best practices Archives - Five Figure Writer

3 Strategies That Will Elevate Your Writing from Freelance Newbie to Professional Writer

September 14, 2015 By FiveFigureSarah

ElevateWritingtoProfessional-FiveFigureWriter

What makes a freelance writer?

Going a step further, what makes a freelance writer a professional freelance writer?

Do you have to have a journalism degree, be well-connected or have the ability to jet from location to location writing stories on the spot? While these things can certainly help, they’re not absolutely necessary to make the leap from a new freelance writer to a professional freelance writer and take your writing business as far as it can go.

On the contrary, upping your freelance writing game takes more grit than anything else. If you have heart, perseverance, and a decent work ethic, you’re just a few strategic steps away from elevating your freelance writing business from “just getting started” to billing like a pro:

1. Constantly Refine Your Writing Chops

It almost goes without saying, but if you want to get paid to write, you should enjoy writing. And you should probably be okay at it too.

This doesn’t mean that you have to be the best writer in town. Or know every single grammar rule by heart. Heck, you don’t even need a journalism degree to succeed as a freelance writer today (hallelujah, right?).

You don’t need a journalism degree to succeed as a freelance writer today (hallelujah, right?).

But you should be at least an average writer today and you should have a thirst to get better over time.

Learn the difference of writing for the web versus writing college papers or for your high school paper. (Think one space after punctuation instead of two, writing in a conversational tone, using short words and paragraphs, etc.)

Put time in your schedule to refine your writing skills with free and paid writing courses, free writing blogs, and networking with other writers. The more you train yourself as a professional writer, the easier it will be to talk about writing with prospective clients and present a put-together, professional image when you pitch.

Speaking of paid courses that are totally worth it, Gina’s 30 Days or Less to Freelance Writing Success course is worth every penny. If you’re just getting started, don’t hesitate to connect with her course and writing coaching services.

2. Develop ‘Extreme Makeover’ Organizational Skills

I’m not going to lie, being Type-A is definitely a plus in this vocation. Because in many ways being a freelancer is like having numerous bosses.

Being a freelancer is like having numerous bosses.

When you’re first starting out with one or two clients, you likely won’t have trouble hitting deadlines. But when you graduate to 10+ different clients that you’re writing for in any given month, you need to understand (and remember) each of their unique style guides, specifications for delivery and more.

And client work isn’t all you’ll be doing. You’re also wearing the hat of marketer, bookkeeper, administrative assistant, and more. The list goes on. You’ll be juggling a lot of different roles and responsibilities as you get started, so learning about and implementing mad organizational skills will allow you to take on more work (and more clients, and more income) without dropping the ball.

Don’t worry if you’re not the most organized guy or gal around currently. You can learn these skills (such as how to organize your writing projects with Google Drive) and you might even see it spillover to the rest of your life!

3. Put On the Thickest of Skins (or at Least a Really Good Fur Coat!)

New writers are nervous about getting feedback and easily upset by clients who request edit after edit. One of the keys to success for professional, well-paid freelance writers is that they’re not afraid to put themselves out there. They’re not scared of being rejected, or, if they are, they learn how to get past it quickly.

Rejection isn’t fun for anyone, let’s face it. But it’s usually not as bad as we make it out to be in our minds, either.

Rejection isn’t fun for anyone, let’s face it. But it’s usually not as bad as we make it out to be in our minds, either.

When I coach newbie freelance writers, I challenge them to “play it forward” and really envision the worst-case scenario of getting rejected. In their minds, they think that they’ll get told that they suck and have no business writing or somehow get blacklisted from the entire industry (which in reality would have to be the entire world, since freelance writing is largely a global commodity).

What really happens is that you won’t hear back from someone that you pitch. Or you do and they say, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Not in a mean way, not telling you that you aren’t good enough, just that they went with someone else.

And that’s okay.

Because you know what? There are plenty of other freelance writing client fish out in the sea. Businesses and individuals have hired writers since the written word was invented, and the writing industry is only growing.

In my mind, “Every company needs a website and virtually every website needs a blog.” That leaves a whole lot of opportunity on the table. And it’s only going to grow as we continue to do more and more business online.

Professional writers understand that what’s in their inbox doesn’t represent all of the opportunities out there. You have to dig deep, persevere, and continue to push for new clients and new work even when you’re afraid of rejection.

Elevating Your Game As A Professional Writer

You probably are good enough to become a successful freelance writer (yes, I totally read your mind and knew that was the question you’ve been asking all along). You don’t have to have a fancy degree or “know the right people” in order to get started.

Instead, you need to be willing to constantly improve your writing skills, learn about and apply organizational skills, and be able to handle hearing no (more than once). If you exhibit these three qualities, then you’re well on your way to shedding your skin as a newbie writer and establishing a successful writing business.

Gina Horkey is a writer for hire, with a background in personal finance. She also offers coaching services for new writers and really enjoys helping other freelancers gear up to quit their day jobs and take their side hustles full-time. Please stop by Horkey HandBook and download a free copy of Kickstart Your Freelance Writing Career!

