I Think I Can

Last week, my new client sent me an e-mail about a project he wanted me to start. After being nominated for one of those "favorite local _____" awards, he was convinced by the sponsoring magazine to purchase ad space in the publication. He had a quarter page ad to submit to them within a week's time. He sent some of the details he wanted included in the ad.

At first I thought he just wanted me to write copy for the ad. I had to have a conversation with about how small a quarter page ad was and how much copy would realistically fit in it. We also talked about how much copy people will reasonably read in an advertisement.

At some point I realized he actually wanted me to design the ad. My first response was "I am not a graphic designer." I told him I could write some copy and slap it in a text box with his logo, but it wouldn't look outstanding. After I found out the ad would be 4-color, I immediately knew it needed more graphics.

I know several graphic designers, but I knew it wasn't something I could drop in someone's lap with less than a week's time to work on it. My only option was to try to do it myself. Once I felt I had responsibly informed him that I would do my best with it, but it would not look professionally designed, I started the ad.

Though my first instinct was to refuse the project, I ended up with a decent product. As it turns out, even though I didn't have experience in this area, I had worked with enough designers on projects to know what looked good and what to put where. The biggest challenge was working with software with which I didn't have much experience.

He loved the ad and we got it to the magazine publisher prior to the deadline. Now there are a couple caveats to this story. I was lucky that my husband's computer actually had the design software I needed to complete the project and that he knew how to use it so he was able to give me some basic instruction. The lesson I learned here is that I actually know more than I think I do and I can accomplish what may have seemed impossible before.

That doesn't mean I aspire to becoming a graphic designer, but as my projects start to lean more toward the marketing end of the spectrum, it's a good idea to develop skills that complement the writing skills I have and make me more marketable.

Neglect

I'm back. I know I've been seriously neglecting this blog lately. I can't figure out whether few people are reading it because I'm not updating it much or I'm just using few people reading it as an excuse for not keeping it updated.

I have been keeping busy between my two big clients and working on a few other projects here and there. I'm still struggling with time management. The more I examine how I'm spending my time, the more convinced I become that though I'm busier, I certainly have time to fit blog posts into my schedule. It's amazing how much easier it was when I didn't have any billable work to do. In the beginning, blogging was the closest thing to work I actually had.

Part of the problem, I know, is not being able to think of anything to write. When it seems like you've covered all the obvious topics it's difficult to think of others. I guess I'll start by carving out a few minutes today to brainstorm about topics. Maybe if I think of them a few days ahead of time it'll be easier to get the posts written.

A Tale of Two Blogs

Something I've never mentioned here is that I look at Google Analytics almost every day to find out how much traffic my blogs had the previous day. I've been doing this almost the entire time I've had my first blog, The Accidental Athlete. When I created this blog, I looked at the stats for it from the beginning. I won't go into all the reasons I do this—they're not relevant to the point of this post. What I will say is that there's been a trend with Freelance Writing Adventures lately. The traffic to the site is down 9.54%. I'm going to talk about this today, even though I'm breaking one of the cardinal rules of blogging, which is "don't blog about blogging."

The decline in traffic bothers me a little, not because I'm so vain that I want everyone to read my blog, but because one of the things I'm trying with my clients is increase traffic to their Web sites. I want to learn from my personal failings so I can help my clients succeed. So I've been analyzing the situation, trying to figure out where this blog is deficient. To do this, I've attempted to compare it with my other blog, which incidentally has an 18.82% increase in traffic. Here are the similarities:

1. They're both written by me and, therefore, have essentially the same caliber of writing.
2. They're both updated with the same approximate frequency. Since the end of November, my blogging hasn't been as regular as I had intended. However, that's been true with both blogs. For example, I got so busy I didn't update this blog yesterday, but I didn't update The Accidental Athlete either. There is an occasional weekend post on the Accidental Athlete, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

The differences:

1. The subject matter is obviously different. Here I write about my trials and tribulations as a freelance writer. I attempt to give advice stemming from the things I have learned in my relatively short stint in the profession. My other blog is about mountain bike and cyclocross racing and training. It's peppered with occasional bits about my struggle to lose weight/get healthy and random bike-related things.
2. There is no photography in this blog, whereas there used to be some in my other blog. Since my point-and-shoot camera died in November, I have been reluctant to lug with husband's digital SLR around, so there's been a dearth of pictures.
3. The Accidental Athlete tends to be more emotional in nature. I think I express more frustration, elation and other emotions because riding and racing are something I'm passionate about, but also something that completely disappoints me sometimes. Although I very much love what I do for a living, I'm not sure that comes through in this blog since I don't think I'm totally committed to the freelance way of doing things. And although I seldom question quitting the day job that was making me miserable (which was the catalyst for beginning a freelance career), I sometimes question whether it's the right thing for me.

