Why Writing Deadlines May Be (Almost) As Good As Money

Article by Karen Zara

As much as we all like and/or need money, getting paid may not be enough to keep a writer motivated. Deadlines often are just as important. Although some of us fear — or even hate — them, the truth is that without them many of us simply wouldn’t write anything. And you can count me among those many.

My Story

I devote the entirety of my writing time to non-fiction pieces. However, I am and will always be a fiction writer at heart. I do like writing non-fiction, but fiction is my dearest passion. You might ask why I devote my time to non-fiction then. Some of you probably think that it’s just because it’s easier to earn a living from it. But that’s not the case. Of course non-fiction writing helps me pay the bills, but I could certainly save some time for my novels and short stories. The main reason why I don’t do it is lack of pressure.

When I have to write an article for a client, I am supposed to meet a deadline; otherwise I will lose money — and credibility, which is even worse. When I want to continue a novel or start a new short story, there’s no one telling me that I should get everything done within 48 hours. What type of writing do you think I will prioritize?

Blogging For Money… and Deadlines

I don’t see why a writer wouldn’t want to have a blog nowadays. It’s so easy to use blogs to showcase your talent and display samples to potential clients, that you’d be really missing a lot if you didn’t make use of those powerful tools.

Nonetheless, when you keep your own blog you may end up neglecting updates. On the other hand, when you’re hired to update someone else’s blog, you will have to sit down and write those posts. And your boss will certainly have told you which days of the week you should never skip. No excuses will be tolerated. You won’t be able to wait until you find the perfect blogging idea.

Using Deadlines to Strengthen Your Writing Career

Would you like to speed up your dwindling writing career? Do not waste your time telling yourself that someday you will query that magazine’s editor or pitch a guest post to that famous blogger. “Someday” is just too vague. What you may need is to put some pressure on yourself. And the first step is to search not only for money or fame, but also for tight deadlines.

Let’s see if that would work for you.

Just for a few months, forget about your beautiful writing dreams. Try to be more practical. Visit a good writing job board — you’ll find one right here at PoeWar — and don’t pay too much attention to the highest pay rates (I know that’s really hard to do, but…). Instead, apply for jobs that demand a fast turnaround. The faster, the better. Bonus if the topic you’ll have to write about requires some research.

The idea here is to be bold. Of course, you should never exaggerate. Don’t apply for a job if you feel that it’s really beyond your forces and ability. But don’t be too nice to yourself either. You must get used to challenging yourself and writing as quickly as possible, without sacrificing your piece’s quality. At the end of the process, you will have a happy client, some money in your pocket and renewed motivation to move your writing career forward. Now rinse and repeat.

Put your limits to the test, get those tough jobs done and see how good it feels when you realize that you can be a productive writer — and get paid for it.

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Karen Zara is a writer who dislikes working under pressure but does it all the same, because she knows it is good for her. What happens when she doesn’t have an approaching deadline to meet? She tries to update her blog Abaminds, which you are kindly invited to visit.

How to Start Making Freelance Money Today!

The greatest tool ever

I’m about to reintroduce you to the greatest money making tool a freelance writer has. It’s been neglected a bit lately because of this new Internet fad that all the kids are talking about, but it’s still the easiest, greatest way to find work. The best part is that you’re probably carrying that tool with you right now. If not, I’ll bet one is nearby. It’s called a phone. Know it. Love it. Use it.

1 versus 100

Do you know why telemarketers are constantly interrupting your dinner with sales calls? Because it works. They don’t make a sale every time, and they don’t have to. If one out of twenty calls is successful, a telemarketer is ahead of the curve. Now, think about this for yourself. If you’re sitting at home with no work, in eight hours you can certainly make twenty calls. Heck, rejections take no time at all. With enough rejections you can easily make one hundred calls in eight hours. If just one of those calls nets you an assignment, you’re back in the game. That’s power.

Who you gonna call?

Phone numbers are easy to come by. I must get half a dozen phone books delivered to my door every year. I keep at least one of them even though I never use it. Why? Because that Internet thingy is so darned convenient! I can look up just about any business online. Want a list of publishers in your city? Type the name of your city and the word publishers into Google. It will not only give you a list of publishers, it will point them out to you on a map. If the publisher has a web site, you can visit it and find out who to call. Calling is a lot easier if you have a name, but don’t let names stop you. Just call up the main number and ask for the editor, publisher, marketing department or even the owner. Not sure how to move forward? Here you go!

