Let me introduce you to what I like to call “high profit freelance writing.†Have you ever heard this phrase used before? My definition of this is not hard to understand. Generally speaking, high profit freelance writing for me is all about finding jobs that equate to an acceptable hourly wage. Let me explain in more detail…
I know some freelance writers who like to charge clients on an hourly rate; this has never been my style. In my opinion, having an hourly rate causes more problems than good. When a client touches base with me, I collect all the details of the project and then give them a per project price. But when I am doing this, I actually have an hourly rate in mind that I am hoping to earn.
For example, a mid-sized business recently contacted me for a quote on a 500 word sales letter. While I could have given them a fee within a matter of seconds, I instead took the time to gather details to make sure that the job would fit into the high profit category. After receiving these details, I came to the conclusion that the project would take approximately two hours to complete. Since I usually charge between $100 and $200 for this type of project, it was obvious from the get-go that I was going to make a lot of money on the deal. By charging $100 for the project, my rate would have worked out to $50/hour; charging $200 would have been $100/hour. Both of which are more than acceptable by my standards of high profit freelance writing. I offered to do the job for $150, and the client quickly accepted. In the end, it took me about two hours to complete the job; just what I had estimated.
Of course, not all of my freelance writing projects are this profitable. But fortunately, some of them are. When deciding whether or not to accept a job, you need to consider this high profit theory. I never accept or turn down a job until I write down a project cost estimate, time of completion estimate, and then work out the hourly rate. After doing this, it becomes much clearer as to whether or not I should move forward with the project.
If you can regularly accept projects that work out to an acceptable hourly wage, it is safe to say that you will make a solid freelance writing income from day one.
Working as a freelance writer means that you must be your own collection agency. In other words, there is nobody else to collect money from clients; this is your job. Luckily, most clients are good about paying what they owe on time. But just like any industry, there are going to be times when a client tries to stiff you. In order to decrease the chances of this happening, follow the five points listed below:
1. Demand a certain percentage of payment up front. This does not have to be the entire amount, but should be substantial. Most freelance writers agree that anywhere from one-third to one-half payment is fine. In the past I trusted people entirely too much. In turn, this resulted in several projects that I have yet to be paid for. You are much better off demanding some money up front. Explain why you are doing this, and work with the client to agree on reasonable terms. Once a client pays you once, you know that you can trust them in the future for the most part.
2. Keep in mind that situations do arise that will push payment back. Even if you mark on your invoice that payment should be made within 30 days, this may not happen. Some companies only cut checks once per month, and others are simply slow. If you do not get paid right away, do not accuse the client of scamming you. Instead, send a nice notice.
3. If possible, sign a contract with your client. As you probably know, this is not necessary or possible with every job that you take. After all, you are not going to draft a contract for one keyword article. But from my experiences, larger jobs should be backed by a contract. In most cases, you may not even have to do this as your client may beat you to it. Of course, before you sign a contract presented by a client, you should make sure that you agree to the terms.
4. Talk about payment with your client before you start the job; this goes along with number one above. Not only should you ask for some money up front, but also get an idea as to how you will get paid. Will the client send you a check? Do they use PayPal? These are all details to consider. When you open the lines of communication before the project starts, the chances of a problem later on is much less.
5. Although not always easy, try to dig into the clients past. With the help of the internet this is not as difficult as it once was. You won’t believe how many times I have had somebody contact me, just to ask around and find out that they are a fraud.
These five tips should help you to get paid soon after completing a freelance writing job. Just remember, every situation is different and should be dealt with accordingly.Â
It seems that all freelance writers have their “specialty.†This is more or less the type of projects that they work on the most. For some, this is keyword articles, for others business plans or sales letters. One of the best paying specialties to consider is feature articles. If you can break into this area you are sure to increase your monthly income.
As you probably know, feature articles are used by magazines of all sizes. These are the articles that are featured in the magazine due to their depth, detail, and most of the time length. Early on in my freelance writing career I did not concentrate much on feature articles. After all, these gigs are difficult to tie down because there is a lot of competition for them.
After a few months I began to send out query letters to mid-size magazines that matched my expertise. Soon enough, I landed a couple of regular jobs and was on my way from there. Check out a feature of mine in Insight Magazine; this is just one of many that I have completed in the past few years.
The most difficult part of breaking into feature article market is getting that first job. Without a lot of samples this can be difficult, but if you send out enough queries you are sure to get a bite sooner rather than later. From there, you can begin to narrow down your targets and build your career. Your first gig may not pay great, but it is a start nonetheless.
As mentioned briefly above, feature articles can pay very well. This is not always the case, but bigger publications pay $1/word and up. I have never earned that much per word, but have been close a couple of times. Just like anything else within the freelance writing industry, your pay will increase as you become better known and more proficient at writing feature articles.
