Freelancing – Page 3

Converting a New Client to a Long-Term Client

One of the easiest ways to get additional assignments is to work often for your favorite clients.

Three important strategies for getting existing clients to hand you new assignments are

always having a next project to offer existing clients
asking your best clients for more work, again and again
adding new skills and abilities so you can pitch to existing clients additional types of assignments.

These are all good ways to extend the time frame in which you’re doing work for particular clients — in effect converting new and presumably short-term clients to long-term clients.

Other specific techniques you can use to encourage new clients to steadily offer you additional, sometimes even on-going or regularly-repeating, assignments are

offer to update or expand on previous work
investigate client activities to find additional areas in which you can contribute
develop key relationships so you become the go-to professional
bring new ideas and information, some with an eye on generating assignments for yourself, some just to prove yourself valuable to the client.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these.

Offer to Update or Expand on Previous Work

It’s quite common for professional writers to be given assignments that are more important and more long-term than a simple one-off piece of work.

For example, if you’re asked to write the president’s statement in a company’s annual report, chances are the company is going to need another one written next year. Or if you write an article for an insurance company on ways to avoid winter weather damage, chances are the company will want a similar article written when next winter rolls around. And you’ve already got the experience and contacts to do these assignments effectively.

Similarly, if you’re asked to write up a client’s capabilities and current contract for a website or a marketing brochure, it’s fair to assume that sometime down the road the client will have expanded capabilities and new contracts. Who better than you to do this new write-up, particularly since you are already up to speed?

In addition, more sophisticated professional writers, and their clients that either are or can be educated to appreciate more sophisticated work, recognize that many writing projects — blogs, content marketing efforts, strategic branding programs, newsletters, seasonal information efforts, insider reports, and so forth — are natural candidates for ongoing updates and continuations.

To help keep more of your clients on your active roster, get in the habit of thinking about each assignment you accept as not only the specific work the assignment involves today, but also as whatever additional work the assignment can reasonably lead to in the future.

Investigate Client Activities to Find Areas in Which You Can Contribute

Whenever you’re working for a client, you’re in a great position to find out more about what the client is doing now, as well as what the client hopes to be doing in the future. Be curious about all this. Look for clues. Sniff out this kind of information. As you find out more, think about possible ways you can add your skill set, experience, creativity, and know-how to the client’s current, definitely upcoming, and hoped-for activities.

For example, when I was writing professional education audio programs for a major association, it came to my attention that key marketing people had the idea to expand into producing films, as well. Guess who got the contract to write and produce the first one?

Develop Key Relationships So You Become the Go-To Professional

Many professionals obtain a great deal of their work through the people who know them and think highly of their work. This provides an excellent avenue to convert new clients to long-term ones.

The strategy here is not only to deliver good work to the client, but to cultivate honest, close relationships with key decision-makers. I’m not advocating that you suck up to jerks or endure insults from abusive people who happen to wield power. I’m simply saying that a savvy professional should be open to finding friends among his or her clients and allowing these friendships to endure even when the client relationship itself appears to be tailing off.

You’ll find that when you have friends who like you and appreciate your professional abilities, they will enjoy offering you additional assignments that cross their desks, perhaps over a period of many years.

Bring New Ideas and Information

One of the reasons large organizations often have both in-house departments and outside consultants working on the same problems and opportunities is that no one has a monopoly on good ideas or information. In fact, the supply of good ideas and information is often quite limited.

That’s why you can help convert new clients to long-term clients if you not only deliver your high-quality work on time, but you also serve as an outside consultant who brings your client useful ideas and information.

Becoming a source of useful ideas and information for your client will help to keep you top of mind. It will also help strengthen your client’s perception of you as a knowledgeable professional who can help with a wide range of valuable tasks.

Obviously, you’ll want to call your client’s attention to an idea or a piece of information that can lead directly to a new assignment for you. But it’s almost — some would say equally — important that you also provide your client useful ideas and information that may not immediately tie in with your capabilities. The more valuable you can be to your clients, in any and every way, the more likely they will keep you busy with assignments over the long-term.

Over the years, I’ve worked with lots of different clients — some one-offs, some over the long-term. Although I can’t claim a 100% success rate in converting new and short-term clients to long-term sources of work, I’ve had a lot of success in my efforts to do this, and in helping other professionals do the same. I’ve found that success in prompting these kinds of client conversions is often a matter of knowing and using the right strategies, coupled with maintaining the right mindset.