1. Call your local newspapers and magazines. Almost all newspapers have a web presence so it should be especially easy to find out who the editors are. Ask for the appropriate editor and explain that you are a freelance writer and that you want to find out what their policy on freelancing is and if they have any needs at this time.
2. After you finish with the locals, you should look to expand your search to the entire region. Call up any newspaper and magazine within a 200 mile radius. This goes for any search. Start locally and move outward as you make more calls.
3. Call your local publishing companies and print shops. Ask for the editor, owner or manager. Ask them if they use freelancers for copywriting, editing or proofreading work. Let them know that you are in the area and available.
4. Make a list of local non-profit organizations, schools and colleges. Call them and explain that you are a local writer. Ask if they are in need of any copywriting or grant writing.
5. Move on to local businesses, especially locally-owned retail businesses. Ask for the owner or manager and explain that you are a local copywriter and ask if they are in need of brochures, fliers, radio copy or other advertising materials.

Friendly neighborhood writer

The important thing to remember is to be friendly and willing to listen. The chances of you landing a sale are about one in twenty, so don’t get discouraged by rejection. Rejection will happen most of the time. That’s why you keep dialing more numbers. If you are friendly and straightforward, all sorts of good things can happen. Some people may ask you to send samples. Others may take your number and promise to call if they have any work. Others may recommend another editor or business. Sometimes, you’ll get the gig right then and there. For any businesses that show interest but don’t commit to a sale, send them your business card, postcard or brochure so that you can be sure they received your information.

I won’t lie to you. Cold calling takes effort and guts. It isn’t for the lazy or the timid. That’s why it works, because so few people are willing to do it.

40 Fabulous Faults of Freelance Failures

I’ve been preaching freelance success for a while now. It seems only fair to embrace freelance failure as well, so here are some truly bad habits you can feel free to adopt.

Organization

• Freelance failures don’t sweat time management. It doesn’t matter whether they have too many assignments or too few. What matters is that the Scrubs marathon is on and that J.D. guy is dreamy in a puppy dog kind of way.
• Freelance failures don’t have an office or a workspace. They can work from anywhere equally badly.
• Freelance failures never keep a notebook handy. If an idea is truly good, they’ll remember it later.
• Freelance failures don’t waste time on money management. They spend it when they have it and they just keep hoping more will come.
• Freelance failures never have a backup plan. If Plan A doesn’t work, Plan B probably wouldn’t either.
• Freelance failures don’t treat freelancing as a business. They don’t keep receipts. They don’t manage their spending. They don’t create a business plan. They don’t know how much money they need to avoid starvation. They just don’t bother with those minor details.
• Freelance failures don’t rewrite, reuse or resell. Once they write something, they put it behind them. No use trying to make more money off of that old garbage. Chances are it wasn’t very good the first time.

Marketing

• Freelance failures don’t use Writer’s Market. They whole idea of researching possible markets seems like a lot of pointless work to them.
• Freelance failures love eLance and SoloGig. They can get practically any assignment there, as long as they are the low bidder. Four hundred articles on Bolivian culture for $200 dollars? Hey, if that’s what it takes to get the work then that’s what it takes!
• Freelance failures like to wait. They send out a query letter and wait for an answer. They don’t dare write more queries or more material. They just wait for that good news to come in.
• Freelance failures don’t waste their time on portfolios of their work. It should be enough that they tell an editor they should get the job because they really want to be a good writer and they have three hungry kids to feed.
• Freelance failures don’t advertise. They went into to business to make money, not spend money.
• Freelance failures don’t keep in touch with old clients, unless it’s to call and beg for a job because they’re broke.
• Freelance failures don’t have business cards. They write their information down on a scrap of paper and hand it over. That’s good enough, isn’t it?
• Freelance failures don’t have their own web site. In fact, they’re not quite sure whether or not this whole Internet fad is going to be around much longer.

Client Relations

• Freelance failures don’t bother to listen to their clients or to their editors. They just start working on the assignment. It’s pretty obvious to a freelance failure that their judgment is best. The client’s needs are merely an annoyance to be dealt with.
• Freelance failures don’t like to say no. It’s better to agree to something you can’t deliver than to turn away a potential payday.
• Freelance failures let old debts slide. That client will get around to paying you sooner or later. You don’t want to offend them by asking to get paid.
• Freelance failures can’t tell you why you should hire them. They just know that they want the gig.
• Freelance failures don’t negotiate. More money? More time? You mean you can ask for those things?
• Freelance failures don’t take rejection well. What do you mean this doesn’t suit your needs right now? You hate me don’t you?
• Freelance failures don’t have a billing system. They figure paying them is the client’s job, let them handle it.

Skills

• Freelance failures don’t sweat clarity. It’s clear to them what they wrote. Everybody else is just an idiot.
• Freelance failures don’t sweat editing. That’s the same as proofreading, right? No time for that when you’re writing 250 SEO articles about male pattern baldiness.
• Freelance failures can write equally poorly about anything. It doesn’t matter whether or not they care about a subject or even know a subject. They can fake those things. What matters is that they convinced somebody to pay them.
• Freelance failures don’t work to improve their skills. Why should you get certified when you’re already certifiable?

