Freelance Writing

I have always believed that setting career related goals is the key to success. After all, if you do not know what you want to accomplish, how will you know what direction to head? Just like any other career, if you are interested in freelance writing and/or blogging you need to set goals.

The main reason that many freelance writers and bloggers do not set goals is because they have no idea what to strive for. While it can be difficult to set solid, realistic goals, you need to do so in order to achieve success.

As a freelance writer, there are several goals that you can make for yourself. First off, set a goal for how much money you want to earn each month. While doing this, make sure that you are realistic. You may earn $7,500/month sooner or later, but in your first month as a freelance writer this is probably not going to happen.

Additionally, you can set freelance writing goals based on the number of queries you send out or contacts you make. For instance, tell yourself that you will send query letters/emails to at least three publications a week. Many of these may turn into rejection, but over time you are sure to breakthrough. The nice thing about a goal like this is that anybody can do it. As long as you have the motivation to send out letters, you will reach this goal. It has nothing to do with quantity of work or income.

On the blogging side of things, you can set similar goals. Many bloggers set goals based around traffic numbers, backlinks, and of course, income.

As you move forward, you will want to make sure that you adjust your goals to suit your needs. For instance, if you have a goal of earning $1,000/month via freelance writing, you will want to work hard until you succeed. But guess what? At that time, you should set a new goal; one that will push you even higher. Over time, as you reach each goal you will be able to look back at your starting point and see just how far you have come.

Through my experience, setting small goals with your freelance writing and/or blogging careers is the best way to go. This will help you to reach your large goals sooner, and in turn keep you motivated as you move forward.  

Just about 15 days ago I wrote a post detailing the link that I received from the freelance writing section of about.com. You are probably wondering what this has done for this blog, right? Even though I have not kept extremely close tabs on the results, I have noticed several benefits related to receiving this link.

First and foremost, I have received just about 200 visits from about.com since being linked to. This is not a huge traffic referrer, but obviously it is better than nothing; after all, it woks out to just about 13 visitors a day.

I am not quite sure if the about.com link has anything to do with the increase in my RSS readership, but I would say that it didn’t hurt. My current number of subscribers is ranging anywhere from 55 to 65. In late September, this number was closer to 40. Even though this is far from where I want to be, an increase of this percentage is always a good thing; no matter if it was related to the incoming link or not.

Unfortunately, getting a top level link from a site like about.com is not easy to do. I got lucky that the freelance writing guru for them decided that my freelance writing income was worth talking about. Hopefully as this blog continues to grow, more and more links from top of the line blogs and sites will begin to roll in. And if I am really lucky, about.com may include me in future stories!

I seem to be asked the same questions regarding freelance writing time and time again. The most common is: what kind of money do freelance writers earn? If you have any interest in freelance writing income, you will want to check out my posts on how much money I have made in the last few months. This will show you that I usually earn between $4,500 and $6,000 per month. But guess what? Things were not always this way. There have been months when I earned more, and early on, months when I earned less.

At this time, I have pretty much settled into a freelance writing income of approximately $5,000/month. I always say that my goal is $4,500/month because that will give me an annual income of $54,000. Why am I happy settling for that amount? Well, there is no easy answer to that question.

In the past, when I was concentrating solely on freelance writing, I was earning in excess of $6,500/month, and in some cases up to $9,000. Obviously, this was a great time for me because I was making more money than I ever thought possible. But at the same time, I was working my fingers to the bone and becoming stressed out over too many deadlines.

Earlier this year I decided to cut back on my freelance writing workload, and devote more of my time to developing blogs and other online businesses. This meant that I would lose a couple thousands of dollars of income per month, but so far I am more than happy with the decision. Being able to complete all of my freelance writing projects in an average of four hours per day has opened up plenty of time for other work, such as this blog. My hope is that my internet based projects eventually make up the couple thousand dollars that I am losing by cutting back my freelance writing workload.

With all of that being said, I still never answered your question, right? Just how much money can you make with a career in freelance writing? From my experience, this ranges from $0 to $9,000/month. I usually find my freelance writing income in the middle of that range. But remember, I am not the only full-time freelance writer. There are many who put my income to shame! 

There have been a lot of factors that have contributed to my freelance writing success. In many cases, it was the small details that have helped me to succeed along the way. Too many aspiring freelance writers get caught up in the large details that are on the surface, and in turn forget about the minor tasks that need to be taken care of in an efficient manner.

Here are five rarely thought of freelance writing tips. They are sure to help no matter what stage of your career you may be in.

1. First and foremost, you do NOT have to be a great writer in order to succeed in this business. Believe it or not, I do not think of myself as a great writer. Do I have solid writing skills? Of course. But this does not mean that I am better than everybody else. As long as you have a good command of the English language and can follow what your clients want, you should be just fine.

