Marketing – Page 2

The Four Keys to Social(media)izing Your Brand

So, you’ve got a great logo, a well-crafted vision statement, and your website is looking better than you ever imagined it could! Now what? What steps can you take to elevate your brand to the next level? One strategy, in this regard, is to focus on cultivating greater visibility. And that, as you’ve probably already guessed, means strapping your logo and all it stands for on your back and diving, head-first, into social media!

Don’t worry. It’s not as wild and crazy as it sounds. Social(media)izing your brand is simple—especially if you focus on the following four key components.

Know Your Brand

This one goes without saying, but I’m saying it anyhow: Do not create a single social media handle or post for your new product, book, or blog until you know, better than the back of your own hand, the essence of your brand. What is your purpose? What is your vision? What underlying principles are important to the work you do? Do you have a well-crafted logo or a signature photo? Good. Keep it consistent across all platforms. Do you have a color scheme? Good. Keep it consistent across all platforms, too. Do you have a style guide for written content? Good. Stick to that on social media posts as well.

Know Your Audience

This one should probably be first on the list. In my book, knowing your audience is equally important as knowing your brand. Of course, to figure this out, you could send out polls and study demographics and marketing analytics all day, every day. Or you could just take your curiosity to the digital streets and do a little investigating on your own. Find a few digital channels comparable to your own brand/product/goal and take a look at the type of individuals following those channels. Are they male, female, non-binary? What age range do they tend to fall in? What other social channels do they follow? Are they obsessed with hair and make-up influencers; monster truck vloggers; celebrity channels? Get to know them, like what they like and follow who they follow, and share and love their posts! These people are your audience, too. And they have the power to make or break your brand!

Be Natural

Just as your brand is an extension of you, so too are your digital channels. So be true to yourself! To me, this means keeping your photos un-touched and posting real, authentic content. Carefully crafted graphics work some of the time and they definitely do the trick to catch the eye of scrolling public. But people will like and share your content because it relates to them—and for that, your content has to be authentically you!

Interact

Can you imagine going to a pool party or a cocktail party and not talking to a single soul? Well, that’s how awkward your brand looks on digital channels when you don’t interact with other users. The word social is half of the term social media because it is an interactive space. So, get out there and go for it: like content posted by your friends and colleagues; follow channels whose audience is similar to your own (influencers, brands, organizations, and even strangers—really, anything goes!); and comment on all the posts that speak to you!

Ashley Henyan is a digital marketing consultant, a freelance writer, and the executive director for the American Red Cross of Lowcountry South Carolina. Previously, she held leadership roles in digital communications and media relations with the Red Cross (the 2017 Harris Poll Non-profit Brand of the Year). Ashley has-developed curriculum and trained hundreds of staff and volunteers across the United States in courses like Leveraging Your Story on LinkedIn and Social Media Story Telling. She has been invited to discuss social media marketing and brand visibility on various podcasts and with local and national associations. Ashley has played an integral part in award-winning social media campaigns including honorable mention recognition with the PR Daily Content Marketing Awards and numerous Silver Telly Awards for Branded Content. She holds a B.A. in government and politics from the University of Maryland and an M.A. in English and creative writing with a concentration in screenwriting from Southern New Hampshire University. Ashley’s work as a ghostwriter has appeared in national and international publications including Yahoo News, China Global Television Network, and The CEO Magazine.

How to Choose a Good Domain Name

Monday, January Post a comment

Everyone knows it’s necessary to have a strong internet presence if you’re going to be a modern writer. Perhaps one of the most difficult decisions you’ll make is the domain name for your site. Or maybe not.

Domain names are becoming less and less important. Today, people are searching for site links with Google using the name of the company, writer, or book title, and not bothering to remember site names. However, you still want your domain name to be professional so you don’t look like a scammer.

Guidelines

That being said, here are some guidelines to good domain name choices.

