If you’ve been following me on Twitter or Facebook, by now you will know that I’ve landed a gig writing occasionally for the Quips and Tips blog network.  This writing gig was a gift to myself and although it’s a paid blogging gig, the reasons I wanted to do it had very little to do with the money. What I like about this gig is:

• Although I can write for the well-known writing blog, I can also write for the goals blog, the money and love blog or most of the others in the network. It’s nice to have a choice.
• I can choose when I write. There’s no pressure to deliver a set number of posts in a certain time. That means when my client work is lighter I can write more, and when I’ve got a heavy workload, I can write less. That alone makes it a dream writing gig.
• I get links to my sites, resources and profiles from a respected group of sites – lots of SEO juice there.
• I can use the knowledge I’ve built up of different subjects. All though all of you know that I write about writing, did you know that when I started freelancing, I wrote a heck of a lot about financial stuff? Credit cards, mortgages, loans, insurance, estate planning – I’ve written about all of those, sometimes exhaustively. That’s why my first post is on funeral planning, but I plan to write about more fun stuff in the future.
• It’s fun – I get to choose my topics which means there’s finally a home for some of the random things that occur to me. I can turn these into articles in the Money and Love topic (which I think has a lot of scope). And if they’re not right for that one, they might suit another blog in the network.

As you can see, I’m getting a lot out of this writing gig and of course, I plan to give a lot back. Fair’s fair!

Have you ever taken a writing gig for reasons other than the pay? How did that work out?

It might sound like a clichéd TV advert, but you really can wave goodbye to your low paying clients this Christmas

I enjoy helping other people.  I don’t get chance to help others as much as I would like to, but I received such a large amount of help when I was first starting out as a freelance writer that I try to give back as much and as often as I can.

I’m pleased to say that the post I made in October, It’s Time To Give Something Back To The Freelance Writing Community, has been well received, as alongside the numerous comments on the post itself asking questions on freelance writing and business development, I’ve received a number of e-mails directly.

Of the questions that I’ve received by e-mail, one that caught my eye in particular was from Susan Hutchings, who asked:

I currently write for a company who pay me £3 for 250 word blogs for various legal firms. I think I can achieve better rates myself but need advice on marketing and obtaining work directly from the web site owners/businesses themselves.

A little over a year ago, I was in exactly the same boat as Susan, producing work regularly for a client or two who whilst quite happy paying me, weren’t paying what could be classed as a respectable rate, irrelevant of how long you’ve been writing.

When you’re in a situation like this, however, you find that you fall into somewhat of a Catch 22 situation – you can’t leave the client behind because you start to rely on the money you’re receiving from them, but you can’t start looking for other clients as you seem to be spending most of your time with that single client.

And although you do become annoyed and frustrated, you end up taking it for what it is and just sticking with what you know.

For Susan and anyone else reading this who can relate, there is a way out of this circle.  It did take me a while to get out of the loop, but with the advice of other freelance writers, hard work and long hours, I managed it and the seven primary steps I followed are as follows.

1.  You need to start writing for yourself

I’ve mentioned this time and time again, but I’m a strong believer in the more you write, the more you find your own tongue and the more you become involved in the freelance writing community, something which was integral to me starting to value myself properly as a freelance writer.

Your blog doesn’t have to be business related and it doesn’t have to have the goal of providing you with an income directly.  Instead, it should be an outlet for you to write on what you feel passionate about.  If it is something to do with your freelance writing career, great, but don’t worry about it if it’s not – as long as you’re writing regularly, that’s the key point here.

2.  Be interactive

One of the major mistakes I made when I was looking to leave my low paying clients behind was that I wasn’t interactive enough with freelance writing community.

I’d read dozens of blogs and spent hours going through historic posts, but I’d very rarely leave a comment.

When I realised that I wanted to push my freelance writing career forward, I found that as I began writing more, I started to become more involved in the freelance writing community and it’s due largely to this involvement that I’ve managed to develop my career.

