Monthly Assessment: June 2015

What I’m reading: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
What’s on the iPod: Naked Kids by Grouplove

What an interesting day yesterday. In an instance of the most asinine behavior imaginable, some guy behind me objected to my waiting to turn left (didn’t want to chance it), he honked, screamed, and then turned left — in front of me and an oncoming car. The sense of entitlement  is just insane, not to mention dangerous.

However, things turned around completely when a girl I knew in high school sent over a photo I’ve been waiting for, for what? Fifty-one years? My great-grandfather’s headstone was put in yesterday. I’m three hundred miles away. She went twenty miles out of her way of her own accord and took the photo (see it to the right). It’s why I love my hometown — they help without question.

Aren’t we normally sitting idle about now? Historically, my work has dried up around July 4th and doesn’t return until I decide to go on vacation sometime in August. Maybe that’s it — I decided yesterday to skip town in two weeks. They smell it, I swear.

Now I’m looking at an ongoing project and some smaller stuff coming in right when I expected to be rationing my bank account. Who isn’t happy about that?

I got through June, though it felt a lot like a piecemeal workload. I was busy in spurts, but the spurts paid off nicely. I lost one project rather rapidly (but you can sense when things aren’t right, can’t you?) due to the client’s client not understanding what they bought. I was miffed (they still owed me money until yesterday), I was able to concentrate on a new client’s work and do my best for them.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s how June was for me. Feel free to share your results in the comments.

Queries:
I sent two. One was for an article by the aforementioned new client, and it was picked up immediately. The other was sent to an editor whom I’m sure will call when she gets a minute. She prefers phone, and I like that about her.

LOIs:
Because the first half of my month was busy, I didn’t send as many as I normally do — about 8, I think. Instead, I played follow-up. I reached out to 19 contacts, one of which hired me just a week ago. He said I was on his to-do list for that week, and I’d beaten him to it by two days.

Social media:
Honestly? I barely had time to show up on social media this past month. I didn’t open Tweet Deck more than four times, but I did tweet articles and posts by friends and client prospects. Beyond that, I was fairly absent. Well, other than to continue to harangue Verizon over them dropping The Weather Channel from my premium package without warning. But that’s another story.

Job postings:
I remember responding to one job posting (and the best are on All Indie Writers, by the way), but I didn’t hear anything. Rarely do I expect to, so I treat job postings as shots in the dark. They pretty much are since you’re competing with half the global freelance population. If my keywords got their attention, then I assume my price wouldn’t have been their favorite. Bargain shoppers are not my ideal clients.

Existing clients:
I worked with three regular clients this month on smallish projects (and one big one). It’s always nice to reconnect with people whose tastes you know and people you genuinely like.

New clients:
This is where the bulk of my earnings came from in June. I picked up two new clients (including the one from May), both from the conference. I’ve billed the client I acquired in May twice now, and the newest client has already paid the first half of the fee. Good times!

Poetry:
I’m becoming the Rejection Queen with poetry. I’m okay with that. I’m trying hard to learn the publications’ likes/dislikes, so it’s trial-and-error for now. Four submissions, no acceptances. Yet.

Earnings:
Oddly, even though I was busy, the earnings were off by 30 percent. I did better than I expected post-conference and sliding into summer, but I’m not thrilled. Had that retainer job not dried up, I would have surpassed my target. I could cry over it or I can accept it and try harder. C’est la vie.

Bottom line:
The push for conference work is still paying off. Even though I didn’t expect this new client (since we didn’t meet at the show), he held on to my email. If I could reach everyone like that, I’d never be idle. The marketing, as always, will continue. I won’t attend another conference this year, but I’ll still market to the conference goers. They’re usually eager to make a good impression.

Writers, how did you do in June?
Did you hit your earnings target?
Have you increased your target over the years? By how much?