It Shouldn't Happen To A Freelance Writer

Now that I'm a freelance writer, I'm happy doing what I've always wanted to do, but that doesn't mean it's always easy. For the first time in a long time (and I mean LONG), I had a piece of work returned to me for revision. It's a research job, looking for additional information to accompany articles. The irony is that I'm the one who set the standard for this particular type of work, so you'd think I'd know how to do it right. Not necessarily - and here's why.

The Writing Brief

As a freelance writer, the writing brief is the most important part of your job. After all, how else are you to know what to do? But briefs aren't always clear and when you're working through an intermediary (as in this case) you don't speak to the person giving the brief. So it's a bit like pin the tail on the donkey. You might get it right, but you have an even greater chance of missing the mark completely. (By the way, this isn't the intermediary's fault, but if the client doesn't brief the middleperson correctly, then the middleperson can't brief the writer correctly.)

Now, don't feel depressed by this. Once you're an experienced writer, or you have experience with certain types of writing, your chances of getting the job right first time increase. But this job is an example of being lulled into a false sense of security. See, I did the sample topics, found lots of info and links, but what I didn't realise is that I was tapping into the client's unspoken criteria. And those are the ones that bite you in the butt.

Some clients know what they want and give a clear brief, but they are in the minority. Others have an idea of what they want which becomes more defined when they don't get it. In this case, the client wanted a certain number of links in a certain number of categories, but this had never been put in writing or articulated. The upshot of that was that I submitted one article (that I couldn't find a lot of links for) and had it bumped back to me.

Working Through Rejection

I'm only human. I don't like having work returned. It wasted my time, because I had to spend time redoing work that I thought I had finished. That stopped me from doing other jobs. As a professional, though, I have to be prepared to revise work if it's not right. If I do it quickly and without complaining (except to you), then I'll continue to get work from that source.

The good thing is that now I know what the criteria are. That means I can work more efficiently. And I hope I won't get any more work returned for this particular job.

The moral of the story:

1. Try to find out as much as possible about what is required (it never occurred to me to ask how many links the client wanted).
2. Where possible, deal directly with the client (middlepeople sometimes make for misunderstandings)
3. If you have to do a rewrite or revision, don't complain or argue, just do it (freelance writers need thick skins).
4. Even an experienced writer can have work returned

Have you had work returned for revision? How do you deal with the knockbacks?

1000 And Counting - Website Promotion

Website promotion works. I love the sound of this number. 1000. It rolls off the tongue and gladdens the mind. I'll tell you why. That's the number of unique visitors to my freelance writing site in July. These are my best figures yet and it's all been done through free promotional techniques (and the contacts I've made here on WritingUp). Now, I know these are small figures compared to a lot of big league sites, but they're not bad for a freelance writer's site that's just over a year old.

To get to this point I have used self-promotion of all kinds, including blog carnivals, writing free articles, and looking around for any articles that will help me find out what the next step is. I've taken advice from Mitch, Haven and gracepub and many others.

But this is not just about blowing my own trumpet. The thing is that you can do this too, if you want to. There's no big secret (especially since I've been blogging about it for a year). It's just a matter of taking the time to do it.

And by the way, just so you know, not everything's going my way. One job has stiffed me for GBP150 - so I need to figure out how I'm going to recover it.

Stepping Into Self-Publishing

When I signed up with Lifetips several months ago, I didn't know what I was letting myself in for. Within a short space of time I had written on fruit, video chat and conversational Spanish. Spanish meshed well with my previous experience and fruit was general knowledge, but to do video chat I had to step out of my comfort zone and I mean way out. I'd just about heard of webcams, but had no idea, until I did this site, about their history and the many things you could do with them.

In the last month or so, I've done a couple more sites for them. I did an intro page to freelance writing (not live yet) and some tips on educational travel. Freelance writing was relatively easy, while educational travel was done late at night and in a hurry after my laptop trauma. (Not my best work, it's safe to say, but it was competent and it was delivered on time.

But now I'm really happy, because I've become their expert on self-publishing. To do this, I had to assess the existing site, write 10 new tips and advise on how the site could be improved. In return, I've got a link to my blog and to my new ebook. It seems a good deal to me. Self-publishing, here I come!

Where I Get Paid To Write

I'm going to be terribly un-British today. In the UK, people don't talk about what they earn. They mask the true picture behind phrases such as 'could be worse' (meaning, I'm not on the breadline yet) and 'I do all right' (meaning, I'm rolling in it). But today I'm going to talk about cash for writing. Specifically, the places I've written for in the past six months to a year that have helped my freelance writing career and my bank balance by paying cold, hard cash. I hope you'll manage to make these sources pay you, too.

Get Paid To Write With Lifetips.com

Lifetips.com is a tips site where you get paid to write tips on just about everything. After doing 10 free tips you get access to the paid tips jobs. For these you have to write up to 100 keyword based tips for up to $1000. You also have to write up to 30 sponsored tips for $10 each.


My only gripe with Lifetips is that what you get paid per tip depends on the editor's assessment of their usefulness. However, if you're happy with earning about $850 for 100 tips of about 150 words each, then this will suit you. New tips sites come up every week and if you're in a slump you can answer users' questions at $3 a pop. I plan to write about Lifetips in more detail in another post, but what's important is that they pay on time. Cheques go out on the 1st of every month and in my best month with them (2 tips sites and several user questions), I netted over $1,600.

Get Paid To Write With ExquisiteWriting

ExquisiteWriting.com is an agency that lets me get paid to write, but frees me from the pain of bidding myself. It's run by Julie-Ann Amos and works really well. Whenever jobs come in she sends emails to a few people offering them round and you get a commission and a pay rate. Julie-Ann offers a basic pay rate plus more if the job pays more. She also seems to have an endless stream of work, so it's worth contacting her through the site.