Over the last 12 months in particular I’ve met some fantastic people.  Freelance writers, clients, SEO companies, small businesses, large organisations – I seem to have come into contact with hundreds of different people.

Whilst not all of them helped me directly, I took something away from meeting each of them, whether it was a tiny piece of information or a way to completely revolutionise a certain part of my writing career.

3.  Get a social network presence

Although I wasn’t a writer a decade ago, from speaking to others who’ve been writing for years, I understand that you could have been a successful freelance writer easily with only an absolutely minimal amount of involvement with the internet.

With everyone and everything seeming to use the World Wide Web in one way or another in today’s world, however, it’s absolutely imperative that you have a social network presence if you want to climb the freelance writing ladder and leave the low paying gigs behind.

Twitter is the most obvious and popular choice, but don’t neglect LinkedIn or Facebook – and a look at Digg, StumbleUpon and FourSquare wouldn’t go amiss either (there are dozens upon dozens of social network sites out there and these are just the ones that I used to help me increase my rates and move away from the low paying clients).

And if you’re wondering why you need a social network presence, you’ll be surprised at just how many writing gigs circulate around these networks.  I’ve also discovered that a lot of people ask for help on Twitter and LinkedIn in particular, something that could very easily end up with you taking on board a new client.

4.  Start searching the job boards on a daily basis

This might sound like an obvious point to some, searching a number of different job boards, but I remember when I first started my development as a freelance writer, I was relying on just one website to provide me with a daily list of jobs.

This was great to start with, but things move so much faster when you realise that there’s about half a dozen quality blogs and websites out there providing you with different freelance writing jobs on a daily basis.

As a side note, spend some time looking at adverts in full, especially to begin with – there are plenty of low paying adverts out there that are a waste of your time and whilst difficult to spot at first, if you spend the time looking at the different adverts, you’ll soon see a pattern emerging and will be able to eventually skim over the adverts that are likely to be time wasters.

Not something you need to rely on solely, as you’ll find that once you’ve built up some high paying clients and have a broader portfolio you start being contacted for work or you begin to contact certain companies directly, but most freelance writers I know, irrelevant of their level of experience, tend to have a look on the job boards every now and again.

5.  Don’t disregard your low paying clients

My largest client of 2009 went on to be my largest client of 2010, too – on a much improved rate.

To say I was nervous about talking to that client to discuss an increase in my rates was an understatement, even though I’d built up a particularly good relationship with them.

I mulled it over for weeks and after speaking to a few different freelance writers, decided to approach them about it.

And I really didn’t have to have any reason to worry – we not only decided on an improvement of around a 30% increase on the old rate, but they also increased the amount of work they gave me by almost 100%.

I’m not saying that everyone is going to have as great of an experience as I fortunately did, but don’t automatically assume that the clients you’re working with at present can’t afford to increase their rates – speak to them and you might just be surprised at what they can offer.

6.  Learn how to write a query / introduction e-mail

Possibly the hardest thing I learnt – and to a certain extent am still learning – was to be able to write a query / introduction e-mail that was successful in at least receiving a reply, whether it was from someone I was pitching a writing piece to or a potential client who I believed could benefit from regular writing in the form of a blog, for example.

I started off by writing an e-mail that in hindsight was far too long and then I moved onto the complete opposite, providing too little information in my e-mails.

I’d then get frustrated and rush my initial contact, sometimes getting a few details wrong or making a spelling error and then after a few days of cooling down, the whole process would start again.

It took me a good few months to find a way to introduce myself and explain what I was contacting the person for without any of the mistakes I’d made previously.  I did get there in the end and although my method isn’t perfect – some people just don’t want to reply – it’s successful enough for me at present.

And if you’re wondering what method I use, there really is no secret – I give a brief introduction of who I am and why I’m contacting them, follow it up with some more details of how I could help or what I could do, give a little information of my relevant experience and then sign off – easy to digest, informative and – hopefully – interesting.

7.  Plan your day

There’s no two ways about it – planning your days and weeks is going to be the key to your success as a freelance writer.

