10 Steps to a Freelance Writing Career

One of the keys to freelance writing success is finding the right market for you. Developing a writing specialty that is both enjoyable and profitable will bring you long-term success as a writer. You don’t have to limit yourself to a single market. You should find and exploit your strengths in as few or as many areas as you feel comfortable working in. Below is a ten-step plan that outlines how to find success as a freelance writer though specialization.

Step One: Analyze your Strengths as a Freelance Writer

Make a list of subjects that you both know about and feel you would enjoy writing about. Ask yourself:

• What do I know that others either don’t know or don’t understand?
• What am I educated in?
• What work experiences do I have?
• What would I like to learn more about?
• What am I passionate about?

Don’t just ask these questions in your mind. Write down your answers. You will need them for later steps. Don’t be afraid to get specific. “I like to write about psychiatry” is a valid answer, but “I like to write about healing children who have been through psychological traumas” is a much more specific answer that could lead to articles or even books.

Write down all of the jobs you have held and classes or other educational experiences you have had. Even if you don’t plan to write about them right away, you may find that they can add unique twists on article ideas. Sticking with the psychology theme, if you once held a job as a florist, you might decide to write an article about the psychological effects of flowers on trauma victims.

For more information try 6 Freelancing Lessons from Tony Stark, aka “Iron Man” and Do Interesting Things.

Step Two: Analyze the Freelance Writer Markets

There are many markets for your writing. From print magazines to blogs to web content providers to small and large businesses. Don’t limit yourself to the publishing giants. The competition is steepest there, and unless you have a solid reputation and some good connections, you will find it very hard to crack those publications. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to crack them, but don’t make that your primary focus or you are likely to spend a lot of time waiting for assignments rather than completing assignments and getting paid.

Some markets to consider: consumer magazines, trade magazines, professional journals, newsletters, local and regional publications, electronic publications, textbooks, and corporate publications. This is by no means an exhaustive list of publishing opportunities but it should give you an idea of where to start.

Use your Internet resources. Search for sites that deal with your areas of interest. They can be both publication possibilities and research resources.

For more information try 40 Freelance Writing Markets Paying $100 or More (Much More) and The Monster List of Freelancing Job Sites.

Step Three: Pick Your Initial Freelance Writing Specialties

Not every specialty you have is going to be highly marketable. There are many factors to consider when picking your initial specialties:

• The number of potential clients (Publications, businesses, people) who may be interested in your specialty.
• Whether or not you have something new to add to the area of knowledge in that specialty.
• The potential profitability of writing in that specialty.
• How long you feel you can write in that specialty without becoming bored or running out of things to say.
• Do you have equal credentials to the people publishing in the field? If not, can you find a co-author who does?

Analyze your list of specialties and decide for yourself which ones have the greatest chance for success. Pick specialties for which you can both find markets and maintain your motivation. Generally, you want to start with from one to three specialties. The list of specialties can grow over time, but don’t spread yourself too thin at the beginning.

For more information try Should You Specialize in Website Content? and The Freelance Copywriter’s Unfair Marketing Advantage.

Step Four: Find Freelancer Allies

Even before you start sending out queries, you should start making contacts. This requires research and bravery. You need to find professional organizations, clubs, support groups, special libraries, experts and any other resource that will help you succeed in this specialty. Don’t settle for just knowing where, what, and who these resources are. Contact them and establish a relationship. You will need them for more than article research.

Knowing all of the people within a certain field will result in assignments and other opportunities. In addition, you may find that one or more of the “experts” in the field are looking for co-authors or ghostwriters to help them become better known. Just because a person knows a subject, doesn’t mean they know how to write about it. Also, look for other writers who are writing in your field. Contact them. Try to convert them from competition into allies. Sometimes, other writers are so swamped they might forward opportunities to you. Someday, you might be in a position to do so yourself.

For more information try Let me Show You Inside a Secret Blogging Alliance and Are You Forgetting to Network With Your Friends?

Step Five: Start the Query Process

Make a list of ten or so publications or clients that you want to query initially. Analyze their needs. Read back-issues and Internet pages of publications. Look at the past publishing history of business clients. Contact publications and ask for their submission guidelines. Many major publications will not accept blind submissions. If your heart is set on them, you will have to find a way to develop a rapport with the editor.