In the end, I'm not sure I came to any conclusions from my analysis. I think it may just be that this blog is boring. Of course, I realize I'm now opening myself up to my four readers to do a critique of this blog, but I guess that's part of the point of beginning this discourse. So fire away.

Too Busy to Look for Work

Lately I've been neglecting freelance writing ads. In fact, as a result of meetings, networking and a steady stream of projects, I haven't spent much time on any freelance writing sites. I've been doing a lackluster job of keeping my blog updated.

If anyone had told me in those first few weeks after I quit my job that I'd have trouble finding any time to spend looking at freelance writing ads and keep my blog updated, I wouldn't have believed it. It's become reality, though. The problem is, even though I'm somewhat happy with the amount of work I have currently, I realize that it's not going to last forever. I have to find a way to cultivate future work.

Additionally, I'm spending a lot of time training for one of my hobbies, mountain bike racing, working on a business development with my husband and helping out some organizations in a volunteer capacity.

Something tells me I'm not really as busy as I think I am, that I'm just not doing very well with time management. I'm going to make an effort in the next week to add more structure to my days, set aside blocks of time to work on certain projects and see if it helps me to work more efficiently.

Been to the Library Lately?

I used to frequent the public library, but in the past couple of years I've done more buying and borrowing of books, so I've been somewhat neglectful of my local library. This week I went to a small business owners panel held at the library and I discovered that I was underutilizing a valuable resource.

Have you ever heard of a business librarian? Our library has one. Maybe it's because, with our reliance on the auto industry for most of our business here in Michigan, our economy has been in the toilet for longer than everyone else's and they're trying to encourage growth in any way possible. Whatever the reason, the library is full of business and marketing resources that are as of yet untapped by many.

In addition to books, there are seminars and handouts, business plan contests and tons of advice for burgeoning entrepreneurs. For me, this resource is twofold. Not only does it give me ideas for marketing my freelance writing business, it's helping me be a better resource for the small businesses that constitute my client base.

Following Directions

There's a lot of advice out there for freelancers and one of the pieces I've encountered most often involves following directions. Clearly, being able to follow directions is important for many types of situations. However, apparently some people don't read the freelance writing ads very well or perhaps they read the ads but don't respond as requested.

For example, if an ad asks for a writing sample, a resume and a cover letter, you send them all three. It only makes sense, right? If you're responding to an ad that asks for your rates, you should include your rates in your correspondence.

As someone who has been involved in the hiring of employees, I can attest to the fact that not following the directions in the ad leaves a bad first impression. If someone can't follow the instructions for how to respond, why would a potential employer or client believe they will be able to follow directions for the assignment or in the workplace?

The other day, though, I encountered a situation in which it made very little sense to me to follow the directions included in an ad. The client asked interested parties to respond with a resume and stated that the resume should include the following:

• Education and work history
• Specific editing, proofreading and writing experience
• Applicable areas of expertise
• Availability
• Word-processing programs on your system

To me, some of these items made sense, but others didn't belong anywhere on a resume. I was confused as to why they wouldn't just ask for a cover letter. I toyed with the idea of altering my resume to include them, but in the end I decided not to answer the ad.

I Saw Your Resume on Craigslist

In a recent post I talked about an idea I got from a fellow freelancer for posting an ad on craigslist. I decided to post an ad myself and see what happened. So far, the results have been completely lackluster. As with anything like this, when you post something, you open yourself up for all kinds of replies that don't interest you. Even though you are asked to indicate whether or not you want to be contacted by recruiters or for other services, many people don't follow these.

So far, I've received no legitimate responses to my ad, but several from people trying to get me to use a job search site or offer me a job completely unrelated to my post. In fact, I can tell none of these people even read my ad or just don't care about relating their e-mail to my ad, because most of them say "I saw your resume on craigslist." Mind you, I didn't post my resume, just an ad.