You need time to progress and develop as a writer and if you don’t plan your time, you’ll find that you do a lot of nothing, when you could be working and developing.

For those of you who’ve read my posts here at Get Paid To Write Online or elsewhere over the last year, you’ll know that I still carry out some corporate work that isn’t writing.

The reason I’m mentioning this here is that before 2010, I would go to my corporate job, work eight hours a day and then come home, watch a bit of TV, write a bit, send a few e-mails, surf the internet, have dinner, watch some more TV and go to bed.

Although happy at the time, when I realised I that I wanted to move my career as a freelance writer forward, this all had to change and I needed to be more strict with myself.

I would go to work, come home and write for an hour or two solidly.  I’d then spend some time checking my e-mails, reading blogs and interacting with the freelance writing community before heading down for dinner and then carrying out more networking and finishing off or getting ahead on any pieces of writing.

I was working 70 hour weeks and whilst I enjoyed the work, it wasn’t easy and I made a few mistakes personally that I had to fix immediately.

The planning and hard work did pay off and whilst I do keep finding myself working 70 hour weeks – I haven’t left the corporate role just yet – it’s always for a good reason and I know that the hours I put in are all working hours.

Becoming a freelance writer who can charge respectable rates isn’t something that’s based on luck and it’s down purely to how hard you’re willing to work.

There are plenty of progression opportunities out there and tons of writing jobs available, you just have to know where to look, who to talk to and how to ensure you are always moving forward in the industry.

Image:  SolYoung (Flickr) – I thought we needed something a little festive seeing as it’s less than two weeks until Christmas!

Improve Your Marketing Success

I’ve advocated marketing to help the writing clients find you as much as possible. By marketing and helping clients find you, you can make more money and reduce your competition instead of focusing all your energy on banging on the same doors as dozens of other freelance writers who saw a gig listed on a job board. For those that have started that marketing campaign to help clients find them, here are some tips to help you get people to query as well as to successfully court those new prospects once they make first contact.

Website Design

There are lots of ways to get traffic to your business website. But when you get traffic to your site, what’s there? Beyond a professional-looking website or blog, make sure your pages correspond to the types of keywords you’re trying to attract traffic for. Analyse your traffic reports regularly to investigate how people arrive on various pages. Does the content on their entry page deliver what they’re searching for and display your skills in the best light possible?  Anticipate your visitor’s wants and needs on that page in terms of content, navigation, and links that can help them delve deeper for the best user experience possible.

Contact Page

Instead of hoping prospects will dig for your e-mail address, provide a contact page. Most website templates have this feature built in and it saves you from having to publish your address on the site, which leaves you vulnerable to spammers.

Initial Response

When someone touches base, I often use a new client questionnaire that I’ve developed to help me with their initial project. It also helps them see that I am professional in my approach of trying to find out how to best help them. The questionnaire should help you understand the scope of the project for quoting and researching purposes as well as help minimise crossed signals and rewrite requests. Questions on your questionnaire can relate to target audience, call to action, SEO keywords, and more. Another thing I like about the questionnaire is that it gives me an opportunity to indicate my terms.  My questionnaire has a blurb about my payment terms, details about copyright, and info about my revision policy. It helps set expectations up front.

Next Steps

If the prospect doesn’t make the next steps clear, don’t be afraid to ask. I give people time to absorb the info included in my quote and if I am interested in hearing back from them but  don’t hear back within 2-3 days I do a follow up to find out if I can provide further info to help them make a buying decision.

