Freelance Writing Blog

2014 Freelance Writing and Publishing Goals

This week is my last work week of 2013. That means it’s time to take a look back at my progress this year — both my successes and failures. And it’s time to think about goals and resolutions for 2014. You can find mine below, and I hope you’ll share some of your own in the comments. Let’s start with some of my biggest goals

Tips for Developing Your Client’s Voice

I’ve never been the kind of writer who makes it a point to learn a certain number of obscure words each day. There once was a time when I thought that my refusal to actively study the dictionary (as if I was going to absorb it like an underground book memorizer in Fahrenheit 451) would be a drawback in my chosen profession—but I’ve found that my

What Freelance Writers Can Learn From Junk Email

I doubt any of you are strangers to spam. My favorites, if you can call them that, are all of the terrible pitches I receive from marketing and design firms as well as other freelancers. Here are the most common I see: “Your website isn’t ranking on the first page of Google,” (followed by all of the reasons I need their SEO services to get

Reader Questions: Getting Started as a Freelance Writer

I was contacted recently by freelance writer, Steve Koch, with some questions that might be on the mind of other new freelancers. He agreed to let me publish my responses on the blog so hopefully other readers with similar questions will benefit. Reader Questions “I have some general questions about getting started as a freelance writer. I have gone to the usual attempts (elance, helium

Why Clients Hire Ghostwriters

In order to get contracts signed and have a strong working relationship with ghostwriting clients, you have to understand why people are out there looking for ghostwriters. If you don’t, you’re going to rely on assumptions that can result in lost gigs and rocky working relationships. To give you a starting place, here are five examples of reasons that clients hire ghostwriters. Why Clients Hire

5 Reasons Freelance Writers Need a Professional Website

We’ve talked in the past about why freelance writers need a professional website. There are some things we didn’t get into then, and some things have changed over the years, making them more important now than ever. To kick off our series on professional websites for freelance writers, let’s start by looking at some of the most important reasons you might want to create one.

Ten Ideas for Ghostwriting Samples

There are two questions that come up more than any other when I talk to writers about breaking into ghostwriting. The first is: how do I get clients? The second is: how do I show them samples of my work if everything I do is confidential? I find these questions frustrating, because you definitely already know the answers to them. No, really, you do. And

Review of Marketing 365 by Lori Widmer

Lori Widmer is a fellow business writer, and one of my “go-to gals” for all conversations business or writing-related. On her Words on the Page blog, Lori encourages new and experienced writing professionals alike to realize their worth and strive for something better. Lori inspires freelance writers to pull themselves up out of the low pay rut, and to do so through better marketing and networking. Her e-book, Marketing

Relationship Marketing Basics for Freelance Professionals

In our interview with Lori Widmer of Words on the Page about marketing your freelance writing services, Lori emphasized the importance of building relationships and following up with prospects. If you’re one of the many writers who are uncomfortable with the idea of marketing from a direct sales perspective, thinking about marketing in terms of relationships can help you ease into a more effective marketing strategy.

Interview With Lori Widmer on Marketing Freelance Writing Services

There are only a handful of freelance writing colleagues that I turn to on a regular basis to bounce ideas around. Lori Widmer is one of those writers. And one issue where I wouldn’t hesitate to consult her for advice is freelance marketing. Lori comes from a business writing background, but also pursues creative writing projects (currently focusing on poetry). She knows how to adapt

Repeat Clients: The Key to a Successful Ghostwriting Business

Repeat business is, in my opinion, the secret to a successful ghostwriting career. There are two reasons for this: 1. When you’re ghostwriting, you may find that you get fewer referrals since most clients don’t tell other professionals that they used your services. 2. With lengthier projects, you may not be able to take on as many clients at one time, meaning you have fewer

5 Free Sets of Sexy Social Media Icons For Your Blog

Whether you maintain a blog as a way to market your freelance writing services, as a way to maintain an author presence, or as its own business model, tying your blog to your larger social media presence is vital. That includes giving blog readers the opportunity to share your posts on their favorite social networks. And it involves telling readers how they can connect with

Five Essential Tips for Ghostwriters

If you want to increase the number of ghostwriting projects you take on, there are five essential guidelines that I believe you must follow. If you don’t, you will probably see your business fail. Does that sound harsh? Good, it should. Because you owe it to yourself and your clients to do this thing right so that you can keep invisibly typing far into the

A Belated 4th Quarter Business Check-In

Normally I post my quarterly business goals and plans at the beginning of each quarter, and I try to post a follow-up in the next update to let you know how I did. Plans always unexpectedly change in one way or another, but this past quarter might have been the worst. As you might know, I took off for an extended leave of several months

Introducing a New Series on Freelance Ghostwriting

For close to two years I’ve been revamping my writing business to focus more on ghostwriting. This change in strategy has done amazing things for my career. It’s made me fall in love with freelancing all over again and helped me develop a focus, security and stability that I’d felt was lacking before. Like many freelancers, I’d always dabbled in ghostwriting. But I didn’t really

