Tag Archives: Joe Wallace

resources

Jennifer Mattern on Freelance Marketing

Jennifer Mattern has some excellent advice for freelancers in this recent post on freelance marketing. One great point she makes about holiday marketing is not to overlook sending Christmas  cards or other holiday-themed communications, even if you don’t personally celebrate that holiday. It’s easy to get tunnel vision about that sort of thing, and this advice is well-timed.

Another great bit of advice in this article; take stock of your accomplishments this year and start thinking ahead to next year. I’ve always started doing this round the end of the year, but earlier is definitely better when it comes to making plans for next year. What I would add to Jennifer’s advice is to start thinking ahead in terms of your budget, especially if you need to get new business cards and other promotional items.

Are you launching any new ventures in 2009? Will you start teaching writing classes or doing seminars? You’re going to need money for promotional materials and supplies. Do you need some extra tax write-offs for 2008? Get those supplies early and count it towards this year’s taxes where it’s legal to do so. A little extra thinking time never hurts. Great advice and food for thought all around in Jennifer’s article, Evaluation Time – Monthly Marketing Mix.

advice, editorial, lifestyle

Scary Times For Freelancers?

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The New York Observer reports Conde Nast making a five percent cut in budget AND staff across the board. The existence of at least one title, Men’s Vogue, is in doubt at press time, and freelancers were mentioned by name as one of the resources that could be cut to fit the bill. Five percent doesn’t sound like that much for an organization as large as Conde Nast until you read further and learn that the five percent cuts apply for EACH PUBLICATION, not an as-a-whole, company-wide reduction.

Combine that news with the parting shot the Christian Science Monitor fired this week when it was announced the venerable publication would stop printing hard copies of its daily edition in favor of web-only publication and you have some interesting times for freelancers ahead.

The breed of writer I call “newsstand freelancers” are going to suffer as the big-money titles start shaving their budgets, but any freelancer who knows how to market, diversify writing gigs, and look in unique places for new work shouldn’t have much to worry about at this point, at least not in my view.

The key to all this is reading the headlines and anticipating the next round of tough times. Take a close look at your current situation. Are you earning the bulk of your income from a single source. It’s time to start adding clients to protect yourself. Is your resume page outdated or in need of a new look that helps it look more “web 2.0”? Invest the time, you may need to use that page soon. Are you a new full-time freelancer? Solidify your existing relationships with clients and editors by turning your projects in early, being flexible as possible, and willing to take on short-notice gigs that are inconvenient to you but endear you to your editor.

The key to avoiding the lay-off axe, the budget cuts and the tough times is to make yourself as indispensible as possible. Ask yourself how you can do that with your current editors and get to it. You’ll find yourself in a much better position as a result. The tough times are here, but not for everyone. Where you stand depends greatly on how you seek new work, approach the editors and deliver the content.

lifestyle

What Are Your Freelance Time-Wasters?

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Everybody has a few daily time-wasters built in to their freelance routines. I use mine mostly to stay sane, especially when I have a particularly frustrating morning. Clients who won’t get back to me on important details, checks that arrive late or not at all, part-time writers who abuse the apostrophe, when all this stuff gangs up to drive me mad, I turn to one of my glorious time-wasters to help me blow off steam.

What are YOUR time wasters? I find that Wired.com, Craigslist, and the new releases section of IMDB.com are all places I get lost in, but nowhere near as much of a time drain as the gadget pictured above and to the left.

The telephone is by far the biggest blow to my available time in any given day. Once I start commiserating with my fellow writers and editors about life, the universe, the preponderance of television ads about Mesothelioma lawyers, home loan foreclosures and other sundry topics, it’s easy to lose 30 minutes to an hour talking about everything and nothing.

What makes YOU lose track of the time? I’d love to see a dialog in this space about time wasters, productivity, and how you manage to get your lost time back. For me, I find Saturday mornings are usually the first casualty to the time wasting habits of the work week…what about you?

resources

Freelancer Tools: Your Local Library

I am a freelance editor and writer. I don’t know how to write PHP, Javascript, or use Linux. So why am I reading a book on how to be a freelance computer consultant? One written ten years ago which is now hopelessly out of date, technology-wise?

Simple…I want to know how other freelancers do business and see if there are any “best practices” I can glean from their experience.

