I struck out as a full-time freelancer somewhat by accident. I didn’t exactly prepare for it and, in retrospect, there are a couple of things I think can really help a freelancer start out on the right foot. It’s quite possible to succeed even without completing these steps; they just make things a bit easier.
Figure out your health insurance. No matter whether you purchase your health insurance on your own, marry someone for their benefits or go the HSA route, getting some sort of plan in place is crucial. Medical bills can easily wipe a freelancer out — even if the injury or illness is relatively small.
Put together solid clips. Ideally, even before you consider going freelance full-time, you’ve published some work — a press release, a short article, anything. But if you’re serious about landing some decent gigs right out of the gate, you’ll want a good portfolio. It’s worth the effort of putting up a website with your past work listed.
Set your goals — and your escape plan. It can take a while to build up reliable income as a freelancer, but it’s easier to do so if you have some goals in mind. Equally important, though, is to be able to tell if freelancing isn’t working out. If I make less than a certain amount over the course of the year, I will seriously consider finding more gainful employment. Happily, I’ve already passed that amount this year.
It seems like half the articles I read this morning had at least a mention of people cleaning out their desks. It made me happy to be a freelancer.
Right now, I have more work than I can really handle. I think that I might have a little less in the months to come, but I’m pretty confident of my financial position than I think I would be if I worked for an employer full-time.
First of all, if something happens to one of my freelancing gigs, I only lose a percentage of my wages — and it’s easier to find a couple hours of work than a full-time job. Second, as big companies lay off employees they often turn to freelancers and contractors to pick up part of the slack. As a rule, we’re a cheaper way to get work done — and even if there are no full-time employees, there’s still work that must be finished.
This may not be a bad time to start your own business. Sure, venture capital and other investments are tight now (and are probably going to get worse). If you pick a business that doesn’t require start-up capital, however, your chances for success are still pretty good.
If you’re not sure what your employment future looks like, I encourage you to invest some time now in exploring your entrepreneurial opportunities. While I’m personally fond of freelance writing, I know it’s not the ideal business for everyone. But if you can get a head start on planning your future, a pink slip might actually wind up being welcome.
On Sunday, I headed to Philadelphia for the second day of PodCamp Philly. Considering what a great time I had, I’m sorry I missed the first day.
I learned a lot and you’ll probably be hearing a bit around here about the particulars of the sessions I attended: stuff like business blogging, affiliate marketing and other little bits of information I think are useful for freelance writers — as well as anyone working online.
We need to keep our online skills sharp. The jobs that we’re chasing are evolving — looking for writers who can handle HTML or podcasting. Unconferences, such as PodCamp, are a great opportunity to learn more about those skill sets. They’re also relatively inexpensive and entirely local — perfect for the average freelancer. I encourage you to go to the conferences in your area, even if you can’t go to the big, expensive, out-of-town conventions.
The picture above is Mark Blevis speaking to the PodCampPhilly crowd during the closing festivities. He actually traveled from Canada to attend.
I’m happy to share the 33rd edition of the Business of Freelance Writing Carnival. If you’d like to submit a post or two for the 34th edition, you can do so at Blog Carnival.
How did you get into freelance writing? Why did you choose freelancing over a full-time jobs?
I didn’t really choose freelance writing, for the most part, it chose me. I’m more of an accidental entrepreneur. I’ve always been a bit of a writer, but typically, it was always just part of my job. About five years ago, I found online journaling which quite naturally progressed to blogging. I realized at some point that I wanted to try my hand at writing for an audience instead of just writing the day to day details of my life. Two years ago this month, we decided to add a blog to my online women’s community, ConstantChatter. From that point on I started getting more and more comfortable with writing. This year I became involved with the Ladies Who Launch organization and out of passion for wanting everyone to understand Social Media, I started writing articles to get the information out there.
I haven’t held a job with a traditional sort of work schedule since I was teaching ten years ago. For the most part, freelancing has kind of chosen me and works very well with my workaholic husband’s schedule. I’ve gotten very used to working from home and having my own schedule, so much so that I don’t believe I could go back to a traditional sort of job. I love knowing that I control my environment (in particular the noise level and accessibility to others). Better still, I love knowing that I can take my work with me wherever I go. Earlier in the year, my father had a stroke and I flew back east to be with him. It was great knowing that I could spend time with him and help him get settled back at home, yet still get work done. And of course, being able to run errands and go shopping during the middle of the day, without the crowds sure is nice.
Why did you choose blog consulting to add to your writing offerings?
I actually started officially freelancing about the same time I starting doing small business visibility consulting. I was teaching workshops about blogging and social networking to women just getting started in business and realized that there was so much confusion surrounding social media. The Ladies Who Launch group has a weekly ezine and I started writing articles for them. I figured that if I took my teaching skills and combined it with my knowledge and experience in blogging and social media, that I could reach a lot more people by breaking things down into simple, easy to understand bites and getting the message out there through one-on-one tutoring and small group workshops.
How does your consulting work compare to your writing? Any major successes or challenges?
I absolutely love doing the consulting work, especially the workshops. I love helping people in anyway, so when I can sit down with someone and teach them something new that will help them and their business, I consider it a major success. Interestingly, I never really thought of myself as freelancer or even a writer. I’m completely comfortable blogging about whatever is on my mind, but I seem to fight myself a lot more when I need to write something that’s not quite so casual and has a real point to get to. It’s all still a work in progress, but for the most part, it’s all been quite successful. I think my biggest challenge is my own fear and my ability to engage in full on procrastination - if procrastination had a kingdom, they’d probably call me their Queen.
How has Constant Chatter allowed you to build on your freelance experience?