Robert Moskowitz is an award-winning independent professional writer who has written and sold millions of words in just about every format over five decades. He instinctively sees the big pictures, breaks each one down into coherent slices, meaningfully prioritizes and sequences those slices, and then executes the tasks inherent in each slice in very productive ways. Put more simply, Robert knows how to succeed as an independent writer, covering all the bases from soliciting assignments to delivering polished work, from pricing jobs to budgeting and managing personal finances, from organizing a conducive office environment to establishing and following sensible guidelines regarding life, work, and productivity. Having done all this, and having paid attention to how he did it, Robert is now in a position to pass along what he knows to others.

Test Your Website Forms or You Could Be Losing Freelance Business

Tuesday, June Post a comment

I run three different websites with slightly different WordPress themes: my customer-facing portfolio, my freelancer-facing Dr. Freelance blog, and my publishing company for books about freelancing. Unfortunately, that also means three sets of plugins and versions to keep updated, and three dumpsters of spam to empty regularly. The reason for this blog post today isn’t to whine about maintenance. It’s a reminder about one other critical aspect that is easy to overlook: test your website forms. And the reason for that reminder is because I don’t want you to do what I did: loose a piece of potential freelance business!

An author whose book I’d edited last summer sent me a note to expect a referral. I waited about two weeks, because the ball was in the new refer-ee’s court, then dropped him a line to find out the status.

He responded, “Thanks, but I didn’t hear back from you, so I went with another editor.” Ugh.

Lesson Learned: Website Forms Need TLC Too

It turned out that he had attempted to send me a message through one of my website forms rather than to my email. Sure enough, I tested the form. Despite the cheerful “Thanks! Message sent successfully” auto response, the message itself had disappeared into the internet ether, never to land in my inbox.

I was bummed but wrote him a nice note saying that I hoped we could work together on a future project. Then, I set about trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with my form plugin, Contact Form 7. I knew the problem had occurred after an update to my WordPress theme. Even though I updated the web form plugin, there was a setting—deep in the cobwebs of GoDaddy—that was preventing it from sending due to a conflict with Office 365. Basically, the default is to use the “local email exchanger,” and it needed to be set to “Remote Email Exchanger.” (If you’re struggling with the same issue, further details here: Contact Form 7 emails won’t send to Office 365.)

After a few hours of incredibly frustrating troubleshooting and a 5-minute call to GoDaddy tech support, my problem was solved. More important, a new item was added to my regularly scheduled maintenance: test my website forms.

Jake Poinier made the leap into freelance writing and editing in 1999 after a decade of positions in the publishing industry, giving him key insights from both sides of the desk. As the founder and owner of Boomvang Creative Group, he has worked with a diverse array of Fortune 500 and small businesses, consumer and trade magazines, and independent authors. Jake is committed to helping freelancers improve their businesses and shares his knowledge and experiences frequently as a speaker at industry conferences, through webinars, and on his blog.

How Networking Can Help a Writing Business Get off to a Good Start

Wednesday, April Post a comment

A lot goes into launching a successful writing business, and networking can be one factor in that success. This post focuses on the networking aspect of your writing work.

Writers might not think of networking as an element of their new businesses, and that could mean losing out on valuable ways to learn about the craft and business and to develop connections that could not only improve those aspects of what they want to do, but also to lead to a greater likelihood of getting published.

All writers probably share a common goal: for our words, thoughts, and perspectives to find audiences and outlets. Individuals might be at different stages of creativity, visibility, or success, but every writer wants—even needs—to be seen and heard. For the new writer, that first sale or outlet is so exciting, and networking is one way to get there.

Whether you’re writing a novel or a press release, a poem or a white paper, a play or a case study, a how-to book or a personal blog post, you want what you write to be seen and appreciated. Beyond being seen, we also want everyone who sees our writing to understand it, respond to it positively by publishing reviews or acting on it somehow, recommending it to others, and reading or buying the next piece we write. Networking can help that happen.

Where networking comes into play is in providing resources for learning to write better by joining critique groups, taking classes, or lining up beta readers; identifying reputable editors and proofreaders and understanding and managing their input; finding appropriate agents and publishers for our work; getting paid; and related details of a writing business or the writing life.

Through networking, you can meet colleagues who will provide advice, insights, and resources, and who might become beta readers or refer you to prospective clients and their writing projects. You could be seen by and connect with potential agents to represent your work or publishers who might consider bringing you into their houses, saving you the effort of searching for the ideal agent and outlet. If you plan to self-publish work that needs illustrations, networking can help you find the artist you need.