Try for a variety of prospects so that there is as little overlap as possible. Try different types of publications, different regions, different companies and so forth.

Querying is, of course, an ongoing process. When your first round of queries is out, you will want to be researching your second round. Don’t just wait for opportunities. Be proactive.

For more information try 7 Steps to a Successful Freelance Query and How to Write a Query Letter.

Step Six: Gain Something from each Freelance Assignment

You may find that your initial assignments don’t pay as much as you would like. Sometimes, they may not offer any money. Chances are, you will not start off at the top of the pay bracket unless you happen to be well-known in your field. The key is to work your way up that pay scale at a speed that is acceptable to you. To do this, try to gain something from every assignment. Much like an athlete or a musician, your initial aptitude and ability will only get you so far. Experience, research and coaching are needed to get you the rest of the way. Here is a partial list of ways you can improve your writing:

• Find at least one new source (Person, book, web site, article) for each article you write, even if you have covered the territory before.
• Write each article with the intent to improve one aspect of your writing skills:(To write more quickly, to make less initial errors, to improve your editing)
• Do everything you can to meet every requirement your client has set (Subject, sources, length, supplemental materials, and of course, deadline.)
• Improve your relationship with the editor or client. Sometimes you can get to know them as a person. The busiest ones will not be as open to talks, however, even if they like you. Don’t take it personally and don’t be an annoyance. At minimum, ask a client what else they are looking for and follow up with another query. Remember the first part especially. Often, editors already have ideas. All you may need to do to get an assignment is ask.
• Develop a circle of mentors or peers. Join a writing group. Email a blogger. Form individual relationships. Find people who can help make you a better writer and a better freelancer.

For more information try 5 Things You Never Say to an Editor and Proofreader’s Marks.

Step Seven: Develop a Clipping Library of your Freelance Work

Keep all of your published materials. Keep your initial computer files and keep any print versions of your work. A clipping library will come in handy in many ways. You can use the information as sources for new articles, to refresh your knowledge of something you’ve covered, and to send out as samples to new prospects. Organization is not always easy for writers, but an efficient filing system can do wonders for your projects. In effect, you become your own research library. This will come in handy when it is time to recycle and reuse.

For more information try Quick Guide to Creating an Efficient File System and Getting Things Done: How to Take Control of Life.

Step Eight: Recycle and Reuse your Writing Work

One of the great advantages of having a specialty is that you can constantly reuse your work. Here are just a few examples:

• If you have retained the rights, you can resell articles as reprints without changing a word. That means you can get paid two or more times for the same exact article.
• You can repurpose an article. For example, an article about preventing heart attacks can be rewritten slightly for sale to a fitness magazine, a business management magazine and a senior citizen’s magazine. A new introduction and the personalization of a few items might take an hour, and the new sale might pay the same as the initial article or even more.
• You can combine pieces of more than one work into a new, different article.
• Once you have written a number of different articles about a subject, you can consider combining them together into a book. Publishing a book on a subject is a great way to generate new prospects and to be recognized as an expert in the field.
• You can give lectures based on your articles. Depending on the subject, lectures can pay quite well, and they further establish you as an expert in the field.

For more information try Repurpose or Reprint? What Do I Do With My Articles Now? and How To Repurpose Your Articles.

Step Nine: Work on Your Writing Credentials

Anything you can do that builds your reputation as an expert in a field will improve your opportunities. Here are a few ways you can work on your credentials:

• Take classes in your specialty, and if possible get a degree or a certificate.
• Teach seminars or classes or give lectures in your specialty. This is much easier to do than it sounds. Provided that you don’t have a fear of public speaking, you can almost read straight from your articles. The best part is that these opportunities don’t just improve your standing; they are generally paying opportunities.
• Be available for interviews. If someone else wants to quote you as an expert in the field, jump at the opportunity.
• Attend conventions and other gatherings of people in the field. Even if you aren’t giving a presentation, you can still introduce yourself to people and tell them you write in the field.
• Write a book or an eBook. There is no better way to establish your credentials than to write a book about your hey subject.

For more information try Thirteen Steps to Write and Publish a Free Ebook In Thirteen Hours and How to Become an Expert on Nearly Any Subject.

