Recent Posts
Recent Posts Tagged With 'writing career'
Writers and Social Media Tools – Are You Using Social Media to Further Your Writing Career?
Some writers use social bookmarking tools to follow the bloggers that they regularly read and to occasionally chat with other writer friends. Social networking can be a great way to take some of the isolation out of working from home alone. But if...
Writers, Are You Working Too Hard?
Is your writing career wearing you out? How would an extra hour a day help you? New freelance writers often go through the following cycle: Take every writing opportunity that arises Write all day and all night Run out of time to spend on other aspe...
Passive Writing Gig Hunting – Get Paying Clients to Find You
When you work as a freelance writer, job hunting can be a big part of your day and because time is money, doesn’t it make sense to handle it in a way that saves you time and increases your income? I try to handle job hunting in the same way as mak...
Switching Off: A Quick Update
Switching Off A couple of weeks ago, I asked if you knew how to switch off. I said that I was heading off for a week without work. Dear readers, I did it – more or less. The time I had spent on preparing clients and future posting blog work re...
Do You Know How To Switch Off?
A lot of freelancers have been talking about vacations recently – how to take them, when to take them, how to manage your clients. I must admit that it’s something I’ve written about in the past and quite recently too. However, I...
Remembrance Of Augusts Past
Today sees the launch of a new occasional feature on this blog – a retrospective. When you blog for a long time, there are some good posts that readers never see. Today I’m presenting some of my favourites. This Month In … 2006 It ...
Rebalancing My Writing Career
Are you doing what you planned with your writing career? For me, the answer is yes and no. When I first thought about writing as a career, I had no idea of the form it would take, but I assumed that at some point I would write a novel, get published ...
GetAFreelancer: Final Verdict
Just over a year ago, I wrote about my initial experience using bidding site Get A Freelancer. At that time I spent about $13 to land a project worth around $750 and ......
Ten Ways To Start Your Writing Career Right
So you’re looking to get started in freelance writing? This is a favorite theme of mine and I’ve been offering advice on this topic for almost four years on this blog and longer than that offline. Here are ten things you can do to get ...
Becoming An Unlimited Freelancer
Anything that James Chartrand is involved in has to be worth a look, so the minute I heard about The Unlimited Freelancer, which he co-authored with Mason Hipp of Freelance Folder, I asked if I could review it. I’ve finally got around to rea...
Seven Steps To A Professional Bid
Bidding can be one of the hardest things to get right. Someone asked me the other day if I had a bidding template. I’ve discussed bidding before, but for those who missed it, here’s a snapshot of my approach to bidding. 1. Read The Brie...
Writer Without Portfolio
If you’re planning a writing career, then you need to have a way of showing off your work to prospective clients. Most people don’t just jump into writing; they have written all kinds of things for years and like the process enough...
Looking Back On 2008
How have you done on your goals for 2008? I was looking around for the post where I wrote down my goals and I couldn’t find it, so I guess they must just have been in my head - or scattered around several posts. Anyway, my goal list for 2008...
Transferable Skills: Research And Organization
I was chatting with a friend the other day and we got to talking about skills. Specifically, how to parlay the skills you’ve acquired into something that’s useful for building a freelance writing career. Transferable skills have been...
Taking the Plunge: Becoming a Freelancer
This is a guest post from Deb Wunder. It all started with a blog. Seriously. And not even my blog. That was part of the process. Nor did it hurt that I knew I could write. I knew that because a bit over a decade ago I sold more than enough sf/fan...
Organizing Your Freelance Writing Career
When I published the readers’ interview the other day, there was a follow up question from Melissa, who said: ‘I was hoping to find out how you schedule your time and keep organized’. This is a difficult area for many writers, es...
Ultimate Freelancing Guide Review
When I’d finished reading the Ultimate Guide To A Successful Freelancing Career, my first thought was: is that it? Twenty-nine pages doesn’t seem enough space to provide an ultimate guide to anything. Written by experienced freelance w...
Sharon Hurley Hall: Readers’ Interview
When you participate on the social sites, people are always asking questions. I thought I’d go one step further and ask my Plurk and Twitter pals if there were any questions they wanted to ask about my writing career. Here are their questions...
Are You Too Visible?
The other day I asked whether you were invisible as a freelance writer. While invisibility is undesirable, being too visible is also a problem. What do I mean by that? Deb Ng explained it best when she said that online is forever. It’s gre...
Are You Invisible?
When I started out as a freelance writer I was invisible - and that’s not a good thing to be. At the time I had years of writing experience, published clips in magazines and years of experience teaching journalism, but no one had ever heard of ...
A Writer’s Schedule
When I asked the other day for freelance writing questions on Plurk, AllenaTapia wanted to know about my schedule. It’s been some time since I wrote about my daily routine and a lot has changed in the last two years. My daughter is now in schoo...
Balancing Writing Jobs
I asked my fellow Plurkers what they wanted to know about freelance writing. JHipkin asked: how you keep a balance between looking for the next job and doing a good job on the current assignment? I gave a short answer to that question (due to the 140...
What Is Your Dream For Your Writing Career?
I was inspired by a recent post from Crystal at BigBrightBulb. She asked what we wanted to be when we grew up, encouraging us to share our childhood dreams. That thread makes good reading, but it got me to thinking that we don’t only have dream...
The Business Of Freelance Writing
I’ve always said that if you want to make it as a freelance writer, you have to take the business side seriously. Here’s another writer who is saying the same: James Chartrand. In a guest post on Poewar, called Want to be a Freelance Writ...
Three Reasons Why Freelance Writing Rocks
Believe it or not, this started as a tweet, after a particularly good day. I was having one of those moments when I was in love with the freelance writing life, and I started thinking about what made it special. Putting that into 140 characters didn&...
How To Find Success With Elance
Today, I’m happy to welcome Kerrie Spencer as a guest blogger. I’ve worked with Kerrie for a couple of years, and lately she’s been finding success with Elance, something that has eluded me despite success on other bidding sites. I ...
How To Work With Other Writers
It happens to all freelance writers at some time. Since writers always have to plan ahead to manage their workload, they may find that a rush job comes in to disturb their well organised schedule. For example, an established client may need something...
Freelancing Gold: Referrals And Repeats
Last night, a client I hadn’t heard from in just over a year emailed me to ask about rates for a new job. This is not the first time this has happened. I get a lot of repeat business from old clients and a few referrals as well. This is a gold ...
How To Crack Your Own Whip As A Freelance Writer
I was chatting to someone on Twitter the other day. One of the topics of conversation was motivating yourself to keep on working. I made the point that when you work for yourself you have to crack your own whip. I immediately began to think about w...
Getting Out Of The Time Warp
Does this ever happen to you? Sometimes you are confidently going along, thinking that everything is under control, when all of a sudden an unwelcome thought snakes its way to the forefront of your consciousness. Although you don’t really want ...