It’s important to remember that networking is a two-way process. In fact, that might be the most important aspect of networking. A writer needs to create a net of contacts and colleagues who can help them do their work better and enhance their likelihood of publication. One of the best ways to do that is to be a useful strand in the nets of colleagues. Ask questions and look for ways to provide answers to other people’s questions.

And don’t let being new to writing or networking make you feel that you can’t contribute to the networking process. You can! If you don’t have any answers yet, look for resources you can share—books, courses, blogs, organizations, etc.—that you have found useful or have seen in your real-world and online visiting. Keep in mind that we all had to start somewhere, first by actually writing something, next by getting it published, and then by becoming visible and active in some corner of the writing world. Even extroverts like me had to learn the ropes of networking effectively; it isn’t just a matter of paying dues and showing up or using the resources of an association to enhance our own writing work.

In the continuing pandemic era, we can’t do much networking in person, so the introverts among us don’t have to worry as much about fitting in at events as in the past (and, we hope, the future). Nowadays, you can use the virtual world to your networking advantage by “lurking” in online communities and professional associations while taking the temperature of the environment and deciding whether they will be helpful before you spend money on a membership or speak up with your questions and suggestions. Oh, and the membership dues are tax deductible!

Learn and profit from networking, and try to give as much as you take. Your writing business and efforts will blossom as a result, along with your reputation.

Ruth Thaler-Carter has been a full-time freelance writer, editor, proofreader, and desktop publisher for more than 30 years. She has been published locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally in, and does writing, editing and proofreading for, publications, associations, nonprofits, websites, service firms, and businesses. She sold her first freelance articles when she was still in high school. Renowned as a skilled networker, Ruth is active in about a dozen professional associations, serving as a newsletter editor, webmaster, publication author, speaker/presenter, blogger, program host or planner, and chapter leader. In 2006, Ruth launched the Communication Central “Be a Better Freelancer” annual conference to help aspiring and established freelancers find greater success and connections with colleagues. Ruth is the owner and editor-in-chief of the An American Editor blog and received the Philip M. Stern Award of Washington (DC) Independent Writers for service to freelancers; the Writers and Books Big Pencil Award for teaching adults and contributions to the literary community; EFfie awards for writing, editing, and newsletters; and the APEX award for feature writing. She was also an IABC/DC Communicator of the Year.

Overcoming Project Paralysis

Tuesday, March Post a comment

In business and in life, we tend to irrationally build things up in our heads and overcomplicate what’s in front of us. We tend to overthink what it takes to complete our next project. In reality, there’s only one requirement: to simply start. Few understand this principle better than Dan Sullivan at Strategic Coach. Dan’s simple 80% Approach is the simplest, clearest recipe we’ve seen for overcoming the two mental habits that stall far too many important projects and entrepreneurs, sometimes “for an entire lifetime.” These two insidious and all too common habits are perfectionism and procrastination.

I’ve compiled key take-aways below from Dan’s book The 80% Approach.

For most projects, 80% is all it takes to successfully launch.

Although the perfectionist says, “no way, it must be exactly correct before releasing,” this habit is entirely an internal struggle. This notion has no basis in the value of the project as perceived by most clients and the outside world. In most instances, the audience will accept 80% as 100%. So, if all that’s needed is 80%, this “gives us permission to nip perfectionism in the bud.” Otherwise, the result is usually unnecessary delays. Engaging clients early in the development process, before we consider it perfect, allows for checkpoints along the way, preventing misalignment on the project’s direction and the potential for rework down the road.

Don’t wait to complete your first 80%.

This is all about baby steps. Instead of looking at the whole and feeling overwhelmed, ask yourself this: What is the next incremental task I can do today to move this project forward. One word or one sentence on paper is sometimes all it takes. One phone call is better than no phone call. Chances are, you’ll get into a flow state and before you know it, you’ve written an entire page, chapter, or article.

Complete the second 80%.

This represents a further improvement to the original 80% effort and is best handled by other talented people. When you compound two 80% efforts, the result is 96% completion. As Dan says, “In a world filled with many sub-standard, shoddy, and unsatisfactory results, a 96%-quality project would look and actually be extraordinary.”

Do only the 80% that only you can do.

