Jennifer Mattern Do you ever land bad freelance writing clients? Maybe they’re too needy. Maybe they don’t pay on time. Maybe they expect the world while paying next to nothing. These aren’t good clients to have. Yet many freelancers face these situations. You don’t have to. Here are three simple ways you can better insulate yourself from bad writing clients. 1. Be Choosy As a business owner,
I ought to be declared the queen of the tech gremlins given how much time they like to spend around me. If you didn’t catch my Twitter rants, I recently had my server hacked (this site was fine). As soon as that was settled, my laptop hard drive died. The data was not recoverable. Of course, things weren’t backed up as recently as they should
Are you interested in publishing a nonfiction book? Do you already have a blog in that niche? If you answered “yes” to both of those questions, you might be a prime candidate for turning your blog into a book. This is largely what I’m doing with my own nonfiction book, The Query-Free Freelancer. I used my freelance writing blog to help me organize the book
Today I’d like to share a special program from American Writers & Artists Inc. Do you wish you could rake in six figures writing for businesses? If you’ve ever considered a freelance writing career as a copywriter and you want to learn how make some serious dough, AWAI’s Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting might be the kick you need. I’ve been promising these nice folks
We’ve talked about the fact that indie publishing is a business. And you know that if you’re serious about selling a top notch book you can’t go it alone. That’s where your indie publishing team comes into play. As a true indie publisher (rather than just a small publishing company with in-house staff), you’ll most likely work with independent contractors. There are benefits to this:
I’ve been a bit of a hypocrite lately, not following my own rules about maintaining a work-life balance. Working late happens more often than it should (including today). And I haven’t felt very rested — which makes me feel mentally drained all day, which hurts my productivity even more and leads to more late nights. It’s a lousy little cycle. Sometimes it’s completely our fault
It’s no secret that your book cover design is an important book marketing tool — for indie authors and traditionally published authors alike. Yet many self published authors and indie publishers take the DIY route and the results are often easy to spot in relation to professional cover designs. Who better to talk about cover design issues like these than one of the industry’s go-to
When you publish your own book with the intention of selling it, you should always have a marketing plan. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen indie authors make is assuming they don’t need one. They just wing it or rely on a low price or a single distribution outlet to cover all of their marketing. Let’s assume you have more hope than that. For
This post is based on a comment I recently left on Lori Widmer’s “If it Didn’t Work with Huffington….” Writing for ad revenue is usually a bad idea for writers. Some of the big networks have been doing it for years, and the problems have been clear for a long time now. It’s easy to justify it though. I’ve been there myself. I’ve crunched numbers
Quick question: what’s your favorite way to market your freelance writing services? For me it’s blogging without a doubt. While you have to stick with it to keep growing, every post you write as the potential to help you market yourself indefinitely (especially thanks to search engine traffic and long tail keyword phrases). More than that, blogs keep you connected with your professional network —
Blame it on my days in PR, but I’m a big fan of transparency. I love sharing open and honest information, including real life data about things that interest me. In freelance writing I encourage other writers to share their rates openly because it helps us not only conduct better market research as a group and can positively influence the hiring process, but because it
Virginia C. McGuire shared a link on Twitter to a local story that caught my attention. It related to legislation that would require small business owners to offer seven paid sick days to their employees. And one Philadelphia diner owner spoke out against it. The problem? He spouts suppositions as facts and admits that while he gives paid sick leave to his real estate employees
We all know that there are a lot of great things about freelancing — like flexible schedules and the stereotypical fuzzy slippers while working (yeah, I wear ’em). But there are also plenty of challenges. So out of curiosity, what has proven to be the most challenging part of being a freelance writer for you so far? I think the most challenging part for me
If you go into indie publishing with the intention of selling your books and earning a profit, you’re going into business. Your books and e-books become the products you build your business around. You’ll see me emphasize this fact a lot here at All Indie Publishing. Today I want to talk about what that really means (being an authorpreneur as opposed to just an author).