Still, I've decided to rerun my ad when it expires. Here are my reasons:

1. I've already written the ad, so it will take very little work to post it again, even if I change it around a little.
2. Someone someday, when I least expect it might actually see it and send me some work.
3. It doesn't cost anything.
4. It takes about two seconds to delete an undesirable e-mail and I probably only got about 10-15 of them in the span of a few weeks.

How to Lose a Client in One Day

I didn't actually lose the client, but I easily could have. One of my tasks is to write and upload a new post to the blog module of their Web site each week. No problem, right? The writing wasn't difficult. It just meant gathering some industry-specific information and getting the login information for their content management system.

I'd used plenty of content management tools before. After all, for several years when I had my day job I was in charge of Web site maintenance. This tool, however, was more complicated than the others I'd used and I ended up creating a new blog instead of posting to the existing one.

As soon as I realized the mistake, I attempted to delete the new blog—and ended up deleting the company's entire existing blog. Luckily, I didn't panic. Instead, I got in touch with one of tech guys, who was able to restore the posts, which had just been dumped into the recycle bin.

My client was understanding about the whole situation. I think because the situation was resolved it didn't bother him. Yet again, though, I've learned a valuable lesson in the freelancing world. Don't delete anything unless you're absolutely sure you want it deleted.

Back to Business

Well, that's it. All the holidays are over. My husband goes back to work today and I can finally get down to business. It's not that I didn't do any work during the holiday season, but it certainly wasn't as productive as I would have liked. I didn't check the job boards every day and I certainly didn't update my blogs every day.

But it's a new week and I have several meetings scheduled. I have a new client to work for and several projects scheduled for my first client. I also have some articles I've been neglecting that I need to start writing and revising. I need to ramp up my search for new short-term gigs. My savings is, in effect, completely depleted now and it's really impossible to live completely off my husband's salary, so I need to start bringing in some serious cash. Here's to a productive, billable week.

The Referral is Reality

I had a very productive meeting yesterday with the potential referral I mentioned last week. As it turns out, the client is getting ready to redesign his company's Web site and needs to get it up quickly. Before doing so, he wants me to check out their current site, find out which content should stay or go, be finessed and what's missing. Once the new site is up, he also wants to do some weekly work on SEO, as well as some press releases here and there. Basically, he's ready to hit the ground running.

Since my work for my first client has been ramping up and I've got to finish some revisions to one article and another article I haven't even started yet, it means I should be very busy. I know it's still too early to tell—after all it's only been a little over two months since I started this endeavor—but for the first time it seems really promising. I just need to find some way to keep all the work caught up while pursuing new work at the same time.

No Paid Holidays

Well, clearly I've been on another hiatus from this blog. Last week I did a little work, but as soon as Wednesday hit, any motivation pretty much went out the window. I spent time with my family, trained hard for the mountain bike racing season and read an entire book. My husband did a lot of lounging and playing with his new XBox 360. As I've stated before, I have a much harder time getting motivated to work when my husband is home. If he's vegging on the couch, I feel like that's what I would like to be doing, too.

So, while my husband was taking some necessary days off, I was taking days off with him. This week, again, he'll only be working Monday and Tuesday, so there's more of that to come. One dramatic difference that I only recently thought about is that while he's sitting around doing nothing, he's getting paid. That's one of the advantages I decided to forgo when I left my full-time job. While he has paid holidays (and usually more than everyone else because he has a government job) and paid vacation days, if I don't do anything, I'm not making any money.

I'm going to try to keep that in mind this week and make it a productive one, despite the holiday.

Early Christmas Present

Yesterday morning I was determined to be productive. I got quite a few things done in the morning, but by afternoon, I had lost a lot of my motivation. I had to go out to run a few errands, including buying the last remaining Christmas present on my list and picking up some food for my furry monsters, Gretchen and Maddy. By the time I returned so, miraculously, had my motivation to work.

While I was gone, I checked my BlackBerry obsessively (as I always do) and I received two very important e-mails. The first was in response to my reply to one of the those pesky writing gig ads I always complain I never land. Well, I guess I have to stop complaining, at least for a week or so, because I finally landed one. Merry Christmas to me! It's not high paying, but it is a long-term job that's expected to last six months to a year and it's a steady $200 a week.