Short(< 15 characters)
Descriptive of the company, or individual
Easy to say (and spell)
Fairly unique across the web (org and HerosWay.org are very close and two very different sites)
Avoid punctuation(like dashes greg-smith.com)
Avoid numbers(thai-diner-2.com [Do people spell out TWO or the digit 2 or the words TO or TOO.])

NOTE: Single-word domain names have already been scarfed up by the domain harvesting companies. So “Wonderful.today” is never going to be available without paying a hefty fee on the order of thousands of dollars.

NOTE: DO NOT PAY FOR BROKER SERVICES. Brokers claim to be able to get you a deal on harvested domain names, but they almost never broker a deal for less than several thousand dollars.

Top-Level Domains

Your domain name doesn’t have to end in ‘.com’ or any of the usual suspects. Consider a different top-level domain (TLD) for your website.

.pro
.site
.group
.world
.page
.today
.guru
.info
.fyi
.name (All of the usual last names are taken, so be creative, or use both first and last names.)

I’m stunned and amazed that .writer is not a TLD.

Suggestions & Resources

I’d recommend a domain with two words, both short. Like WritersBounty.com or such. For international, consider “WritersBounty.world”—the domain harvesters haven’t stolen dual-word domains yet!

Here’s an extensive list of TLDS and prices you can expect.

And here’s GoDaddy’s search engine for domain names. Make sure yours isn’t already taken!

Finally…

Regardless of what you choose, be sure to do a sanity check with friends, relatives, and coworkers. Google your own domain name components to see what else shows up and see if you’ve picked something that yields unexpected results (go ahead and Google “writers bounty” from my example, above; you may be surprised). Above all, have a little fun!

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.

5 Characteristics of an Effective, Catchy Blog Post Title

Wednesday, January Post a comment

A blog post’s title has an important job: to get someone to read the post.

It holds that huge responsibility on the shoulders of about 60 to 70 characters—not a lot. That means you have to get creative to make sure every word, letter, space, and punctuation mark in your headline is totally necessary and carries its fair weight.

What makes a good blog headline depends largely on the context where a reader sees it—as they scroll through social media, search on Google, browse your email newsletter, or peruse your website, for example.

But some characteristics of good titles apply across platforms.

Regardless of the platform where you promote a blog post, the title should:

Be eye-catching: Your first hurdle is to catch a potential reader’s attention on the platform where you promote a blog post. Your article title competes with everything else the reader will encounter on the platform, so it has to stand out—what we call a “thumb stopper.”
Make a promise: What will a reader get out of reading your post? The title should tell them not just what you know a post is about but exactly how it’ll serve them.
Leave a curiosity gap: Now you have to get a click. If your headline gives away—or appears to give away—the main points of your post, readers have no reason to click through and learn more. Make the promise clear enough to pique interest, but leave enough questions in the reader’s head to get them to read more.
Be honest: Whatever promises you make and questions you raise in the headline, you must follow through in the blog post. Don’t be salacious just to get a click; it’ll cost you trust with the reader.
Encompass the post: Consider your blog post a hierarchy with the title at the top—it should be a comprehensive explanation of the post. If the title only teases a single detail from the post, you’ll likely exclude some readers and disappoint others.

Dana Sitar has been writing and editing for digital media since 2011, most recently as a copy editor for fintech and personal finance. She trains journalists, writers, and editors on writing for the web through sessions at the annual ACES editors’ conference, Utah Valley University, online courses, and private trainings. Dana has written about work and writing in digital media for publications including the New York Times, HuffPost, a column for Inc. Magazine, and dozens of writing and content marketing blogs. As a branded content editor for The Penny Hoarder, Dana managed a team of writers, editors, and social media experts to create multimedia branded content to help advertisers reach an audience of 12 million across platforms including social media, email, blog, and video.

What You Need To Know To Write Effective Headlines for 4 Major Platforms

Wednesday, January Post a comment

Unless you write for an authoritative news site or have a rabid audience, you likely rely on external platforms to attract readers to your blog posts.

