How do you prospect for potential clients? Or perhaps the more targeted question is, “Do you prospect for potential clients?” It is my experience that far too many freelance writers wait for referrals or “word of mouth” connections to get projects and assignments. If you’re happy with your results, don’t read today’s post because my intention today is to talk to those of you who struggle to find great projects that you choose and love doing. If that’s you, read on… Read the rest of this entry

Ready for a raise? If you’re a freelance writer, getting one can be a challenge.

After all, as freelancers, we’re trading hours for dollars and there are only so many hours in a day that you can spend on projects and assignments. Sure, you can work 15 to 18 hours a day instead of 8 or 10, but that’s not really giving yourself a raise, now, is it? That’s just working overtime. If you’re like me, you’ll quickly discover that all work and no play makes you dull, less creative, and absent from living your life. Work you love suddenly becomes work you hate and you have no one to blame but you. You cheat yourself, your family and/or friends, and your clients from having someone who is fully engaged.

If you want to give yourself a raise that doesn’t include slaving over an already overused keyboard, it’s time to start treating your writing business as a real business. Here are three small steps you can take to scale up your income by scaling up your freelance writing business: Read the rest of this entry

Facebook and Twitter seem to be the big attention getters when it comes to social networking while blogging has faded a bit into the background. Blogs may not be front and center as the hottest social networking venue, but they quietly and effectively continue to hold profit potential for writers when used the right way.

Here’s the key to profit-producing blogs: profit only comes when you know your purpose for having one. Without knowing your purpose, your blog will be ineffective and your readers will be confused—which means they will stop coming back for more of your words, wisdom, products or services.

Since well-written and engaging content is critical to pulling together a great blog, writers have an advantage. You love to write. You love to write a lot. You love to write a lot and see it published.

You have the talent, now all you need is to identify your purpose and build a blog to support it. Here are three ways to purposefully profit from your blog. Read the rest of this entry

While doing some online research for a new project I’m working on that will bring some exciting changes for the Monday Muse later this year (more on this in future posts), I stumbled onto a blog entry that led me to a website article that then led me to the 2011 Freelance Industry Report: Data and Analysis of Freelancer Demographics, Earnings, Habits and Attitudes by Ed Gandia. Although this report encompasses a variety of freelance occupations, the results are broken down into specific niches with writers making up the largest category. Here are a few of the more interesting—and perhaps surprising—findings: Read the rest of this entry

There was a time when I believed submitting to article directories was a great idea and I did a lot of it. I even earned the right to use the “Expert Author” icon on my website from one of the bigger sites, which, as I recall, didn’t really take much to earn. But, lately, I’ve been rethinking the “article submission” tactic for promoting my site and services and removed the icon from my site that, basically, just promoted the directory.

Interestingly, I find that the same three reasons I thought submitting to directories was a good idea, are the same three reasons that got me to thinking that it is not. Here they are: Read the rest of this entry