You know how it is – trying to complete your own writing jobs when you have a constant stream of really good client work coming in can be tricky. But something good has come out of something bad, as it so often seems to do in life. If you read my blog regularly you’ll know my partner fell down the stairs in January this year, resulting in a fractured coccyx. That meant we couldn’t go and work at our family run home brew shop every Saturday as we normally did.

Now Saturdays used to be work days there as far as my writing career was concerned. But where we’ve had every Saturday off from the shop since January, I’ve actually gotten to the stage where I was able to fit all my work into the five days so I could have a two day weekend. I’ve got loads done around the house and had a clear out to the extent you wouldn’t believe.

Now the coccyx healing is almost complete we’re headed back to the shop this coming Saturday. But I have decided to stick to my usual five days a week working routine as far as clients are concerned. And the Saturday? That will be my day for focusing on my writing work. It could be PLR packs for our PLR website. It could be writing and scheduling blog posts for this and my professional blog. It could also be writing and developing books for the Kindle, another passion of mine I intend to focus on more readily.

Whatever I decide to do (and it could change from week to week) it will be good to have one dedicated day for my own writing projects. I actually find it easier to focus on one whole day rather than trying to slot in smaller jobs on a regular basis throughout the week. Invariably my own jobs get pushed into the background instead of being added into the mix. More often than not I get to the end of the day having completed all my client work, while my own work hasn’t got done. I suspect a lot of writers suffer this same problem.

Anyway I’ll let you know how I get on with this new approach in a couple of weeks – after I take some well earned time off. We’ve got lots of things to do around the home – decorating and the like – so we’re taking an extended break to get it all done. Paint pots here we come!

It’s the last day of my series, 29 Days of Online Writing, today. I hope you’ve enjoyed it and had some insight into what the life of an online writer can be like. Certainly, if you’re thinking of treading this path too, you should now have some idea of what you can expect.

When the month started I never expected to have a gas leak to cope with, although the new roof going on was supposed to happen this month so that was pencilled in. But it just goes to show that however well you plan your writing career, things happen to disrupt it. This is the main reason why I always give myself extra time on every job I do. It means I can adjust my schedule and still hit all my deadlines on a daily basis. If you haven’t picked up any other advice from this blog this month, make sure you at least pick that up. It works and reduces stress too.

1204 – well I’ve written some articles and blog posts so far this morning; nothing too taxing. I’m going to have an early lunch now, then I will kick off the afternoon by writing another web page for one of our sites, before carrying on with the client work.

1639 – I’ve achieved quite a lot today, both for our own sites and for clients. I’ve had a reasonable amount of new work come in as well, so the days are filling up into March. But this is where I say goodbye to 29 Days of Online Writing. It’s been an interesting month and a great experience to write on this blog virtually every day. I have lots more to share in March and beyond as well, so stay tuned for that.

It’s strange but I didn’t think February had been one of my better months in terms of earnings. However I looked back over the month’s records this morning and it was actually far better than I thought it would be. So that’s a good point to note if you don’t think you have had a good month. Always look back – things might average out better than you think!

Thanks for following me through this month of writing – I hope you enjoyed it. Who knows, I might even be crazy enough to do it again sometime!

Another bitty day of work today, as my sister and kids are coming round tomorrow. Thus my partner and I have some housework to do as well as working. I’ll probably have one or two bits to do tomorrow morning before they arrive, and then I can enjoy three days off from writing before returning bright eyed and bushy tailed next Monday. You know, booking holidays and long weekends is a darn sight easier when you don’t have a boss to ask!

It’s been a busy and strange morning, as the roof tiles turned up for delivery first thing. Only thing was, we hadn’t chosen them yet. So he disappeared again pretty quickly! Looks like the house will be in a state of upheaval potentially next week though, so I have to try and gauge my workload and plan round all that going on. I have a feeling it could be rather noisy.

1410 – almost finished with work for the day. I have some bits still to do but I’m going to get on with the housework first. Plus I have a few short blogs to do tomorrow morning, but I might even get those done early today as well.

1651 – I seem to have lost my concentration for today, so I am quitting while I am ahead. I have a couple of bits left to do that I can do in the morning; the family doesn’t descend until lunchtime so it shouldn’t be a problem. Seriously, it’s often easier to build in extra time to write so if anything amiss happens or you just lose concentration, it doesn’t matter. I will probably write a post tomorrow to cover the last day in the week, then it’s back to normal on Monday.