Whether readers click through to your site and how they perceive your post when they get to it, both depend on the context of that platform where they first discovered it.

What mindset were they in on the platform?
Why did they approach the platform in the first place?
What else did they encounter on the platform before finding your post?

Consider the common platforms and their context and headlines readers will encounter first on those external platforms as you write blog posts.

Social media: Probably the first we think of when we consider platforms for blog post promotion. Social media includes sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (Stories), and Pinterest. Readers here are easily distracted and encounter a wide variety of content. They aren’t thinking about your site or the topic of your blog post before seeing your headline.
Search: Search engine optimization (SEO) is a popular way to craft blog posts that show up in Google search results and attract new readers. Readers here enter a query into the search engine and choose your blog post from among up to 10 related results. They approach the search with a specific question or topic in mind. If your headline promises a good answer and the blog post follows through, they’ll likely be highly engaged with your content.
Email: Readers who subscribe to your blog or email newsletter want to see your latest content, so they’re highly engaged and loyal. Your subject line gets them to open the email, and your headlines within the email should entice them to click through to read the articles in full.
Your home page: Readers who visit your website looking for something to read are extremely loyal. But you still have to catch their attention and get them to click on the content! Understand your core audience and what they most want from you, and use your home page content and blog post headlines to demonstrate that you can deliver.

Why a Website? Highlights of the Conference Session

Friday, April Post a comment

I’m looking forward to talking about websites for freelancers at “Gateway to Success,” this year’s Be a Better Freelancer conference, coming up October 11–13, 2019, in St. Louis. This topic is always fun to discuss because there’s always something new in the world of creating and managing websites and because it lends itself so well to graphics and illustrations. It’s also kind of fun to share what doesn’t work in a website, alongside what does make an effective site to promote your freelance business.

It’s become common knowledge that freelancers in any skill set need websites to build and support our business efforts. Sure, you can promote your business at LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, but a website is important because:

It’s all yours; no one else controls or limits how it looks and what it presents.
It helps you be found—it comes up when someone searches for the skills and services you provide. That’s especially important for anyone starting out, because unknown freelancers won’t be found by their names.
It gives you a permanent email address.
It’s flexible—you can choose what to post, what and when to update it, the amount of information you provide, etc.
It speaks for you with clients who aren’t local and you aren’t likely to meet them in person to show your work samples. It’s your portfolio in an era when you probably will work with more clients who aren’t in your geographic area than ones who are.

Even if you already have a website for your freelance services, you’ll probably find the insights discussed at this session beneficial. You might gain new resources for making it look or read better and to attract business and educate prospective clients about who you are and how you work.

Think of your website as the base and office of your freelance business. It’s your showroom. It’s your path to being a better freelancer!

To benefit from this session—and many other ones—you will need to register for the conference.

This is the 14th offering of the conference, and the first-ever partnership between Communication Central and NAIWE. We hope to see you there!

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.

The Ins of Social Media Marketing

Tuesday, January Post a comment

Are you struggling with how to get readers to notice your books? With many new books, movies, music, and other forms of entertainment released daily, there is a lot of noise happening online. Unfortunately, “Buy my Book” messaging doesn’t cut through it.

Are you frustrated by not only how long it takes to create content to post on social media but also on how to be your authentic author-self when posting online? Maybe you regard social media as a time suck that might not even help with gaining potential sales and reaching new clients.

But I have great news for you: social media is one of the most effective ways to increase your reach to both older and potential new readers. The caveat is that you need to have engaging and valuable content that warms your audience to your message and your brand.

Which Social Media Sites Does Your Ideal Reader Use?

Just like not every book will be for everybody, not every social media site is going to be the ideal site for every author. Please note, you do not need to be on every platform.

The demographics of your ideal reader should determine which social media site you are on. I suggest a max of three social media platforms, but even just being active on one platform is fine. (You can view the demographic information from 2019 for the different platforms at Sprout Social.)

