Transition to full-time freelance writing is in full swing...

It's becoming official. I have now cut my hours at my day job to 7am-noon and am home by 12:15 everyday to do freelance work and am now freed up to have a full-time schedule. Up until now I have been working from the time I got home at 4pm until I went to bed (with the exception of a meal in there and maybe a television show) and mostly all day on weekends. It was mostly alright with me, I love what I do and I even love the grunt-work aspect, the organizing, the billing, the finances, etc. so it didn't seem all that bad. I haven't felt like it was taking up all my time, I haven't dreaded doing my freelance work, and my Dude is usually busy playing Xbox or his work he brought home from the office. But now...now I am free to actually schedule myself, have quiet time just me and my computer and write like crazy. Then I still have time to hang out with my Dude. Also, I'm pretty much making the same as I did at my full-time day job so all is good so far.

Bullies in the School Yard

A huge pet peeve of mine lately is watching freelance writers, on their blogs, make fun of newbies that have contacted them about freelance advice. I'm not even going to give you the sites or post examples because I'd be doing something along the same lines, you'll see them at some point if you're actively in the freelance writing blogosphere. I just want to make a few points about this.

Perhaps you are a newbie, or maybe you can remember back to when you were first starting out, imagine that you have contacted a freelance writer regarding advice, if you have done so then you are probably reading their blog here and there (if not regularly) because you perhaps hold their opinion/experience in some sort of high regard and believe they have something to teach you. Then soon after you see that they have blogged about you inquiry, perhaps even publishing your email in it's entirety with everything except your name and they are scathingly pointing out all of your typos/misspellings, or making comments that are poking fun at your questions, your comments, etc. Even if others don't know it was you who wrote that email, YOU know it and I personally would be embarrassed and maybe even wonder if I should get into freelancing at all.

I have absolutely no respect for freelance writers who do this. Not to mention, I've noticed at least one who links their freelance writing blog to their professional website and if I were a potential client of theirs and read something like that I'd immediately look elsewhere for my writer.

5 Reasons NOT to make fun of newbies:

1) It's completely unprofessional. You are running a business and unless you are warning your fellow freelancers against a certain "scammer" (see post on Jessica Mousseau a few posts down) you have no business passing public judgment on a fellow freelance writer.
2) You are a teacher whether you know it or not. If you are blogging about freelance writing, you are establishing yourself as an expert in that field and your purpose is to give advice. You took on that responsibility when you wrote your first freelance writing blog post, so live up to it. Encourage newbies or find a way to gently point out what they could improve, and answer questions with patience and compassion for them. They are starting a new venture, which can be scary and intimidating.
3) You were once that person. No matter what, when you started freelancing you most certainly had questions and how would you have felt if your questions had been publicly ridiculed? People need help and experience is the best kind of help people can get.
4) You are human. You most certainly made mistakes when starting out and most likely still do because YOU ARE HUMAN. Perhaps a newbie had typos/mistakes in their email, gently point out that they may want to work on that and be sure that all of their communication with others is virtually error-free--they probably already know they make typos. I personally make typos all the time, I know this, I don't really need to be reminded publicly, a personal email will do just fine, thank you.
5) You reek of insecurity. To me, this is the worst. If you are making fun of someone else, it makes you seem as if you think you are better than another. If you appear arrogant, well, arrogance is just simply the biggest, clearest window into your insecurity. Maybe you make fun to discourage the writer because you can't take the competition? I don't really know, all I know is that if you ARE trying to cut the competition out there than you are probably the one needing advice because you should just be focused on being the best you can be. If you are confident in your abilities you won't need to worry about competition, you'll have plenty of work and no time to play petty games. If you are confident in your ability you won't need to publicly make fun of people to make yourself feel better about yourself. Who cares if you don't make typos or ask what you may call "stupid questions"?

I have no respect for those people who make fun of others and I feel sorry for them that they can't seem to be more understanding and empathetic. They are likely hurting themselves and their business whether they know it or not.

I hated middle school and high school and don't really care to go back, so let's just all be respectable as writers and just make sure we're doing our best in all arenas and having some compassion for others.

Freelance Writing: SALES

I've mentioned before about how when you're a freelancer you are every department. Marketing, HR, Accounting, etc. What I have recently found out is that you are also your own sales department.
I have ALWAYS hated salespeople and although it's one of the highest paying fields that doesn't require a degree, I have never been the type to be able to sell things. When I was a telemarketer in college we had scripts of things to say in different situations of rejection, as soon as the words "no thank you" came out of their mouth we were supposed to launch right into another paragraph to get them to change their minds. Not really my style, I'm a little more low-key, a little more chill...ok, I'm a flippin' introvert who absolutely cannot push anything on anyone.

BUT I found that I'm actually not too bad at sales in the freelance world. Recently I scored a gig writing some web/SEO content for a web design company. In reviewing their site I noticed they had a blog, I sent an email to the client letting her know I'd noticed the blog, would love to help her write articles and could send her my rates if she was interested. She said she was. WHAT? I had to read it again... did I really just cross-sell something?
THEN, since hers is a company that designs websites she also offered to start offering copy writing to her clients that she could then pass on to me...SAY WHAT?

