer Platform

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We recently talked about 30 ways to build your writer platform. In that list of things to consider pursuing to build your visibility, you may have noticed that several platform-building techniques have an added bonus–you can get paid for your efforts! This is one of my favorite things about query-free freelancing. Unlike spending a lot of unpaid time writing queries to various companies and publications

What is a Writer Platform?

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You’ll see me talk a lot about building a writer platform here at QueryFreeFreelancer.com, but what exactly is a platform? Your writer platform is basically a collection of tools and tactics that allow you to build and maintain both visibility and demand for your freelance writing services. Think of it as your built-in audience. The idea is to build an audience that will benefit your

Why Become a Query-Free Freelancer?

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Let’s kick things off by explaining what I mean when I say “query-free freelancing.” Basically, you attract freelance writing clients without mailing query letters, without sending email queries, and without cold calling just to pitch an idea and “sell yourself” to a potential client (or editor). Is Query-Free Freelancing for Everyone? Absolutely not. There are many types of freelance writers, and there are many approaches

Writing Nonfiction Books: An Interview with Linda Formichelli

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To continue our interview series on various writing styles freelancers may be interested in pursuing, today I’m talking with Linda Formichelli, co-author of The Renegade Writer: A Totally Unconventional Guide to Freelance Writing Success and The Renegade Writer’s Query Letters That Rock, about writing nonfiction books. Many freelancers already work in nonfiction, and some have even written longer e-books. Moving on to publishing a nonfiction

Should You Outsource Your Client Writing?

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I received an email this morning from another writer. In short, they were pitching me on their own writing services, asking me to outsource client projects to them. I let them know I don’t do that. Do you? I think it’s a topic worth discussing. The Ethics of Subcontracting First let me be clear: I don’t think there is anything inherently “wrong” with subcontracting client

Upfront Payments: A Buyer's Perspective

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Not only am I a freelance writer, but I’m also a client to other freelancers from time to time. Most of my clients are billed up front for my work. As a provider, I get to set the terms I work under and decide if or when to negotiate or make exceptions. Obviously there are benefits to being paid up front. As a client though,

Novel Writing: An Interview with Evan Marshall

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Today we kick off our new series exploring various types of writing freelancers may have an interest in pursuing. Evan Marshall, creator of the Marshall Plan for Novel Writing and the Marshall Plan Software and author of two mystery novel series and several nonfiction books, is our guest. Marshall’s latest novel is called Evil Justice, a book in The Hidden Manhattan Mysteries series. He not

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