8 Systems, Tips, and Ideas That Will Immediately Increase Your Effectiveness As a Freelance Writer

August 17, 2015 By FiveFigureSarah

SystemsTipsIdeasEffectiveness-FFW

Writing is only half the battle. If you don’t have good systems and habits in place to actively make you more efficient and strategic about how you write, you could be spending a lot of extra energy struggling to do the very basics of your job. And struggling to do the basics of your job leads to two serious problems: feeling stressed to “write more” all the time, and never writing enough even when you write more.

Struggling to do the basics of your job leads to two serious problems: feeling stressed to “write more” all the time, and never writing enough even when you write more.

Fortunately, writers have gone before you to established systems, tips, and ideas that can help you get more done and make more money with less time and effort over time. It will never be 100 work free (as hustlers we love to work!) but you can implement activities and habits that take away some of the friction and make your work go smoothly.

Here are 8 systems, tips, and ideas collected from around the web and my own experience freelancing that will immediately increase your effectiveness as a freelance writer:

1. Create a custom search engine. If you write regularly for a client, create a custom Google search engine for their website. You’ll be able to search their blog faster and with better results to include internal links within the post. If you write regularly on a particular topic, create a custom Google search engine of high-authority websites you link to frequently. You can do this by industry (social media, technology, healthcare, etc) or by client (this client likes sites such as Inc, Forbes, and Entrepreneur; this client prefers smaller specialist blogs such as SEMRush, Daily SEO, and CEO World, etc).

2. Abide by a process: Outline, research, compose, edit. Create a process out of your writing, and even if you hate them, use outlines. I use outlines for blog posts, resource guides, white papers, and sales pages. A good outline cuts down my work by half because the content stays organized in my head and encourages succinct, on-topic sentences that move the topic forward. It also helps you ensure that you leave no holes even before your editor gets at the work. Start with the basic 5-paragraph essay (Introduction, Point, Point, Point, Conclusion) and add short logical statements of research. Then get to the composition of the narrative piece itself and finish with a final edit. As a bonus touch, create your pitches using this format. Then when the assignment is accepted you can take your pitch and turn it into a very concise outline right away.

3. Show your work. Crediting Ash Ambirge of The Middle Finger Project for this tip, it has played a very important part in feeling comfortable raising my rates and helping my clients see my value. Don’t assume math is the only subject in which you can “show your work.” You can actually add a lot of value (and show how professional you are) by “showing your work” in your writing. When you’re finished with your assignment, save it as a word doc. Then go back through and add a comment every line or paragraph to explain why you did what you did. Did you use causal language at the beginning to appeal to the target audience? Say so. Did you use “thrashing” instead of “twisting” or “fighting” because it’s more visceral? Say so. Show your client how much thought went into what you’re turning in and they will be able to appreciate their investment in you even more.

4. Let your work “cook”. Here’s how I work on my best pieces: on day 1, I do a superficial outline. On day 2, I fill out the facts and logic of the argument. On day 3, I add the narrative and stylistic choices. I let it sit on day 4, and I edit and submit it on day 5. Crunching the schedule crunches that sequence, but I never skip any parts. My best pieces get to cook a little bit and no matter how well I think I write I always find things to fix if I let it rest for a day. By starting every assignment 5 days before the deadline, you also give yourself time to adjust the schedule if need be or to finish early and let it cook for longer while you work on other projects.

5. Embrace the convenience of Google Docs. Despite my privacy concerns, I cannot count the ways in which I love Google Docs. I love the CTRL+K function to create a link that performs a Google search for your anchor test and often finds the link for you. I love quickly sharing documents with clients and stalking them a little to see when they look at it (the browser often shows “Last Viewed By” on the top). I love the in-document chat feature and the flexible comment feature. And on and on… Once embedded into my process, each of these features has allowed me to create and submit (and track edits for) projects much more efficiently.

6. …And the convenience of Google Labs (and general email efficiency). Speaking of Google Docs, go ahead and install Gmail’s “Undo Send” lab feature (Gmail > Settings > Google Labs > Unsend). It has saved me several typos and forgotten attachments, each which leads to fewer emails going back and forth. Other email tips from Tim Ferriss’s The Four Hour Workweek include the following:

Only check email twice per day to prevent switching gears frequently throughout the day. Ferriss suggests the times of 10am and 4pm so that you can catch anything serious before it becomes a problem. Being less available to the endless spiral of email gives you more time to focus on what matters.

When coordinating appointments or schedules, don’t ask open-ended questions. Provide your date availability and a few times that would work so that the next email is “I choose this day and time,” not “That one doesn’t work, how about this one?” in an endless exchange.

7. Save time with browser extensions. Browser extensions can make your life easier. Chrome has the best, but I’ve recently switched to FireFox and I am finding a number of great ones. My top time-savers include LastPass for passwords, Bit.ly for sharing pretty links to my Google Docs, and Tab Saver (Chrome) or Tab Grenade (FireFox) to save batches of assignments and research as I work on them. Each of these extensions “outsources” some of my patterns and habits allowing me to make the most use of my work schedule every day.