Owners, entrepreneurs, founders, and project leaders should be firmly entrenched in their unique abilities, producing their 80% portion of the project from their unique abilities only, “where their personal efforts will produce the best and fastest results.”

Community vs. Isolation – 80% vs. 100%.

When each member of a team is striving for 80% rather than 100%, they’re inspired to rely on each other. This leads to a cohesive environment that fosters genuine teamwork, reliance on each other, and community building. If everyone is focused on achieving 100% individually, they become isolated and full of doubt.

Ultimately, when we give ourselves permission to strive for 80% using our highest and best talents only, we start faster, we gain confidence, and we learn to trust in others to exercise their unique talents to move the project forward. As Dan coins it, “By riding the 80% wave of accelerating confidence, you make rapid progress, find it easy, and want to move even faster.”

You can pick up a complimentary copy of Dan’s book The 80% Approach.

Stephen (Steve”) Colwell serves as CEO and head of strategy for Clarify Media and Completing, two Southern California–based firms specializing in marketing and project management. With over 10 years of hands-on agency experience as a copywriter, brand strategist, and project manager, he brings a broad and deep range of both marketing and operations expertise to the community. From strategy and design to growth and performance, Steve offers a rare mix of creative and analytical thinking toward helping creative professionals, teams, and small businesses accelerate their progress and achieve more. He has led project teams responsible for over $100+ million in annual revenue across four continents. A certified Agile practitioner, Steve is fanatical about helping others work in teams more effectively and operate at their best using the same proven routines practiced by today’s top-performing companies.

Blurred Lines? Know the Journo Norms

Friday, December Post a comment

We’ve all been there, scampering for sources. Somehow, they usually fall into place. For me, I always over-source, reaching out to many experts at the same time to ensure I receive comments from more than one.

But what do you do when you have too many sources? Obviously, they don’t all make the cut.

This happened to me recently. I spoke to a few people and wound up not using comments from the final interview. One source had pretty much repeated everything that everyone else said, so I left it at that. I already had plenty of material to work with.

That was fine, until the source’s media team contacted me. They were disappointed that I didn’t use his comments.

Do You Have to Publish Responses from All Your Sources?

I didn’t like the “feel” of being told they were disappointed in me. After all, I was a media reporter—I didn’t work for them.

Sadly, a lot of communications folks who work privately think that reporters do work for them. I don’t mind the occasional “let us know when this posts” message, and I try to send a link whenever I can. But they don’t get to dictate which sources we use and which we don’t.

I was very clear about this in my response. I had to explain Journalism 101 style that I can’t possibly use every source I connect with on a story. I do a lot of my less-pressing interviews via email and often get multiple sources. None have ever seemed to get upset when I didn’t use their comments—we just agreed I’d reach out in the future. (And I usually do because I save all my messages!)

Should You Share Your Work Before It’s Published?

There’s another thing that these media teams, or a source, may ask you to do that’s blurring the line. Many want to see what you’ve written so they can approve it. That happens when they push out their internal content, but it’s not supposed to when working with an outside outlet. Many newspapers and media outlets specifically tell their reporters not to share the work until it’s published. That’s just how it’s done.

If you don’t use all your sources, that’s okay. Of course, you value a source’s time, but you don’t owe it to each one to publish everything they said. There are different reasons why sources are omitted or cut during the editing process. It’s not personal.

And in the same vein, remember that it is okay when you are writing for an outlet—and preferred by most—that you not share your article, or even pieces of it with the featured source, until it’s published. I’ve had to explain to many sources that this is the norm in the industry. Some get it, some don’t. I try not to work with those who don’t. Remember, the interviewee may not have actual reporting experience. They may not “know” how things are done, as wonderful as they may be at getting you sources.

Have a source that wants to know if you’ve represented them accurately? I get it, as some are misquoted. In that case, I’ll read back something to the source to let them check it for accuracy. This is why I do a lot of interviews via email—that way, I get things in writing (though there is room for misinterpretation there too if we aren’t careful).

I hate to see journalists beat themselves up because a PR person expects them to follow the same norms as they do with corporate communications. Many journalists are trying to be the nice guy and “do the right thing,” but our norms are different. People need to understand and accept them. Journalism is not corporate communications—we are not working for a certain institution. We are working for the free press.

If they don’t, well, there are always other sources.

Kristen Fischer is a copywriter and journalist living at the Jersey Shore. She worked as a reporter and copyeditor for Gannett before launching her full-time freelance business in 2005. Her work has been published in Parents, New Jersey Monthly, Prevention, Woman’s Day, SheKnows, and Healthline.

