Words on the Page

a freelance writing resource.

  • When a Client Breaches a Freelance Contract

    We’ve all had our share of flaky clients. By flaky, I mean clients who: Disappear at payment time Reappear three months later to complain about quality (oddly about the same time you’ve threatened litigation/collection) Change the project parameters after you’ve done the work Revise more than twice (my record is 12 revisions) and get farther…

  • Guest Post: Crafting a Freelance Writing Portfolio That Gets You Hired

    Sometimes a great idea lands in your email. This guest post is a prime example, in fact. When Jenn Mattern told me to expect a message from Monica Shaw, little did I know that the message would result in this great little post you’re about to read. The back story: Monica runs WritersResidence.com, a site…

  • How I Boosted my Freelance Career (and how you can, too)

    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the freelancer I was and the freelancer I am now. They are two different people, my friends. The old me was a hit-and-miss freelancer. I lost my job suddenly and had two kids to support. So my freelance career back then was pasted together. I’d take whatever gig…

  • How to Fail at Freelance Writing

    If you’ve been freelancing for a while, you’ve seen a lot. I’d bet you’ve seen something like what Randy Hecht shares with us today. Randy is the moderator of the popular LinkedIn forum LinkEds & Writers, which has a large population of working freelance editors and writers — the site’s target audience. As you might…

  • How to Lose $$ with Bad Freelance Marketing (and how to fix it)

    Freelancers, are you killing your chances of gaining a client or a network connection? Do you know if you are? Hint: you are if you do anything like this: Writer Jane submitted a thread to a writers’ forum. The moderator, another writer, turned it down because it was promotional, which is against the forum rules….

  • The No-nonsense Freelance Negotiation Tactic

    If you wait long enough (five minute usually), the universe will hand you a blog topic. In this case, it was a fellow writer who sent along her own scenario that serves as a reminder to all writers that you can — and should — stand up for your freelance writing business. Here’s the scenario…

  • When is a Freelancer Not a Freelancer?

    Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Looking for writers with a background in digital news reporting to write for us on a freelance basis. We would need 40 hours per week and the hours would be 9-to-5. See anything wrong with that? You should. And your obvious follow-up question to the job poster…

  • Freelance ‘Anti-Niche’ Niche Boost

    I’m going to say something that’s a little controversial — We’re all niche writers. We’re also all generalists. No matter what you start out writing, you eventually end up with two things happening: You start to write a lot of the same topic or writing form (blog posts, ghosted articles, case studies, etc.) You write…

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