2. Your marketing skills are almost as important as your writing skills. Even if you are a great writer, nobody will know that you exist unless you also learn how to market yourself. Take the time to try out different marketing techniques ranging from starting your own service related website to cold calling.

3. Hard work will pay off when it comes to freelance writing. How bad do you want to start a career in this field? For me, failing as a freelance writer was never an option. I had no other job at the time of starting, and I needed the money to pay the bills. If you have a sense of desperation, you will be able to turn your freelance writing career into a successful one.

4. Do not worry too much about money during the early days of your freelance writing career. Does this mean that you should work for less than what you are worth? Maybe, maybe not. But when it comes down to it, you need to start somewhere; and for many, this is with low paying jobs. My first jobs only paid a dollar or so per article. I would never work for that rate now, but back then I was glad to have money coming in.

5. Guess what? Freelance writing can get boring. Even if you love writing, as I do, from time to time you are going to hit a wall. When this happens, it is always nice to have another project to work on. And that is why I have started several blogs over the past year or so. A blog combines what I like about freelance writing with other business related aspects.

Can you put these tips to good use? If you are a freelance writer, your answer should be yes. When it comes to freelance writing, the big things do not always mean the most.

Generally speaking, I see myself as a freelance writer. This is what I do, and it is safe to say that I wouldn’t trade this job for any other. But with that being said, I have become addicted to blogging, internet marketing, and internet business as a whole over the past six months. Even though I have several projects in the pipeline right now, this blog is definitely one of the most promising.

There are several reasons that I am confident that ChrisBlogging will continue to move forward with success. First off, the blog is moving in the right direction, month in and month out. I may not be making huge amounts of money, but that is not my main concern at this time. Simply put, I want to continue to build quality content and traffic. In time, both of those will begin to help when it comes to monetization.

If ChrisBlogging is to succeed in the future, several changes need to be made. First and foremost, a unique design is necessary for a number of different reasons. Mainly, a unique design will set ChrisBlogging apart from the crowd, while also helping as far as branding is concerned. Additionally, more monetization methods will be opened up with a new design. I have been working with a designer for the past week, and am excited about making my new theme live sometime in the very near future. In fact, I am going to give a preview very soon so that advertisers and potential contributors can get on board. 

Another important aspect of future success is the continuation of quality posts. While I have only gone without a post one day since starting this blog, I want to ramp up production very soon. With so much to say about freelance writing and blogging, two posts per day would be much more suitable. Of course, this will hopefully lead to more traffic.

All in all, as long as I continue to post quality articles and help readers, I will feel like this blog is a huge success. And I don’t plan on changing either of those things in the near future.

One of the biggest issues of a career in freelance writing is finding new jobs. Not only can this be difficult due to the competition, but many of the leads that are floating around are “dead.” What is a dead freelance writing lead, you may ask?

I categorize a dead lead as one that has been posted for several days, and really offers no hope of converting into a job. Even though you may still want to apply for a job a few days after going live, your chance of getting a response is quite low. The reason for this is that most freelance writing job posters get bombarded with emails within minutes of adding their job to a popular website such as Craigslist or Freelancewriting.com. In the past I have posted smaller jobs on these sites, and over the course of two to three days received more than 50 emails. As you can imagine, the pool for the hiring party to choose from is quite great. This is why I say that a lead is as good as dead after a couple days.

Unfortunately, there are some leads that start out dead because the person posting the job has no intention on hiring anybody. If you visit a bidding site such as GetAFreelancer, you will see this time and time again. One of the oldest tricks in the book is for somebody to ask for a sample on the topic that they are going to “hire” you to write about. This allows them to get samples from several writers, in many cases 10 or more, and then never hire anybody. In turn they can collect a large number of unique articles without having to pay for them. And since every freelance writer is trying to win the job, the quality of the samples are usually good. There is nothing wrong with sending a past sample, but writing one just to have a chance at a job is a bad idea. More times than not, those asking for these types of samples are trying to get articles for free.

There are a lot of dead freelance writing leads floating around the internet. But remember, this does not mean that all leads are a waste of time. As you become more comfortable as a freelance writer, you will be able to quickly determine which leads to follow up on and which leads to ignore.

Although I do not spend much time considering the PageRank of this blog, it has come to my attention that Google is in the middle of an update. Since this blog is new, it is still at PageRank 0 at this time. Is this going to change sometime in the near future?

By scouring the blogosphere for a few hours this morning, I came across several posts by bloggers who are using the iWebTool Google PageRank Prediction tool. From what I read, this tool is pretty accurate; being correct 9 out of 10 times for the most part.

