Real Words

Today is the second annual Writers Worth Day, a day that was created by fellow blogger Lori Widmer as a way to raise awareness of the importance of valuing the work that we do as freelance writers. Many freelance writers sell themselves short by accepting low-paying jobs, doing writing for free and agreeing to ceaseless unpaid edits. This day is a day to help those writers learn to value their own time and talents enough for them to stop accepting inadequate pay for their work.

Freelance writers across the nation should support this issue because of the fact that those writers who do accept the low-paying jobs are impacting the industry for all of us. Every field has an average market value that customers are willing to pay for the work that they want done. When too many writers accept low-paying work, the market value goes down and it becomes more difficult for the rest of us to find good clients who are willing to pay a fair wage.

Learn more about what you can do to get involved in Writers Worth Day here.

And a thanks to About Freelance Writing which is how I learned about Writers Worth Day.

I scan the Internet almost every day in search of new job leads. I like to see what’s out there and to dip my writing fingers into different waters as often as possible. However, I actually don’t apply to new jobs very often.

Some of the reasons that I typically don’t apply to a lot of jobs include:

• Most of them are low-paying. A lot of what’s actually advertised is either no-pay, revenue-only or low-paying work and I’m not at a stage in my freelance career where that’s what I’m looking for.
• Many of them are not for the writing that I do. I am a freelance writer with a diverse background and I’ve written lots of different types of stuff but these days I primarily stick to blogging for businesses. That’s what I most enjoy doing. As a result, I don’t tend to apply for jobs to write web content, ghostwrite ebooks or any of that stuff which severely limits the number of jobs that I’m interested in applying for.
• Many of them are one-time jobs. Occasionally I’ll take on a one-time writing gig if I think that it sounds interesting. For the most part, though, I like to apply to jobs that will provide a steady ongoing source of income. A lot of what’s advertised out there doesn’t fall into that category.
• I don’t bid on jobs. Many times I’ll follow an interesting job lead only to discover that it’s on a site like elance where you have to bid against others for the work. I used to do that and don’t find that it suits me very well. It’s great for many writers but it’s not an approach to finding work that works for me so I ignore those leads.

And then there are those ads that you look at and you just know that they are some sort of scam. Like this one on Craigslist right now. The link is surely going to get flagged soon so I’ll share with you what the ad is in full:

Wine gig for blogger: $10K/mo (financial district)

“Blogger to get $10K/mo for wine gig.” B at Market St/Hyatt SF 1130 am 4/28 Kiosk 2 beat pack
Compensation: $10K/mo for six months gig; housing included

I have to confess that I’m really curious to know what this is really all about. They’re offering you housing and ten grand a month do blog about wine. Obviously that’s not really true but there must be some reason that they want you to go to that kiosk. I’m curious as to what that reason is and what people are going to find when they get there. And I’m really curious to know if they are actually going to get anyone interested in whatever it is that they’re really offering.

Mostly I hate seeing ads that are clearly scams but sometimes it’s neat just because it gets your imagination going as to what they’re all about! There’s nothing wrong with a stirred imagination – especially when you’re a writer!

The oDesk Blog has published a list of the top 100 blogs for freelancers. It’s an interesting list that’s somewhat unique from the other lists of this nature that I’ve seen. It includes selections for freelancers from multiple areas of the web.

I found it interesting that it was necessary to separate “freelance blogging” and “freelance writing” into two categories. Most articles will just lump them together even though they can be quite different. In fact, I tend to lump them together since I do both myself but I actually do think that the information most important to one group isn’t necessarily that which is most important to another group.

I was excited to discover several blogs here that I hadn’t known about before. The ones that interested me most were actually those that fell into the “freelance lifestyle” category. Whatever the differences between various types of freelancers, what we have in common is that we need to deal with the pros and cons of working from home in a productive way. I read Zen Habits regularly but there were many other blogs in this category that I didn’t know at all.

Good stuff. Happy reading!

I wrote on this blog recently about how there are a lot of people out there who seem to think that they can just start freelance writing with no experience in order to easily earn some added income during this recession that we’re in. Daily Freelance Writing Tips had some great additional thoughts on that topic which got me thinking more about why exactly it is that freelance writing is actually so much harder than most people assume it to be. Part of the difficulty is definitely that there is so much more than just “writing” that you have to be able to do to earn a living at this kind of work. But honestly, I think that the most difficult thing for most people is to find the self-motivation to actually work from home when they are at home.