The Power of No

Thursday, December Post a comment

One of the methods that have allowed me to accomplish all that I have done so far in my career is my emphasis on focus. Given all the opportunities and temptations that crop up in a typical day, it would be easy to spend time and energy on so many different projects and interesting activities that without focus I would make far less progress toward the relatively few goals and priorities that are most important to me.

Fortunately, to help me maintain a steady focus I have cultivated a considerable amount of what I like to call “the power of no.”

Simply put, I am far quicker and better at saying “no” to opportunities and temptations than I am at saying “yes.”

I suppose this trait originally became apparent to me when it came time to buy my first car. There were a lot of good cars to choose from, but I wanted a convertible. Despite the possible alternatives, I found myself saying “no” to every car that wasn’t a convertible. I discovered I would rather have no car than a hardtop. Eventually, I got my convertible, and it helped me feel happy every time I drove it.

It turns out that this penchant for saying “no” is more than just a trick for avoiding what I don’t want. It’s also a powerful tool for focusing on what is most important and for keeping my time and energy reserved for activities and work that lead me in the directions I most want to go.

I have learned through experience that by saying “no” to the vast majority of opportunities and temptations I encounter, I automatically leave room for what’s more important.

This power of “no” greatly simplifies my life and work and delivers good results in many situations.

For example, when people ask me to give a presentation or attend a meeting planned for weeks or months in the future, my schedule for that date and time almost always appears to be clear. That would make it easy, and even tempting, to say “yes” to the offer.

But I have learned that my schedule fills up pretty regularly with work and activities I’m happy to pursue. So now when I encounter offers to do something far in the future I make a simple calculation: if that presentation or meeting were scheduled for today or tomorrow, rather than for sometime further out, and if I would feel it to be less important or less tempting than what I have already scheduled for today or tomorrow, I say “no.”

I can do this because I feel secure that when that date and time finally roll around, I will find myself heavily scheduled with work and activities that I will judge to be more in line with my goals and aspirations and I will regret having agreed to this less important presentation or meeting.

In this way, the power of “no” saves me from making a great many commitments I will later regret.

Similarly, the power of “no” helps me filter out opportunities and temptations that don’t fall into the top tier of things I’d like to do. Basically, I try very hard to say “no” to pretty much every offer that comes my way. The idea is to say “no” unless I feel so excited or so strongly tempted by the opportunity that I just can’t bring myself to avoid it.

The practical result of my default response being “no” is that in most cases I say “yes” only to those opportunities and temptations that are most powerfully aligned with my desires, goals, and plans. The power of “no” is one of the big reasons my days tend to be filled not with run-of-the-mill activities, but with opportunities and activities that I enjoy on many levels.

Saying “no” more often than saying “yes” also simplifies my life in several ways:

1. First, it’s now a habit to say “no,” so I can do it most of the time without having to think very much.

2. Second, by saying “no” unless I’m deeply excited and tempted by the opportunity, I eliminate lots of complications that would be involved in juggling the personal and practical conflicts usually associated with the kind of commitments that don’t really excite me.

For example, I don’t have to go to meetings or make presentations that I’d really rather avoid. I don’t have to disappoint people by making last-minute cancellations because something more exciting has come up. And I don’t have to spend time with people I don’t enjoy simply because I foolishly filled my schedule with second-tier activities.

3. Third, by focusing on those few priorities and goals I really care about, my choices of what to do next are easier to make. There are only a relatively few items on my plate at any one time, all of them mostly important to me. So boring, irrelevant, and unfulfilling commitments are far less of a distraction and a drain on my time than they otherwise would be.

I’m not sure why I started using the power of “no” to keep my powder dry and focus on what I really care about, but over the years I’ve come to recognize I’m not the only one to think this way, and to appreciate this practice as one of my strengths. I’ve helped others to develop this strength, as well, and no one who has ever learned it from me has ever come to regret using the power of “no” to improve their use of time and energy.

Making the Most of “The Calm Before the (Holiday) Storm”

Tuesday, December Post a comment

For many of us, the few weeks from mid-October through late November are a form of calm before the storm. The holidays are coming up fast, and a lot of clients seem to slack off on work requests, creating a false sense of relaxation for some of us and a feeling of “how will I make it financially through the end of the year?” panic for others.

