In general, there’s very little I will refuse to write. There are certainly types of projects that I prefer to take on. I also know that there are certain kinds of writing that I’m just not particularly good at, so I tend to avoid them. But there aren’t a lot of projects that I simply refuse to take as an entire category. There are only a few things that I won’t even consider.

Essay Mills

Of the writing projects that I’ve been offered over the years, the only one that really hands down made me angry was an offer to write essays for an essay mill that would sell work to students who would then turn it in as their own. It’s not only an unethical practice in my book — it’s downright stupid. At the college level, a student is paying for an education, so why would he want to do anything that would diminish the value of the money he’s spending. There’s also an element of ‘I worked my butt off in school, so you should, too!’ in my refusal.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m happy to help students improve their writing: I worked as a tutor in college and still take on the occasional student as long as I know the person. But I’m not about to do any student’s work for them, no matter the price.

Pure SEO Writing

I’m talking about the stuff where you have to hit specific word densities and even include misspelled words on occasion. It’s bad writing, hands down, and I never want to get used to writing that way. I’m pretty sure it will ruin me for just about everything else.

I like writing content for the web in general, and I have no problem working with keywords. But, ultimately, I write for human readers rather than bots. I have no beef with anyone that would rather have machines read their work, though.

Adult Content

There’s nothing wrong in my book with writing content for adult sites. I realize that some writers are against such projects on a moral basis, but if it isn’t a problem for you, there’s decent money to be made. You may want to use a pseudonym in case Grandma is surfing the web, but beyond that, use your own judgment.

Personally, though, I just flat out can’t do it. I can’t take that kind of project seriously and often wind up giggling like a grade schooler just on the basis of project descriptions.

What About You?

Is there any type of writing project that you just won’t do? Something bothers you on an ethical level or something you just can’t wrap your head around?

Sara asks,

I have a question about finding contact information for websites. I suppose I never really gave much thought to who contributes the content to websites, but now I realize that writing for sites can be some nice extra income. The problem I’m running into is finding contact information for submissions. I’ve tried using the generic “Info” button or “info@…” email address, but I haven’t had much luck. How do I track down this hard-to-find info? I might be missing out on some additional opportunities–help!

It’s been my experience that a lot of websites already have a plan in place to create content. This can be both good and bad for freelancers: if we can become part of that plan, we can earn money. But if we aren’t part of that plan, it can be hard to convince a prospective client to add us.

Personally, I’ve had the most luck getting work on sites with blogs or newsletters — sites that routinely need more content. If a site is static and the owner doesn’t need to keep adding lots of content, it can be harder to get a good paycheck. With blogs, even if you can’t find more than generic contact information on the site, you’ll at least find the name of the blog’s owner. That can be enough to help you connect through LinkedIn or another social networking site. I’ve even contacted someone through a direct message on Twitter to ask for a full email address.

It’s not a perfect system, unfortunately. Sometimes the reason that a site doesn’t list any submission information is because they aren’t currently taking any submissions. IYou’ll never find out if you don’t ask, but be prepared for a fairly high number of negative answers.

Landing that first big client or market can be tough for a beginning freelancer — you put out article after article, spend hours on marketing and even try some cold calling and it still doesn’t seem to snap. But sticking to it is an absolute must. After all, you won’t ever land a client or market if you don’t try. There are a few ways to make the process a little less stressful, however.

1. Remember the 1:10 Rule: My dad has been working on a new real estate deal just about every week since before I was born. They don’t always go through, and when I asked him why he always seems to be working on a new project, he explained the 1:7 rule. In real estate, for every seven deals you try to put together, one actually goes through. I used to track how many queries and estimates I sent out very closely, and I noticed that I landed about one in every ten projects that I tried for. The ratio gets better as time progresses. That number isn’t because a writer doesn’t have the necessary skill, by the way — it’s more often a question of which freelancer precisely nails what a client or editor is looking for.
2. Make Querying A Habit: Whether you’re sending out queries to print publications or trying to find clients interested in brochures, you’ll get a lot farther if you’re working on it a little every day. If you’re in position where you can freelance full-time, that might look like devoting a full hour every day to the process. If you are going part-time, sending out a query letter each day may be more realistic. But it needs to be something you work on every day — it’s a business, after all, and not just a hobby.
3. Market Your Writing: If you were starting any other business, you’d get business cards, network with other businesses and work hard on marketing your product or service. Why should freelance writing be any different? Think about the best way to connect with your ideal client. It may be time to get a website up or you may want to start attending networking events in your area.
4. Write Anyway: Just because you don’t have a market or a client lined up doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be writing. There are plenty of places that you can submit articles on spec, as well as sites that sell ’stock’ content — you can still build up at least some income from writing without a big client. It may not be your end goal, but it’ll keep you in practice for when you land that ideal project.

