Last night, a client I hadn’t heard from in just over a year emailed me to ask about rates for a new job. This is not the first time this has happened. I get a lot of repeat business from old clients and a few referrals as well. This is a gold mine for the freelance writer, and it’s something we all have to chase.

Freelancing has a lot of hidden costs that are not always reflected in the price we charge to clients. The time you spend making bids and chasing new business is often time where you don’t earn – and it’s essential to do it if you want your writing business to keep on growing. When a client comes back to you because he or she has been happy with your previous work, then that’s one set of marketing you don’t have to do. When that client refers someone else to you, you don’t have to work as hard to convince the new client of your value. In other words, you have been pre-sold, and you can get on with doing the work and take a break from promotion. (Please note: any break from promotion should be temporary).

So, how do you get more referral and repeat business? Sometimes all you have to do to get referrals is to ask. When a client is happy with your services and has paid you, make a referral request part of your followup. I usually thank clients for paying, especially if it’s prompt, and it’s easy to say something like: ‘Please pass on my details to others who need writing services’.

Another part of my follow up includes asking for a testimonial to put on my website. When people find my site, they can see that other clients have been happy, which makes it easier for them to think about commissioning writing from me.

For repeats, all I do is send out an email every six months or so, reminding clients that I exist. It could be a case of letting them know that I’m offering a new service, or simply enquiring whether the last piece of work I did for them had the desired effect. It’s about making contact and getting personal.

This strategy really pays off. So far this year, I have had a good mix of new business from referrals and business from repeat clients. Of course, I don’t stop looking for new opportunities. Today’s new client might give me tomorrow’s referral or repeat business.

I love discovering new freelance writing blogs and one of the blogs I’ve discovered recently is Quiet Rebel Writer. The rebel writer is Amy Lillard, who says:

Writers have to be rebels. We have to take the idea of normal and turn it on its head. We have to examine the status quo and the world that exists around us, analyze it, question it, and present it to our readers in ways that make them think and see and feel.

This is just what she tries to do with her blog:

I look at writing as a self-sustaining, necessary activity that leads to effects both good and bad, and at the things from which my creativity and writing derive, all the ingredients for that strange brew inside.

The blog looks at freelancing, marketing, publishing and creativity, with a few rants thrown in. There’s also an intriguing section on word porn, which is designed to delight those who love the written word, and which digs out ‘wicked, wonky words’ for our delectation.

Here are a few of the posts that have caught my eye on this fascinating blog:

Rant: Writers Aren’t That Desperate
Madonna and Freelancing: An ‘AHA’ Marketing Moment
Quitting And Freelancing: When The Brushoff Is Sorely Needed

Amy’s posts are interesting and make full use of the complexity and wonder of the English language, so they appeal on many levels. This blog is a great place for a fun read on freelancing.

I was chatting to someone on Twitter the other day. One of the topics of conversation was motivating yourself to keep on working. I made the point that when you work for yourself you have to crack your own whip. I immediately began to think about what that actually meant. When you’re a self-employed freelance writer, you are your own boss. That brings a great deal of freedom, but it also brings a lot of responsibility.

Here’s a recent example. A friend of mine had a beach picnic for her birthday, right in the middle of my workday. Because I set my own hours, I was able to go, even though I’m usually very disciplined about observing a work day. That was the freedom part. However, the responsibility part kicked in before I went and after I returned. Since I knew I was going to be away for part of the work day, I sat up the night before to complete work for a key job. Then on the day of the picnic, I got up early and worked at my computer till the last minute. Finally, I finished up my day’s work when I returned from the picnic, working through the evening.

When I worked in an office, there was always a boss who could tell the minions to get on with work. Now, I do that on my own. I have times when I am less productive, when I might indulge in some tweeting, stumbling, blog reading or surfing. But after I’ve done that for a while, I give myself a stern talking-to and get back to work. Here’s why:

If I abuse the freedom that my profession gives me, I might have a great time, but I will find it harder to meet deadlines. This will affect my client relationships and my earning potential. If, on the other hand, I set times to get on with my work, my clients will be happy and I will make money from something that I love.

For me, cracking my own whip means setting a schedule where I work for a set time every day, but where I have a lit tle bit of time to goof off. Everyone needs that relaxation, and it makes me a more productive writer. How do you handle the freedom and responsibility of being a freelance writer?

I must admit to being intrigued the first time I saw an ad for WhiteSmoke software. The idea was simple – this was a piece of software that would improve your written work. Now, you all know how I feel about Microsoft Word – the spelling and grammar check just don’t cut it. so I wondered how this piece of software would compare. I didn’t think I’d get the chance though, as I didn’t want to lay out $100+ just to try it out. Instead, I signed up as an affiliate and persuaded my ad manager to let me try it so I could write my own review (they offered to provide stuff, but what kind of writer would I be if I let someone else do all the writing?)