Morning all. I can’t believe it’s Thursday already. My writing week always seems to fly by so quickly. Normally I will find some time to look for new sources of work or new clients, but I haven’t done a lot of that this week. What with the gas leak at home and catching up on work after Monday’s upheaval, it seemed more practical to get on with the work I do have. There’s lots of it too – I have two short blog posts – 350 words each – to do now, and some longer articles to complete later. I also have a home page to write for the next site that my partner and I are going to put up. This is part of a new plan we have for 2012, so we can start earning some residual income from websites we create. We’ll see how they go. It’s very early days at the moment but I have a good feeling about it.

I was up at 7am this morning but I didn’t really get started writing until eight. That’s unusual for me – usually once I’m up I’m writing within about 15 minutes. It varies but I love the fact I can work like that. When I worked in a factory (this was while I was building up my online writing career in my spare time) I had to get up at 6am to get ready, get to work and start by 7.30am. Now I can get up an hour later at 7am and be working by 7.15! Don’t you love it? It’s one of the best parts of being an online writer, that’s for sure.

Anyway time to carry on – more blogging to come…

1355 – you couldn’t make this up. When I first thought about doing this daily blog post series I wondered if I would have enough to write about. But I just had a call from the scaffolding company to say the scaffolding for our new roof would be going up next Monday morning. Normally that means the roof is done within two weeks. And that will mean you get to have an insight into what it’s like to be working from home as an online writer while the old roof comes off the house . This could get very interesting… this will be a new experience for me and you!

1823 – slightly later finishing time today but not too bad. I just have to post this and I’m done for the day. A real mix of topics today (solar energy to archery equipment!) but nice and varied which is good. Hope you had a good day too – I’ll be back in the morning. And don’t forget you can catch up on my previous posts for 29 Days of Online Writing too.

I can hardly believe it is the 28th already! It has been a testing month (leaky roof, repairs and a fall down the stairs and a bruised coccyx for my partner) but despite all that I have still managed to achieve my writing goals for the month.

I started the year with the intention of finding some new clients, and I have added 4 to my books since returning to work on 3rd January. One of those was as a direct result of focusing on adding more content and testimonials to my professional site, so I’m pleased as punch about that.

Needless to say I have some goals in mind for February too. The first one is to provide an insight into the daily life of a writer on this very blog. This starts on 1st February – this coming Wednesday – so make sure you sign up to my RSS feed so you don’t miss any of the posts. Whatever happens in my career this coming month, I’ll be sharing it here. Let’s hope for all good news!

If I have learned one thing this month it’s that you need to be able to focus on your writing even when things change around you. There were days very early on in the month when I was sitting here writing with a leaky ceiling and water dripping into a bucket next to me. We had to turn off the power to the lights in the office just to be on the safe side, and make do with desk lamps instead. But thankfully I can still hit all my deadlines.

February should be an interesting month to share with you anyway, as there is every chance we will be booked in for a new roof to be installed on the house. So I could have two to three days of trying to work with all manner of noise going on. As someone who likes to work in peace and quiet it should be interesting! Our cat Jasper doesn’t like it either so he will be very unhappy and skitty as a result.

I’m looking forward to daily blogging from Wednesday onwards but also a little nervous. Will it be a good month to share with you? Will it be full of good things? I want it to be a warts and all experience so make sure you come back on Wednesday to find out what I really do during the day. Oh, and if anyone DOES know where January went, be sure and let me know. I feel like I ought to be starting my Christmas shopping again soon!

Just a short post today, because I wanted to share with you what happens when you set a goal to achieve something with your writing. I set myself a goal at the beginning of January to find ONE new client via my professional website, www.allisonwhitehead.co.uk. While some clients have found me through this blog, I did create a separate site targeted purely to them.

However I never seemed to have a lot of time to develop it into the site I wanted it to become. So I set myself the challenge to start adding posts to it more regularly and to add some testimonials to it as well. And I wanted to find one new client before the end of January.

Now I must admit that by Monday this week I thought it wasn’t going to happen. My traffic has improved over on that website, so I was pleased with that. But today I had an email from someone who wanted one weekly blog for their website. A few emails back and forth and I’ve got the client I was looking for.

It just goes to show that with a little effort you CAN find the writing work you want. The clients are out there – and they might be looking for you now. But how easy are you to find?

I can say that my traffic per day for that site is still pretty low compared to this blog. But the additional effort is clearly paying off already. I wonder what February will bring?

