lwidmer | Words on the Page

Your Freelance Writing Continuous Improvement Plan

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Today is more of an interactive post. Consider it homework that will actually make a difference to your freelance writing business. “Become addicted to constant and never-ending improvement.” – Anthony J. D’Angelo I saw a bastardized version of this quote on Twitter and did some researching to make sure it was attributed correctly. It wasn’t,…

The Freelance Writing Readjustment

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Here’s the thing about a freelance writing career — You go along building a client base, you get comfortable with how things are going, and you ride it out. Or you slap it together every day and cross your fingers. Which one are you? In many ways, both of those methods are shortchanging your potential….

Writers Worth: This Job, Not That Job

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Happy Veterans Day to all who have served. We appreciate you. It must be the time of year for weirdness. Paula Hendrickson sent me a job listing that was pretty awful. It was going to be today’s post. However, as bad as the one she sent was, this one was so, so much worse. Time…

Fair Pricing and the Freelance Writer

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Lately, I’ve been enjoying Walt Kania’s posts over at The Freelancery blog. Maybe it’s because Walt has been focused on pricing recently, which is a perennial concern for writers. His most recent post delves into what a “fair price” may be. It’s a question I ask myself quite a lot. I bet you do, too….

The Response Your Freelance Writing Business Doesn’t Need

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Today. Vote. Got it? If you don’t, you lose all right to complain, in my opinion. Had a great weekend, one in which I was able to meet Joy Drohan. She was in the area with her children for a sports event, and we met for lunch afterward. What a great person! Joy is someone…

How to Quit Your Freelance Writing Career

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Look online right now — Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, you name it. I guarantee you you’ll find at least five articles telling you how to start a freelance writing career. Or if freelance writing is for you. But no one has told you how to quit one. Until now. Say what? That’s right — I’m about…

Finding the Right Freelance Writing Course

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Recently a family member was looking for a course or a school for art instruction. This isn’t a beginner, but someone who wants to improve on skills already learned. They did it the right way — they looked at the schools that were touting the best results. Funny how even the best schools can disappoint….

The Reliable Freelance Writer Guide

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Thanks to everyone who joined Paula Hendrickson and me for the Writers Worth chat on Tuesday! Lively discussion from everyone — we’ll have another one soon. Every now and then I like to read through old blog posts — not all great advice is recent, you know? I came across Peter Bowerman’s post from a…

Paula Hendrickson: “No-ing” Your Limits

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Join Paula and me today at 11 am ET for another Writers Worth Twitter chat! Use the hashtag #WWMchat to participate. Bring your questions and stay for the whole hour or just ten minutes. See you there! I promised you this past May that Writers Worth Month is probably ending. But Writers Worth? That is…

Hidden Freelance Writing Gigs You Can Uncover Now

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Not long ago I was supplying a steady client with articles. The process went like this: I proposed article topics They selected I wrote and got paid I’ll say upfront I wasn’t compensated terribly for the articles, though I wasn’t going to become rich off the work. What was sucking up a bit too much…

Gina

Is it too personal a question to ask how many articles you can generally write in a week? I realize projects vary, but suppose articles were all you wrote in a week. Have you found a number that you produce on average? This kind of question has bugged me forever. I realize writers are all different, but I’d love to hear your perspective. I’m one of those slow writers who belabors projects.

1. lwidmer
  
  Hi Gina — not too personal at all.
  
  I’ve never personally just written articles, but I have had two article assignments at the same time. I’ve had as many as seven projects in the same month, which required a list and organizing. It was too much, I thought.
  
  If I were to sit down and write an article, including research but no interviews, a couple of hours? I do have one gig right now that’s blog posts, and I generate the ideas and research. The posts are 500 words, so it’s not a huge job.
  
  Articles with interviews take longer — the interview, any transcribing, then the writing. For me, a 1,500-word article would be about 6-8 hours of work total. That’s stretched out over a few weeks, as not every interview subject is available when you need them.
  
  Does that answer your question?
2. Paula Hendrickson
  
  Feature articles make up the bulk of my work, Gina, and I typically am not cranking out several articles per week.
  
  I don’t think it’s about slow or fast writers. It’s more about the lengths and types of the articles, the subject matter, how much research is involved, how many (if any) interviews are required, and whether your client provides leads and sources to get you started or if you have to start from scratch. Finding reliable sources can take a lot of legwork for some articles.
  
  I’m wary of places that require contributors to write 5 or 10 or however many articles per week or per month. Focusing on quantity rather than quality is never a good sign. (That said, I think most of those “articles” are probably mashups, roundups, or glorified blog posts that don’t require any interviews.)
  
  The types of articles I write can take weeks to do, but I’m not working actively on them every day. The biggest time suck is scheduling interviews. (Right now I’m working on three articles but most of the interviews don’t start until next week.) One the interviews are done, I transcribe them. That helps me organize the material in my mind so I can write the article fairly quickly whether it’s 400 words or 2500 words. But I would have done most of the supplemental research while waiting for the call.
  
  I’ve turned some articles around in 24 hours, but that only happens when the interviewees are immediately available. I’ve had weeks in which I’ve written four or five articles, but the research and interviews had all been done in the days and weeks leading up to it. At one point I was actively working on 13 articles at once, but the deadlines were spread out over several weeks.
  
  What types of articles do you enjoy writing?