8. Don’t hesitate to pay for hard-earned knowledge. It’s important to verify the authenticity and value of everything you purchase for your business use, but don’t be afraid to invest some money into other people’s hard-earned knowledge. For example, early on I purchased Alexis Grant’s How to Create a Frickin’ Fabulous Social Media Strategy ($59) and Ash Ambirge’s Brandgasm Copywriting & Design Course (I paid $300 and it’s on sale for $100!). Both of these courses allowed me to gain confidence in my job and eventually allowed me to step off on my own. I’ve used paid-for and free courses from a number of other bloggers and writers that have allowed me to claim knowledge that I certainly didn’t get in college. Tap into the writing community and don’t be afraid to invest a few dollars per month in education that piques your interest.

Can you share any writing hacks that have helped you write, organize, or bill clients more efficiently?

Why It Matters That I Suck at Finding Photos

August 10, 2015 By FiveFigureSarah

SuckAtFindingPhotos-FFW

When it comes to Internet tasks for blogging, writing, and content management, I need to make a confession:

I have always sucked at finding photos for things.

It started when I was a contractor for the Department of Defense and my team as assigned to turn in photo suggestions for the website headlines of the day.

I would dutifully sort through thousands of military family-themed Flickr photos and pull out ones I thought would work…. only to have them dismissed every time for my teammate’s “perfectly on point photos.”

The problem, I’ve found, is that I am way too abstract about the meanings of images. Whatever photo I see, I could talk my way into thinking it applies to the topic at hand. I’m missing this gene. What looks totally on-point to me is completely off the topic to the person who needs to use the photo. And it took me like five years to learn that.

What looks totally on-point to me is completely off the topic to the person who needs to use the photo. And it took me like five years to learn that.

I can’t even think of an example for this because I’m so paralyzed by finding the right photo that I just spent five minutes looking for one only to find nothing. So, I guess there’s your example. Here’s why that taught me a very important freelancer lesson:

Everyone Sucks at Something, Even DIY-Minded Freelancers

When you get to a certain point in your freelancing career, you start to have “enough money” to evaluate your business needs and save for things. You will be tempted (as I was) to continue to do everything for yourself: your images, your social media, your bookkeeping, and your lower-cost client work. But while it’s important to go through the “crank it out” phase of doing everything yourself (that’s the DIY in do it yourself, after all), you eventually need to graduate to not doing it all yourself. You need to make room for what you’re good at and delegate what you’re not to save yourself time, energy, and yes, even money.

I DIYed my first year and a half because it was important to me to keep costs at a bare minimum. Now that I have had “enough money” to invest in the business (that’s a topic for another day), I decided to try out a virtual assistant to outsource the work that drains my spirit. For me, that includes the following list:

Finding and sizing photos for blog posts (my VA puts these in a Google folder that’s linked to all my blogs)
Social media of any kind (my VA fills Buffer for me and my clients and I follow back around to verify it)
Lower-level translation writing work (I work with my husband to complete these jobs so he can put them in his portfolio and we keep the income in-house)

I fought my way through doing these tasks for clients and for myself because I was determined to save every penny. But what I didn’t realize was that the math and the stress worked against me.

DIY Math Is Bad Math and Leads to Inefficiency

Let’s say I try to keep my earnings for high-quality, niche marketing writing between $100 and $150 per hour (which I do). If I spent 4 hours doing all this stuff, that’s at least $400 of time I did not spend on client projects. And at the end of that work day, I am exhausted, stressed out, and not relishing the idea of working again tomorrow.

However, if I outsource this to my husband who is learning the marketing game or a virtual assistant for $8-35 per hour, I pay the cost of $24-120 to have it done… while I go and focus on making $400. This creates a much less painful earning of more than $300 and I get twice as much done doing work that energizes me.

(Of course, the trick here is making sure you work that time while your assistant is working… if you outsource things and don’t fill that time with work, you are simply paying out of your pocket).

Stress Math Is Bad Math, Too

Something magical happens with time when you spend it on things you hate doing to your core. It bends and crunches your effectiveness into oblivion.

So here’s the final part of the equation unrefined writers often don’t factor in: stress math is bad math, too. When you spend 4 hours doing things you hate, it feels like 10+ hours.

When you spend 4 hours doing things you hate, it feels like 10+ hours.

That’s about the transition rate for me and social media; every half hour feels like at least two, and it exhausts me mentally even when I’m done doing it.

When I write, however, time bends in a good way; I disappear into my timer and surface to find I’ve completed more work than I thought possible.

That’s called flow state, and stress scares it away.

Once Your Income Supports It, Delegate

I didn’t take this advice until year two of freelancing, and now I wonder if I should have started far earlier. The best thing you can do for your stress levels, your productivity, and yes, even the entrepreneurial economy, is to delegate work you don’t love to service providers and partners who do love it.

Part of the writer’s struggle against delegation is the desire to maintain ownership over your work and your process. But it’s important to understand that there’s a middle ground between delegating work you don’t like to do and scaling up to a writing agency where all you do is manage. Once you tap into outsourcing a few tasks, you are free to stop there. You can guard the work you love to do as closely as you want to. What matters is making more time for that work instead of spending that time on things you could outsource.