Every morning, I browse through more than a hundred job listings from a variety of websites. When I first started out, the process could take me more than an hour: opening a whole bunch of book marks, sorting through emails and so forth. But I’ve got a secret weapon that drops that time down to under ten minutes (not including the time spent responding to ads that are worth my while).

It’s All About RSS

Most sites listing freelance projects these days offer an RSS feed: whether you’re look at Craigslist’s classifieds or bid sites like oDesk, you can take advantage of the way the site operates to make those listings come to you.

The first thing you’ll need is an RSS reader. While there are a variety of readers out there, I’d recommend Google Reader if you don’t already use another RSS reader. It’s one of the easiest to use and if you already have a Google account, (Gmail, Google Docs, etc.) Google Reader require minimal set up. Even if you don’t, the service is free and takes only a few minutes to set up.

No matter which RSS reader you’re using, though, there will be a button somewhere obvious that will allow you to add RSS feeds to your reader. In the case of Google Reader, the button is in the upper left corner and is labeled “Google Reader.” You can paste in a website’s address and, as long as there’s an RSS feed set up, the reader will make each new update (also known as a job listing) available.

For most job listings sites, you can get just one category through your RSS reader. On oDesk, for instance, plugging the address for just the writing jobs will allow you to just look through writing jobs — after all, browsing all of those other categories probably isn’t productive. The same is true of Craigslist — you can get just the writing gigs for a particular city with no problems.

Going Through Your Feeds

Once you’ve got your favorite job sites fed into your RSS reader, you only need to visit one site a day. You can go through all the new listings from a site, without having to sort them out from the older jobs. If you do find a listing that interests you, you can click through that particular listing back to the website it appeared on and apply for it.

I write for a lot of online markets: blogs, publications and other places that post articles. Most of the sites where my work is published allow comments — when they don’t outright request them. That means that there are a whole lot of responses to my writing out there that I have to decide whether to acknowledge.

The simple fact of the matter is that I don’t really have time to acknowledge all the comments my work receives. From the sites that are set up to actually send me emails whenever I receive a comment I can easily receive 30 notifications in a day. And plenty of sites don’t automatically let their writers know about comments. Depending on how in-depth of a response you give, you can spend 15 minutes on just one comment. My strategy comes down to three thoughts that I’ve had over the past several years.

1. There’s not really a need to respond to a lot of comments — and many commenters aren’t even looking for a response. If there’s a question, or a clear need for a response, I’m happy to add a comment, but I don’t feel that I have to respond to the equivalent of “Hey, nice article.” I appreciate those comments — I really do. But if I respond to every on, I can’t write anymore of those nice articles.
2. I’m not getting paid any extra for responding to comments, in most cases. On some sites, I do get a traffic bonus and I’m happy to add lots of extra comments, assuming that extra commenting is reflected in traffic increases. But most sites just pay me for the article. Not to be absolutely mercenary, but if the editor wants me to comment regularly, we can work out some arrangement for compensation.
3. I categorically don’t respond to comments intended to do nothing but attack me and my writing. I’m happy to issue clarifications and corrections where necessary, but if someone’s goal is to just be a jerk, I won’t egg them on. To be perfectly honest, if I had control over the commenting process everywhere I write, I’d probably delete trolling comments entirely.

That’s pretty much my entire policy on responding to comments on the websites that pay me to write. I have tweaked my policy for various sites, but in general my policy is pretty much across the board. What’s your policy on responding to comments? Leave me a comment — I’m much more interested in responding to comments on my own site!

A big chunk of my freelance writing income these days comes from writing blog posts. I’ve found it pretty easy to find positions blogging — as long as you have a pretty solid online presence yourself. But there’s trouble in Paradise: the money from blogging isn’t always that great.

The Per-Post Trap

It’s not uncommon to see a company advertising blogging positions paying $5, $2 or even $1 per post. You just can’t make money at these rates. The fact of the matter is that even if you are an extremely fast writer, it will take you a minimum of an hour to write a 300-word post — and if you have to find pictures, links and other matter beyond your writing, it can easily take longer.