A few days ago a colleague shared a story about a recent experience with a nonprofit organization. Here’s the gist of what happened: The client hired the freelance writer for a previous project at the writer’s professional rates. The client had need for a professional writer again. The writer sent a proposal (which the client asked for). The client contacted the writer saying they could
At the end of this month I’ll take a vacation of sorts — a working vacation. It’s a chance to get ahead on some projects and get caught up on others, all while minimizing distractions of the ordinary day-to-day work schedule. For me it’s about a problem with project overload. I try to keep busy at all times (working hours at least), but right now
Despite the Amazon craze (and Smashwords and all the other shiny new e-book selling tools and platforms), the majority of the e-books I release will never be sold through such marketplaces. That’s because for years I’ve focused on writing “information product” e-books — which are highly profitable, are what I usually refer to here as “traditional e-books,” and are often ignored by today’s e-book newcomers
You’ll occasionally see me use the term “self publishing” here simply because of its common use among indie authors. But I hate that phrase. Hate, hate, hate it. If you want to call yourself a self publisher, by all means do so. There’s nothing wrong with that. My biggest issue with it is when people throw that term around to describe others, including myself. “Self
Yesterday we talked about when it makes sense to have multiple blogs, and I shared some information on some of the main blogs I run. But even if it makes sense for you to launch several blogs, that doesn’t mean you have the time or energy to stick with it. Having done this for years — managing multiple blogs and knowing when to launch more
In addition to being a freelance writer for clients I’m also a professional blogger and Web developer in my own right, running several different types of websites over the years including dozens of different blogs. That experience lets me appreciate the value having multiple blogs can bring through exposure, new contract work if you’re looking for it, and product sales. But running multiple blogs isn’t
This post was intended to be a comment on Joanna Penn’s recent article explaining why she chose the 99-cent price point for her novel. My thoughts are directed at a comment she posted rather than the article itself. But my thoughts on the issue were extensive enough that I decided they deserved their own post. I think I should say up front that I have
Last week I shared my planned editing process for my books with you, and we talked about the ups and downs of self-editing. Let’s now look beyond self-edits and talk about other ways indie authors can maintain high editorial standards — one of the biggest concerns people raise when criticizing self-published books as a whole. The editorial options you choose will vary based on your
Increasing your productivity can go a long way towards helping you build your freelance writing career in the way you want to. It’s how you work smarter, not harder. You can get more done (and make more money) even though you spend fewer hours working. Or you can open up more billable hours in your existing schedule. What’s not to love? For me, I still
Previously I shared the editing process I came up with for my own indie published books. That process includes extensive self-editing, a professional editor, and objective beta readers. Let’s continue to look at the self-editing side of editing your books. I consider self-editing a necessity. But it’s not the be all and end all. It’s just one part of the process. There are ups and downs.
When we think about marketing our freelance writing services, it’s easy to get caught up in the idea of finding new clients. But what about former clients? Sometimes they get lost in the mix, or are downright forgotten. Do you remember to approach them about potential new writing gigs? Here are a few things you can do to bring old clients back: 1. Reach out.
I have several indie publishing projects in the works right now. I’m drafting a novel. I’m planning my next e-book for my business audience. And I’m editing the manuscript for my nonfiction book, The Query-Free Freelancer. Today I’d like to talk about that editing work, and more specifically some of the ups and downs of self-editing. My Editing Process I need to make it clear
Writers of all kinds often say that they love writing but hate marketing. But that’s frequently because they confuse marketing and hard selling — “Buy! Buy! Buy!” In reality, the hard sale is only one small part of marketing and whether you realize it or not you probably market your books every single day. When you set up your author website you were marketing. Every
You may remember that we recently lost several weeks’ worth of content here at All Freelance Writing. There was apparently a problem with database backups that began after our recent server move that caused the database backups to be incomplete and impossible to restore. While this wasn’t an ideal way to discover that issue, fortunately we had another way to retrieve the last few weeks’
Indie publishing is a viable option for many authors who don’t want to pursue traditional publishers for whatever reason. But that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone (despite some people’s claim that “anyone can do it”) and it certainly doesn’t mean indie publishing or self publishing is for you. Let’s look at qualities and skills of successful indie publishers and what might hold you back. 4
We recently looked at some of the reasons many author websites suck and I shared a few good author website designs with you as inspiration. Today let’s move on to some tools and resources that can help you improve the author website you already have or build a beautiful new site to promote your books. [box type=”info”] Note that the information below is for those