PS – don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed, as my month long series “29 Days of Online Writing” is going to kick off next Wednesday – a week from today. I’m going to keep a notepad file open each day, adding to it as I go along. Then I’ll publish it at the end of the day so you can see what I’ve been up to. Don’t miss it – it’s going to be an eye opener! Subscribe now via the big orange RSS button at the top of this site. Thanks!

You know how sometimes you get a mental picture of something, only to find afterwards that you had your facts wrong? I’ve had just that kind of thing happen to me this week.

I live in the UK so it’s around that time when you need to think about getting your accounts in order in time to send to your accountant (assuming you have one). We have to send in our tax return in time to pay the first lot of tax by the end of January, and even though we have good intentions to do so before now, it generally doesn’t happen until October/November time. We’re still in plenty of time but there you go. Not only do we have to account for my writing income, my partner and I also have an eBay business so we’ve got that to account for too.

Anyway, I had it in my mind that the tax year running from 2010/11 wasn’t as good as the one before as far as my writing was concerned (or even eBay for that matter). It just didn’t seem to be as profitable but I was glad that at least we were in a good position being self employed; it’s not like we have to go into work every day wondering if we still had a job. We worked hard to get to where we are now and luckily (if you can call it that, if luck equals hard work) we now have enough income earning tools in our arsenal to bring in money from several different sources.

But still I felt like I hadn’t pushed forward as much as I could and perhaps should have done with my writing over that particular tax year. We get a pretty good idea of our earnings each month because we keep records as we go along. We just have to get everything ready for the accountant to see and work with to fill in our tax returns. But it hadn’t seemed like as good a year as the one before.

That’s probably why I was surprised to find I had actually done about the same as the year before. Imagine that – there I was worrying I hadn’t done as well and what would happen next year if I carried on the same way and there was nothing to be concerned about at all.

Of course a lot of professional writers find themselves earning consistently more every single year they are in the business. That’s good – it means they are keeping up with the cost of living. God knows we all need to find ways of doing that at the moment. But it has also refocused my attentions for the year ahead.

Here in the UK our tax year goes from April through to March of the next year. Normally people start on 6^th April (weird I know) and run through to 5^th April the following year. But I don’t tend to focus on my writing goals according to the tax year. I do it like most other sane people do, by going from 1^st January to 31^st December. And suddenly I find myself with ten months of the year gone and just two months to go. Now I have the information about earnings for the last year, it’s caused me to sit back and look at my writing business and income and to consider where I might head next.

Like many writers who have been ‘at it’ for a while, working for clients, I am now devoting some of my time to my own goals. Hopefully these will flesh themselves out to stand in for some of my writing income next year. If 20% to 30% of next year’s income is from my own websites, through Adsense income, affiliate income and so on, I’ll be happy.

It’s plain to see then that the history of your writing income is really important for so many reasons. Of course you need to have that history in order to pay your taxes, whatever country you happen to live in. But it is also important for you to look back on, so you can see where you have been, how well you have done and where you might possibly go next.

If you haven’t checked on your writing income lately, maybe now would be a good time to do so. I guarantee you’ll learn something from it.

I love my freelance writing career.

I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. But a freelance writing career isn’t something to be picked up and discarded when something better comes along. Unfortunately a lot of people seem to think this is the case, and we have the economy to thank for it.

I can fully understand why so many people are floundering around trying to find something else to earn money with. But writing is often seen as the easy option. Just sit down, bash something out and send it off to a website that pays a few dollars for your trouble. Alternatively you might earn a few dollars from advertising options, depending on the type of website you go to.

The bottom line is this – if you’re seriously thinking about starting a freelance writing career, you need to consider whether the word ‘career’ should apply in your situation.

I always knew I wanted to be a writer – I never wanted to do anything else. This is very different from bumbling along quite happily in a job, only to find you suddenly have to look for another form of income because your hours are cut or your job is at stake. It’s also different from writing for fun and entertainment in your spare time, when earning a full time living from it doesn’t matter.

Make no mistake – an online freelance writing career is NOT an easy option.

Anyone who is doing it for a living will tell you that it requires a lot of hard work and discipline if you want to do it properly. You might well succeed at this if you really have what it takes and you’re like a terrier with a bone – you won’t let go once you’ve got your teeth into it. But if you’re only looking at this career because you have found yourself in a difficult situation, you might want to think twice before diving in. You need as much determination and pigheadedness to succeed with a freelance writing career needs as you would in any other career.