Being productive when working from home isn’t easy for most people. Common problems that people who are new to this kind of work will have include:

• Sleeping in. It’s fine to sleep in as a freelance writer as long as you work late to make up for it. If you’re not working full time then you aren’t going to pay the bills.
• Procrastination. Many new freelancers procrastinate because they think that their deadlines are all that they need to worry about. In reality, you need to get things done and then spend the rest of your work day doing supporting-role tasks like social networking, marketing and learning new blogging and writing skills.
• Taking long breaks. It’s easy to get distracted by house chores, phone calls and errands during the work day when you’re not clocking in at an office.
• Staying in your PJs. There are some freelance writers who do this and who still get their work done. I find that it’s important for me to actually get up and get ready as though I’m going to a job so that I can feel like I’m really going to work. Then I spend the day working. Of course, I don’t dress in business casual wear but I do shower and put clothes on.
• Failure to set hours. It’s important for freelancers to have a basic schedule that they stick to. Most people new to the work just can’t do that. This inability tends to make it so that they don’t work as many hours as they should.

These are just a few of the things that happen when you’re trying to learn to work from home in a productive way. You discover that it’s not easy to be productive from the space that you normally consider a place for rest. You find that there are too many different things to get done and no one looking over your shoulder to make sure that they get completed. I think that for most people this is the toughest part of the job and the reason that they can’t make working from home work for long periods of time.

As for me, I have always loathed having to go to a job. I hate having to be somewhere else at the time someone else says I need to be there. I hate having to wake up to an alarm, where the right kind of clothing, put on a happy face for my co-workers and commute to a place of business. This distaste for that way of life motivates me to make working from home work for me.

What do you guys find is the hardest thing about trying to be productive when working from home?

As the economy has worsened, I’ve watched friend after friend lose jobs or have work hours reduced or take a cut in pay. I’m sad to see this happen and hope the best for them in the near future. However, I have to say that I’m a little bit irked by the number of them who have suddenly turned to me to ask for tips on how they can earn money doing the work that I do.

Don’t get me wrong. I am flattered that they think that I’m good enough at my job to be able to train them a bit in how to do it. And I really don’t mind helping them. It’s just that the sheer number of them that have asked recently has made me realize just how many of the people who love me really don’t have a clue how tough my work is.

Almost every single friend that’s brought up this conversation lately has said something along the lines of, “I need to make money. I could probably write. What do you do to get work?” The implication here is that, even though they don’t really like writing all that much and have no experience in doing it, they could probably do what I do fairly easily.

Let me tell you from my ten years of experience in the business that there is nothing easy about freelance writing for a living. I love my job. But I also work harder than almost anyone that I know. I put in more hours that don’t include coffee breaks and water cooler conversation. Every day that I work involves not only doing my writing but also editing my writing, promoting my writing, looking for new writing work and managing the freelancer’s finances.

I’m not sure exactly what people are thinking that I’m going to say to them when they ask me to show them how I do my work. What I feel like saying is that it took me ten years to understand what I understand about job applications, web portfolios, writing for specific audiences, using blogging tools, networking online and dealing with the SEO/SEM issues that I have to be knowledgable about to write well.

I don’t say most of that. Instead, I point people in the basic direction of where they can find online writing work. I really don’t mind helping to an extent and I really do hope these people find a source of income. I just think that as soon as they see a few of those job leads and what’s entailed in applying for those jobs, they’re going to realize how hard this work is and give up before they’ve gotten started.

Is anyone else fielding these types of information requests from friends these days?

I have written in the past about the many different places that there are to look for freelance writing work. There are classified ad sites like Craigslist where jobs are advertised. There are bid sites like Elance that you can sign up to participate in (although I’ve never liked that option much). There are proactive options like coldcalling and contacting potential new clients via email.

I have used all of those at one time or another and still do use them regularly (minus the bid sites). However, the thing that I do most frequently to look for new freelance writing work is to check the links on the websites that offer freelance job leads. These job leads may come from the individual sites (like Craigslist) or may be in the form of posts about individual jobs. Either way, they typically provide a good collection of leads that point me in the right direction for what work is being offered out there.