The storm, of course, is the holiday season itself, with all the fun, stress, and frantic activity it demands; there’s also the end of the year, with its requirements for wrapping up record-keeping and preparing for tax season early in the new year. We have to balance family plans and expectations against client demands and deadlines, and all of that against the needs of our businesses, and that isn’t always easy.

Here are a few tips for making the most of downtime if you don’t have a lot of work in hand at the moment.

Get a head start on organizing tax records. If you’re flush, figure out what business-related expenses you can take care of before the end of this year to reduce your tax burden.
Review your recent income and expenses to see where you need to make improvements, and start working on a plan to generate more income in the new year. Plan on a rate increase, identify clients who aren’t worth keeping, look for new markets to explore, etc.
File stuff!
Update your résumé, website, and promotional material.
Write a few blog posts or articles to build up a bank of material to publish over the next few weeks or months, so you have it ready to go when you’re mired in the holiday or end-of-year demands. (This is something I have to do myself!)
Learn a new skill or program that will benefit your writing or editing business.
Look for colleagues to follow online, especially those with blogs you can comment on, to learn something new and build your online presence.
Plan your professional development activities for the new year: organizations to join or rejoin, conferences to attend, etc. This will help you start putting funds aside for such expenses (think of them as investments in your writing or editing business).
Review past published material to see what you can update and resell or repurpose.
Start writing that book!
Do some holiday gift-buying or—if you’re crafty—gift-making.
Consider taking a refreshing few days totally “off”—a spa day, a weekend trip to somewhere fun, a family trip.

If this time of year is when some of your clients do the panicking about packing a lot of last-minute work into November or December, consider yourself at least somewhat lucky—many colleagues would like to be in your position. Do as much holiday planning and purchasing as possible as you go along, and enjoy being well-employed!

Ruth Thaler-Carter has been a full-time freelance writer, editor, proofreader, and desktop publisher for more than 30 years. She has been published locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally in, and does writing, editing, and proofreading for, publications, associations, nonprofits, websites, service firms, and businesses. She sold her first freelance articles when she was still in high school. Renowned as a skilled networker, Ruth is active in about a dozen professional associations, serving as a newsletter editor, webmaster, publication author, speaker/presenter, blogger, program host or planner, and chapter leader. In 2006, Ruth launched the Communication Central “Be a Better Freelancer” annual conference to help aspiring and established freelancers find greater success and connections with colleagues. Ruth is the owner and editor-in-chief of the An American Editor blog and received the Philip M. Stern Award of Washington (DC) Independent Writers for service to freelancers; the Writers and Books Big Pencil Award for teaching adults and contributions to the literary community; EFfie awards for writing, editing, and newsletters; and the APEX award for feature writing. She was also an IABC/DC Communicator of the Year.

Managing Work and Family During the Holidays

Tuesday, December Post a comment

Related to the idea of making the most of any pre-holiday downtime is the companion concern of balancing work and family demands from mid-November through the end of the year. No matter what you celebrate, the holiday season imposes emotional and practical demands that make a lot of people just wish for it to be done and dusted . . . yesterday. But you can enjoy the holidays and still produce the writing and editing work that must be done.

The first step is to check that you know exactly what is due when. Make sure you have some kind of list of current and upcoming deadlines, whether it’s handwritten, in Word, in Excel, in Google Docs (don’t let anyone tell you how to keep track of assignments and deadlines; do and use whatever works for you). I have a combination of a tabbed Word document with assignment specifics, notes on my paper calendar, and a daily to-do list to help me stay focused on what I need to do when (and when I’ve billed and been paid!).

Consider posting your deadlines in your workspace so you can see them easily and get the satisfaction of checking things off as you finish them—and so your family can see when you’ll be too busy to be interrupted or thrown off track.

Take advantage of any slow time to do some work early. If it’s already starting to feel overwhelming, see if some projects can be pushed into January.

Learn to say no. If clients suddenly want you to churn out a ton of new work before the end of the year and you feel overburdened, find tactful ways to push their projects into the new year. If family and friends expect more than you can handle, be equally tactful, but firm, in saying no. It can be hard to do, but saying no is essential to our mental health and ability to manage stress.

If you can’t get out of doing new work, or projects already in hand that can’t be moved, try getting up an hour earlier for a couple days a week to keep yourself on schedule. That’s often easier than staying up later than usual; most of us are more fresh and energetic in the morning than late in the evening after several hours of work and family time. You also might be able to set aside a couple hours on Saturdays and Sundays to keep the work flowing but still enjoy family time.