Sites that are great places to begin, with less work and more reach and value, include

Facebook, which allows you to interact with readers on your author page, but even more importantly, in Facebook groups. Facebook remains the heavy-hitter for the social media market share and is used by a majority of Americans amongst all age ranges.
Instagram, which is very photo-centric and requires great images. This is a place where people scroll and search through the use of hashtags. However, a great option is the Instagram Stories. Instagram’s main audience skews younger and is more female-centered.
Pinterest, which is very photo-centric. This social media platform is growing, but this offers a way to lead traffic to your website based on the pins you post. For example: Say that your book is set in Regency England. You’ve done all of this research for your book. You can take that information to create fact-based content and link it to your website. These pins will stay pretty much evergreen.
LinkedIn, which allows you to connect with professionals by providing valuable content. Do you have a business-focused book? Are you writing nonfiction?
Twitter, which has a faithful base. Its strength is that it has a chronological feed. However, what is important to know is that a large portion of its user base is also located outside of the United States. If you are wanting to grow your international reach, Twitter seems to be a great option.

By knowing what these platforms require for success, you can implement their use in your promotion and content delivery strategy.

What Is an Author Brand?

An author brand is more than the fonts and color scheme used on postings (which should all be consistent), but it is the promise of what you, as an author, bring to your reader. What can your reader expect from your type of stories? From your voice? What are the three things that are the pillars of your voice and writing?

What Are the Keys to Using Social Media Effectively?

Know your brand.

Stay on brand.

Curate your content. For example, if you write sci-fi, you want to post about science, how science is helping, and how it ties into your work.

If you write about mystery, then talk about how crimes are solved, the layers of a criminal investigation, etc.

If you write about love and romance, then depending on your steam level, write about those things (but make it PG-rated so that you don’t get reported and banned from Facebook postings). For romance readers, everything is about the promises of love and romance, and the hot, appealing partner.

Military books, LitRPG, e.g., you can show how you support the military. Talk about facets of the military that fascinate you or quotes from prior generals that inspire you. You could even do a post about tactical precision or share newspaper articles and blogs about neutral military research. If you write about mythology, then dig into that particular mythology, sharing tidbits that people might know, and might not.

Everything that you post is to make it clear to your reader and the potential reader as to what they can expect from you and your writing.

How Often Should You Post?

Post up to three times a day on social media (at the minimum of once a day).

The algorithm on social media encourages postings that do not lead offsite. The more you post on social media, and positive engagement you receive from those posts, the more your natural reach will increase your engagement with readers naturally with your content.

What Is One of the Most Cost-Effective Ways to Communicate with Your Audience?

Social media posting is one of the most cost-effective ways of communicating with your audience.

When you provide your audience with value, and it responds with positive engagement, social media then shares that message further and wider. But what is value? Value comes in the shape of entertainment, knowledge, and inspiration. When posting, ask yourself what the response you want your audience to have from your post is. Is the purpose of the post to increase their awareness of your branding, i.e., are you posting Game of Thrones memes because you write about dragons, sword, and sorcery, or fantasy? Is the quote you’re posting from Thomas Edison on brand or just your personal message of encouragement? Yes, this matters as you want to ensure that your message is on-brand with your content. Although such a quote might inspire, if it does not align with your brand’s message, you might want to find a quote that does align with your author brand.

We’ve talked about why to post and what to post, but now, let’s talk about the percentage of content versus self-promotion.

The social media rule is 80% content, 20% promotion. This rule means that 8 out of 10 times you are posting to your brand’s promises without trying to sell to anyone directly. The other two times, you can post specifically about your books with a buy link.

So, for those eight times, you are posting about topics brand adjacent—things that are connected topic wise to your author brand, as we determined above. The goal of these posts is to build your engagement, get your readers liking, commenting, and talking about these topics that you are so passionate about, as well as make them warmer to your brand’s message.