The second e-mail was from that referral I mentioned last week. He is very interested in having me do some work for him and he wants to meet with me on Monday.

It was great to get some good news and my motivation to work magically reappeared as quickly as it had evaporated. Hopefully, it will last until Christmas.

The Difference

Recently, I talked about the holiday slowdown that seemed to be happening with freelance writing ads. I also mentioned how not a lot of work got done at this time of year while I was working at a full-time office job. We always got the days between Christmas and New Year's off, and inevitably, those last couple of days before Christmas, it was exceedingly difficult to concentrate on getting anything done.

Last Friday, Jodee of Freelance Writing Jobs did a blog post on the subject. She made some good points and started me thinking about my attitude going into this week. Last night, I was thinking I would be lucky to get a few things done this week since I'm already in Christmas mode. I kept hearing myself say "I'll wait until after Christmas to contact that person."

When I was working in an office, it was acceptable to put things off until after the break. No one expected much to get done, and all my work was going to be there waiting for me when I got back. Here's the difference now that I'm freelancing. For the most part, any work that I get has to be something I've initiated. And even though it's Christmas this week, the relatively slow speed with which I am able to obtain freelance writing jobs and clients means I have to plan ahead or when Christmas is over, I won't have much work to do.

My First Referral?

Something happened yesterday that I wasn't expecting. During my regular Wednesday morning meeting with my client, he asked me if I was looking for more work. Umm, yeah. As it turns out, he was talking to one of his business contacts and telling him about the work I was doing for his company. His contact mentioned that he thought it was a good idea and wondered if I could do some projects for his company. Now nothing has been finalized and I haven't even talked to the guy yet, but I'm pleased just for the glimmer of hope. It would be wonderful if I could actually get another long-term client out of this. I think if I could have three clients who gave me steady work along with the stray article here and there, I could make enough for a full-time job. But I shouldn't get ahead of myself.

At any rate, up until this point I've been relying on myself to market my business and overlooking the most obvious source of good PR—a satisfied client.

Specializing

It's funny how I'm always coming to different realizations while preparing to write blog posts. It seems like every day at freelancing I'm exposed to some revelation I feel the need to expound about on my blog. The latest has to do with those online ads I'm always scouring and firing off replies to in the hopes of bringing in more work. Periodically, the daily posts will be related to health care or something similar. I noticed yesterday that I seem to gravitate to those particular posts.

Now this isn't really that remarkable since I spent most of my professional writing career writing for a pharmacy association. Except that one of the reasons I left my job to become a freelancer (albeit one of the less urgent ones) was that I was tired of writing about pharmacy all the time and I wanted to write about something different for a change. So that begs the question, why I am still looking for healthcare writing gigs? The answer is probably that I feel confident in my ability to write on those topics and I feel I can demonstrate that to the potential client with my clips.

Opportunities to write about many different topics abound. The insurance industry, technology and education are just a few I see daily. In spite of this, I usually reply only to ads that are very general or ads that are related to health care in some way. The one exception is when I replied to an ad for an online cycling publication, Pedal Pushers, which just yesterday published my first article for their site. I guess that should tell me something.

I'm curious as to how my fellow freelancers choose topics. Do you gravitate to writing for certain industries. How did you choose them or did they choose you?

Working Smarter

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I've had a recent growth in the amount of work I have. Though I'm certainly excited to have work to do and the hope of some money with which to pay my bills, it means I have to function more efficiently to meet my goals. And while I've applauded my ability to get work done during the day rather than being lured into the dens of iniquity that are satellite t.v. and the Internet, I've had to examine my time a little more closely. Though I realize I do spend a lot more time working than not working, I also discovered I have a tendency to get distracted and to rearrange my priorities for the day on a whim. If I don't feel like tackling the task at hand, I often put it off and disguise it by doing something else productive.

Even so, I do like having variety in my days. One of the things I enjoy most about working from home is that I can have lunch with friends without being at the mercy of a time clock. I also enjoy being able to complete the occasional household chore and take my dogs to the dog park while there's actually some semblance of daylight. I don't want to ban all these activities from my day because I think that would be defeating the purpose. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd been open to hearing them.