Make another list to track your holiday or family commitments—travel plans, meal plans, gift planning. Take whatever spare moments you have to get a head start on those activities whenever you can. In fact, doing some early holiday shopping and cooking can be a good break from a heavy work schedule (as long as it doesn’t interfere with those deadlines). Unless you’re like me and love to shop in person out in the real world, do some of your holiday gift-finding and giving online.

If these tasks feel as overwhelming as an overload of work demands, speak up! Kids and partners or spouses, siblings, even parents, can and should pitch in, but if you don’t ask for help, or even tell them what to, that won’t happen. Some of them may have been waiting for years to be more involved in holiday activities, but for whatever reason, haven’t felt as if they could take a more-active role.

Let go of perfection. Remain meticulous in your work, of course, but don’t push yourself into high gear for meals, decorating, gifts, parties, and outings that could be downsized and still be fun. Most of us don’t need more stuff; let relatives and friends know that you don’t want fancy or expensive presents this year. Hire someone to clean the house. Take advantage of prepared foods for some of the holiday feasts; you really don’t have to cook everything from scratch (or do all the cooking yourself). Skip the lengthy annual letter and just do a card with a couple of photos—and send it electronically instead of by regular mail. Consider not traveling out of town and state for the big dates.

Balancing work and family throughout the holidays requires focus and discipline, but also a healthy dose of flexibility. Try not to get so locked into a 9-to-5 (or whatever hours you usually work) schedule that you miss out on holiday-related fun stuff. It’s good for our mental and physical health to play. To relax. To have a life other than work.

Whatever you celebrate, enjoy—and however much work you have to finish, best of luck.

Ruth Thaler-Carter has been a full-time freelance writer, editor, proofreader, and desktop publisher for more than 30 years. She has been published locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally in, and does writing, editing, and proofreading for, publications, associations, nonprofits, websites, service firms, and businesses. She sold her first freelance articles when she was still in high school. Renowned as a skilled networker, Ruth is active in about a dozen professional associations, serving as a newsletter editor, webmaster, publication author, speaker/presenter, blogger, program host or planner, and chapter leader. In 2006, Ruth launched the Communication Central “Be a Better Freelancer” annual conference to help aspiring and established freelancers find greater success and connections with colleagues. Ruth is the owner and editor-in-chief of the An American Editor blog and received the Philip M. Stern Award of Washington (DC) Independent Writers for service to freelancers; the Writers and Books Big Pencil Award for teaching adults and contributions to the literary community; EFfie awards for writing, editing, and newsletters; and the APEX award for feature writing. She was also an IABC/DC Communicator of the Year.

How to Write an Apology in 4 Easy Steps

Friday, November Post a comment

It’s going to happen—you’re going to do or say something stupid. And you’re going to apologize.

If you’re in the public eye in any way, it’s critical that when you make a mistake, you also make a heartfelt apology. There are four parts to a proper apology. Here is your guide to writing an apology that is sincere and has a good chance of repairing the damage done.

A couple years ago I sent an invitation to my membership with a sentence that offended more than one person. In the invitation I wrote what I thought was a funny joke:

There will be soft drinks, heavy whores-de-ovaries, and door prizes!

One of my writers wrote to tell me she and others found the joke offensive. I had to retract what I had said in short order.

Part One: Describe it and own it

In this first part of your apology, describe what happened. You don’t have to give all the gory details. But you have to be clear that what happened was real, you wish it hadn’t happened, and you recognize it was wrong.

You may have seen this done badly by politicians, actors, and other public figures.

Avoid phrases like:

I am sorry my comments were taken out of context.
I am sorry if anyone took offense by what I did.
It is unfortunate that so many were offended by what I said.

These sorts of comments are a non-apology. They put the responsibility for the offense on the recipients. You must own whatever it was that you did wrong. Here’s what I wrote in my apology email:

In my last email I used a barnyard joke that I had learned in my youth and gave little thought to. A good friend alerted me to my indiscretion, and to my horror, I realized I’d said something stupid and offensive.

Part Two: State your standards

It’s critical that you let your audience know that what you said or did does not meet your standards for excellence. Remind them what you expect of yourself and others in your organization. Make it clear that your actions did not come up to those high standards.

Agile Writers has always been about inclusiveness and respect. And in this moment I’ve failed you all in that goal. Sadly, as this was sent in a mass email, there is no way to take my mistake back.