Social media doesn’t have to be a time suck. By having a content calendar, you can preschedule your social media postings, which will cut down on the time it takes to create new content. Additionally, by having a calendar, you have direction as to what you can post on each day.

Tools available for scheduling include Hootsuite, Buffer, and Tweetdeck. Additionally, Facebook also has an option on its pages that allows you to schedule your post, so you don’t necessarily need an outside tool if you are only posting on Facebook. Social media scheduling tools are more useful if you are using multiple social media sites or want to schedule a post on a site that does not allow scheduling, like Twitter. For example, Twitter doesn’t let you schedule posts, but Hootsuite makes it possible to schedule and then post on Twitter for you.

Actionable Points:

Make a daily post that aligns with your author brand. Use an image with your post. Images get more engagement than plain text. You can create quote graphics with Canva. Make sure that your message is always on-brand. You can find quotes at BrainyQuote. You can copy the quote and paste it onto your image in Canva, and then post it. Use a hashtag, if applicable, in your text when posting it on social media to increase searchability.
Be consistent. If you can’t post daily, schedule your posts for the week.
Engage with your readers, building relationships, making sure to respond to any comment made on your posts.

Want a free tool to help with your content? Download your FREE weekly content calendar, which includes social media post suggestions and potential hashtags. This tool will help spark your ideas for your content creation and help increase your engagement on social media.

Tina Glasneck is a USA Today bestselling author of fantasy and crime fiction. Since 2012, she has created author events, has held online book fairs, and continues to assist authors on their journey. She frequently teaches on the topics of book promotion, author newsletters, as well as the business of publishing. Tina has published more than 20 books in the fantasy, crime fiction, and mystery genres. She persists in her vision and author goals to create a world of wonder through her fantastical tales.

How to Get Your Next Assignment Easier Than Your Last, or Easier Than You Ever Imagined

Saturday, June Post a comment

If you are—or want to be—a working professional writer, then it’s time to realize (or remember) that being able to write a great piece is winning only half the battle.

The other half is being able to sell it.

As far as I can tell, there are only two ways to sell your work:

Find your own audience that is willing to pay to read your work.
Convince someone who already has a paying audience to provide your work to their audience.

I’m all in favor of finding your own audience. I’ve self-published several books, and I plan to do more. I’ve known or heard about people who’ve started their own publications, promoted their own blogs and websites, crowd-funded their books and other writing projects, and so forth. I’ve even met people who have sold their own poetry on street corners for as little as 25 cents a pop.

There are lots of ways to find your own audience, and I encourage you to try some or all of them en route to building your writing career. But it’s always helpful to take the easier route and piggyback your desire to be published on someone who already has access to a paying audience.

Again, I believe there are basically two ways to do this. First, you can write whatever you want and then hope to get someone to pay you for it, or second, you can find someone willing to pay you for writing something they assign to you, whether that’s a newspaper or magazine article, a book, a poem, a white paper, liner notes, a website, a blog post, or anything else.

Here’s how to make getting such an assignment even easier.

Try a lot of avenues to a wide range of outlets (and keep trying new ones)

Selling your work is something like a lottery: you can’t win if you don’t play, and the more entries you have working for you, the greater your chances of winning.

If you’re interested in writing magazine articles, make contact with a lot of publications and editors. If you want to write a book, talk to a lot of agents. If you’re interested in ghostwriting, beat the bushes for lots of different potential clients.

Accept that this is part of the business, and like any professional looking to make a sale, recognize that every rejection brings you one step closer to a “yes.”

Be flexible, professional, and easy to work with

Maybe if you’re the next Hemingway or Doris Lessing, you can afford to be grumpy. But if you’re not, or not yet, then make it pleasant and relaxing to work with you. Hold your complaints, say “yes” as much as you can, and try to find ways to work around the unpleasantries that come with almost every assignment.

I remember when I was young and reporting for a newspaper in Philadelphia, I would sum up the entire wisdom of the world—as it pertained to the topic at hand—in the last paragraph of every article I wrote. The editor would inevitable chop that last paragraph for reasons of space.