Getting The Program

The software is available as a download and works with any program. You can paste text in and copy it out, or simply compose in the compose window. I tried the online demo, and there are some minor differences from the downloadable product. However, most of the main features are the same.

So, what does it look like? It’s a bit like Word, Google Docs and other word processing programs. It’s got a simple array of formatting buttons across the top for editing style, font and font size, followed by buttons for bold, italics, underline, creating coloured text and a few more. The second row has buttons for alignment, bullets and numbering, and cutting and pasting. A cool feature is that it will paste text from Word or plain text depending on the button you choose.

The top of the window has three tabs on the left (enrichment, dictionary and templates) plus two on the right for information. The templates window allows you to load one of 600 templates in the commercial, literary, medical or legal categories and customise them for your needs. The dictionary is a lookup window and the main window, where you write and edit text, is enrichment. At the bottom of a window is a WhiteSmoke button, as well as undo, redo and demo buttons. The bottom right allows you to select the type of writing you are doing (great for those interested in business and literary, less so for those of us who blog for a living) If you’re writing a speech, dissertation or letter, you’re covered too. On to the main window.

Error Checking

You can use WhiteSmoke with any application, since it works with cut and paste, and you can also set it to check as you type. When you paste some text in, and hit one of those two buttons you get some text underlined in different colours. The colour code is blue for enrichment/thesaurus, green for grammar and red for spelling, cleverly following MS Word conventions. Here is where it gets interesting. Click on or hover over an underlined word and you get suggestions for improvement. So, how did WhiteSmoke do? I used it to check three articles I was writing for a client.

It picked up well on spelling errors. I use UK English, so it tried to convert them to US English. It found no grammatical errors – I had to insert a deliberate mistake to test that. That’s a major improvement over Word, which always finds grammatical errors where there are none. For me, the winner was the enrichments popup menu. That’s in two parts. The left suggests adjectives and adverbs you can add to enrich your writing, while the right suggests synonyms. Just click to add your changes. I liked some of the suggestions and can see where this type of software would help people who struggle with writing.

There are several different WhiteSmoke products aimed respectively at general writing, business writing, creative writing, legal writing, medical writing and executive writing, as well as a language translator that offers instant translation into 20 languages. There are also pro versions with additional enhancements (currently on sale for $1 when you buy the main program).

The Verdict: This is a useful product, especially for people who are new to writing or who have English as a second language. Even experienced writers will find it useful on a day when the words just aren’t flowing the way you want.

Many of us try to balance our home lives with our freelance writing careers and most of the time we succeed. We manage to get breakfast for children and get them off to school, talk to clients, meet deadlines, collect children, supervise homework and tuck them up in bed. All without breaking a sweat (most of the time, anyway). Then there are the other times.

Those are the times where nothing goes according to plan. All of a sudden you are racing against the clock, trying to cram in all those essential tasks you thought you had left enough time for. As I’ve discovered, it doesn’t take much to derail the working day. An unexpected phone call can lose you half an hour or more. A public holiday in the middle of the week can wreak havoc on your schedule. And if someone drops by for coffee, you have to tear your mind away from the mound of work that you know will still be waiting for you at midnight.

So how do you find balance? I’ve written about this before because I face the same challenges. I have a five year old daughter who’s in school but with whom I want to spend time when she’s not. Time with friends and family is equally important. Sometimes you just have to look at the big picture, which is what I did after a frantic year where I was glued to the computer from morning till night.

I decided that I had to control the work rather than letting it control me. I decided that there had to be some sacred family time with my daughter, husband or mother (or all three at the same time.) I decided that there had to be time for exercise to look after my long term health. And I decided that there had to be time for friends, because the deal is that you support each other.

So how has that affected my freelancing career? The truth is that after the madness of my first year of freelancing (during which I also completed an international move), the succeeding years have been much saner. There are still times when I turn down social gatherings because of work pressure, but there are also times when I reschedule jobs to allow me to meet commitments to the people who are important to me.

How many times have you been in this situation? You’ve talked to a potential client, who is enthusiastic about your services and promises to hire you. You sit back in your office chair, feeling smug about having landed another job and rearrange your diary to make space for this lucrative new commission. Then … nothing. The client goes quiet on you. You wonder what’s going on and chase the client. Still nothing. Instead of feeling smug you start to panic about the hole in your diary and your bank balance.

Even when you know better, it’s difficult to always get it right. I had an IM conversation with a prospective client that lasted one and half hours, so that we could establish exactly what was needed. At the end of the conversation, there were potentially three projects instead of one, all of them reasonably well paid. I did my part and waited for the client to do his. I’m still waiting. He may eventually get his act together, but who knows?