Since it only takes a few seconds to use this tool, I gave it a whirl. It is showing ChrisBlogging as having a Current PageRank of 0. The predicted PageRank, whenever this happens to occur, is 4; which is quite good for a new blog. The accuracy is shown at 87.9%, and the backlinks number is showing 3,342.

If this tool ends up being accurate, I will be ecstatic. When it comes down to it, a PageRank of 4 is sure to increase search engine traffic, while also giving me more clout when moving forward with future advertising options.

Of course, despite what some webmasters say, tools such as this one have no way of being 100 percent accurate. After all, Google is not going to make it easy for anybody and everybody to accurately predict this type of information.

There is no way of knowing when Google will update the PageRank of this blog. All I do know is that the updates are taking place at this time. Even though I am not too concerned with PageRank, it would be nice to see an increase in time.

When thinking about becoming a freelance writer, most people are worried about making enough money. But did you ever stop to think that working at home as a freelance writer will save you money as well? When it comes down to it, you could save hundreds or maybe even thousands of dollars per month.

Here are three ways that you can save money by becoming a home based freelance writer.

1. When you work in an office, there is a good chance that you will spend money on lunch, day in and day out. This is something that I used to do, and it proved to be costly. Everyday, I would spend an average of $4-5 at McDonalds or another fast food joint. If you multiply this by an average of 20 workdays a month, I was spending just about $100. And guess what? Some people spend even more, and others add breakfast into the equation as well. When you work at home, it is safe to say that you will not be running out to grab fast food everyday at lunch. After all, what’s wrong with the leftovers in the refrigerator?

2. Gas prices are high, and unfortunately it does not appear that they are falling. For me, this used to be a killer thanks to a 50 mile round trip commute to the office. Before I was a home based freelance writer I was filling up my gas tank at least once per week for just about $50. Now, I usually fill up once per month. This works out to a savings of approximately $150.

3. Do you know how expensive daycare is? I have yet to have to pay this bill, but in the future this may change. After a bit of research in my area, it appears that daycare for one child is around $700-900 per month. Even though it may be difficult to work at home and take care of a child, it is probably worth the savings. Since I don’t have kids, that is only my opinion, but saving that kind of money sounds like a great idea to me!

Based on the three expenses above, becoming a home based freelance writer could save you on average $1,050/month. Over the course of a year, that works out to $12,600!

As you can see, even if you do not make as much money freelance writing as you do with your current job, the savings may cancel out these lost earnings in the end. 

As you probably know, paid reviews are all the rage within the blogosphere. For every blogger that is against writing these reviews, there are just as many who are attempting to cash in on them. How do you feel about paid reviews?

Personally, I have yet to give any of these programs a solid try. I signed up with PayPerPost a couple months back, but decided against moving forward because it would have forced me to take Google AdSense off this blog. With that being said, blogging is all about experimenting. So sometime in the future I may decide to compare my AdSense income against PayPerPost.

There are a lot of big time bloggers making big time money with ReviewMe. Of course, if you want to join them you are going to need a blog that draws a lot of traffic, and has good name recognition.

If I ever decide to offer paid reviews, I will more than likely do so on my own, without the help of a service such as ReviewMe. This will allow me to make the rules, while also keeping 100 percent of the revenue.

As long as paid reviews are disclosed to readers and honest in nature, I do not see anything wrong with them. They can be a lot of fun to write, and for many, a great way to generate some additional income via their blog.

What does freelance writing mean to you? For most, this career is mainly involved around writing for a wide variety of clients. Of course, there are other tasks that you will have to take care of in order to keep your business running smooth. For instance, you must pay taxes on time, keep good accounting records, and much more.

But what happens when your freelance writing clients want more than words? In other words, they ask you to write for them, but then spring additional tasks on you as well. If this does not sound familiar to you, you have been lucky thus far. While most freelance writing clients will never ask you to do extra work, there are some that do not operate this way.

One of the extras that I have come across time after time is being asked to post articles after I write them. In other words, a client wants me to write an article for them, and then post it with special instructions to their static website or blog. Is this a big deal? Not really; it usually only takes a few minutes per article. But with that being said, it can be time consuming if you have several clients asking you to do the same.

Is it alright to ask for more money if a freelance writing client wants you to do more than write? This is a tough spot because you want to get paid for your time and work, but on the same token you do not want to put the client off. If you are lucky, the client will ask you to do additional tasks, and then offer you some extra money to do so. As of right now, I upload articles for several clients, and each one has offered to pay me accordingly.

If you are not comfortable with these additional tasks, there is nothing wrong with saying no. The fact of the matter is that your job is to write, and you may not want to get involved in any other way. But before you turn down non-writing work, you should consider what you are doing. You may miss out on some additional income, or worse yet, put a client off by not working with them in this manner.