I could have gotten angry. Instead, I simply put that wisdom into the second to last paragraph.

Of course, if things get too terrible for you, you can always find a different outlet for your work. But don’t burn any bridges on your way out. You never know when you may have to re-cross that bridge on your way back.

Always have a “next” project to offer

Whenever you sell something, immediately implement the successful professional writer’s “two step”: First, deliver what you promised on time and as terrific as you can make it. Second, start setting the stage to sell to this outlet more of your work.

For the professional writer, a sale is not the end of the process, but the beginning.

Go back to the best wells again and again

Although following these directions will eventually net you a variety of places to sell your work, some will inevitably be better than others: more interesting, challenging, lucrative, friendly, easy, or whatever.

Don’t be shy; keep going back to these outlets with better and better ideas, as well as better and better work. What I am saying is if you have found two peach trees, and one produces better peaches, isn’t that the one where you should do most of your picking?

Keep adding new arrows to your quiver

As a professional, part of your job is to keep improving and delivering better and better work in a wide variety of genres, styles, and formats. You’ll find that trying to sell to new outlets is far easier if you have more skills, abilities, and offerings to show them.

Sell the same prep-work over and over

You may have noticed that successful professional writers often touch on the same topics, revisit the same information, and appeal to the same audiences over and over again. Of course, you want to grow as a professional, but if you spend a lot of time and effort digging into and mastering a certain topic, why not get the most from your investment? You’ll find it’s easier to sell the second and third items resulting from that work than it was to sell the first.

Piggyback on your best ideas

One of the techniques of brainstorming is to piggyback on others’ ideas. For example, I might suggest “let’s paint it red,” and then you might piggyback on that by suggesting “let’s offer it in seven different colors.”

But you don’t need others’ ideas for piggybacking to work. Whatever idea you’re working on, you can probably use that idea as a jumping off point and find some other idea(s) that will also yield good material you can sell.

I have consistently used these techniques to maximize the results of pitching my work to publishers, editors, writing partners, and clients. They may have little to do with the craft of writing, but they have a great deal to do with keeping me in the writing game when other “writers” have dropped out of the creative world in order to keep food on the table.

Of course, it’s important you maintain your primary focus on writing rather than on getting your next assignment. But if you lose sight of selling, there’s a chance you’ll fairly soon be writing for an audience of one.

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.

Pitch–Don’t Perfect–Stories

Saturday, June Post a comment

I was reading a post this week in a community forum about an essay writer. She wanted to know how she could find “homes” for her work.

Instantly, I felt strongly that her question revealed the problem. She was writing and storing up essays without any publication in sight. Thus, she was spending all her time wrestling over the writing process instead of focusing some of her time on selling the work.

Her method for selling the finished work was then to ask other writers to find “homes” for the essays. But her job as a writer–or at least as one who wants to earn money from writing is to also research for possible avenues where her work can be promoted and sold. As you know, a freelance journalist rarely just writes. I can’t tell you how much time I spend searching for markets and connecting with editors. But in doing that, I know where my writing can find a home.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with penning essays and then selling them. Some of our best work can come when we’re not writing an assignment under a deadline. But when you’re looking to make a living, you often have to pitch them first. Or at least know where you eventually want to propose the articles. Otherwise, you’re just saying you have a stash of stories waiting to be sold as does everyone else.

Focus on the Pitch Prior to Writing

This is what I see as one of the top problems that new writers face when they’re trying to break into this field. While I’m an advocate of the “just write” mentality, you’re wasting your business resources–and time–when you write without a focus on selling an article or essay. You’re also wasting your time if you try to perfect your work on your own, because an editor may want to make changes to it after they acquire it.

So how do you know a publication will want your article as it is written? Maybe the editor wants to give his or her input for a specific angle. If you write it out and spend too much time “perfecting” it, you will be spending more time on it.

