The success of a business is 50% work quality and 50% marketing. You may do stellar writing work but still never land any clients. Unfortunately, good work doesn't always speak for itself. You have to get someone to hire you before you can impress them with your skills. You at least have to intrigue … Continue reading How to Make Yourself a Hot Commodity
If you're thinking about starting a freelance career, especially if you want to drop a 9 to 5 job and start freelancing full-time, one of your biggest initial questions/worries is how long it's going to take you to establish yourself. You have bills to pay, mouths to feed, all that jazz. Switching a stable job … Continue reading How Long Does It Take to Become a Freelance Writer?
I hate talking on the phone to people I don't know. Hate it. For one thing, meeting new people just makes me nervous. I can't help it. Second, I'm not a big talker unless I know the person very well. In person or online, this doesn't matter. Online, I can take the time … Continue reading Dos and Don’ts of Client Phone Calls
I've never been the type to initiate conversation. I'm glad to talk to people if they talk first, but I've never been the outgoing, sociable girl who can make friends with anyone and talk about anything. I like to stay home. I hate loud parties. If I ever get dragged to one, you'll find … Continue reading Take the Fear Out of Networking
Setting rates is one of the hardest things about starting a freelance business. When I first started out, grabbing any job I could, I just took whatever rate the client was offering if I thought I could do the job. When I launched PurpleInkPen, I was wiser about rates, but I had decided to raise … Continue reading Are You Making Enough Money Freelancing?
There are a lot of mixed emotions when you land your first freelancing client. I was absolutely ecstatic because I was going to get paid to help someone write a fiction book. I couldn't believe someone was actually going to pay me money to do the thing I loved most. But there was also … Continue reading Rewarding Client, Freelancer Relationships
If you want to write as a freelancer for a living, you're a "writer for hire." Many clients will want you to sign a work-for-hire agreement/contract. In the simplest sense, this means that you are working for the client as an independent contractor and the work you are providing is the client's after you've … Continue reading What Is a Work-for-Hire Contract?
Running your own business is HARD. Things you never really thought of when deciding you wanted to be your own boss keep popping up like an obnoxious fifth grader grinning in serial killer fashion and shouting, "Hi! Hey! Hi! Look at me, lady, look at me!" inches from your nose so you can smell … Continue reading To Contract or Not to Contract
Last week I posted about my success with the 90-Day Pitch Challenge. So this week, as promised, I’m going to talk about how I used Twitter to successfully reach out to prospective clients with cold pitches. For the challenge, I did a mix of cold pitches and regular applications to jobs posted on job … Continue reading Dos and Don’ts of Twitter Cold Pitching
Today marks the final day in the 90-day pitch challenge I started alongside the launch of my official licensed business, PurpleInkPen, on May 1st. The challenge came from Gina Horkey and her site Horkey Handbook. You may remember Gina from my Expert Roundup post a little while back. The idea of the challenge (which you … Continue reading 90-Day Pitch Challenge: Completed