Part Three: Apologize

State clearly that you apologize for your actions. Don’t hedge. Don’t blame circumstances (like illness, stress, the weather, etc.).

I hope that you will accept my deepest apologies and disregard my mistake and will still feel welcome to come to our party.

Part Four: Learn from your mistake

Let your audience know that you’re human. You make mistakes. And you will accept this error as a learning opportunity to improve yourself. You want the reader to know you don’t want this to happen again.

My lesson learned is that I still have biases that I have to re-evaluate and overcome. I will endeavor to do better in the future.

Conclusion

You’re human and you have a wide audience. Inevitably you’re going to make a public mistake that you will have to apologize for. Own it, remind everyone of your standards, apologize unequivocally, and learn from your mistake. If you do this, people will remember your apology far longer than your error.

Greg Smith is a writing coach, editor, and publisher. He founded the Agile Writer Workshop in 2011 with the mission of finding a method to help beginning writers complete a first draft in 6 months. The Agile Writer Method is based on the writings of experts in mythology, screenwriting, psychology, and project management. His seminars on the Agile Writer Method have informed and delighted thousands of writers, scholars, and university students. Agile Writer authors have written over 50 first draft novels and 10 published novels. Greg is a developmental editor for novelists and memoirists. He also coaches authors through the self-publishing maze. Greg runs the popular Agile Readers Book Club where new writers can get a beta read from a dozen or more readers.

3 Ways to Raise Your Freelance Rates

Wednesday, October Post a comment

With the end of the year approaching, many freelancers are thinking about raising their rates in 2021. I often see advice that basically amounts to raising your freelance rates 10% (or whatever) each and every year, which is fine as far as it goes. If you underpriced yourself when you were starting out, it might make sense; in some cases, you might be able to double or triple your rates and still get projects. Once you’ve been in the business for some time, however, you probably can’t get away with large, frequent increases.

The key is to find your sweet spot, and that requires a strategic approach to raising your freelance rates.

As you gain experience and expertise, your work is more valuable to clients—and no doubt you’re faster and more efficient. To me, there’s no reason to wait till the end of the year to bump your rates. If you’re so busy you can’t remember the last time you needed to market yourself, raise them now. Maybe you’ve discovered peers who are charging a lot more for similar projects and clients, or perhaps you’ve acquired a new skill or certification. The raise-your-rates alarm should really be screaming if you can’t remember the last time you got turned down for a project based on price.

Suffice it to say, there’s a long list of reasons to consider raising your freelance rates. So how do you do it without creating client pushback?

The Grandfather Clause. This one’s simple: Keep existing clients at their current rate, while quoting new prospects at a 10–20% higher fee. That way, you can test the market, while eliminating the concern about losing loyal clients who’d react poorly to a price hike. (If you’re freelancing for the long haul, of course, you’ll eventually need to raise prices for loyal clients, too—a much easier conversation if you have a strong relationship and deliver results.)

The Stealth Raise. I’ll be honest: I’ve never understood why some freelancers feel obligated to make a big deal about a price increase. The stealth raise works exactly like it sounds: Build in another 10% in every new quote, including new and existing clients. Or if you do estimated ranges, which is my favorite approach, nudge the higher end a bit higher. No one needs to know but you.

The Circumstantial Increase. There’s no reason you shouldn’t raise your fees during busy times or during the holidays. Think of it as a broad application of minor rush fees during a period of high demand (i.e., when you want to carve out some personal time away from the desk).

Note that all three of these are easier to execute if you generally provide project estimates. Indeed, I believe the ability to seamlessly raise rates is one of the best arguments in favor of using estimates whenever you can, rather than an hourly rate or publishing a rate sheet.

Two final thoughts on why there’s no wrong time to consider a fee increase: (1) Pricing serves as a market signal of your value, whether it’s high or low. (2) One of the strangest dynamics in the freelancing world is that, in most cases, higher-paying clients are better clients. That’s a pretty sweet side benefit in addition to the extra income.

Converting a New Client to a Long-Term Client

Test Your Website Forms or You Could Be Losing Freelance Business

How Networking Can Help a Writing Business Get off to a Good Start

Overcoming Project Paralysis

Blurred Lines? Know the Journo Norms

The Power of No

Making the Most of “The Calm Before the (Holiday) Storm”

Managing Work and Family During the Holidays

How to Write an Apology in 4 Easy Steps

3 Ways to Raise Your Freelance Rates

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