When I first started freelancing, I learned the hard way that clients’ schedules don’t always match my own. That means it’s better to keep slightly too much in the diary and have some trusted friends you can call upon if you need to outsource. If all the work comes in at once, then you need to prioritise. I tend to look at how much jobs pay and how easy they are to do to guide me in planning my packed work day.

I’m not going to wait around for this client. If the job works out, then I’ll see where I can fit it in. If not, I try to keep my income sources diverse. That means that I have three regular gigs from a couple of long term clients, and a fair bit of other work coming in from clients I’ve cultivated in the last six months. I keep bidding so that I don’t find myself with an unwanted gap. I’ve often said that you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. The case of my disappearing client illustrates why diversity is a good idea.

I haven’t been quite as rigorous in collecting posts in the last month. That was in part due to blog woes, to an unexpected trip and to switching back to Google Reader after a three month flirtation with Netvibes. However, I have found time to stop off at a few favourite (and new) sites. Here are my picks for April.

ProFreelancing often makes me think. If you are wondering if you are doing the right job, consider 13 Reasons Why You Should Not Be A Freelance Writer. Have you ever wondered what to do if a potential job just didn’t feel right? Maybe you should think about rejecting work based on ethics. It might help with career improvement.

I always want to know how to be more effective as a writer and a blogger, so I was interested in three steps for beating the boring content blues and five steps for writing effective articles in less time. (That makes eight steps so far, but who’s counting?) Actually, the fact that I mentioned that shows that my inner boss is alive and well.

Problogger weighed in with advice on adding depth to your blog. I had to wonder if using any of the eight ways to make money with my blog would end up increasing my blogging workload, but then I thought that if I used my daily life as inspiration I might be able to make better use of these valuable post types and use them correctly. I might have more time if I cut these five words from my vocabulary.

I was glad to read a post that cut to the chase, and told me exactly how to get piles of subscribers. links and comments on my blog. There is a danger, though, that this might turn me into even more of a blogging addict.

Finally, I want to end with a few favourites from the Pen Men, who ask whether it’s ok to charge more, whether low rates are holding you back, and if you’re a good web worker. But for me, the most interesting question I was asked this month was what writing means to me.

Happy reading.

What’s your online personality? Do people really get a good idea of who you are from your site, blog and interactions in the blogosphere? I don’t often have face to face meetings any more. I talk to most of my clients by email, IM or Skype. That has to be enough to give them the reassurance that I am a real and trustworthy person who knows what she’s talking about and who won’t run off with their money, leaving shoddy work behind.

When you can’t see people face to face, you have to work harder to let people see who you are. Most of us rely on visual and non-verbal cues for our assessment of people. When we don’t have those, we can be slightly lost. (In fact, I’m sure that’s what scammers rely on.)

Reassuring Clients

So how do you give your clients that added reassurance? There are many ways. One of the things that I do is have my picture on my about page. I also use a photo on many of the social networking and business networking sites. That means there’s a consistent image attached to my name, and anyone who searches for me will find it. (Of course, one of the photos doesn’t do me any favours, but I am gradually replacing that with a much better one. ) I chose the new photo because it was taken when I was happy and you can see a bit of life shining through.

Another way to reassure your clients is to make yourself available. Living in the tropics means that sometimes my internet connection is unreliable. I may be able to download email, but VOIP doesn’t always work as well as it should. Although I don’t publish my phone numbers everywhere, I give them to clients who want to contact me, and I’m prepared to contact them as well. I actually have two VOIP accounts, one with Skype and one with a British provider. I figure one of them will always be working and most of the time, I’m right.

Communication And Chit-Chat

I respond to email promptly, and try to lift my emails above the standard, dry, business fare. In other words, if I want a particular job, I try to put some passion into my bid or application. As I said, since I will never see these people face to face, I need to feel real to them. (Yes, I know I’m real, but do they?) It’s not a crime to inject the personal into an email. If you know someone has had a baby, you can express delight or commiserate over sleepless nights. After all, we’re all human. As long as this is only a small part of your communication, it helps to cement the relationship.

Promotion

My website is one of my key tools. Not just this one, but my professional site (still woefully underdeveloped under my blog troubles last month). That gives clients the facts and figures they need. They can see what I have done and what people have thought of my work. Add to that my profile on LinkedIn, where other professionals have recommended my work, and that adds up to a solid online presence that reassures most clients.

The more you do to promote yourself, the better it pays off. Just as we Google clients to see if they are trustworthy, they Google us, so why not Google yourself and see what you find? Remember that many of your interactions on blogs, forums and social sites are indexed, so make sure that you say things that you would be happy to have strangers see.