In the early days of blogging on Constant Chatter, I wrote all the content myself. In true Web 2.0 fashion, I eventually went to member-created content. That eventually got to be a lot of editorial and organizational work for me, so I recently changed tactics and started to reach out to “experts” that are comfortable writing about their area of expertise. We may have been blogging on Constant Chatter for 2 years now, but we’re still a work in progress.
Since I’m no longer involved in the day to day tasks around the Constant Chatter community itself, it’s freed up a lot of my time that has allowed me to focus on my consulting business, design more workshops and create some new goals of my own. I still do quite a bit of writing on the site, mostly in my blogs, but I rarely publish under my own name these days. My goal over the next couple of months is bite that bullet and take that step to actually start pitching pieces to magazines (yes, under my own name) and to start putting together a proposal for a book idea I’ve been toying with.
How much of a time commitment is Constant Chatter?
As I mentioned previously, I’m no longer involved with the community-side of Constant Chatter. Taking care of the day to day requests of the site became too much for me and didn’t allow me time to focus on other aspects of my business, so I hired someone to help out. This has been great though, as it has allowed me to focus completely on the blog side of Constant Chatter. As the editor of the blog, I mainly focus on looking for contributors, coming up with topics, promotions and giveaways, conducting the author interviews, handling the advertising, etc. I only post twice a week right now (but I also post daily on my blog and twice a week at my business blog), so for the most part, taking care of the blog-side of Constant Chatter takes only a couple of hours a couple days a week.
Any advice for writers interested in more entrepreneurial projects?
This is a tough one for me to answer. As an accidental entrepreneur, I basically fell into both of my most recent projects. For Constant Chatter, I was basically in the right place at the right time. I never actually set out to create a community or a blog, I just went with the flow. With my business consulting work, I was actually planning to get back into life coaching, but wound up doing a lot of work around basic web stuff including blogging, SEO and social media. Next thing I know, I was teaching workshops. Again, for me, it’s all about going with the flow.
My suggestions:
Don’t be afraid to admit your mistakes (and there will be many). Just brush yourself off and move on. There’s a lesson in there when you can finally look back.
Don’t be afraid to go with the flow, even if you don’t know exactly where it’s taking you. At some point though, stop and allow yourself some time to create some goals and expectations around your new “accidental” project.
Take the risk. The worse thing that can happen is that you might fail and learn something. The best thing that could happen…you succeed and learn something.
Share what you know. You’d be surprised how much you know about something having experienced it. You’d also be surprised how much more you learn when you share what you know with others.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. When you’re first starting out or working as a solopreneur, it’s easy to get caught up in the I can do it all attitude. Trust me, you may think you can do it all, but in the end, you just can’t. Ask for help. Know your strengths and your weaknesses.
Don’t forget to spend time on yourself and with others. It’s easy to get single-minded and to spend all of your time focused on your project. Thing is, it’s not healthy - for you or your business.
Find a group of female entrepreneurs that you can relate to. Plan time together over lunch or coffee and chat about your day, your business, your successes and your failures. Again, you never know what might come your way (as well as their way - it’s all about the give and take) from a casual chat over coffee; new ideas, new information, new employees, new tools, new manufactures, new suppliers, new connections, you never know.
We’ve got a couple of great reads for you today in the 32nd edition of the Business of Freelance Writing Carnival. If you’d like to submit a post or two for the 33rd edition, you can do so at Blog Carnival.
I have a review copy of Genuine Men: Journeys in Stories and Stills by Nancy Bruno. This book is the end result of a combination of Nancy’s passions: black-and-white photography and telling the stories of everyday heroes.
To win this book, I want to hear how you combine your passions — leave me a comment telling me who you do it. I’ll randomly select a winner on Monday morning, so get your comments in!
As usual, the contest is open to any entrants — but I’ll only pay shipping within the U.S. If you live elsewhere and want the book, you’ll have to help me out with shipping.
When it comes to writing for money, it’s important to remember that experts always get paid more. If you can list off credentials, editors are more likely to bump you up to the higher end of their pay scale. If you can prove you know what you’re talking about, clients are happy to pay higher fees.
Make Yourself An Expert
Credentials can be a bit nebulous, when it comes to writing. Personally, I think actual results often prove your abilities better than any other credentials, but the folks hiring you will use their own metrics.
But think about it. If you want an expert at creating SEO copy, are you going to chose a writer with a degree in creative writing, or are you going to chose a writer who can tell you that she got X more visitors for a site after rewriting its text?
The fastest way to turn yourself into a topic is to start writing about it. Start a blog on your particular topic or write for low-paying markets. Take on non-profit topics. Pretty soon you’ll have a big stack of examples of your work in a given niche. Relevant samples are the most important factor in getting a job, although there are a few other ways to boost your chances.
Think about why you want to write in a particular niche. Maybe you want to write articles about fishing, because you’ve been fishing ever since you were 12. It just so happens that your life-long fishing experience is a credential.
If you’re a complete beginner when it comes to fishing, though, you’re not out of luck. You should probably start fishing, of course, but there are various organizations you can get involved in that will help you learn about fishing — and your membership is also a credential.
The Benefit of Beginning
Starting from scratch in creating your expertise can actually be a benefit, at least in certain fields. You have an inside lead on what information beginners are looking for — a topic that can easily provide ten angles if you’re looking for story ideas.
It is a little harder to find a starting point if you’re focusing on any sort of copy writing — but it’s also easier to find projects. Non-profits are an example of an opportunity waiting to happen. Many non-profits don’t have the budget to cover all of their projects. They’re a little more willing to take on a relatively inexperienced writer (and write them a glowing testimonial afterward) if only to bring their project in on budget.
by Nancy Bruno. This book is the end result of a combination of Nancy’s passions: black-and-white photography and telling the stories of everyday heroes.