Updates and Oversharing

As you might remember, All Freelance Writing was supposed to be nonexistent at this point. It was scheduled to be merged with two other sites and relaunched as AllFreelanceWriting.com back in July. Clearly July has passed, and this site is still here. I’ve been MIA for several months. And I’m ready to share a few updates on what’s happening and what the new plan is

Other Writing Income Streams That Bring in Freelance Clients

While this blog is (currently) focused on freelancing writing, freelancing doesn’t make up the whole of my writing business. I also write nonfiction e-books, am (slowly) working on edits for my first print nonfiction book, write fiction for three different audiences (from short stories to a novel-in-progress), and I’m a very active Web publisher. I chose this business model for the diversity it offers —

Why Clients Come Back After Going the Cheap Route

One of the biggest complaints I hear from new freelance writers is that clients don’t seem willing to pay professional rates. Prospects are tempted by bottom-of-the-barrel offers from hobbyists, scrapers, and people who do little more than regurgitate other people’s articles. The prospect gets more content for their site for less money. The “writer” gets paid. And professionals get screwed in the deal. Let’s emphasize

What Gets You Through a Long Day of Writing?

There are some days when I really don’t feel like writing. But the work has to be finished anyway. Sometimes I plug away and get through the day on sheer will. Sometimes it’s more of a struggle and all I can think about is making it to quitting time. Fortunately these long, exhausting days aren’t the norm. Maybe I committed to too much because a

Three Key Words: Always Be Closing

As a freelance writer, there is more to your success than producing high quality content. Even though you may not enjoy the sales and marketing process, it is a big part of achieving your goals. With this in mind, these three words should always be close to your heart: always be closing. In other words, you should always be ready to close a deal. You

The Rules of the Sneaky Serial Comma

If there was ever a piece of punctuation to give us all fits, it’s the comma. When do you use it? When are you using it too much? Do I need a comma there? Correct comma usage causes endless questions simply because there are so many rules. Let’s worry about one comma in particular – the serial, or Oxford, comma. It’s the most controversial of

Where to Find Freelance Blogging Clients

Have you thought about getting into freelance blogging? Are you already a freelance blogger, but you’re struggling to find new clients? Blogging is one of my favorite projects to take on as a freelance writer. Finding clients was easy for me early on because the client base I was working with on PR writing projects also happened to have a strong need for blogging services.

3 Online Writing Jobs for Local Businesses

One of the biggest benefits of writing for the Web is that it gives freelance writers the ability to work with clients all over the world. These days everything can be done online from invoicing to delivery. But that doesn’t mean you have to work with clients outside of your area. Some writers are more comfortable working with local clients, and that’s perfectly fine as long as

How to Be Better With Your Freelance Writing Income

Too bad we’re not born knowing how to deal with money. If you had a financial literacy class in high school, you were pretty lucky. For many of us, much of what we know about personal finance we learned from our parents or our own mistakes. It’s not too late to learn those critical lessons you may have missed. Here are some tips on being

When is the Best Time to Make Cold Calls

Lately, we have been discussing cold calling as a marketing method quite a bit. For example, my last post touched on how to discuss freelance pricing during a cold call. This time around, I want to take a closer look at when you should be making cold calls. If you are going to spend time on the phone, you might as well give yourself the

3 Things I Don’t Want To Hear When Hiring Writers

If you read my previous blog post, you’ll know that over the past few years I’ve gone from being a part time freelance writer, regularly pitching for projects, to working in a full time role, hiring freelance writers for content production on an array of different topics. When I was freelance writing myself full time, I thought I had a good idea of just what

From Struggling Writer to Solid Writer and Beyond

As an English teacher, I have a strategy that usually works for struggling and reluctant writers. If they claim to not be able to write something, I ask them to tell me the story or response to address the prompt. Then, after they tell me a sentence or two, I repeat it back to a student and tell him to write it down. Kid says,

Print Writing: Improving Your Voice

Writing for print is tricky in a number of ways, but one of the most important–and the most difficult–is having a strong voice and being able to adapt it to the style of the publication you are querying. Some writers may already have a voice that they use and are comfortable with. That’s a great thing, but there is typically one problem that goes along

Managing Freelance Writing Income and Regular Income

For most people transitioning into full-time freelance writing or freelance writing on the side for awhile, there will undoubtedly be a period of time that you’re managing two kinds of income: income from freelance writing and income from a regular job. Or if you’re a writer who’s married to or cohabitating with someone who earns a regular income, the two of you may also face

Writers: Why You’re Losing Clients and Money As a Generalist

Who really loves your business? Of course you do, but you don’t count. A better question is: which portion of the public out there really loves your freelance writing business? You’d like to think everyone who has the need for a writer loves your business, but that’s simply not the truth. Not everyone is going to love your business nor will they be able to