Wait – what happened to my own writing?

Are you blocking out time for writing for yourself as well as for other people?

Now this influx of client work is wonderful of course because it means my writing is going well and I’ve had plenty of money coming in.  But it also means that all my own writing goals have gone to the back of the line.

So this week is going to change all that.  Things have quietened down a bit which is why I’m blogging again today.  And hopefully I will keep at it again now by putting this particular task to the top of my daily list.

My new website focused on writing clients

Other than that I have my own revamped website at www.allisonwhitehead.co.uk to focus on, and also that site needs some writing promotion in order to get it in front of its ideal audience – namely business people who need the kind of content I can supply.  I don’t expect to achieve lots this week but it would be nice to start achieving some more own goals in between working for everyone else.  To my mind these are goals that may have more long term prospects rather than bringing in instant money.

How about you?  What are you doing this week to further your own career and your own writing goals?

Has this blog post made you realise you are putting your own writing behind everything else all the time?  What can you do to give yourself some writing time as well as your clients?

This is because there are thousands upon thousands of website owners and affiliate marketers online who want to promote their wares.  But they don’t have the skills to be able to write good articles themselves.  Many of them don’t have the time either – they would prefer to pay the money to get professional writers to create proper SEO articles on their behalf.

But one thing these potential clients DO know about is keywords.  They will come to you or advertise their requirements, and they will state that they want one or more specific keywords in each article you write.  They might have article titles or subjects in mind or they may not.  But whatever else they want, they will certainly have a list of keywords for you to use.

Some of them might ask you to use each one a specific number of times in an article.  So you might get asked to insert the primary keyword three times per article and two secondary keywords twice each.  That’s just an example of course – it depends on the client and the length of the article required as to what those requirements will be.

The point is, the more you can learn and find out about search engine optimization and how keywords work to attract the right readers, the more cash you are likely to be able to make out of this form of writing.  SEO writing might not appeal to everyone, but there is a LOT of it available and it is good, quick and relatively easy work to do – once you know what you are doing.

And I think I may have broken my record on this one this week.  I have agreed to write a 52 week course for a new client.  So that means I have to deliver one part each week for the next year.  Overall it will be a good payment and even each individual part will be a good payout as they will be several pages long.  So while I won’t pay the bills with each individual piece alone, they will each go a long way towards making each week a successful one over the next year.

I am also ramping up my efforts to bring in more new clients – and one incident this week really made me question the power of thinking along the right lines!

You see, I applied for a writing job back at the end of October last year (Hallowe’en actually, so I don’t know if spooks were at work here…).  We went back and forth with a couple of emails and that was about it.

But this week they got back in touch and I’m all set to go with five articles for them next week.  Wow!  How’s that for a late reply?  They want at least two articles a week ongoing, it’s the kind of work I LOVE doing, it falls into one of my personal favourite niches and it should be regular work if all goes well.  I’ll let you know how it pans out.

So it’s been a good week (apart from the head cold, but that’s another story).  How has your week panned out for you?

Are you a quick writer?

Hmm, interesting question isn’t it?  The answer will obviously depend on how much time you have available.  But if you are writing web content for clients they will have their own ideas of how much you should be able to write and when it should be done by.

This is why it pays to get to know your own limitations.  If you take on too much work it will lead to undue stress and anxiety as you struggle to meet your deadlines.  And if you miss those deadlines you will find that clients will very soon go elsewhere.  Only the most urgent of reasons should prohibit you from meeting a deadline agreed previously.

You’ll notice too that the most important word in that title is the word ‘good’.  No matter how many clients you have and what they are paying you, as a web writer you need to be able to supply good quality articles.  This is particularly true if you want to push your rates up and earn what you are worth.  Clients won’t pay for substandard content that doesn’t hit the mark.

So in reality the answer to this question will be answered as you go along and gain more experience.  You will usually find you get faster as you learn more and develop a rhythm of writing that you are happy with.  If you are writing about familiar topics you are an expert in, you will be able to write more articles in a shorter length of time.  It will be very different if you have an alien subject you know nothing about, because you have to add in research time.

