Keep on Writing: Staying Positive in Difficult Times

"Writing from home gives you a unique chance to save money."

Setting a fair rate is something writers struggle with, especially during times when work is scarce.  With several content mills reducing the amount work available, and letting go some of their freelance writer, competition between writers has gotten fierce.  Writers who once had very firm pay rate demands have started accepting lower paying work in order to pay their bills and keep their families fed.  Some of these writers are criticized by peers for accepting low paying work, and others have to deal with the criticism of family and friends for not having a “real” job.  When you are forced to deal with negativity, focusing on the benefits of being a professional writer can help you stay positive and encourage you to keep writing.

The Ability to Help Family

Working from home as a writer gives you more control over your schedule.  It is true that the average writer cannot afford to work one hour a day in their pajamas, but it is also true that most writers can arrange their daily projects around the needs of their family.  Being a writer means you can play an active role in your child’s education by becoming a room parent or joining parent organizations at the school.  Also, you can help other family members by helping with errands, taking older family members to doctor appointments, and more. 

A Chance to Save Money

Writing from home gives you a unique chance to save money.  The cost of paying for gas and food for lunch each week is often more than most commuters realize.  Plus, buying appropriate work clothes and pay to go out for lunch with co-workers are also expenses that can affect a family living on a tight budget.  As long as you work from home, you are helping your family save money that can be used to pay bills or increase the families nest egg.

Whenever you begin to grow discouraged because of the negativity of your peers and family, remember the benefits of working from home as a writer.  Staying encouraged will increase your productivity and your chances of continued professional success.

I May Be A Ghost...

But I Still Have To Eat!

Several years ago, I heard through the grapevine that an acquaintance wanted to talk to me about a ghost-writing project. Since I am a published novelist, I assumed I was going to be paid for this effort, especially considering that my acquaintance had recently come into an inheritance. I just assumed he had this novel he had always wanted to write, and was now in a position to hire a professional writer to tell his story for him.

 

So I met with the guy a few nights later. His idea was bizarre- I can't repeat the exact details, although nobody would ever want to steal them- but it would have been very difficult to write the novel, because the central concept was completely implausible and he didn't see the need to even try to explain it. With some trepidation, I asked him about terms of payment.

 

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “There's no payment,” he said. “I just thought you'd want to write the book.” He “just thought” I would want to spend a few hours a day for several months writing his book for him without any compensation at all.

I found the whole thing pretty strange at the time, but I've seen much the same offer on Craigslist a hundred times since then. Somebody wants a book written, but doesn't offer to pay anything for it. Or he wants it written for a share in royalties- of which there will most likely never be any.

 

If I ever do ghost write a novel, I'm willing to do the work for rather less money than a traditional professional ghost writer, who would charge you $20,000 or more. I can't do it for nothing, though. If you're looking for an affordable writer, that's great- but do try to stay within the bounds of reality!

Should You Get a Grammar Guide?

My first freelance writing gig was for a content mill who follows AP guidelines.  Having always been an ace in English, I was pretty confident when I took their proofreading test to become an editor.  Not only did I fail; I failed hard.  Talk about a blow to the ego!  It definitely knocked me down a few notches, but it was a great wake up call.  Stringing together sentences that appeal to readers is completely different from being articulate and grammatically correct.

Enter the grammar guide.  These handy little guides can help you through some of the tough questions, such as comma usage, pronouns and the proper use of apostrophes.  After my dismal failure, I immediately went out and bought an AP Style Guide 2011 to help me polish up my skills.  While this has helped me tremendously in writing for the places who follow Associated Press style, there are many other styles to be followed, and each mill and client may follow different procedures.

Overall, I would say the AP style is the most popular, so if you can choose only one, get the AP Style Guide.  It costs about $20 and is worth every penny.  I keep a copy by my computer all the time, so I can quickly research the proper usage of words.  I was dinged by an editor for saying “Washington state”.  Their suggestion was “Washington State”.  Using my AP guide, I was able to point out that capitalizing “state” only applies when referring to the university.  My grammar guide is a valuable tool, and one I suggest every writer pick up.

Don't Put All Your Eggs In One Basket

Multiple Income Streams

If you are one of the thousands of people now making a living by writing from home, you've probably had an experience a lot like this one. You signed up for a popular content website and were accepted as one of their writers. You learned all about their process and became efficient enough at producing content that you could make a decent amount of money for your efforts. You got used to the steady income and started planning your budget around it.

And then, without warning, it all went bad. Available assignments dried up or even disappeared over night. Rules were changed, so that a job you could previously do for the equivalent of ten dollars an hour or so now paid less than five because of the extra time needed to complete assignments. Perhaps the company you worked with was less than completely honest about what was really going on, delaying you from accepting the inevitable because you kept believing things were about to get better.

