The Cyclical Freelance Life

What’s on the iPod: Neon Moon by Brooks & Dunn

After June’s wedding marathon month, we were, finally, able to have a weekend of doing nothing. The kids are all back from their respective honeymoons and moving on with their new lives. We enjoyed a nice long weekend with no plans other than to see just how lazy we can be. Turns out we can be pretty darn lazy.

I did go into the basement on Friday morning to sort through some of our stuff. I put a few more boxes of books on shelves that are still in the basement, and will probably be there indefinitely. Since putting in the hardwoods on the first floor, we’ve been moving slowly and purposefully toward bringing things back into the rooms. Turns out we fell in love with the space we have and neither of us are eager to fill it up with stuff again. So each thing that comes back into a room is pondered and placed with an eye toward making things work better. So far, the results have been pleasant.

With a long holiday weekend, I actually felt ready to come back to to work today. Too bad it’s the time of year when work can be a little thin on the ground.

I have one planned project this month. I say planned because there are always client requests that come in unexpectedly (and usually as I’m heading off on vacation or a long weekend). That means the majority of my time this week will be spent on marketing and on revamping the way I reach out to potential clients. My method has worked beautifully for close to five years now. However, lately I’m not seeing the results I used to.

Time to mix it up.

While not everyone sees business drop off from July 4th through to Labor Day. In fact, my best year was one where I never saw summer coming or going. Still, that’s not the norm, and lack of work in the summer a common issue for many freelance writers. So I’ve landed on a few areas to look that help me get through the drought a bit better. Feel free to add to the list:

Magazines. Many magazine budgets are still full enough to take ideas from freelance writers. Now is when I hit the queries hard. Just two or three articles to the right publications can make for a sweet month of earnings.

Existing clients. Now that your clients are experiencing vacation shortages, it’s a good time to remind them you exist. Ask what they’re working on. Get in front of them with that blog/newsletter idea you’ve been meaning to pitch. Volunteer to cover for vacationing employees. While many companies cut back on projects during the summer months, plenty of other companies don’t have the luxury of slowing down.

Marketing firms. Advertising and marketing still goes on even if the marketing firms’ employees go on vacations. Now is the time to introduce yourself and offer to do some of the grunt work — writing press releases, proofreading, newsletter writing or editing, etc.

Blogs. Why not approach company blog owners directly? Not every employee has time or ideas enough to fill a blog. Offer to take on a few blog posts a month. Or as mentioned previously, propose a blog to your existing clients.

Resume writing. I’ll admit I’ve not done this in a while, but if you can connect with a resume service that pays decently (upwards of $75 per resume), you can bring in some extra cash and hone your resume-writing skills. I hesitate to do this because the work, at first, can take a lot longer than you would think. But if you can get the work down to under 80 minutes per resume, you can earn a fairly decent sum.

New clients. And why not still market? Now, when the client’s focus may not be on projects, you can get your foot in the door and get that conversation started. It’s often a great time to reach out, and you can line up future projects and create those much-needed relationships while their minds are not solely on deadlines.

Writers, how do you find work during the slow months? What are some of your tried-and-true methods?