No matter what stage of your career you are at, attempt to break into feature article writing sooner rather than later.
As you know, there are many ways to make money online. With that in mind, every so often a new program comes along that shows extreme promise. Over the past month, TNX.net has been getting a lot of solid reviews from bloggers. And after taking a close look at what they have to offer, it is obvious why this is the case.
Being that I am more of a publisher than advertiser, let’s take a look at this side of things first. The main benefit of being a publisher with TNX.net is that you will have the ability to sell links on every page of your blog or website; not just the homepage. Obviously, this is a huge benefit to not only your readers, but also to advertisers.
Other benefits of being a publisher include:
1. Monthly payouts made via check, wire, or PayPal. With more options for payout, it is safe to say that more members will join. After all, not everybody loves PayPal.
2. TNX.net only charges a 12.5 percent commission. This is miniscule when compared to other text link brokers/services.
3. Link prices are automatically calculated based on page rank, link, site popularity, and other like factors.
4. For publishers with no technical skills, like myself, it is easy to use the service thanks to a “copy and paste†method for installing the code.
Now for the benefits that advertisers can take advantage of. First and foremost, the price to buy links is quite affordable. A point system is used in which one point will purchase one text link. To make this even better, you can purchase 1,000 points for a little more than one dollar. When you compare this to offers at other text link services, it is easy to see just how much money you will save.
Other benefits of becoming an advertiser include:
1. The ability to receive targeted traffic to your website or blog. Isn’t that what most webmasters are looking for?
2. Improve your ranking in the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, etc.
3. An easy to follow and simple to understand interface. Once again, if you do not have a lot of experience like myself, this will make your life much easier.
For more information on this service, which pretty much offers free text link ads, you don’t have to look much further than some of the more popular money making blogs. It seems that everybody has had their say on what TNX.net has to offer. And up to this point, I have yet to find too many negative comments!
Once or twice a day I usually receive an email from an aspiring freelance writer. In most cases, they all have a similar question based around what it takes to make a full-time income. I have said time after time that I really didn’t do anything special to get my career started. Generally speaking, it took a lot of patience, hard work, and maybe even some luck.
Outside of the basics of being able to write, there are three things that every aspiring freelance writer should have in common:
1. Dedication to your craft is very important. If you are going to be successful with your freelance writing career you need to stick with it, day in and day out. There are going to be times when you feel down and out, or want to give up because nothing is going your way. You must treat every client and every project with a high degree of respect. When you are dedicated to your work, it will pay off largely as time goes by.
2. Having the right attitude is essential to starting a successful freelance writing career. If you are not in the right frame of mind, you might as well save your time. The right attitude consists of taking pride in your work, not being afraid of failure, and staying positive at all times. It is not always easy to keep a good attitude, but to be a success this is crucial. If you are negative all the time and are simply working to make a buck, this will show through in your work. And guess what? When that happens, your clients will catch on and you will be out of a job.
3. You have to realize that freelance writing is a business. No, you are not shipping products or making sales calls all day, but this is a business nonetheless. By treating your freelance writing career as a business you will find it much easier to act professionally. Remember, there is a big difference between having a freelance writing business and writing as a hobby.
When I was starting out as a freelance writer, I hung my hat on the three points listed above. And even though I am no longer new to the industry, I still rely on dedication, a good attitude, and a professional approach to my career.
Over the past couple of days, I have been asked by a few readers if I am still using Associated Content. The answer to this question at this time is simple: no. Simply put, I have not had the time to write for them over the past couple of months. Even though I believe that this is a great way to supplement my freelance writing income, I have too many other projects lined up at this time.
The bad thing about Associated Content is that you have to write blocks of articles for it to be worth your time. And of course, writing a block of articles can take an hour or so. With my current workload, taking an hour out of my day to write these articles is not worth my time. Could I make time for this? More than likely. But as of lately, I have wanted to spend more of my day on developing projects outside of my freelance writing career.
For those of you who have not read my Associated Content posts in the past, check them out for detailed statistics. You may be surprised to find out just how much you can make with this service.
To answer the question of how much you can earn with Associated Content, you will have to try out the service for yourself. With that being said, through some estimates and simple stats, I can show you how much I would make if I were to devote more time to the service.
Through past experience, I get offered just around $5/article; sometimes more, sometimes less, but this is average for the most part. Additionally, writing five articles per day would not take me more than an hour most of the time. As you can see, this would work out to $25/day from Associated Content. Over the course of a week this equals $125, or approximately $500/month.
