Welcome to September. It’s been a wild month here, and it’s only the 3rd. Hurricane Ida came through yesterday, and we spent the afternoon removing some of the ten inches of rain that found its way into the basement. With that amount of water in a short amount of time, there was no way we…
Writing Without Racism
This shouldn’t be a difficult post to write. And yet, it is. In 2020, we all watched it happen. As we watched a man murdered, we watched something else happen, too. Our world woke up to what millions of people have already known — racism is alive and festering. Worse, in the last decade, it…
Freelance Follies: This Job, Not That Job
And the madness continues. In a slow month in which I’m poised to earn over $10K, there is still proof that some job posters think that writing is a fire-sale endeavor. Thanks to my chum Sharon Hurley Hall, I was alerted to this job. Well, let’s not call it a job. It’s more of a…
The Freelance Cattle Call
Let’s just say it. Some job postings are there to attract tons of responses. And they get what they ask for. Why would anyone want to attract tons of job applicants? And exactly why is that bad? First, let’s look at an example of the cattle call. We looking for a freelance copyeditor to review…
Not-so-new Freelancer’s Guide: The Professional Business
Back in July, we set off on a journey, talking about how to ramp up your established freelance writing business. With so much beginner advice clogging the airwaves, I thought it might be a good idea to move beyond beginner stages and into building a stronger freelance writing career. Today, we’ll be covering the last…
Your Freelance Biz’s Biggest Legal Threat
Struggling freelancers, freelancers who are doing well — let’s talk. In an unsettling exchange that another freelancer shared with me, a beginning writer was asking for some advice and feedback. Normally, those “feedback” requests get ignored because if every one of them were answered, who would get any paying work done? But because my friend…
6 Ways to Sabotage Your Freelance Career
A friend of mine asked me the other day what I knew about a certain freelancer. It was someone who crossed her email, and there was some evidence I was connected to her. “Oh, not that freelancer,” I said. That response was telling. I hadn’t heard from said freelancer since 2015. And yet I still knew…
Freelance Game Plan: Your Raise
August already, huh? Looking back over the last eight months, ask yourself this: Am I where I want to be in my freelance writing career? Think back to January. What were your plans? To get more clients? To work more? To work less? To earn more? What was on your resolutions list? Didn’t quite hit…
Not-so-new Freelancer’s Guide: Building Name Recognition
You’ve been at this freelance writing business for a while now. People should know your name by now. So why don’t they? Continuing what we started at the beginning of the month with our first Not-so-new Freelancer’s Guide, let’s just tick down the list of things that more experienced freelancers need to know, but aren’t…
6 Ways to Boost Your Freelance Writing Career Now
Ever see those tweets and posts on social media in which the writer literally asks for work from an unnamed client or fellow writer? Annoy the hell out of you too, right? A friend alerted me to one such Twitter ask. The writer asked for someone to throw work their way — writing yes, but…