 

Stories like this are sadly common in the world of home-based writing work. Unfortunately, there probably isn't much you can do about the behavior of the content farms, because you're a freelancer rather than an employee. In other words, it's a case of a difficult client rather than a bad boss- and you don't have a lot of leverage over a difficult client. The only thing you can really do is to avoid working for just one company. Make sure your writing income derives from at least two sources, so that if one of them suddenly disappears you can focus on the other.

 

Why You Shouldn't Work for a Penny a Word

As a freelance writer, one of the most difficult business decisions you will make is how to price your work.  Like many businesses, this is a hot topic and one you will see widely debated across forums, blogs and freelance writing websites.  And rightly so, since so much in our lives revolves around how much we make.

When you are just starting out, the temptation to work for lower prices is very strong.  We are trained by employers to expect low wages to begin with even if we have skills or knowledge that give us an advantage in a particular field.  We are taught to expect little and hope for small increases every once in a while.The fact is, if you have talent as a writer, you deserve to be compensated accordingly.  Do not settle for one penny per word.  Have you calculated how much time it takes you to write?  If I am in the groove, writing something that requires no research and can be written off the top of my head, I can get about 1,800-2,000 words in an hour, give or take a few.  At $.01 per word, that is $18-20.  While that doesn’t seem like a bad price, what happens when your article needs research and supporting links, as many do?  For me, a researched article of 1,000 words can take an hour or more.  That means I am working harder, performing research, and getting a measly $10 per hour at a penny per word.

It is not unreasonable to expect $.02-$.05 per word or higher.  Consider that same 1,000-word article at $.05.  Now you are looking at a very livable, reasonable wage of $50 per hour.  Why settle for $10 when there is no shortage of clients willing to pay $50?

Travel Writers, Check Out Matador

We’re living in an interesting generation, where people (the 99%’ers of Occupy Wall Street) are protesting in the streets. They’re screaming that there are no jobs and yet those with the desire to work hard and push for their passions are succeeding professionally, and making good money too. Although the economy is terrible right now, technology is improving every day and so therein lies a pocket of jobs waiting to be tapped into.

Do you like to write? Do you like to travel? Would you like to make money doing both? These are easy questions to answer, right?

Fellow writers, check out Matador. This is an independent media company that serves a worldwide community of writers and bloggers who love to live and travel. The company launched in 2006 and has been quite successful. They have evolved into a cross-platform social media phenomenon as their audience has numbered in millions.

Why? Because, quite simply, there are a lot of technologically capable people out there who are travel hungry and seek to fulfill wanderlust. The company states that they are deeply concerned about the well-being of the planet. They place environmentalism and cultural conservation at the top of their list of priorities. So therefore, they seek contributors who travel with the right mindset. The idea is that these writers will utilize technology to share their experiences with others, allowing for people from different parts of the world to connect and see how others are making a difference on the planet.

Contributors in the past have provided award-winning articles and travel photography. Do you think you have what it takes? Review the contributor guidelines and expectations here. 

Perils of the Writing Life

Talkative Strangers

 

One of the perils of the writing life, at least if you work in public, is that random people will talk to you. They will just sit down next to you and start talking, regardless of how busy you might happen to be. It might be a little old lady who wants to tell you all about her grandchildren, or someone who thinks you just need to know all of his political opinions in detail, or the fine points of some federal crime he's committed.

You might think that you could get around this sort of thing by just being really focused and making it obvious. I'm afraid you'd be wrong. Hunch over your laptop, furrow your brows, turn your eyes into fiery coals of rage- it still won't work. In fact, it will backfire. The more dementedly focused you look, the more psychotic the person who will feel compelled to sit next to you. Then, instead of hearing all about the best way to prune a geranium or some such thing, you can instead be treated to a hair-raising tale of hiding on a rooftop in some South American country for three days in order to prove that Johnny Cash was behind the Kennedy assassination.

 

There is, however, a silver lining, because many if not most of us freelance writers are also creative writers. They say that God never shuts a door without throwing you through a window (or something like that), and the window in this situation is that you no longer have to make up characters for your stories out of whole cloth. That man on the rooftop chasing Johnny Cash? You've got a short-story. The man with the eyes like Charlie Manson's, heading straight for you like he wants to talk? You could get a whole novel out of that guy.

How to Choose a Domain Name for Your Writing Portfolio

"choose a name you will be happy with in the distant future"

Choosing a domain name for your writing portfolio is an important decision.  Your domain name should accurately represent who you are, what you do and help establish your brand.  Since you are offering a service typically needed by professionals, your domain name should be professional sounding.