So get to know what you can write and how long it will take you.  The more you can maximise your writing time to get the most out of it, the more money you stand to make from clients who will be looking for the writing services you provide.

Are you kept busy by your existing clients? (Photo credit: Kris Szkurlatowski; click on image for link to profile)

Online writing has a lot of benefits.  Firstly if you work for yourself you have total control over what jobs you take on, how much you write and how many people you write for.

But how many clients do you actually have?

There is no magic number of course, and what one writer thinks of as an adequate number of clients someone else might find too few.  Similarly a third writer might wonder why they have so many.

But the point is that you need to have the right number for you, and you shouldn’t assume that even long term clients will be around forever.  For example, you might have a regular client that gives you work every week for months on end.  But you shouldn’t become complacent and assume they will always continue to do so.  They may email you one day and say they want to take a break for a while before sending you more work.

This is the most important part of keeping an eye on the number of clients you have.  You need to ask yourself whether you could still manage if one or two of your clients suddenly stopped sending you work.  Obviously it would make things a bit tighter money wise, but would it cause a real problem in that area?

If the answer is yes, you need to find yourself some more writing clients – ideally ones that pay more than you are being paid now.

It might seem tough to be so mercenary but you need to think about the number of hours you work and how much you earn for your time.  Always be on the lookout for new writing jobs that offer more money.  Look to add new clients into the mix every now and then, and don’t leave it until you lose one or two clients to do it.

This strategy will give you a much better chance of earning more money – and earning it more regularly as an online writer as well.

Are you keeping your fingers crossed you keep all your regular clients - or are you looking for new ones all the time to ensure a regular income?

I had just such an experience today.  I have a regular market – offline as it happens, the only one I have on a regular basis that isn’t internet based – that regularly takes four of my articles a month for their magazine.  But this morning I received an email that revealed they will only require one article a month for the immediate future.

Since the articles are also well paid, this will be a chunk of money to lose.  Not  a huge amount in the grand scheme of things, but enough to notice, if you see what I mean.  Obviously it’s disappointing, but it got me thinking about the nature of freelance writing and how well prepared you are for such things to happen.

After all it is the very nature of freelance work of any kind.  You do get regular clients, but they won’t go on forever.  You might work for them fairly steadily for years on end, but even then you should never come to rely on them.

So how do you turn this into a positive experience?

Well firstly it will free up a little time to focus on more things.  Firstly I have decided to devote some of that time to finding more clients.  And secondly – and perhaps most importantly – I have devoted some of the time to writing for myself.  You may have read before that writing for your own needs is the best thing to aim for in the end.  You can write eBooks that you sell over and over again; you can create your own websites that you monetize in all kinds of different ways, and you can do lots more besides.

I have a plan for an eBook that I can now devote some more time to.  And I also want to start creating PLR – private label rights – packages to sell directly to clients from a dedicated website.

All of this takes time though, and the danger when writing for lots of clients all the time is that you never get time for yourself.  So this is the lesson in losing a client, or a certain body of work.  By all means take a moment to mourn that loss, but then think about how you can use that news to gee you up and start making inroads into achieving even more in your writing career.

In this sense, losing a writing job or a client could be one of the best things that ever happens to you as a freelance writer.  At the moment I am devoting time to the Ezine Articles Challenge too, so this is just one example of how you can spend that extra bit of time in a productive way.

Could your articles be appearing on someone else's RSS feed?

Did you know that some bloggers online don’t actually write their own blogs?  Not all of them of course, but some certainly farm out their writing requirements to expert writers on their particular topic.

And that presents a great opportunity for you as a writer if you want to increase the amount of work you do.  There are plenty of websites which provide leads for bloggers and blogging jobs, so you won’t find it hard to get started in this particular line of writing work.

Blogging jobs tend to be advaantageous too because they are more often than not regular.  You might be asked to provide two, five, ten or more blog posts a week.  Each one will bring in a set fee, so you can look forward to a weekly or monthly pay day that is pretty steady alongside your other writing work.

Some people focus only on these particular jobs, and don’t write articles for anyone else at all.  If this idea appeals to you it is good to be able to show your own blogging skills to potential clients.  Make sure you create a blog for yourself if you haven’t already done so, in order to demonstrate that you are capable of writing regularly, on topic and on time.