In looking at the writer’s guidelines, a publication may want to buy an essay after it’s completed. But don’t assume it. Many outlets want a thoughtful pitch before you begin writing. The editor wants to hear your idea, add something to it to give you direction, and receive a draft that meets these requirements.

This is a bit different in the essay-writing field, where a lot of publications want to buy essays on spec and are usually paid on a lower scale.

Here’s my advice in this situation: Have a few publications in mind before you start writing away your best stories and wondering why outlets aren’t lined up to purchase them. If you do draft a piece, don’t worry too much about editing it–just get the idea down. Pitch your essays out so you receive an assignment. Editors rarely ask a writer they’ve never worked with what kinds of essays are sitting on their hard drives.

Your time is precious, and so is your creativity. Nothing kills a creative writer like the person with a trove of stories waiting to “find a home.” Shelter cats find homes. Your work needs to be sold if you’re going to be a reputable working writer.

Find yourself a home with a publication and connect with the editors there. Build up your portfolio. Then, hopefully by the time you have that killer essay idea, you only have to write an elevator pitch about it and you will have that awesome, paying assignment already lined up.

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.

Marketing My Writing: How I Learned to Love It

Sunday, March Post a comment

When I first got back into freelance writing, I spent little effort marketing. I called my sources at companies I’d covered at my staff-writing job at a local business journal and let them know I was freelancing, and it kind of rolled from there.

I called a couple of local magazines, pitched them, and got assignments. I answered an ad and found myself writing web content for a $1 billion corporation.

Looking back, it was a golden time. My career ran easy, like water flowing downhill. It never occurred to me it wouldn’t always be like this.

Then came early 2009, and the downturn started to really take hold. My editors began getting laid off, publications changed, and companies stopped developing content.

I realized I needed to get out there and market myself more aggressively. I needed to make new connections and find new clients.

At first I thought, “Ugh!” I’d never really sold anything to anyone. But over time, I kind of got hooked on the marketing side of my business. I discovered that in a weird way, it’s fun. No, I’m not kidding.

Now, I enjoy this side of my business, too—maybe not as much as I do writing, but marketing is no longer a dreaded chore for me.

You can learn to love marketing, too. Here are my tips:

Keep the online job-ad searching to a minimum. At first I wasted hours a day browsing the online job ads, before developing a system for scanning them fast. Now, if I’m looking over online ads, I only take time to reply to the best prospects. Generally, online job ads are not a source of high-quality leads, so limit your time here, and free up more time for better marketing methods.
Learn more about marketing. If you don’t know a lot about marketing, learn. Take a class. Read a book. This is not mystical knowledge. The information you need is out there.
Develop a marketing plan. Don’t go in a million directions at once. Take a 3–6 month period, decide what you’re doing, and then consistently do it.
Meet live humans. Whether it’s in-person networking, cold calling, or informally schmoozing up shopkeepers in your town, remember that computers won’t give you a writing gig—only people. If networking makes you nervous, relax, you can learn how to do it.
Try different methods. I have done in-person networking at a half-dozen organization events, some cold calling, sent queries, answered job ads, used LinkedIn features, promoted my writing on Twitter, built my presence in natural-search results for keywords, and more. See what works for you.
Approach it like a scientist. Think of your marketing as an experiment. Track what you do and evaluate the results. This helps you take a little bit more dispassionate attitude toward putting yourself out there.
Think of it as a game. Instead of feeling vulnerable and scared, try to detach yourself emotionally from the process. Think of it as a game of Chutes and Ladders. You go here and there, rolling the dice, trying different moves. When you get a win, it’s like Yahtzee.
Be impervious to rejection. Learn not to take it personally when you don’t get a gig. Seriously. You want to drop that attitude. It’s just business. Have a businesslike approach to marketing.
Persist. This is the most important thing to know. Sending one query letter is not a marketing plan, it’s a waste of time. Know that you will likely have to go hard at it on marketing for at least several months before you start to see the results you want. I had a revealing conversation with one writer online about a strategy I used that won me a great, $1-a-word new client. She said she’d tried that once and it hadn’t worked. I said, “Oh. I tried it 30–40 times, and it worked once.” Moral: The persistent marketer gets the gig. So keep going, if you’re serious about writing for a living.