Well it’s about time I updated my blog to let you all know where I’ve been and what I have been doing for the past I-don’t-know-how-long. There have been some very good reasons why I haven’t updated my blog, although I will admit I could have (and should have) been updating it at least sporadically.

Firstly and most importantly my eldest niece has been rather poorly for the last six months, involving numerous hospital trips, an extended stay in Great Ormond Street Hospital and much more besides. Thankfully we are getting to the stage where we now have a diagnosis but she has another three week stay coming up. This means I will be in full auntie mode helping to kidsit the other two kids so my sister can stay with my eldest niece for the three weeks.

Obviously this has all meant fitting my writing work in around everything that has been going on, and it looks very likely to continue this way for the rest of the year at least. Added to all that, we managed to get a well earned break for the last week, so I am now sitting at my computer for the first time in around ten days.

But that’s not all…

Personal writing efforts vs client work

I think this is an area where we all struggle from time to time. Client work is great because it gives us writers the chance to earn virtually instant money. You win a job, complete it and get paid. You might even get a certain amount of the cash up front too.

But this isn’t how it works when it comes to writing for your own ends. As you may know, my partner and me also run a PLR store. This is gradually making more sales and it is something I need to devote more time to in order to populate it with more content. More content equals more sales, so I need to find time in my daily schedule to get this done.

Furthermore we have plans to launch some more blogs and I also have one e-book virtually written (about writing – more details when they become available) with more ideas to focus on as well. Add to that the fact that I want to install a new theme and appearance for this blog and you can see that it’s been pretty busy around here!

All of this means that I’ve had a serious rethink about the balance of client work and personal work that I have been doing. It’s all too easy to accept lots of client work because you know you’ll get paid for it nice and quickly (for the most part). But your personal efforts take a little more faith to get them going. You might have to sit and write articles, e-books or something else you have in mind to sell, and you know you have no idea whether you will ever sell any of them. But at the same time you know you are creating a potential stream of income for the future. You might end up selling lots of copies of a particular e-book you write, giving you the chance to keep on earning from it in several months and even years from now. You certainly wouldn’t get that from any client work.

So as I am returning to work after our break, I am going to focus on setting a timetable for my daily work. I will be working 9am until 6pm most days (this is the plan to start with – it may change), and since I get up between 7-7.30am most mornings it gives me time to go for my morning walk, grab breakfast and start writing for myself first. I can then fit in some more work for me before I finish for the day, between six and half past. Gradually the plan is that I will do less client work and more for our own PLR business and so on, although I do think I will always do a degree of client work, just to keep my hand in.

What plans do you have for your writing career?

I think it helps to evaluate your writing career every now and then, otherwise you are in danger of becoming stagnant and not doing anything you really want to do. Yes you can earn a lot of money as a ghostwriter, but you can arguably earn more by writing for yourself, whether that means setting up a PLR store, writing e-books or even creating courses. There are all kinds of ways you can use your writing skills to develop other aspects to your career and business. I’ve certainly discovered that I have probably been selling myself short in focusing on client work and little else.

Since it is now the middle of October, it is the perfect time to consider whether you are progressing in the way you really want to with your writing career. Think back to a year ago and ask yourself whether you are where you wanted to be twelve months ago. Have you achieved much in that time? Have you progressed in the way you wanted to? Is there anything you would like to achieve that you haven’t yet got around to?

We also run an eBay business and consequently this is heading into the busiest time of the year. But even though we will be knee deep in toys, gifts and gadgets to post out to people all over the world, I shall still be planning the future direction of my writing business. I can still take some time to evaluate where I am now and where I want to go in the future. The plan is to start factoring in more writing for myself next year, although things are kicking off now as well.

The point is that you can always find time to slot in your own work – work that can still earn you money in six months and more from now as well as today.

Where’s the new blog design?

Yes I know, I promised this a while back didn’t I? Well it IS still coming – I’ve been undecided on which design to go for, then I found a theme I liked and lost it so I’ve had to start the search again!

Anyway the new design probably won’t come into play now until early next year. It should be more professional, easier to navigate and the blog sections shall be easier to pick your way through as well. All in all it should be a big improvement and it means the blog will be growing into its next stage of life.

If you have any suggestions or ideas for things you’d like to see as part of the new design, do let me know. I can’t promise they will be included but feedback from my readers is always welcome!

What does this mean for you?