Pen Name
If you write under a pen name, this may be the best option for your website.  If your real name is Bob Jones, but you write as Mickey Maverick, you could use www.mickeymaverick.com as your domain name.  This will help you to establish and maintain your brand, and at the same time is easy to remember and write down.Real Name
This is the most common choice for writing portfolio domain names.  Your real name helps establish you as a real person, not just some writing on a web page.  Using your real name lets clients know you are serious and not afraid to stand behind what you do.  If you have privacy or safety concerns, you may want to choose a different domain instead of your real name.

Other Options
If a pen name or real name either doesn't suit you or isn't available, some other domain choices can be effective.  If you are known in online writing communities by a particular name, such as a forum user ID, you can opt to use this for your domain name.  Be aware, however, that it makes it easier to connect words you say in a community to the professional writer you want to portray on your website.  If you don't want to have that connection made, come up with something else.

You can also use a descriptive domain name, such as "thewebpagewriter" or "freelancewriter" (both of those are probably taken, but you get the idea).  Above all, choose a name you will be happy with in the distant future, and one that will not limit your options.  If you want to write web articles and also publish sales flyers, choose a name that will not contradict one or the other.

Building a Freelance Writer Portfolio

"Having your writing samples available online makes it much easier to respond to job postings"

Having just done this myself, building a freelance writing portfolio was on my mind.  If you do any sort of freelance writing, it is a good - make that great - idea to establish some sort of resume or online portfolio to show to prospective clients.

Even if you do most of your work for content mills, there may come a time when you wish to branch out.  Having a solid website with your experience, writing samples and an explanation of your services can give prospective clients a very positive and professional impression.Having your writing samples available online makes it much easier to respond to job postings.  What prompted me to finally get my portfolio done was finding several jobs I wanted to apply to but I didn't have samples organized to send.  I built a professional portfolio in about three hours, and now I've been able to send it to prospective clients and link to it in Craigslist ads.

You can start a portfolio for free on a blogging platform like Blogger or Wordpress, or for a really professional edge, create your own domain to send clients to.  Whichever method you choose, the important thing is to get started now.

Include your work history, if relevant, examples of several styles of writing, and a description of services you offer.  Use samples that portray your writing skills, but don't include samples of the type of work you do not wish to perform.  If you hate writing SEO content, for example, don't highlight that on your portfolio.

Tune in next week for a discussion on how to choose your writer portfolio domain name.

Beware Creepy Craigslist Writer Opportunities

When I was just starting out as a freelance writer, I found and tried out many gigs via Craigslist and other websites. Some of them were great. I wrote for magazines, nonprofit groups, medical websites, general blogs, parenting sites, children’s gaming review companies, and research organizations. I even ended up with some work in a book. But I also applied to some pretty seedy places that ended up being not-so-great.

I’ve worked for people who wanted to pay me pennies—literally pennies, not pennies per word! I’ve written samples for companies who wanted more and more “free” samples before paying me. I wrote for one company who didn’t pay me at all but used my work anyway; I accidentally stumbled upon it and then demanded payment months later. I’ve learned a lot along the way, and I’ve developed my own set of rules to keep myself sane. I know these rules wouldn’t work for everyone (such as my no more ghost-writing rule), but they do for me.

One of my rules deals with Craigslist. It’s not really a rule, so much as a general thought I’d like to share with everyone: if you end up on a creepy string of e-mails or phone interviews with someone on Craigslist and you start to feel uncomfortable, quit immediately. Don’t worry about being polite; just hang up or block the email, whichever is applicable.

This is not even in regards to the guy who wanted me to write for porn sites (which I actually considered, believe it or not, before I got sick to my stomach on the first day). This is in regards to the man who posted about a research project regarding hazing, which sounded legitimate and interesting. It turned out that he was a pervert who only wanted to discuss his own penis with me.

He went about it in a roundabout way, and I kept trying to steer the conversation back to the job details, deadlines, payment, and things like that. Instead, he kept pushing until I finally stammered about having to go make dinner and politely ended the conversation.

Now, having worked for myself for several years, I’m getting much better at weeding out such nonsense. There is no way in hell I would tolerate such a discussion, and I wouldn’t hesitate to hang up on someone sexually harassing me over the telephone. As a freelance writer, you aren’t as well protected against such things in the workplace as many other companies that actually hold seminars on such subjects (though the rate of harassment at work is incredibly high, of course, and all of its forms are unacceptable). You must stand up for yourself and refuse to be treated in such a way.

This isn’t to say that only jobs on Craigslist are like this, of course. Just be wary of every inquiry, every application, you send out. Don’t give out your personal information until it’s time to do your paperwork, and listen to your heart when it starts to tell you if something is fishy. It’s probably right.

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