One of the best pieces of advice any freelancer will get about setting their rates is “never work hourly”. Sure enough, it’s true in the freelance computer consulting world, too, but I also got some great tips about dealing with hostile work environments, dealing with on-site freelance situations where hostile employees make your life difficult, and how to structure your payment schedule for long-term projects to make all parties happier with the arrangement.

I learned all this stuff for free, having checked out out the book from my local library. It’s surprising where you can learn cool stuff about the ins and outs of freelancing. I had a good laugh reading a ten-year-old book on marketing via the Internet. DId you know there are these great micro-publishing websites called “weblogs” (blogs for short)?  Ten years ago, people were convinced that television was DOOMED and that while “blogs” are amusing, they could never be taken all that seriously. After all, they’re so niche-driven, where’s the money in THAT? (Sarcasm alert. It makes me sad that I even have to put that in here, but there you go.)

The library is your friend…especially if they stock a copy of that book every new freelancer is tempted to buy, Writer’s Market. You do NOT need to purchase this book! Chances are the library has done it for you.

lifestyle

A Glossary for Freelancers

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In the beginning of a career, freelancers often fail to realize they need to properly interpret job ads, calls for writers and other important communications designed to lure you into a life of making money in your pajamas. Fortunately, we’re here to help. Have a look at this handy vocabulary list and keep these definitions–assembled in no particular order– in mind when you read the next set of writer’s guidelines, a call for submissions or writing contest rules:

Freelancer: Someone with a large supply of alcohol and no steady employment.

Freelance Writer: Someone with a large supply of alcohol, no steady employment, and a website.

Submission Guidelines: A list of Byzantine rules designed to weed out lazy writers, chumps, and noobs. Any disregard for the arcane demands of the guidelines are quickly round-filed with a low, evil laugh.

Exposure: Editor-speak for “no pay”.

Coffee: A performance-enhancing drug.

Writing Instructor: A freelance writer who has enough clients or good paying gigs to turn down paying assignments to hold court for little or no pay.

Zombie: A freelance writer who stops working for the evening.

Writers Wanted: An incomplete sentence which should be fully rendered thus: “Writers wanted for low pay.”

Objectivity: A term sometimes used by magazine editors, roughly translated as “matching viewpoints”.

College degree preferred: A term commonly found in job posts by high-profile media companies such as NPR, CBS, NBC, etc. When found in less prestigious publications, websites or media companies, should be rendered “Writer sought by people who don’t understand the business of writing.”

Multi-tasking: A learned skill. The ability to tell several lies at once about the status of multiple projects.

Telecommuting: The act of working until 7PM without showering or brushing one’s teeth.

Cell Phone: A tool used to enslave creative people to their cruel masters.

Sleep: A five-hour vacation from freelance work.

advice, editorial

Your Blog Sucks: Five Reasons Why

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Are you struggling to find an audience for your blog? Do you see a flat line on the chart that’s supposed to indicate your growth? It may sound mean-spirited, but chances are your blog sucks–or the blog in question is missing the boat on some very important issues. Or both.

A lot of bloggers see successful, long-lived sites breaking the following rules and assume they can get away with it too; the key in studying any successful blog is to be mindful of the things that caused the success. Those factors somehow outweigh the broken rules. Can your relatively unknown, traffic-hungry blog afford to break those same rules without sacrificing readers? Here are five reasons why YOUR BLOG SUCKS:

5. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY. Even personal blogs have a point, regardless of how ever-changing it may be. Let’s take a look at the successful Livejournal blog by author Poppy Z. Brite as an example. PZB doesn’t have a book project currently underway and she rarely does signings, talks or tours these days (a bummer on all counts). Yet her blog is continually engaging and interesting to read. She sometimes rambles, gets on the occasional soapbox and posts images of her cats. Sounds like 99% of the personal blogs out there, doesn’t it? Yet PZB always has SOMETHING TO SAY. There is A POINT. Even when just to say, “This is pointless”.

It is painfully obvious to most people when a blog goes up simply to entice people to click affiliate links or to sell a product. Blogs are meant to DISCUSS THINGS. Selling should be considered a pleasant side effect of the success of your blog.

4. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER. Personal bloggers can skip this one, I’m talking directly to writing Continue reading Your Blog Sucks: Five Reasons Why →