Additional Tips:

1. Try to anticipate potential questions when laying out your website and answer those questions. List samples, list your specialties, and demonstrate your expertise. If you do, chances are that by the time people contact you, they’ve already decided you’re someone they’re seriously considering hiring and this can shorten the pre-sales process as well as save you time during client courtship.
2. Don’t be afraid to decline potential business. Just because someone approaches you doesn’t mean they are the best client for you. In some cases it takes an attempt to help you both decide if the relationship is symbiotic but if something doesn’t sit well, trust your instinct and decline.
3. If you’re not peckish due to a workload famine when you get a new query, price on the high end of your price list. I have two sets of pricing and if I don’t need the work, I price at the high end. I have nothing to lose and they’re already interested in me so it doesn’t hurt to try to boost earnings. Plus, while I don’t generally deal with hagglers, quoting high gives you wiggle room….if you want to wiggle.
4. Make a questionnaire template and save each completed one. I have some clients who’ve given really valuable info in their questionnaire that I come back to later in the relationship and in some cases, that detail can help me adapt to their tone and style.  I also save my initial quote so that I’m consistent with them if they come back later.
5. If you are quoting during a famine, don’t pigeonhole yourself into a certain price point permanently. To help prevent this either in feast or in famine mode, I typically put a disclaimer on initial quotes or on my questionnaire that states I review pricing every six months. That way, I’m not locked into the initial quoted pricing forever and clients (hopefully) won’t be indignant pricing goes up later on (after proving my worth).

Do you have any tips for courtship with a new client? Please share!

(photo: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/duchesssa)

When you work as a freelance writer, job hunting can be a big part of your day and because time is money, doesn’t it make sense to handle it in a way that saves you time and increases your income? I try to handle job hunting in the same way as making passive income. Here’s how I do it:

A lot of writers augment their income with passive article writing sites like eHow, Askables, InfoBarrel, and HubPages. If you’re making time to do that, you can also make a little time for self-promotion —  which can be an even more profitable way to increase your income.

Passive Income Benefits

When working for passive income streams, actions done today can pay you back repeatedly. I know people making $1,000+ a month cumulatively on articles that they wrote last year.  It may take time and effort now for payoffs tomorrow but it might pay you tomorrow and the next day and the day after that as well.

So, why not perform an action that can get more results more than once with respect to hunting for writing jobs?  With passive writing income sites, you can write once and get paid many times. Consider promoting yourself online with actions that you take once but that can lead to repeated results. Let’s call this…passive job hunting.

How do you do this? Self-promotion.  Self promotion for writers is vital in terms of building your brand so that clients come to you. Self-promotion can take time and cycles now but can pay you off repeatedly in the future. Some freelance writers spend an hour a day querying and applying to jobs and while you should continue to keep your eyes and ears open for great job opportunities, doesn’t it seem easier to try to have people also come to you because they’re looking for an expert at a specific niche or writing style and found you listed as an expert somewhere?

Google – A Writer’s Best Friend

Google can be used to build you up as an authority by telling people who search for a press release writer, white paper writer, legal blogger, or (insert your specialty here)_____ writer, that you are the most relevant result. Because most web writers, through writing for clients and content factories, get to pick up a thing or two about search engine optimisation and social networking, they can do a great job of promoting themselves by applying the principles they use for clients to their own promotional efforts. If you’re helping your clients rank as #1 for the widget they sell, you should be able to help yourself become #1 in the SERPS for the widget that you sell.

Here are three tips to help you do that:

1. Start a website. Create a professional-looking business website. I started mine at Hostgator for $45 ($35 for 3 months of hosting and $10 for my URL) two years ago and it has done wonders for me! The site builder made it easy to set it up and I did it over a weekend.

2. Write articles for article directories and link them back to your site. Optimise them for the keywords you want to rank for.

3. Social bookmark your articles on places like StumbleUpon, Mixx, Reddit, Twitter, etc.

4. Repeat steps two and three each and every week.

Even one article a week over time can help you. Instead of having to troll job boards every week to fill up your schedule for the following week, you’ll eventually begin to get a steady stream of queries from clients who find you online. Your one application for a job gets seen once. But your self-promotion efforts can result in articles and your site being seen by many.

When people find you, it’s much easier to land the job. They’re already partially convinced that you’re right for the job and you can often make even more money this way because you set your own pricing.

You spend time every day searching for jobs and reading the blogs you love to read so why not take an extra few minutes and write a self-promotional piece for yourself?