Sometime in the near future when things settle down, I hope to get started with Associated Content once again. It would be really nice to add an extra $500 to my monthly total.
The more freelance writing jobs that you have in the pipeline, the more money you are going to make. So wouldn’t it be nice if the clients that you currently have would start to offer you more projects? Well, there is a simple way for you to turn one freelance writing job into another and so on. The secret of doing this is easier than you may think: all you have to do is ask.
To illustrate this, let’s take a look at one of my business clients that I have been working with for more than a year. The first job that they ever asked me to complete was 100 keyword articles. While these are not the largest percentage of my business, I do write them from time to time. I figured that accepting the job was a great way to get my foot in the door with a mid-sized firm. Not to mention the fact that they were willing to pay nearly $20/article.
Once the first 100 articles were complete, the client expressed how pleased they were with the work. Anytime that a client tells you how good of a job you did, there is a good chance for more work in the future. Immediately upon hearing their feedback, I offered my press release writing service to them. From reading their website I knew that they were distributing press releases on a regular basis, but that they were not as well formatted as they could be.
By simply asking to become their press release writer, I received another huge project. The client hired me to write two releases a week at a rate of $50 for each one. Although my rate has since increased, the company has kept me onboard nonetheless. It has been many months since I started working for them in this capacity, and each week they send me a couple hundred dollars for these press releases.
Set a goal of trying to turn one job for a client into another. By doing this, you will have a better chance of retaining clients month in and month out, while also giving yourself the chance to increase your freelance writing income.
One of my biggest mistakes in my early freelance writing days was that I undervalued my worth. In other words, I worked for low pay because I didn’t think that I deserved more. While there is nothing wrong with starting out at the bottom, too many freelance writers work for peanuts for entirely too long.
The main reason that many freelancers are afraid to raise their rates is because they think they will get laughed at. But guess what? This very rarely happens unless you increase your rates above and beyond anything imaginable. Remember, clients are willing to pay good money for good work. Believe it or not, a lot of companies and webmasters have been burnt by low quality content in the past because they tried to skimp and save money. For this reason, they are more than willing to pay you what you think you are worth.
The question is: how do you determine what you are worth as a freelance writer? There is no easy way of doing this, and much like me, you will have to learn as you go along. With that being said, there are two points to consider.
1. How much experience do you have? As mentioned above, when you do not have a lot of experience you cannot command high rates. But luckily, as you build a client list and samples you can quickly increase the amount of money that you charge. There is no easy way of taking your experience and directly relating it to your rates. This is something that you have to decide on based on what you are comfortable with, as well as what you think your clients will pay. My freelance writing rates are always on the move, and yours will be too.
2. Although I have beat on this a lot in the past, I want to say it again. Find out what other freelance writers in your shoes are charging. I am always on the look out for other writer’s rates so that I know what I am up against. If my prices are lower, I know that I have a leg up on them from the start. If they are higher, I don’t lower my rate, but instead sell my experience and work samples against the competition.
It is important that you believe that freelance writers are worth a lot of money. Remember, content rules. If a company or website does not have the words to explain themselves or sell their product, they will be out of business in no time at all. For this reason, they are willing to spend a reasonable amount of money on a solid, reliable freelance writer like yourself. Â
As you may have seen, I switched ChrisBlogging to the new design this morning. Well, several unexpected issues occurred. They included some Internet Explorer compatibility issues, and some problems with the sidebar. At this time, I am working with the designer to figure things out.
In the meantime, I wanted to go back to my original theme. Even though I like the new design, the whole point of this blog is to teach freelance writing, not to look good. So until the new design is 100 percent correct, I’ll stick with this one. Simply put, I don’t want to do anything that will compromise the information that I supply!
Thanks to everybody for their patience. For now, let’s get back to talking about freelance writing!
If you are reading this post, you are doing so while looking at the new design of ChrisBlogging. What do you think? Even though it took a while to get the new theme up and running, I am quite happy with the final result. I really wanted to add an updated look and feel, and in my opinion this was accomplished quite nicely.
You will notice that this design is nothing like the old one. Just a few of the major additions include a 728 x 90 banner, as well as six 125 x125 buttons. If you read other blogs, which I am sure you do, you have probably seen similar set-ups.
Additionally, you will also notice that I have added a search box and the ability to subscribe to ChrisBlogging via email. Both of these tools should definitely help readers. If you don’t use an RSS reader, taking advantage of an email subscription is a great way to stay up to date with all my posts.
All in all, I am happy to finally be working with the new design. It is my hopes that this will make for a better experience for me, as well as all my readers.
If you have any opinion or question on the design, be sure to leave a comment or send me an email. Of course, Stumbling this post and/or subscribing to my feed are also greatly appreciated!