Step Ten: Learn When to Say When

As stated earlier, you can continually expand your specialties. You might start out writing about two subjects that may or may not be related. For example, you might start out writing about the Russian economy and about model trains. After a year, you might find that your interest in the Russian economy has lead to an interest in Middle Eastern business practices, and that your interest in model trains has either vanished or is failing to generate the business to make writing about it profitable for you. You can always drop or cut back on one specialty to pursue another or to concentrate on your remaining specialties. You can also go back when and if you feel it is time for another try.

For more information try How to Defeat Burnout and Stay Motivated and Are Your Stuck?.

Writing Productivity — Using an Idea Log

Some writers know exactly what they want to say. They merely have to start typing and passion flows from them. This doesn’t necessarily mean they write well, but they don’t sit around wondering what to write about. Most writers, however, need a little prodding. Sometimes they have great ideas, and sometimes they stare at their computer screen waiting for something to come to them. If you fall into the second category, you can reduce your time spent staring at the screen by creating a log of your good article ideas when they come to you. You can also spend those slow times looking at a few tried and true idea resources and seeing what ideas you can grow for the future.

What is an idea log?

An idea log is a way of cataloging your ideas for articles, posts, fiction, poems, essays and stories. Your idea log can be as simple or as fancy as you wish. Some people create file folders for their ideas. They fill them with notes, clippings, pictures and whatever else will assist them. When they pull out the folder, they have all they need to start work. This can be a great system, but it is a lot of work, especially if you never pursue that idea later.

Many people take advantage of their computers. They write quick notes, or even put them in the form of a query to an editor, and keep them in individual documents or add them to a database. This is an excellent system and one that can also get you going quickly once you decide to write because part of the document is already written. You just have to expand on it.

The third way that I propose is simpler and not as thorough. I use it myself, however, because of its ease and portability. I keep a stack of 3×5 index cards in which I jot down my ideas. I put a title and description at the top then jot down the note below. I rarely fill up more than one side of one card. It isn’t as thorough as a file or as ready to roll as a computer note, but it keeps me from prattling on about what is just a single idea that I may or may not follow. Plus, when I have a stack of these cards, I can pull them out and thumb through them quickly, more quickly than going through a file folder or a computer database. I can also take these cards with me anywhere and jot down the ideas as they come. I am a big fan of computers, but for this task I really do prefer the simplicity of a 3×5 index card.

What do you like? What do you hate?

A great place to start looking for ideas is to look at your likes and dislikes. What makes you happy and what makes you sad or angry. These are the things in your life that will provoke your most passionate writing. This can range from politics, entertainment, to a lump in your carpet that you’d like to get rid of. It all depends on what interests you enough to upset or please you.

Who do you know?

The people in your life can be one of your greatest sources of ideas. They have jobs, hobbies, interests and problems that make them experts hundreds of things. Your architect friend can now be interviewed about what makes for a good or bad home design. Your divorced friend with three kids probably has much to say about child support issues. With a little fictionalization, the annoying woman at work might make for a great short story. Look at the people around you. Evaluate them as article sources, interview topics and as story ideas.

Who would you like to know?

People often portray writing as a solitary task, but one of the great benefits of being a writer is that you can use it to meet people. Think about the respected or famous people you would like to talk to: writers you respect, experts in fields you are interested in, actors and politicians. Some of them will be difficult to meet, but many are easier than you think. While the ten most famous writers in the world may be hard to contact, most writers do not spend the majority of their time fending off interview requests. The same is true of experts in most areas. Politicians and actors are probably the hardest to get an interview with, but even then you might be surprised. Just remember that the top few in those fields are nearly impossible to interview without some clout behind you, but there are plenty of others in the field who would be happy to answer your questions.

Where have you been?

Travel is a great way to generate ideas. Look at the places you’ve gone and the things you’ve done there. Think also of the trips you would like to take. From travel guides to the settings for stories, your journeys can be a great source of ideas. Whenever you travel, it is a good idea to keep a journal and write down your thoughts and impressions. You never know where you might find your next idea.

What have you been doing?

Take a look at your areas of expertise. What jobs have you held? What hobbies have you had? What have you studied? These are your areas of knowledge. You may not be an expert, but in writing it is generally enough to be an intelligent amateur as long as you are willing to do the research for your story. Just as your friends are great sources of information, you are your greatest source. Not only do you know something about these things, but also you can rely on yourself, more than anyone else, to do the work required to find out more. Every job, from working in a warehouse to being a phone solicitor to managing a small office, has requirements and areas of interest. Think about how these things can become articles or stories.