For now, though, my plan is to make a list of things I want to do at the beginning of the day, number them in order of priority and stick to the numbers. I'll also schedule a couple of breaks for myself and make a commitment to containing my non-work-related Web reading to those times. Hopefully, that will allow me to work more efficiently as my workload increases.

P.S. I got tagged by Sarah a couple days ago and later today I'll have a bonus post just for fun.

Holiday Slowdown?

Over the last couple weeks, I noticed that there seemed to be fewer and fewer freelance writing ads (or maybe just fewer ads that interested me). Since it's December, I wondered if it was just a holiday slowdown. When I worked in an office, I remember not as much work getting done around the holidays. The mood was festive and everyone was looking forward to the holiday break. Consequently, everyone just wanted to finish whatever had to get done before the break. No one worried about initiating any new projects or finishing anything that could wait until after the festivities.

However, last week I had what can only be described as an onslaught (in relative terms, of course) of work that did not come from ads. I had an unexpected project come up on Friday that caused me to neglect my blog in order to finish everything. Now I have to spend this week finishing the following things I was hoping to get done last week and over the weekend, including a marketing plan and three articles. Not that I'm complaining.

Small Business Multi-tasking

Since I went out on my own in October, I've attended a few free seminars for small businesses. My reasons for attending were the following:

• As a freelancer, technically I have a small business and I thought they might be useful.
• Many small business owners and potential clients would be there for me to meet.

I made a few contacts through these seminars, and I also learned tips that could help me market my business better online. Yesterday, however, when I was working on the marketing plan for my client, I realized there was another advantage to attending those seminars. A lot of the information and handouts I received were not only useful to me in marketing my small business, they also helped me come up with ideas for marketing my client's small business.

I would recommend checking out some of these resources, particularly if they are free. In my community, there's actually a small business librarian who can point you to events, books and other materials that are available for small businesses. Your community may have something similar. If your community has a small business association, it may hold informational seminars. I'm starting to find out there are a lot of things that are worth trying—you never know when they might prove to be worthwhile.

Exciting Possibilities

I had a meeting with my client this morning and we made some good progress. While we were meeting and afterward when I was doing some follow up, I started to realize something. My client has a lot of work for me. Even though I've complained about some of the challenges, in many respects the company is the perfect client for me. Why?

1. They seem to respect my judgment and feel I have some expertise.
2. They don't have an internal marketing person, so I get all the work.
3. They don't ask me to do a lot of editing or rewriting.

The amount of work they have for me is such that it's probably enough for a part-time job, and they have been taking my suggestions for additional marketing very seriously. So, in many ways, it's ideal. I can have the flexibility of working from home on my own time schedule, but still have the security of knowing there's work coming in each week.

I'm going to spend the next few days working on a marketing plan for the company, and after that, I'll have regularly scheduled, recurring projects. I'm pretty excited about the possibilities.

I Need Deadlines

It seems that almost every online ad for a writing gig contains the requirement of being able to meet deadlines. That's fine with me because I'm used to working with deadlines. In fact, I'm used to working with extremely tight (and often unrealistic) deadlines. I've been known to do whatever I can to meet a deadline, even if it means staying up all night.

What I didn't know until recently is that I actually really need deadlines to work effectively. Case in point is the article I've been working on for a local electronic publication. Those of you who have been reading my blog since the beginning (all two of you) will remember how excited I was about working up the nerve to contact the editor and subsequently being rewarded with an article.

I was excited then and I'm still excited. That's why it's kind of strange that I'm still working on the article nearly four weeks later. And by still working on it, I mean that I haven't touched it since the week before Thanksgiving.

The problem is that the editor gave me a nebulous deadline for the article. She told me they wouldn't be able to publish it until after the first of the year so there was no hurry. I should have set a deadline myself, committed to it and told her when I'd get it to her, but that's not what I did. Consequently, the article is only about 60 percent done. I still have to interview one more person, which is the biggest holdup since I'm apprehensive about interviewing people because I'm still getting used to it. (My first interview went very well, though, so I should have just kept the ball rolling.)

This is dumb for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I want to be seen as a professional who can finish things in a timely fashion. Additionally, this article is pretty high paying compared to some of my other work and I could really use the money.

So, I'm setting a firm deadline for myself to finish it this week. I'm also going to commit to the practice of setting deadlines for all future projects and announcing them to my clients ahead of time. That should help me to get things done in a timely fashion.