Pay from this site has been around $800 a month - and I could have had more if I'd been working full time. I like writing for this company because they pay twice or three times a week by Paypal or (if you live in the UK) credit transfer. You write, you invoice, you get paid. As a freelance writer, that works well for me.

Get Paid To Write With Blogitive

I've had a lot to say about getting paid to write with Blogitive in the past, so instead of repeating myself, I'll just say this: $500. That's how much I've made from them. OK, it was over four months, but within that period there was almost a month when there were no offers, and occasionally there have been dry weeks. I reckon that Blogitive is about $100+ a month, which isn't a lot, but makes a nice addition to the monthly income. Here are the links to my previous posts on Blogitive:

• How I Get Paid To Blog
• Getting The Best From Blogitive

Deborah Ng's Freelance Writing Jobs List

This site does not pay me directly, but it is a great place to get paid freelance writing jobs. I've already reviewed this, so I won't say more, but leads from this site have led to a couple of paying jobs at around $100 a pop. The most recent one is likely to lead to repeat work.

These are the top places that are paying me at the moment. I hope they work for you, too. If you're freelancing, which places have you found the most profitable? Thanks for reading.

Paragraphs - Who Needs Them?

Some things in life should be easy - and reading a blog is one of them. I don't know about anyone else, but when I see a huge chunk of text on the home page, I skate right past it. My eyes transmit the lockdown code to my brain. Too much visual information assaulting the senses. Trying to read an unbroken block of text is like trying to eat a whole cherry pie in one bite. Some people may be able to do it, but most would choke. So that's why we need paragraphs.

You see, the thing is, you've got to make it easy for your readers. If you want them to get your point quickly and move on to the next one, it helps to break up the text. The brain copes more easily with small chunks of text, and my brain could use all the help it can get.

Every blogging system is different, so you'll have to do it in different ways depending on which one you use. On WritingUp, a couple of returns (hit the 'enter' key twice) usually does the trick. If it doesn't, you can use the letters
. That gives you a line break.

As a sub-editor and editor, I spent a lot of my time making long paragraphs into shorter ones and each paragraph had to have a point. This is a good rule for blogs as well. I won't go on about the paragraph thing, especially as a couple of other writers have written about them in detail. Instead, I'll just point you towards Majansa's post on blog formatting and Gracepub's post on paragraphs. Both are well worth a read for the new blogger.

This post has been sponsored by the Volunteer Editing Support Team.

The FT Is Haunting Me!

A long time ago, I worked for a small division of the Financial Times (yes, THE Financial Times). I edited stock exchange announcements for financial reports on UK and European companies. It wasn't the most interesting job I've ever had, but I learned to read an annual report and became familiar with a plethora of financial terminology.

After, I'd done that for two years (it was in the middle of the UK recession, so I couldn't afford to be picky), I was happy to move on to a more traditional journalism job, and I put that period behind me. The only reminder of it was a two line entry on my CV. It looked good, and I'm sure it got me many interviews I might otherwise have lost. However, I didn't work on financial matters again for a long time.

But recently I've been getting lots of work from a freelance agency, and I've found myself writing about financial matters again. Loans, mortgages, credit cards - you name it. Some of it's interesting, some is not, but I reckon I'm getting it because of that two-line entry on my CV. And at least it's regular, paid work. I've worked in a lot of different industries. If they go in turn, then I could find myself writing about metals next. Watch this space.

What about you? Have you got any jobs in your past that have come back to haunt you?

How To Prove You Can Write When You Have No Clips

The other day someone asked me a question. It was: 'How do you apply for a writing job when you have no writing credits?'. I knew the answer because when I relaunched my writing career last year all my writing credits were old. They proved that I used to be able to write, but there wasn't any recent history to show that someone had thought my writing was worth publishing. The advice I gave is based on what I did. Here it is:

1. Use your blog as an example of your writing. Point editors towards it and they'll be able to see your writing and people's responses to it. That will give them an idea of how popular you might be with their readers.

2. Turn some blog posts into articles, sign up with EzineArticles and upload them. The next time a job comes around, you will have clips you can show. Also, find a few places in your genre that are looking for free content and offer it to them, provided they link to your blog or site. This is a short term strategy (I don't advocate writing for free long term) designed to get you some clips. This worked extremely well for me, and it's great for promotion too.

3. If you know the publication you are approaching for a job or writing commission, write a short piece of the type they publish and send it as an example of what you can do. If you haven't got a lot of publication credits, this at least shows you've read the mag and thought about what they might want to publish.

4. Practice, practice, practice. While I was doing the EzineArticles thing, I also wrote reviews for three sites. I didn't get paid directly, but I learned a lot about what people found useful and what type of writing they responded to best. It's a good way to start to find your writing voice.

These strategies worked well for me. At the moment I have more writing work than I know what to do with, and it's only taken a year. Admittedly, I had a headstart in terms of writing experience, but in the case of clips, five year old clips are worse than nothing, so I was starting from scratch.

Now, this is just a start. I'd love to hear from the rest of you what worked when you were getting started. And editors and publishers (you know who you are), what are you looking for in a new writer?

A final question, not quite related. I'm thinking of offering an article spot in my monthly newsletter to anyone who writes about writing. No money, but a short bio with a link to your site or blog. I'm looking for 6-12 articles of 300-400 words initially. I don't mind if they've been published before as long as you own the rights. What do you think? If anyone's interested, drop me a comment