This is by far the best client I've ever had and I've been pretty lucky in the client category so far.
I've learned that it definitely pays to cross-sell your services and put it out there that you are looking for a lasting professional relationship with your clients. Maybe most of you have been doing this, but if you haven't then please do. Look around their site and see if there are any other services you could sell them on, then like a good salesperson, perhaps even offer them a discount for it.

Your freelance writing name

Part of marketing yourself as a freelance writer is branding yourself. Part of branding yourself is making sure Google can find you.
I recently found that my name in Google comes up as a pizza joint named Courtney's in Latham, New York. Along with a few other Courtney's Facebook profiles (not mine of course), a Myspace profile, a soccer player, some kid who is on honor roll (glad one of us has been) and finally my high school graduation announcement. Ok, so I was on honor roll once or twice...I think. Ok, let's just say I made nothing but A's in a few classes and read books behind my binder in all the others.

So what to do? It's not quite an issue yet, I haven't finished my professional website, I just started the transition into FULL-TIME freelance writing about two months ago (previously it was sporadic freelance) and I just started utilizing blogs and posting to forums, etc. So no worries yet.

Courtney Latham isn't a hugely popular name, but it's popular enough to require a little more effort on my part to get in the top rankings on Google.
OR, another option is choosing a pen name of course, a bit of a romantic notion if you sway that way...OR you can jsut come up with variations of your name. This is especially important if your name is John Smith, there will of course be countless Pocahontas links before yours even remotely comes up unless you are already a celebrity, in which case, why would you be reading this blog in the first place?

Start Googling variations, how does John C. Smith come up? Or even better: John Z. Smith? How many people do you think have a "Z" initial? Plus you have the added bonus of having this mysterious persona...what's their middle name? Zachariah? Zachius? Zeek? Who knows? The world will be on the edge of their seat trying to figure it out. Alright, maybe not so much, but it helps with Google rankings a bit if you have a variation that fewer people have...less competition and easier to move up in rankings.

Also you need to check to see if that name is available as a domain name, if it is buy it asap whether you will use it or not. Then buy up similar names too if you can. You can check your domain names here.

Also you can check how many people in the U.S. have your name and work off of that, check it out at How Many of Me.

Marketing yourself as a freelance writer

Here is another freelance writing tips excerpt I wrote for a writing contest on Writer's Resources. This one is about marketing yourself as a freelance writer. Click on the links to get the full article.

Pretend you are Robert Scoble Excerpt:

Pretending you are Robert Scoble simply means you should run your freelance writing as a marketing firm. Businesses often have several different departments, as should your freelance business. You sell your own product, you do your own accounting, you perform all administrative tasks, you are your customer service representative and perhaps most importantly, you are your own marketing department.
In theory, your actual billable hours should be about 50% of your time and your marketing should be the other 50% with the rest as overtime…does any freelancer actually only work 40 hours a week? I have a day job as a marketing manager and I’m still putting in over 40 in all the tasks that must be done as a freelancer.
So here are three ideas you should consider about your freelance writing marketing efforts...

More...

Keep that creative mind working

Here's an excerpt of a freelance writing tips article I wrote for a contest on Writer's Resources click on the links to read the full article.

Mind Wandering Excerpt:

Maybe you’ve been here—you have a project due to your editor tomorrow morning and you’ve dabbled at it here and there for a week but now that it’s due tomorrow, it’s crunch time so you spend the entire day forcing words out, backspacing, forcing more words and it’s just not working. You start with a blank document thinking it will help you refocus your thoughts. Nothing. Eventually, in the middle of the night you end up with some semblance of an article that you turn in the next day, not necessarily happy with your work, but just happy to have it done. I’ve so been there. What I found as a remedy surprised me (and stressed me out until I got used to it). When you are trying to focus you are narrowing your mind, forcing it into a box that’s limited by your subject matter...

Read the full article here

Trying to write on a trip....

Ok, so I'm back from a whirlwind trip to Colorado and ready to post! The purpose of my trip was to tie up some loose ends with our previous landlord and get our beautiful deposit back, and plan this long-distance wedding we're trying to plan.
So I take my laptop with every intention of writing at every possible moment, the plane, the airport, the car, morning coffee, the hotel, etc. and so I schlep this 4.4 pound laptop everywhere, go through the irritatingly inconvenient ritual of removing my laptop, shoes, belt, jacket, dignity, jewelry, and everything else short of the under-wire in my bra to get through security--which now in some airports includes some radiation test where you stand in a tube, put your arms in the air so that everyone three rows over and behind you can see your pit stains caused from driving in Houston with no AC in the car, while a glass door slides around you...the cool thing is that you get to see your skeleton and besides the fact that you now notice you probably have scoliosis, it's pretty cool.
So, back to the laptop...I cart it everywhere on my trip, now have knots in my shoulder from doing so and do not have one damn word to show for it. My time was so consumed with appointments and trying to meet with 10 different friends at 10 different times that I didn't have a chance to write at all. Write on the plane, you say? I would have but I was in the middle seat and it really creeps me out when people can easily watch me write and read everything I'm writing. And people do...until I turn to stare at them and they bury their nose back into their crossword puzzle, but I really like avoiding confrontation and I'll still feel like they are watching me and I'll just sit there trying to find something to write that they would be impressed by, just in case I'm sitting next to David Sedaris' publishing folks at Little Brown and they want to offer me a contract. Ha.
There's no point to this, just expressing some freelance frustration. I got a few quips down from conversations that I can use later, but no actual work. Such is the freelance life, I guess.