I marketed aggressively—like mad, really—for about 18 months straight, gradually rebuilding my customer base until I became fully booked. Now, I’m able to drop clients and pick and choose the ones I want to work with again. It feels great, and I know marketing got me here.

Carol Tice is a freelance writer who focuses on writing and ghostwriting business books and e-books. She’s written for Delta Sky, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Seattle Magazine, Costco, American Express, Shopify, Freshbooks, and many others. Carol founded the award-winning Make a Living Writing blog in 2008, which has been repeatedly named to Writer’s Digest’s Top 101 Blogs for Writers list. It now offers over 1,000 free posts on how to break in and grow your writing income. Her Freelance Writers Den learning and support community was founded in 2011 and has over 1,000 members. Carol has taught over 20 online courses and self-published 10+ e-book titles for freelance writers. She’s also the author/coauthor of two traditionally published business books for entrepreneurs.

The Importance of Being Visible

Friday, February Post a comment

One of the common pieces of wisdom that always floats around the freelance-o-sphere is that you should always be marketing. Market when you’re slow, market when you’re busy, market when you’re in Goldilocks territory. But let’s be real: Do you really feel like doing that when you’re swamped with multiple deadlines during a 60-hour week?

I sure don’t.

The key is to be as visible as possible to potential clients when you’re not actively marketing, while being prepared to ramp up when you need to put in the effort.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the foundation of everyday visibility starts with a well-designed website with all of your contact information, as well as a comprehensive, professional-looking profile on LinkedIn. Depending on the professional associations you belong to (such as NAIWE!), you might have several locations where you can put your skills and experience into the public sphere.

But then what? Alas, just because you’ve done the basics doesn’t guarantee anything is going to appear in your inbox. When you’ve got the time and energy, where should you apply your efforts? When I’m looking at my calendar and seeing an upcoming gap, these are my go-to strategies to ramp up my visibility:

Reach out to existing clients. As a rule, I use any excuse I can to make contact with the people I already have good relationships with. Every time I get a payment, I send a personal, handwritten thank-you note. I also send a note when I receive a referral. If I see a story on the web that might be of personal or professional interest, I’ll forward it. (The website Help A Reporter Out [https://www.helpareporter.com] is a terrific excuse to contact a client who has expertise in a given topic.) In any case, it’s amazing how often those small gestures will generate an email or a phone call.
Reconnect with older contacts. I keep a folder named “dormant” on my computer, where I move old client jobs after a year or so of inactivity. Not all of them are people I’d want to work with again—but for the ones who are, it’s a matter of sending a quick note to reopen the lines of communication. Maybe I saw something about their company in the news or heard about a trend in their industry. If they’re in town, I’ll offer to buy them a cup of coffee or lunch as a chance to catch up.
Play rolodex roulette. In addition to being part of the everyday visibility part of the equation, LinkedIn is a treasure trove of past coworkers, many of whom have moved into positions where they might want to hire you. (If nothing else, it’s a good excuse to swap stories about the good ol’ days.)
Tap connections in my mastermind group. This is a long-term investment in my business, being part of a diverse group of businesspeople that meets once a month. We don’t directly solicit business from each other, but we’re open and honest about how our businesses are doing—and we’re all interested in helping each other succeed.
Dial up my cold-contact activity. Finally, I’ll spend a few minutes each day researching categories of businesses that I have the best success with, such as graphic designers, web designers, and trade publications. Then it’s a matter of crafting targeted emails to connect and see if we might partner.

None of these steps are difficult, painful, or expensive, and all of them have a much better likelihood of producing a decent project than trolling through a bunch of bidding sites. It hardly even feels like marketing if you’re authentic about why you’re contacting someone.

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.

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