So does it work? Absolutely! Yesterday a friend described me as warm, friendly and dedicated. We’ve never met and have only chatted in comments on our blogs and Twitter. Yet he totally got me! And I think my clients do too.

Everyone’s heard of Copyscape, the super duper plagiarism detection tool. Sometimes it’s the bane of our lives (like when clients who pay 1 cent a word want you to check every article on Copyscape even though you KNOW that you never plagiarise). At other times, it’s a useful tool, such as when you’ve subbed out some work and want to make sure that nothing that has your name attached to it will turn out to be plagiarised.

Most of the time, I find it useful. I signed up for a premium account so I could check blocks of text rather than just URLs. (Five cents a time is a small charge to protect my good name.) The fact is, sometimes you have to use it, but what do you do if it isn’t working? This recently happened to me. I needed to check some work quickly and Copyscape was throwing up error messages. Thanks to the wonders of Google, I quickly found a few alternatives, which I’m putting here in case you can use them.

Article Checker

Article Checker was the most useful of the alternatives I found. You can paste in a block of text and check it against the sites indexed on Google and Yahoo. It’s lightning quick and appears to be accurate. I don’t know how long a text has to be before it flags. I was checking 400 word articles and it seemed ok. I’ve used this tool a couple of times and it’s never found any plagiarism but that doesn’t mean it won’t. Many other writers I know use this tool because it is free. A good feature is that you can upload files for checking, which could be good if you are doing rewrites.

Plagiarism Checker

The Plagiarism Checker was originally designed as a student project at the University of Maryland. Like the other tools, it works by pasting some text into a box and hitting enter. Then you get a list of results for phrases. Interestingly, this check said the article I checked with Article Checker was almost certainly plagiarised. It brought up a list of suspicious phrases and then you could click on a link for more information. That took me to a Google search page which found … drumroll, please … no plagiarism. So I wouldn’t rely on that tool.

DupeCop

DupeCop allows you to compare two pieces of text through its free online duplicate content checker, or to compare up to four versions of spun articles through its spun article checker. I haven’t tested these yet, but this looks like a good service. There are desktop versions of both checkers too.

Other Tools

If you just want to compare web pages, then try DuplicateContent, which has an online URL comparison engine. There are also a few other tools, which I haven’t tested, but am listing in case you want to. DocCop has both free and paid services, but you will need to register to use either service. DupeFree Pro is a piece of free software (I’m still waiting for my registration details to arrive). Finally I-thenticate is a web based product used in business and education. It’s not free. In fact, you have to register just to find out the price, which is why I didn’t.

A post from Allena Tapia made me think more about the process of querying for freelance writing work. The post outlined all the stuff that writers sell to editors along with their idea when they pitch to a magazine. At the end of the post, Allena asked three questions:

How long do you spend on a query? Do you use a form letter that you simply change up? Any hints on streamlining the process?

I pitch most of my work to those buying web content, and I thought it was worth replying to those questions here.

Streamlining The Query Process

I’ll start with the last question first. I found it essential to streamline the querying process. If you want to win bids, especially when you’re starting out, you have to bid for a lot of work. That means you can’t be writing bids from scratch every time. That’s part of the reason I have an online resume and testimonials, so that I can send potential clients there to look at what I’ve done. (I confess that it’s not as up to date as it should be, but I am working on that.) It also gives me a handy list of links to my work so I can choose the appropriate ones when bidding.

A Matter Of Form

That brings me to the second question – the form letter. Yes, I have a form letter. It contains a paragraph which outlines my experience, a paragraph with examples of the writing I can do, a bid amount, a paragraph with links to my resume and testimonials and an invitation to contact me for more information. That’s the basis of every bid. However, I do change it depending on what I am bidding for. I change the examples and I highlight different parts of my experience.

Starting From Scratch

Sometimes I throw out the form letter altogether and start from scratch. In some cases, that’s because the form letter doesn’t meet the criteria. Some potential clients ask you to bid in a particular way, in which case I do. Sometimes something comes along that I’m so enthusiastic about that I want a fresh start. Only you will know when it’s right to do that. As an example, today someone posted a job about articles on house moving. As a serial mover, I have the personal experience as well as the writing experience and I wanted my bid to reflect that.

Taking Some Time

Allena’s first (or final, depending on how you look at it) question was about how long I spend on a query. Again, that varies. If I have bid template and only need to change a line, then I can have a bid ready in a couple of minutes. If I am starting from scratch and the stakes are high, then I may spend 20 minutes (longer, if I have to include samples or other supporting material). Here’s a tip, though. Whenever you do a bid, query or proposal that you think is really great, save a copy in a bids folder on your computer so that you can use the format again. And make a note of which types of bids work best for you.