What have you been reading?

If you are a writer, then chances are you are an avid reader, and it pays to keep a few notes while you read. The daily paper, magazines, the Internet and the books you read are great sources for ideas. My favorite example of this process is the movie The Player, in which a studio executive challenges anyone to read him a newspaper article and he’ll come up with a movie based on it. Over and over he turns the most mundane articles into feature film ideas. Ideas are everywhere.

What happened to you?

Beyond the jobs and hobbies you’ve had, there is plenty more to your life. There are hundreds of high points and low points in every person’s life: people found and lost, love shared and unrequited, accidents, plots, plans, choices and mistakes. Most of your memories are worthy of a story or article, because chances are you haven’t managed to remember the ordinary and mundane parts of your life, just the highs and the lows and the elements that contribute to who you are. Your life is an endless source of material if you have the talent to make it interesting to others.

Ideas are all around you. If you go through the items above, you will have plenty of ideas to work with, but beyond that, you just need to keep your eyes open and your other senses ready to back them up. Ideas will come to you if you are paying attention. Just remember to have some system to keep track of them, even if it is just a notebook for you to jot things down in. Your ideas are fuel for your writing. Keep plenty of fuel handy.

Quick Guide to Creating an Efficient File System

Writers accumulate a lot of reference materials.  We collect articles, old stories, handouts, outlines, project plans, pictures and plenty of correspondence with potential clients and publishers. Keeping track of it all can be difficult, but it gets easier if you have a good filing system. The system I outline below is far from revolutionary. Most of it is common sense and some of it is information I learned from Getting Things Done, the system I have been using to get organized. I highly recommend picking up the book if you want to get your work and life in order.

The General Reference File System

The general reference file system is designed for the long-term storage of information that does not need to be acted on or reviewed by a specific date. This system is designed to avoid complexity in favor of a straightforward approach.

• Keep files in alphabetical order according to the file labels you create. Any system more complicated than pure alphabetical order dramatically increases the number of places you’ll have to look to find a file
• You can group similar topics together by giving them similar labels. For example, a file labelled Profitability: Formulas would reside next to or near a file labelled Profitability: Tables
• Unless a single topic takes up over half a file cabinet, do not create a separate cabinet or section for it. It is better to create folders with narrower topics
• Create a folder for a topic as soon as you have something to put in it. The sooner it is filed, the sooner it is off your mind
• Purge your files regularly. The end of the month or the end of the quarter is good time to go through your files and take out the things that are no longer important. If you need a reminder to do this, put one in your tickler file…

The Tickler File System

The tickler file system allows you to designate dates on which you will be reminded to review or act upon a piece of reference material. it is like sending your future self a letter. For example, if you are waiting for feedback due on a certain day, you can file a reminder to request a status update that day. An online calendar system can be used in a similar way, but it is more difficult to attach support materials and notes.

What to store

• Time sensitive items
  • Flyers or memos about upcoming events
  • Forms such as tax forms or insurance renewals
  • Bills
  • Travel itineraries
  • Coupons
• General reminders
  • Tasks that need to be done
  • Information on people you need to contact
  • Advertisements for items you might want to buy
  • Information that should be read closer to an event date (such as training materials)
• Pick Me Ups
  • Pictures of friends, family or pets
  • Thank you notes
  • Old letters
  • Notes to yourself

How to Create a Tickler File System

Label 43 folders

1. 31 folders for every day of the month (1,2,3…)
2. 12 folders for every month of the year (May, June, July…)

Create This File Order

1. The folder for the next day of the month (day after the current day)
2. The folders for the other days remaining in the month in order
3. The folder for the next month
4. The folders for the days of the month that have already passed
5. The folders for the remaining months in chronological order

Example File Order: July 10th (After the current day’s items have been moved to the in box)

1. Days: 11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-22-23-24-25-26-27-28-29-30-31
2. Month: August
3. Days: 1 – 2- 3- 4- 5- 6- 7- 8- 9- 10
4. Months: September – October – November – December – January – February – March – April – May – June