Research

• Freelance failures don’t make the same mistakes twice; they make them way more often than that.
• Freelance failures get people’s names wrong. Nobody minds being called the wrong name do they?
• Freelance failures don’t do research for their articles. They just assume that whatever they know is close enough.
• Freelance failures steal material. They’ve promised so many things to so many people that they have to rip off other writers just to finish their projects.

Community

• Freelance failures don’t have mentors. They can’t think of anyone they would want to emulate.
• Freelance failures never collaborate. They work alone, or at least they would work alone if they had any work. Working with another writer just means you’ve got to split the rate, and freelance failures can’t afford to take any less money than they already do.
• Freelance failures don’t network. They don’t want to work with other writers. They don’t want to talk to other writers. They sure don’t want to learn from other writers. That’s time better spent trolling Craig’s List for gigs.
• Freelance failures have no idea who their competition is. They don’t monitor their markets. They don’t read other writers. They stay blissfully unaware of the world around them.

Attitude

• Freelance failures don’t really like the idea of making money. They consider themselves to be artists. Success would just mean they’ve sold out.
• Freelance failures get discouraged easily. If they don’t get the sale the first time, they just give up. If something is hard to write, they just don’t write it. Why waste time on improvement when they can just as easily spend that time telling their friends about how unfair the industry is?
• Freelance failures like to save the hard tasks for last. If you put them off long enough, you may not have to do them at all!
• Freelance failures aren’t problem solvers. They’ve never seen an obstacle they couldn’t let stop them.
• Freelance failures know that successful freelance writers are just luckier then they are.
• Freelance failures don’t stay freelance failures forever. They learn and improve. Eventually they get better. If they don’t, they move on to fail at something else.

Monster List of Freelancing Tips

You may not find everything on this list useful, but surely you’ll find something on this list that is worth your time.

• Successful freelance writers don’t underprice their services. Charging too little not only hurts the freelancer, it hurts the whole freelance industry. When you underprice your services, you make it harder for other freelancers to charge a reasonable rate.
• Successful freelance writers don’t overprice their services. There are plenty of writers out there willing to work for next to nothing. It is a plague on the industry. Unfortunately, this means that when you overcharge for your services, it is easy for clients to find cheaper workers. The key is to charge a reasonable rate that reflects the quality of your service (most cheap writers aren’t very good) but recognizes that you are in a competitive industry. Read more

Want to be a Freelance Writer? Get Ready for Business!

Writing Skills Aren’t All You Need

If you’re just realizing that your excellent writing skills could be put to good use on the Internet, and earn you some attractive cash, welcome! You’re about to have the time of your life as you explore being a freelance writer.

But hold on – writing skills aren’t all you need. In fact, a lack of secondary skills is what sets many freelance writers on the road to failure instead of success.

Before you launch yourself into writing your way into a fulfilling, satisfying career, take a good look at what else you’ll need for a successful venture:

Customer Service Skills

Interestingly enough, writers are horrible at customer service.

Wrapped in their comforting words, they can pen beautiful content that converts and resonates – but they often come off as arrogant, overly laid back or just plain blunt in communication with clients.

Convey a positive, professional attitude at all times – and especially in email communication. Emails are no place to let your guard down and show your worst. In fact, emails are the single-most important area in which you should excel at writing.

It may mean the difference between landing a gig and being passed on.

Bookkeeping Skills

If you can’t do the math, then you can’t run a business.

Freelance writers are self-employed workers. They must effectively manage their books, track their income, monitor expenses and examine their profit and loss statements. (And you thought there was no math involved in writing.)

Buy a book on accounting 101. Take a course at a community college. You can even learn basic bookkeeping online.

Otherwise, you may sit down one day and wonder why you’re not making ends meet, even when you’re making good money.

Marketing Skills

The Internet is saturated with competition for writers.

The good news is, many of those competing writers aren’t very good ones. You may feel like there’s a writer around every corner, but when you take a good, close look, you’ll notice that many are just fly-by-night hacks. Sad, but true.

Learn how to tell people about your services and why you’re the best choice for them. It isn’t because you’re a crack writer, though that certainly helps. The extra qualities that make you stand out are what sells people these days.

It’s also a good idea to take a marketing course or learn more about it. Web writing often involves a healthy dose of marketing and having good knowledge helps you get an edge.

Organizational Skills

If you can’t plan and your memory is shot, you’re going to have a tough time online.

The Internet world moves very quickly. You might find yourself needing a calendar to manage your schedule and a way to organize your daily workload. Freelancing isn’t a huge life of abandoned freedom – in fact, quite the contrary.

