Uncategorized | Words on the Page

After You

Posted on November 9, 2011 by lwidmer

Nano count: 13,386 words Despite my plan to spend all of yesterday on Nano, I had to go out of the house twice. I’d bought something that had to be returned that day or I lost my chance to do so. Then I had to send the large project back, so a trip to the…

Carving Out Biz Time

Posted on November 8, 2011 by lwidmer

Nano count: Still 10,001 words Very long day yesterday, but I accomplished two of my three goals. I had time-sensitive projects that had to go out ASAP, so they took priority over even my personal writing. Nano suffered. But since Nano doesn’t pay the bills, I made that sacrifice without any reservation. Besides, I have…

Morning Quarterbacking

Posted on November 7, 2011 by lwidmer

Nano count: 10,001 Wow, that weekend went by quickly. I spent a bit of it working. I have a large project in that is time-sensitive, and I took it on knowing the weekend was going to be sacrificed to some extent. I’m glad I spent those few hours on the project – I think I…

Link Love Friday

Posted on November 4, 2011 by lwidmer

Nano word count: 7,555 After spending a nice lunch wishing a good writing chum happy birthday (hey, Bob!), I landed back in this chair close to 3:30 yesterday afternoon. I have two pressing deadlines, one of which is about to arrive via Fedex and the other I’ve had enough time to read through once and…

Many Irons, Fires are Starting

Posted on November 3, 2011 by lwidmer

Nano count, Day two: 5,126 words I decided to keep track of Nano work right here. I’m accountable for everything else monthly, why not Nano daily? Feel free to post your own writing results here during this month (or any month, for that matter). I had a good day yesterday. I met with a prospective…

Monthly Assessment: October 2011

Posted on November 1, 2011 by lwidmer

Why did I think I’d get a thing done yesterday? I had a scheduled MRI in the morning. There went the morning. Then I had a few small issues to clear up, plus contract odds and ends to finalize, and some insurance-related documents to dig out. By the time I looked up, it was 4…

Freakishness and Weekends

Posted on October 31, 2011 by lwidmer

That was weird. I could smell it on Friday. Any of you who are used to impending snow storms coming know what I’m talking about. The air becomes heavy, static, and the sun has troubles cutting through…haze? What is that? It’s a storm coming, and if you’re paying attention, you’ll know about it a full…

Friday Link Love

Posted on October 28, 2011 by lwidmer

Thanks to everyone who participated in the LinkedIn Secrets & Success Webinar yesterday. It was a fantastic presentation – Susan Johnston walked us through both her presentation slide show and LinkedIn’s pages, giving us strategies all the way. Yesterday was also a great day in terms of marketing. I had sent out plenty of LOIs…

Event-ful Opportunities

Posted on October 27, 2011 by lwidmer

Today’s the day! If you’ve not signed up yet, please join us for the LinkedIn Secrets and Success Webinar with Susan Johnston today at 11 am PT/ 2 pm ET. If you join both the Webinar and the Five Buck Forum, you get the entire enchilada for $15 – ten bucks for the Webinar, five…

Jake P

October 27, 2011

The closest thing to a conference that I've done since my corporate stiff days was the Tucson Festival of Books. I was one of several manning the Editorial Freelancers Association booth.

I got a couple of leads out of it, but nothing ever came to fruition. Most of the people there were trying to get people to edit their unpublished novels for free, or next to it.

In addition to great people-watching, honestly, the best thing that I got out of it was attending a seminar on "How to write sex scenes without sounding stupid" or something like that. It was pretty hilarious, if nothing quite applicable to my daily writing tasks for corporate clients.

Wade Finnegan

October 27, 2011

Thanks Lori for taking my suggestion. I believe not having a niche is the biggest hurdle. After reading this, I have some direction and that helps a bunch. Thanks for sharing your insights, hopefully others will comment on their experiences.

Paula

October 27, 2011

Conferences and conventions can also be a boon to feature writers. The best way to approach it is to query business mags or trade pubs about covering the convention. If you have a valid assignment, not only does the press pass get you in for free, but you usually get a book listing all of the exhibitors, bios on the speakers, and after the show you'll have loads of ideas to pitch to multiple publications. Yeah, you'll have the exhibitor list for future reference, too.

Lori

October 27, 2011

PERFECT suggestion, Paula! I managed to get the editor of one pub to ask me – at the conference -to keep my eyes open for story ideas. Better to have it lined up prior to, though.

Glad it's helpful, Wade. One more bullet in your arsenal, eh? 🙂

Jake, probably not the best conference to gain clients from, I agree. I'd look in industry first. Writing – hell, we're all looking for clients! LOL

That had to be one fun seminar! I'm envious. 🙂

Denene @ Freelance-Write-Now

October 27, 2011

Lori: This is a pretty interesting marketing approach. Would you mind sharing what types of projects you've worked on from approaching companies this way? Did you find that sending LOIs prior helped in connecting while at the conference? Would love to hear more! Thanks!

Lori

October 28, 2011

Hi Denene – my LOI use is a shorter history (before I would send a sales letter and brochure), but some of the projects I've worked on as a result are articles (they work for magazines, too), ghostwritten thought pieces for companies, editing work, and newsletters. I did find it better to send the LOI, though there's nothing wrong with walking up to a company booth at a trade show, asking them to tell you about their business, then handing them a business card and giving them a brief summary of your background. I did this at the last show and I'm actually still talking with two companies on project ideas (nothing concrete from them yet, but one is close to deciding).

At that show, I contacted them a bit too close to the conference time – three months, I believe. I did get six or so appointments, but no one took me up on the offer to help with conference materials. That's probably because the work was already done at that point.

Does that help?

Denene @ Freelance-Write-Now

October 28, 2011

Thanks, Lori! That's very good info to know. I have thought about marketing myself as a ghostwriter for company experts who market themselves through trade articles since I do so much trade writing. I just need to take the time to market myself in this capacity.

Thanks so much for the additional info. Have a great weekend!

Anne Wayman

October 28, 2011

hmmm, food for thought here, although I tend to avoid crowds a lot these days… hmmmm

oh, and yesterday I was as crazed as Lori describes… and I wasn't even on im – but it turned out to be a great webinar

Lori

October 31, 2011

Denene, that sounds like a super plan! Go for it. 🙂

Anne, I like conferences because if you go to the same ones, you make friends. I like seeing familiar faces. Lord, I should have been a salesperson the way I love to mingle and chat people up!