How o Use a Tickler File System

• File time-related items in the appropriate day if they should be acted upon or reviewed in the current month
• File items for more distant dates in the month that you want to review them
• Review your file each day. This needs to be a daily habit.
  1. Take that day’s file contents and place them in your in box
  2. Move that day’s file folder to the spot behind the previous day
  3. When you reach the beginning of the next month, distribute the items to the appropriate dates for that month or put them in your in box, then move the current month’s folder behind the previous month’s folder

About File Folders

• Keep plenty of empty manila file folders in a location that can be accessed quickly and easily
• Only use legal sized file folders if you need to, letter-sized file folders are more manageable
• Color coding is not recommended. It increases the complexity of your system
• Use an auto labeller to create easy-to-read file labels that look professional and are appropriate even for client meetings
• Do not use hanging file folders unless you must. If you must use them, use them only as holders for single manila file folders. Hanging files are not convenient to create and they do not look professional at meetings
• It should take you less than two minutes to create and file a topic folder
• Don’t spend too much time thinking about individual file label names. The first thing that comes to mind is usually the first thing you will think of when you have to look for the file later

About File Cabinets

• Try to keep file cabinets less than three-quarters full. An overly-full cabinet will make you reluctant to add new files
• Avoid cheap file cabinets that squeal whenever they are more than half full
• Avoid file cabinets designed only for hanging files
• Use the adjustable plate in the back of the file drawer to keep your files straight and upright

Site Review: GTDagenda.com

GTDagenda.com is a paid membership site that provides people the online tools to organize their tasks and track their progress. It is modeled after the advice given in the popular book, Getting Things Done by David Allen. I first started using it back in January, and I have been using it to track my tasks ever since.

My big goal for the year has been to get more organized. It isn’t an easy goal. Life is complicated and every time you think you have things under control, it throws something new at you. For me it was a lingering illness that struck me on the second day of the year and didn’t let up until March. I wasn’t quite so sick that I couldn’t do my job (most days) but it took almost all of the energy I had just to get through a work day. Consequently, my efforts at organizing my work life have been far more effective than my efforts at organizing my personal life, but I keep plugging away.

I begin most of my days at work by reviewing my task list and spending a few minutes brainstorming. I actually think about the best ways to accomplish my tasks before I start doing them. I try to figure out what the roadblocks are and how I can get through them or around them. I make a plan and on my best days I stick to that plan. Not every day is my best day, but there is no doubt that I have been more productive, even when my body wasn’t at its best.

As a tool for helping me accomplish my organizational goals, GTDagenda.com has been very useful. GTDagenda.com allows me to keep a list of my projects, tasks, and next actions. I start off with my goals. I identify the outcome that I want to accomplish. I then make a list of projects that will help me achieve that goal, and I divide the projects up into tasks and next actions. It is very good at doing this, although the interface could be more intuitive. It took me a while to learn the fastest way to do this, and even that method isn’t quite as automatic as I would like. I would love to have a page that allowed me to fill out all of these things without jumping around. As it is I tend to load about four pages for even the most basic project. As David Allen explains in his book, the longer it takes to track something, the more likely you are to not track it.

The other two things I would like to see added to GTDagenda.com are a search feature and a more robust note-taking system. There is no way for me to do a quick search for a particular task. Instead I have to scan the entire list or try to narrow it down by selecting a category. I have about 50 tasks on my list right now, and at one point it was closer to 75. Scanning through every task every time you want to change something can slow you up. Note taking is just a great idea all around. I often have information I want to attach to my tasks, and the only note feature is a single line field that isn’t suitable for more than about 50 characters. It will do in a pinch, but I often have more to say than that.

These are minor complaints though. GTDagenda.com is definitely a useful too for tracking projects and it does follow the Getting Things Done process well. It also has some very useful features, such as the daily task email. Every day I get my list of outstanding tasks in my in box. They also have a mobile phone version of the site that gives me the basic functionality I need to access a task. These two items make it easy to stay on top of my tasks even when I only have my Blackberry.

If you are looking to get organized, I recommend that you read Getting Things Done, and if you think it is the system for you, give GTDagenda.com a try.

Disclosure Note: I was given free access to this site in order to review it. Links are affiliate links.

What is weighing you down?

Do you really want to delete all 92,452 emails in your archive?