Here are the ten sites that I’m checking most frequently for job leads in 2009:

1. Freelance Writing Gigs. Deb Ng continues to be the best provider out there for daily leads on jobs. There’s a list of links up every weekday (and some weekends) as well as smaller individual posts from specific potential clients.
2. About Freelance Writing. Deb Ng pointed readers in the direction of leads on this site recently which turned me on to the site. There are fewer leads here but they’re posted steadily and they are sometimes different from what you’re seeing on the other sites.
3. All Freelance Writing. The same post by Deb that pointed me in the direction of About Freelance Writing also pointed me here. Same deal. Good stuff.
4. Problogger. I continue to check the Problogger job leads daily for info on potential blogging jobs that may be available.
5. Performancing Blogger Jobs. This one isn’t nearly as good as problogger but people seeking blogging work may find the occasional good lead here.
6. Freelance Job Openings. Usually only a few posted here each day but often ones worth pursuing.
7. Online Writing Jobs. This is a comprehensive list of what’s out there. It can be overwhelming but you can filter by the type of jobs that you want to look at (blogging, articles, books, etc.) so that makes it easier to find the work that you want.
8. Absolute Write. Only a couple posted here each day but always different from what’s being advertised elsewhere.
9. Media Bistro. Many of the jobs here are on-site jobs but you can sometimes find telecommute work.
10. Journalism Jobs. Same deal as Media Bistro but often worth a look.

Where else do you check for freelance job leads?

One of the writing blogs that I read had a post this week on a really interesting topic – the topic of who in our lives supports our freelance writing careers. I have seen several freelance writing friends choose to leave the business of freelance writing because their spouses didn’t support the career. I have also seen freelancers lose faith in themselves, get frustrated with the business and just generally slack off because they weren’t getting support from enough people in their lives about the decision to freelance.

The decision to do any kind of freelance work, including freelance writing, isn’t easy and it’s a commitment that we have to make to ourselves over and over. There are tough times when the work isn’t coming, the bills aren’t getting paid, the hours are rough, the clients are mean and the industry is in transition. In those tough times, we really need people who support us. We need people who will listen to us vent about our writing, people who will read what we post online even when no other traffic is coming through and people who will tell us that it’s going to be okay when it feels like it won’t.

So where do you turn if you don’t feel like you’re getting support in your life? Here are fifteen different individuals or groups who might support your freelance work:

1. Spouses/ romantic partners/ significant others. Not every freelance writer feels supported by their spouse. In some cases, spouses may even resent that you don’t have a normal career. This can be devastating to some freelancers so it’s an important issue to work through. Your partner doesn’t have to read everything you write but you should feel at least some support for your work coming from this person so it’s worth trying to deal with this issue over time as the relationship (and your career) continue.
2. Parents. There are certainly some people whose parents aren’t supportive of their freelance writing but many times parents are a great place to turn for a little support because they’re inevitably proud of your accomplishments. Share your work with them, especially anything with a byline or anything that mentions them positively. They’ll want to share that with others and you’ll feel supported. Parents may not be the best people to talk to about freelance writing career problems because they’ll worry about you and that may lead to them saying things that aren’t supportive but they’ll definitely be a great support in celebrating your successes.
3. Children. Teach your children that you value the work that you do and they will probably learn to value it. Celebrate your writing successes with them in small ways. Include them sometimes in your career by taking on projects that let you do fun research at places like children’s museums. Their involvement will feel like support for why you do what you do and they’ll probably grow up to be adults that support your work over time.
4. Siblings. This just depends on what your siblings are like and how close you are. Some siblings never read a thing that you write and get bored if you talk about your work. But in the end, siblings are usually there when you need them so if you’re feeling unsupported in your work then you may just want to ask them for a little support.
5. Old Friends. Support for your career among friends will be varied. Some will be jealous of your freelance life and that may come across as a pleasant kind of envy or it may come across in a meaner form. Some friends will read your stuff and others won’t be interested. But somewhere in your group of friends, you should be able to find the ones that support what you’re doing. Identify these friends and mentally bookmark them for those times when you’re feeling in need of some support for your writing.
6. New Friends. Sometimes it can be beneficial to go out and meet new people. When you first meet someone, they only know what you tell them. Tell them that you’re a web writer and they’re going to be ask you about that. Their interest in it will help you feel better about what you do and talking about it might make you feel excited about it again.
7. Your online social network. These are the people who read your blogs and comment on them. They follow the links that you post on Twitter and Facebook. They are the people who you know from web writing and they can sometimes be the biggest support system that you have for your writing.
8. Your in-person writing groups. Any group that you’re in that has to do with writing will probably feel like a form of support. Everyone who joins these groups is committing to the importance of writing in their lives. Just doing that creates a sense of support for the work. Whether or not the group is for the writing you do for a job (ie it’s a creative writing group and you’re a news blogger), it is still a positive environment that supports your writing.
9. Any group or person you do reading with. Join a book club. These are even better than writing groups sometimes because they are filled with people who appreciate the written word but who don’t necessarily write themselves. They’ll be interested in your writing and you’ll feel a swell of pride for your work while you’re there.
10. Your online critics. Okay, these people don’t feel like they’re supporting you and it takes a tough person to see it that way. But the truth is that if they take you seriously enough to criticize your ideas online then they’re paying attention to what you write. Chalk it up to attention and turn it into a positive thing.
11. Your clients. They can sometimes be a pain in the butt but these are the people who are giving you actual money to do your writing. That says they value your work even if they’re not always easy to deal with. And those great clients who are easy to work with and who actually tell you that they appreciate your writing are people whose support is invaluable!
12. Your customers. If you sell anything at all that’s related to your writing then every person who buys from you is someone who is supporting your work. If you sell personal poetry zines at media festivals, ebooks on your website or books through Amazon then any customer at any of those places is a supporter. You should gather as much contact information from those people as you can to create an email group just for them so that you can contact them whenever you’ve got new news. At least a percentage of them will probably support it.
13. People you can subcontract to or who guest post for you. The support of these people is unique from the support that you get elsewhere. These are people who are essentially saying that they think that you’re credible enough that they’ll do writing for you and have their name possibly linked with yours.
14. People who refer you to others. These can be old clients, friends, online people – various people from the other segments of your life already mentioned – but the point is that they are supporting your work by spreading the word and that counts for a lot in this business.
15. You. Ultimately the most important person that you need to be able to count on when it comes to support for your writing is you. Commit to your writing. Value your writing. Take time not only to write but also to do other things that inspire you so that you have the creativity and rest required for ongoing writing. Be there for yourself. The more you support yourself, the more likely it is that others in your life will take your writing seriously and support you as well.

The most important things to remember when you’re feeling unsupported in your freelance writing career are that there are many different places that you can get support and many different kinds of support that you can get. A friend may not ever read your blog but she may introduce you to others as “my friend who writes a blog”. A parent may gripe that you don’t have a traditional job but keep your books on the bookshelf where everyone can see them. Learn to recognize the support that you do get, turn to many different sources for it and ask for more from the right people when you need it. It’ll help your career for a long time to come.

I recently posted my thoughts here on whether or not you should reveal your writing rates on your blog or website. That sparked some discussions with my Facebook friends and Twitter friends about writing rates in general. What I learned is that a lot of my writing friends don’t actually have any set writing rates.

I found this to be somewhat shocking. I am definitely flexible about my own writing rates. I offer discounts to certain types of businesses (particualrly green businesses and local businesses). I take on jobs that don’t meet my standard writing writes because the jobs interest me or they seem easy enough or, frankly, because I need the money at that time.

But despite being flexible about my rates, I think it’s extremely important that I do have set rates. It makes discussing work with clients easier and it makes me feel more stable in my work. It’s professional and, in my opinions, it’s a necessity.

There are many many great articles out there on how to set your own writing rates. But I just came across a set of three posts that were recently done over at About Freelance Writing that I think sums it up best. These posts discuss how to track expenses and consider your need for a savings account so that you can determine your rates.

I think that most freelance writers are setting their rates based on the market value of their work. That’s definitely something to take into consideration. However, as a business person, you really need to have an understanding of what amount of money you need to be making to figure out if your business is worth staying in. If you spend more than you make for too many years in a row, you’re not going to last as a freelance writer.

How is everyone else figuring out their writing rates? And how flexible are you about them?