There’s nothing wrong with taking a few low-paying gigs when you’re starting out, but low-paying blogging is a trap. It seems great to have a solid, reliable gig, even if the pay isn’t great — but it’s easy to find yourself still working at the same low-paying blog months later. It takes a surprising amount of will power to walk away from a gig that keeps paying reliably.

It’s even worse if you have some sort of revenue share. If you put hours and hours into promoting a site, even if it doesn’t pay off, you’ll be reluctant to leave. I’ve been in that position. Giving up is nearly impossible.

Sometimes, You Just Have To Move On

Over the past six months, I’ve been working on reducing the low-paying blogging gigs I take. I have fewer opportunities in the area because I’m looking for a higher per-post rate — something that’s more in line with my preferred hourly rate. I’ve actually started working on a few blogs of my own: if I’m not going to get paid that much for my time, I’d rather work on my own projects.

Don’t get me wrong — there’s money to be made in blogging. But it doesn’t come from $5 per post gigs. If you’ve got more than a month of blogging under your belt, it’s time to start chasing those bigger deals. Dream bigger — look for $30, $40, $50 per post!

Blogging For Hire? Let Me Know

If you’re a blogger for hire, please let me know in the comments. I’m putting together a list of bloggers interested in taking on work, and I know there’s some amazing freelance bloggers hanging around here.

Chris Brogan is offering up a free e-book, titled Using the Social Web to Find Work. I think this is a topic that freelance writers absolutely need to pay attention to — most of us take on at least some online work and we all know that the good paying gigs aren’t likely to show up on bid sites or Craigslist. Instead, we need to be proactive about finding those opportunities.

As Chris discusses, social networks provide a way for us to find work. When a company is looking to staff a project, it comes down to who individual members of that company know — who is in their social network — and who they can easily find information about. That means that you have to learn to use your social networking skills in a way that might not be what you’re used to.

In Using the Social Web to Find Work, Chris covers improving your LinkedIn profile with future opportunities in mind, building a quality network, blogging as a resume and creating an online presence.

You can download Using the Social Web to Find Work from Chris’ website. It’s free and I recommend grabbing a copy right away.

I received an extremely interesting press release from Suite101 last week: the company is reaching out to journalists who have recently been laid off and offering them an immediate job. While Suite101 does hire freelancers on a regular basis, they’re offering to jump anyone who has been laid off to the front of the line.

While I can’t imagine that most journalists will look at the offer as a full-time job, I think that it could provide a way to keep at least a little cash coming in while job hunting  a little freelancing to fill in the cracks.

To take advantage of the offer, writers must:

• Apply online at: http://www.suite101.com/freelance_writers?presspass
• Present two recent writing samples
• indicate at least three recent years of professional news writing experience
• Mention they are applying under the “Warm Press Pass” program

While I’m pretty confident that a lot of journalists will look immediately for online work, I’m not so sure how many will turn to freelancing. Online news media seems a little more resilient right now, but I imagine that many of the journalists in question had a reason for not going freelance in the first place. What do you think?

While I was chatting with a friend this week, I heard a completely unexpected question: could she make some seasonal money as a freelance writer? She wants to earn a little extra money before Christmas and she was wondering if writing would be an easy way to do it.

I managed to keep from laughing. I’ve encountered the idea that writing is an easy job — type a few words and get a paycheck immediately — but this is the first time I’ve heard of anyone thinking of freelance writing as a seasonal job. Am I alone?

My advice for anyone looking to earn some extra Christmas money from writing is easy: Start in June. Between pitching a project, actually completing it, invoicing it and eventually getting paid, most writing projects (articles, copywriting and more) are more of long-term ventures.

That isn’t to say that a person absolutely can’t get some immediate money from well-crafted words. Plenty of Craigslist posts are looking for immediate turn around, after all. It’s just my experience that the more lucrative projects don’t require immediate delivery.

Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere Report for 2008 is out, and things are pretty positive for those of us who make our livings by stringing words together.

According to the report, blogs are pervasive and a part of our daily lives. They’re mainstream. Many businesses have them, and those companies without blogs on their websites are starting to consider adding them.

Like I said: good news. Plenty of those blogs are written by bloggers for hire. Personally, I write for a couple different blogs. It works out well, because most blogs don’t need full-time employees. Instead, a freelancer capable of writing a post or two every day can pick up a long-term reoccuring gig.

Have you considered blogging for pay? Have you found any good opportunities? Have you had any troubles?