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.

Building a Financially Sustainable Writing Career: Marketing

Most freelancers already know that they need to market themselves. Bloggers usually know this too, although they sometimes focus on their blog as their only marketing tool. Marketing is for all writers though, and in fact for anyone who wants to have a sustainable professional career. A fully employed technical writer or business writer might not see the need for marketing themselves, but even a “permanent” job can suddenly end, and the more well-known and respected you are, the easier it will be to find the next job.

If you are out of work, you need marketing even more. Sending out your resume in response to a job advertisement is just one way to get a job, and it is the way that ensures you have the most competition. Building a solid public reputation opens many doors and helps bring people to your door instead of you having to hunt for them. The best job search is the one that is already being done before you need the job.

Create a Portfolio

The first, most basic step that every writer should take is to create a personal portfolio. Collect samples of your best work and have them ready to send out at a moment’s notice. Be ready for print or electronic distribution. The more professional your portfolio looks the more professional and qualified you look. Don’t forget to add a business card, a well-designed resume and a professional biography.

Build a Web Site

It should come as no surprise that I recommend every writer have a web site. Even if you don’t want to be a blogger or web publisher, having a small, attractive site that has samples of your work makes you much easier to find. That is the key to marketing, making sure that when people are thinking of a writer with your skills, they can find you. The site isn’t just for prospective employers. It should be media friendly as well. Make sure it has a contact form or at least your email address so that it is easy to get in touch with you.

Be Social

One of the best ways to get your qualifications out there is to join social groups, both online and in person. Almost ever writing field has an organization that caters to it, from the Society for Technical Communication to the Public Relations Society of America to the Direct-Mail/Marketing Association. Beyond those groups, there are general groups of business people such as The Toastmasters, The Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce. Online, of course, you have services such as LinkedIn and Xing, which allow you to exchange resumes and professional contacts all over the world.

Advertise

When I needed freelance work to get me by while I was getting my Master’s Degree, I put an ad in the local newspaper. It has a professional services section and no other writer has a listing, so I put one in and I almost immediately got work. The ad paid for itself and more within two weeks. I also advertised on my web site, and generated some business that way. This was passive recruitment. I didn’t have to call a single person or send them my resume/portfolio. They came to me. It is amazing how many people are looking for your skills but just don’t know where to find them. Advertising in print publications is generally cheap. Advertising on a relevant web site can be an even bigger bargain. Sometimes you’ll want to do this even when you don’t need the work right away, just to make sure people remember you.

Pick Up the Phone

Do you know why cold calling works? It works for four reasons:

• It is quick
• It is direct
• It can be done from anywhere
• Most people don’t have the guts to do it

You can spend all day telling me why you can’t call people. Yes, it is hard to do. The only reason to do something that personal and risk individual rejection is that it works. You can get rejected a hundred times in a day. Getting rejected takes almost no time at all. The sale you make is what matters, especially when you absolutely have to put food on the table.

Get Your Name Out

There are literally hundreds of marketing strategies. I highly recommend reading a book or two on marketing so that you understand the general concepts. There are also companies (and writers) who specialize in doing this for you. The important thing about marketing, especially if you aren’t the type to cold call a company, is to be working on it while you have work so that opportunities are easier to find when you need them.

A key to sustainability is to avoid having limited resources. When it comes to a career, your resources are personal and professional contacts, advertising, marketing materials, marketing knowledge and a high profile. Having all of these instead of just a few will help you sustain a long-term marketing career.