A freelance writer needs to be able to organize a day efficiently and work in all the possible interruptions that might occur. Writers need to plan, schedule and maintain a production routine – just like any business in operation.

Know realistically how much time you have available and how much you can manage before saying yes to each gig that comes your way.

A Plan B

If you’re about to step into freelance writing, you need a Plan B.

Earning enough income to support yourself isn’t going to happen for a while. What’s your backup plan in the meantime while you gain clients and increase your income? Do you have three months of income set aside to support yourself?

What happens if you have a really bad month and no one needs you?

Have a Plan B at hand for the worst case scenario – always and forever, no matter how established you become. You never know what tomorrow might bring, and taking a leap of faith without a good parachute to catch your fall is a huge mistake.

Sound Grim?

If you find yourself feeling discouraged about your idea of becoming a freelance writer, don’t be. Freelance writing is an exciting, fulfilling career and you’ll have a great time easing into your new job.

You also have a better idea of exactly what you’re getting into. You’re more informed, can research the additional areas involved in freelancing and learn the skills that you may need.

By taking the time to learn everything you can about freelance writing, you’re giving yourself a solid fighting chance at making it as a writer. You’ll be able to think on your game plan, prepare yourself and take secure steps to ensure your success.

Because success is what you want, isn’t it?

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If you want to learn how to be a freelance writer on the Internet, then save yourself hours of searching and hard-knock lessons. Get comprehensive, practical advice and tips in Write for the Web, and jump-start your new career. It’s great advice from successful freelance writing pros who’ve been there, done that.

About the Author: James Chartrand is one of the daring duo found at Men with Pens, your best resource for freelance writing on the Internet. Want another great shortcut to top pro advice? Subscribe to the Men with Pens feed.

How to Talk to an Editor on the Telephone

By Melanie Bowden

I have a confession to make. No matter how many articles I sell I still have times where I feel nervous when I have to call an editor. I’m not shy and I love talking on the phone, so what’s the problem? I think that more than most jobs writing is putting your heart and soul out there and, let’s face it, that’s scary.

I’ve also had some pretty unpleasant phone calls with editors. You know the ones where you finally get the nerve to call about the article submission you made months ago, only to find out it’s been rejected. One magazine even told me ‘If you don’t hear from us, it’s a rejection.’ What are all of those SASEs for then? Or how about the one where I called to inquire about a two months late payment on an article to have an editor tell me ‘It’s been a bad few months for us.’ Funny those months were good enough to publish my article!

The other thing is that old adage that editors don’t like to be called. Well, then they should respond to postal mail or email more promptly. It’s so refreshing when an editor actually gets back to you within the response time stated on their writer’s guidelines. Unfortunately, most editors are too swamped to even keep track of stuff like that.

So I figure it’s my job to help them out and remind them that ‘I will not be ignored’ – i.e. Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. I’ve learned that when I’m most hesitant to call, it’s probably way past time. I’ve also found some ways to insure these conversations are productive:

Write out questions

Write out the questions you have for the editor beforehand. If you get rattled, having the words on the paper in front of you will save you.

Have a statement ready

Have a statement ready to leave on their voicemail if the editor is not in. Again, write this one out. There’s nothing more embarrassing than leaving a floundering message.

Get the facts right

Be sure you have your facts correct. Example: ‘On June 1st I sent you a message via email regarding my article. Maybe you never received it. Here’s what I need to know…’

Negotiate

Be careful if you are discussing terms for a piece. You don’t have to agree to the first price they offer. I’m guilty of making this mistake more times than I can say, but I’m learning. Simply say, ‘That’s a little lower than I’d like, but I’m excited about the prospect of working for you.’ Then be quiet – that’s the hard part! The editor will have to say something and you can negotiate from there.

Keep the kids quiet

Prep your kids before you make the call. My daughters know that when I say I’m making a business call they can only interrupt me if the house catches fire or worse. Luckily most editors are very sympathetic to the kids’ interruptions, especially if you’re calling the editor at a parenting magazine.

Restate the results

Be sure to take a breath and go over the results of the conversation before you hang up. What I try to do is read back a summary of the important points of our conversation. This may seem like you’re wasting an editor’s time, but you don’t want to get off of the phone and then realize you misunderstood something and have to call back. Summarizing your conversation shows that you are a professional – calling back to clarify could label you a nuisance.

So don’t worry if calling editors makes you a little jumpy. Writers everywhere feel the same way. As a last resort you can always imagine the editor in their underwear – at least you’ll hang up smiling.

Melanie Bowden is a freelance writer based in San Mateo, California. Her work has appeared in Shape, Writer’s Digest, and numerous parenting publications. If you would like to reprint this article, please contact the author at melaniebowden@earthlink.net.

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