Why there are freelance writers in the world...

While posting a press release on PR Web for the company I work for I came across a fairly recent press release for a fitness apparel company, who presumably wrote the press release themselves and if they didn't then they should have asked to see samples from their writer or at least skimmed over it before it was submitted...take a look at this line...

"We stand behind all of out items 100 percent. If we would not wear it, we would sell it."

Maybe I missed the point of this company, but I thought the idea was to encourage people to buy their stuff. It hardly inspires confidence in a buyer when it looks like you say you wouldn't wear what you sell (or something along these lines). Not to mention the typo. This is why we have freelance writers in the world, to keep people from making these mistakes that aren't just a little typo but one that changes the whole meaning of your press release. A lot of people probably can guess what they really meant to say, but you shouldn't have to make those readers guess in something that is in quotations from the owner of a company. "Wow" is all I have to say.
Read the whole press release here.

How could anything be as bad as writer's block?

There is such a thing as TOO many ideas. My brain is racing, I need to submit this here, that there, apply for these assignments, post these 35 blog posts that I have in my head (especially my book reviews blog, there's not even ONE up there yet!), start that ebook I've been talking about for a year and read other blogs and comment all while also needing to find time to read and eat and walk the dog and actually look up from my computer to talk to this dude that lives with me, I think he's still my boyfriend at least...he hasn't come home from work yet and it's getting late....
Well, then I sit down to actually start taking care of all this and...NOTHING. I sit down and I stare. Just stare. I don't know where to begin, I don't know which would be best to do first. Then if I actually DO get one started, ideas from another topic start surfacing and I have to go tend those so I don't forget those great one-liners, but then it becomes 15 open word documents of two-sentence pieces. And they don't work just mashed together in some experimental attempt to be like Samuel Beckett. Besides, I'm going to leave that back in my highschool days when I thought I was a 90's beatnik.
Soooooo what I have started doing is keeping a running list then, although not "green", I write each on separate post-it notes and only look at ONE at a time. My brain gets fried trying to view everything I have to do at once and likes it so much better when it thinks it only has to do one thing.
So does anyone else have this problem? And what do you do for it to keep you on task and get it all done? Write like mad? Stare like I do? Give up on the least promising ones and focus more energy on the best?

Jessica Mousseau, what are you thinking?

I don't know if you follow Writers Weekly and I don't know if you have heard of Jessica Mousseau, but Writers Weekly has recently posted a string of emails involving a complaint a writer filed to them involving one Ms. Jessica Mousseau and frankly I am appalled at Mousseau's behavior according to this string of communication. Go ahead and read it, read it ALL, it's so worth it. Go on, I'll wait here...


I am incredibly embarrassed for Ms. Mousseau who doesn't seem to know the first thing about effective communication, the definition of libel, the definition of plagiarism, and seems to have lied about having her degree--and it looks as if she may be lying about other things as well but that's just my opinion and you can read the site and form your own opinions. Just wanted to put this out there in case Jessica Mousseau was someone to watch out for while in your freelancing travels looking for gigs on the internet.

Feel free to let me know if you think I have been "libelous". But please make sure you know what it means: Libel: A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation. What many people forget is that libel is only libel if it's false. Opinions expressed do not fall into this category, opinions are "non-actionable." Everything written in this post is the author's (me) express opinion.

Regaining that creative flow

I subscribe to Pamela Slim's blog and newsletter Escape From Cubicle Nation and yesterday's newsletter was about life getting in the way of creativity entitled, "How to be creative when you feel like a brick of concrete" and I could have sworn Pamela Slim had been stalking me yesterday.

I have been running on manic energy trying to get my blogs launched, trying to get my freelance business going, it's all I've thought about, it's been my entire life for awhile now but it's all logistical stuff, I've not been as successful in my creativity lately because I'm too busy trying to take care of all these smaller matters that some part of me thought was going to allow me to be creative...and it may, but I need to slow down and back off because they are really just a distraction. My mind tricked me! I thought I was doing all this in the name of creativity and really it was just a clever ploy to get me to put off writing.

Slim wrote mostly about other aspects of life getting us caught up in the whirlwind: family, pets, other jobs until we're so exhausted that we just want to get away and we think that by sitting on the couch watching hours of TV or cuddling up with a bottle of wine will do it but that just robs us of creativity even more. (wow, what a run-on!)

She offers suggestions of exercise, getting away with the purpose of writing or engaging your creativity, helping others, etc.

I have things that I do personally to regain my creativity, that I would share now if I didn't have to get ready for my regular job. So, I will post more about that later.