All this planning will have a knock on effect for you as well. You should start to see more blog posts in the coming weeks, as well as new sections to the blog and more to get your teeth into. I may also start a newsletter, but this is not definite as yet. I’ll let you know more as and when it happens. Again, if there is anything in particular you’d like from a newsletter do let me know. This blog is always intended to be a help to those who are already writers as well as those who are thinking of writing for the first time.

I think that’s covered everything and got us all up to date for the moment. I will be back soon with more posts so do keep reading, commenting and staying in touch.

And of course, feel free to share how your own writing career is developing!

You’d better be, because sooner or later things will change. How do I know? Because it’s just the way things are when you have a writing career.

Let me share how I got started with a full time freelance writing career.

I always wanted to go full time but I didn’t do it until I had enough clients to keep me going financially. In the end I managed to get enough clients to replace the income I was earning from my crummy job at the time, so it was an easy decision to make.

So I got started with full time freelancing. I had some regular clients and a few of them are still with me now, some three plus years down the line. But if I were to tell you that I still have every single client now that I had then, I’d be lying. I’ve worked for all kinds of people since then, and not all of them want regular ongoing work. That’s fine – I’m just as happy to tackle half a dozen articles as a one off job for a particular website or blog as I am to work with someone over a much longer period of time. That’s half the beauty of a writing career.

But it just goes to show how much change you can experience in a freelance writing career.

When you think about it, it’s the very opposite of a so called secure employed position. You have to be ready to deal with change when you’re a freelancer, because a client you think of as a regular could have a period of time where they no longer need work from you. They might come back to you again in the future (a good number of mine have) but you might also never hear from them again.

Change is going to happen whether you want it to or like it to or not. The real question is whether you are going to cope with it or not. You cannot decide not to have changes in your writing career, because they’ll happen anyway. If a client has been giving you, say, ten articles a week every week for a year, it doesn’t mean they’ll carry on doing so until you decide to retire. They might have cause to stop next week for all you know.

The hardest times in my writing career

I’ve found the trickiest times of change in my career have been when several changes come along at once. I might come to a natural end of a relationship with one client. Another one might put a hold on articles for a while because they have some changes to make to their website. They may or may not come back because of it. Another one might be looking to restructure their whole business or even get out of marketing altogether, so they won’t need me to update their blog any more.

These are just examples, but there have been times when a sea of changes have hit my writing career all at once. The first time this happened I must admit I did what all self respecting people would do – I panicked. As a writer working for lots of different people, I was pretty sure I had enough income streams coming in to weather any storm. In reality I did, but the first time I experienced several changes at once in my writing career I lost out on a couple of great clients in the space of a week.

Serious moping

I can remember all kinds of thoughts going through my head at the time. Why me? (Always a good one) Why now? (Hot on the heels of ‘Why me?’) Another good one was ‘I can’t believe I’ve lost two clients in the space of a week?!’

But one thing I soon discovered was that the initial worry and panic soon subsided. Yes it was a shame that my two best clients had cut right back on their needs. I ended up parting ways with one virtually completely (still do the odd thing every now and then but not often) and the other one disappeared altogether. But it happens. This is part of any freelancing career. The big thing to remember is that the first time it happens to you, you’ll feel like you made a mistake in starting a freelance writing career in the first place.

I must admit I still get disappointed when I part ways with a good client, even if it is only temporarily. But you know what? Every single time it’s happened, something else has come along to fill the void. Some of these newbies have occurred as a result of my own efforts. For example I’d go on Twitter and look for clients on there. If you’ve read my blog in the past you’ll know I’ve found two clients on Twitter and I did a lot of work for each of them. They both still reach out to me occasionally for additional work, which is nice. It’s always great when you have a professional and friendly relationship with your clients – it can make all the difference.

And you never know when that difference will pop up either. Just last week I had an email out of the blue from a guy who used to work for a media company I still work for today. He had joined another company on the other side of the world and wanted to know if I was interested in taking on some blogging duties for them. Of course I was, and now we’re into our second job together. You just never know when a previous connection you thought was severed pops back into your freelance career again.

Remember that when a door closes…

… a window opens, or something like that. I really believe this is true, and I also believe it helps if YOU believe it. You just have to know when to look for these open windows. They won’t always be obvious, but if you’re looking for them and you are open to the idea of change in your writing career, you’ll cope with it far better than you would otherwise.

In fact make a promise to yourself to look for open windows every single day from now on. It could be an email you send on the off chance to a company you spotted that you think you could write for. It doesn’t hurt to get in touch, and you could get a great client out of it. Think of all the windows you could open right now, just for you. There are more of them out there than you might think.