One of the things that I’ve noticed on most of the blogs and article-hosting sites (such as HubPages) that I read is that online authors tend to be really good about posting on topics that are related to the day or month of the post itself. The obvious example is that there are lots of blog posts and articles about Christmas each December. However, you’ll also see this all throughout the rest of the year when people write on everything from summer vacations to taxes. And you’ll see it in relation to social and political events as well (for example, how many blogs talked about the inauguration this week even if they weren’t political blogs?!)

I’m the first to admit that I’m not particularly good about this. I do tend to hit the major holidays with some timely posts although that’s due more to the fact that those topics are on my mind at the time of the writing than through any real planning of my own. But despite my own lacking in this area, I can definitely see some benefits to writing on timely topics.

Some of the benefits I see in regards to writing on seasonal or otherwise timely topics include:

• There’s always something to write about. It seems like you always have topics to choose from when planning your blog writing around a calendar.
• You’re writing about the stuff that’s on your readers’ minds. This means that they’re going to automatically feel a connection with you that you can then build upon.
• You’ll probably do better in search engine searches. I’m not actually sure if this is true but I would imagine that the hot topics of the day are the ones that people are looking up in online searches.

So, if you see the benefit of writing on timely topics, how can you structure your writing so that this is how it ends up happening? Here are some tips that I think benefit the writer who wants to blog on the topics of the day:

• Keep a calendar handy. Whether you use a wall calendar or a desk calendar or the calendar on your iPhone or the Google calendar, you should have some system for keeping track of all of the things that you’ll want to be writing about on a timely basis.
• Strongly consider using the Google calendar. As just mentioned, the calendar itself is what’s important but something like a Google calendar is particularly great because you can color code the different things that are on there (so you can have holidays in one color and social or political issues in another color). It just keeps things better organized.
• Keep track of all of the major holidays that you might want to write about. A basic wall calendar will provide you with this information.
• Think about adding in some of the funky holidays as well. Use a calendar such as the bizarre calendar here to find some of the strange holidays. Specifically calendar all of those that are even remotely relevant to the topic of your blog (official pen day for writers, for example) but also calendar any that you just think you’d like to mention. There’s always a creative way to tie them in.
• Block off some room at the start of each season on the calendar. Make a list of all of the posts that are relevant to that season (graduations in the spring, summer travel, etc.)
• Think about any other annual or seasonal events that really interest you or that get a lot of attention from the readers of your blog. Film events, political events and other social events are all fair game for timely topics to write on.
• Pay attention to other blogs. You’ll notice when everyone’s blogging about the same thing and that can remind you that it’s time for you to start blogging about that as well.
• Brainstorm a list of topic ideas for various holidays, events and seasons. It’s a good idea to keep these lists handy so that you can access them at the right time each year and not have to struggle to think about what you should be writing.
• In terms of content, remember that you really only need to loosely tie the holiday or timely topic into the post. The focus should still be on writing whatever the content of your blog is. So if you’ve got a writing blog then you can do holiday posts on “great gifts for writers” and summer posts on “where writers most want to travel”.

That’s my two cents on the topic anyway. I’d love to know what other writers think about the importance (or lack thereof) on posting topics that are relevant to the day/season that we’re writing in.

I am slowly starting to return to taking on a few freelance jobs here and there. Mostly this is because a girl supporting herself in the city needs to have an income to rely on. But partly this is also because I do like starting new projects and there are things about going back to work that I’m happy about.

One of the things that I’m discovering I really like is the excitement of browsing through all of the freelance writing and blogging jobs that are advertised each day. When life has been busy and I’ve been in a rush to get to actually working, the process of finding work has seemed like an annoying burden. But now that I’ve got some time on my hands to appreciate each part of the process, I’m really kind of enjoying the browsing through jobs.

There are so many different jobs advertised each day for at-home writers. There are jobs on Craigslist and Monster and Indeed and MediaBistro and Freelance Writing Jobs. The truth is that most of these aren’t jobs that I would want to do. They don’t pay well (or at all) … they aren’t on topics that interest me or based on work processes that work for me. But I still really like looking at all of the different projects that are being launched and developed out there.

Just looking through today’s posts, I saw jobs for editing books and conntributing to national travel guides and writing about home design and blogging about the college admissions process … in other words, there is a wealth of opportunity out there to write about so many different things and there are people out there snapping up those jobs and contributing to the body of written work that is out there for all of us to read.

It’s really all kind of amazing!