Different blogging jobs will have different ways of working as well.  You might have to submit a single post to the client each day (or whenever it is required).  Alternatively some prefer receiving a batch in advance every week or two.  This is better for you because you can fit them in whenever it suits you.

You might also find they give you access to the blog itself.  You can then post directly whenever necessary, and they will simply check to see that it has been done.

So you see, blogging for other people is an excellent way of earning a steady living as a writer.  Work at building up your client base and very soon you will have a nice income you can rely on while you build up your other online writing jobs.

Article source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Allison_Whitehead

Many writers – particularly those who are just starting out with their online writing career – are afraid to turn work down.  That is perfectly understandable and it can be a habit that is difficult to break.  You automatically think ‘What if I don’t get offered anything else this week?’ or ‘Supposing all the work dries up after this?  I’ll wish I’d have taken it then…’

As I said, it’s understandable.  But you are working for yourself now, so you have choices to make.  And you are free to decide whether or not you want to work for any one particular person.

Some clients are a dream to work for.  They are polite, friendly, easy to get along with and you are never left in any doubt as to what they want from you and your writing skills.  But then there are those clients who can be – how shall I say this tactfully? – a pain.  Now I’m not talking about people who don’t pay when the work is delivered.  If you get caught out by one of these you won’t get caught by them again.  No, what I am referring to here are the clients who change their minds, alter what they want to get from you, dither over important points, never answer emails promptly, are vague about their requirements… and on it goes.

If you have a client right now that you hate working for, ask yourself this – why are you still working for them?

Being happy with your clients is just part of the puzzle

It’s a fair question isn’t it?  After all YOU are in charge here, and if you decide that you don’t like working for them, you don’t have to work for them any more.  Period.  Done, decided and worked out once and for all.  Why would you carry on writing for a client that you dislike working for?

The main reason is probably money.  Yes, if we are honest most of us would say we have a client or two that isn’t exactly a model client, but they pay well enough to keep us more tolerant.  Your online writing career may have room for one or two clients who are like this, but remember that you are in charge here.  It’s much better to work for five clients that you love writing for than it is to work for ten who get on your nerves.

Yes, this is a touchy subject.  But it is one that every online writer should think about every now and again.  Because by doing so you are working towards an online writing career that will be more enjoyable and more carefree.

Now, isn’t it time you thought long and hard about the clients you are writing for?

Do you search the internet for new writing jobs regularly?

It is easy to become complacent though.  If you are busy you may get days where you don’t have time to look for new writing jobs.  That is good news in a way, because it means you have plenty of work to do!  But if you finish all your work, look up and suddenly realise that there is no more waiting in the wings for you to do, it tends to bring on a sense of panic.

This is why I’m focusing on the importance of keeping active when it comes to finding fresh online writing jobs.  Even if you only spend five or ten minutes a day during busy periods, searching on Elance or Craigslist perhaps, that could make all the difference between bagging a new writing gig or not.

And you can usually find five or ten minutes in even the busiest of days to do this.  Do you have a quick coffee break in the mornings?  Use that as your search time.  Perhaps do it again with a cup of tea in the afternoons.  Whenever works best for you – just spare those few minutes to do this and you will notice all the difference.

We writers hear a lot about keeping active in terms of getting up and about.  But keeping active in terms of trying to get the next job in the bag is important too.

But you should still make the effort to find other clients of your own, because this will help to protect your income and grow your writing skills still further.  You can search for higher paying writing jobs too; I found my highest paying one by far after a couple of hours spent surfing around Craigslist, for example.  You just never know where you will find your next job.

As a freelance writer, you could be working for anyone

The thing is that writing jobs are just like any other kind of work.  There will always be the danger that a particular job will cease to be, and if you have relied on that as being your main source of income it could leave you in a sticky spot.

In many ways being a freelancer protects you from the ups and downs of the job market, because you are likely to receive work from several different directions.  This means that if one falls through for any reason you still have plenty of streams of income coming in from other sources.

So take a look at where you get your freelance writing jobs from.  If you only rely on one or two sources then perhaps it’s time to up your income by adding a couple more.