I stared at the question for a solid minute. This was serious business. If I hit the button, I would be erasing my past. It would all be gone. I hadn’t carefully sorted through the messages looking for value. There could be important stuff in there: Letters from friends, questions from readers, passwords and PINs, half-written articles that I could still finish someday. Was I really crazy enough to hit the button?

The mind is a curious device. Somewhere in the back of it there’s a place that keeps track of all the things you should be doing but aren’t. It doesn’t matter whether they are good things or bad things, they just keep echoing in the back of your mind. You should be cleaning the kitchen. You should be losing those extra pounds. You should be finishing that blog post. You should be figuring out why the check engine light has been on for 30,000 miles. You should be watching that Freaks and Geeks DVD that Netflix sent you last November.

There are four things you can do about your unfinished tasks. You can do them, you can delegate them, you can renegotiate them or you can decide that you’ll never do them. That last one is tough, but necessary. You can’t do everything you want to do, everything you need to do, and especially everything you feel like you should do, but don’t really have to do. At some point, you have to eliminate some of the things on your list. Eliminating the wants is hard. It is hard to give up on something you want to do. Eliminating the shoulds is also hard though, because somewhere along the line you made an agreement with yourself that you would take care of these things. It doesn’t matter that they aren’t really important or enjoyable; you made an agreement with yourself. At some point though, you have to cut out the shoulds, or you’re going to end up eliminating too many wants.

So, I hit the button. I deleted the 92,452 emails. There was a momentary feeling of regret, but there was also relief. Those 92,452 things had been eliminated from my to-do list with the click of a button. I was free. I could start over.

The Organized Blogger

My adventures in organization have had a few rough days as I have been battling both a cold and a ruthlessly time-consuming new project at work. After performing the big purge on my home office, I have had to be content with small moments dedicated to the overall task pf putting everything in its place, especially all of the unfulfilled mental loops that come from 40+ years of living on this planet. There are many things I want to do, many things I need to do, and many things I need to decide I am never going to do. This is all part of the organizational process. You cannot get a handle on all the tasks that lie before you until you make an accurate list of them and decide what you are going to do about them.

Because I am using the Getting Things Done organizational system, I am obliged to make a complete and accessible collection of these unfinished projets. At minimum I need to list each project, the desired outcome, and the next action step towards achieving that outcome. Projects may be as minor as transferring data from my wife’s old notebook computer or as major as publishing a book of poetry or taking a trip to New Zealand. Once this information is collected, I need to track my progress on each item. This is no small task, but it is certainly achievable.

My first major hurdle was to decide what system to use to track these projects. Getting Things Done proposes several systems, but none of them suited me particularly well. Paper files were exactly what I didn’t want. The idea behind getting organized was to free up both my mental and physical space. I want to dispose of every piece of paper I can possibly be rid of, so having a file cabinet full of them was not a pleasant thought. I tried it, but I just had no enthusiasm for the idea. If I have too many papers to keep in an inbox, it is time to purge.

The alternative to paper was electronic organizers, but the problem with most of them is convenience. I want to be able to access my tasks from anywhere, but I don’t want them tied to a particular device because then I am out of luck if something happens to it. I needed something that I could access from my Blackberry, my iTouch, my personal computer and my work computer. In fact, the best solution would be something that I could use even if I didn’t have access to any of these. I thought about using some of the Google tools or some other online package, but I wasn’t sure I could have access to them from work. An organizational system would do me no good if I couldn’t use it in the main place that I needed it.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that the answer was right in front of my face. What I needed was a blog! I’m a blogger. I know Wordpress better than almost any other tool at my disposal, and it is perfect for capturing individual items that require notes and updates. I can write as much as I want about each task and even attach files if I need to. The list is searchable and can be filtered using both categories and tags. More importantly, I can access the blog from every one of my key devices or from any open computer. I know enough about WordPress and file protection to keep the new site secure and invisible so that nobody needs to see it but me. I can even use the scheduling feature to move items into future cues so I see them on certain dates and not before. In essence, WordPress is my new organizational tool and it meets every one of my needs. Blogging has scored another brownie point in my life,

Of course, there is theory and then there is practice. I am still imputing all of my loops, but I’ll keep you updated on how things go and at some point I’ll give the details behind setting an organizational blog up for yourself.