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Manage Your Freelance Writing Career While Writing What You Love

The Truth about Passive Income: It’s not usually such a passive way to make money!

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passive income
Image via michaelkwan.com

I recently earned a commission through a sale (that came from my review of) of Paul Cunningham’s How to Be a Successful Freelance Blogger e-book. On the surface, I made money through a link on my website, while somebody else wrote a great e-book. You got to love passive income, right?

Not so fast, folks! I didn’t just randomly drop a link for Paul’s book. I bought it myself, because hey- the title and the content really appealed to me. I read, re-read and studied the book. His content went into 3 categories for me: 1) stuff I already knew and applied, 2) stuff I knew yet I needed to be reminded of to apply, and 3) stuff I learned from him.

So in addition to keeping this e-book near to serve as a guide at all times, I wrote a review and then posted on my blog. Then, I promoted the post. Then, I promoted the blog. Then, I kept promoting the blog, because when you have a blog, you have to keep promoting it.
So, while passive income is one of the most attractive terms of making money online, trying to make it happen is definitely not a passive activity. Passive income streams do not get formed overnight and it usually takes a lot of time and effort, until you start making money “passively”.

Some of the most popular (passive) income streams:

– Revenue from your web writing:

Content Farms: The concept almost all writers hate: When you first start out, you only make a few pennies. The more articles you publish, the better chance you stand at getting more page views and ending up making more money. But writing for the web is not a passive activity, especially if you want to make the most of your material. You write, edit, format, optimize, publish and promote. As more content is published, you will realize that your earnings are increasing.

– Writing for other blogs & websites: While many writing jobs pay by post, some offer an additional revenue share bonus (where you get a percentage of their advertising revenue), and/or a popularity bonus which grants you extra bucks if your blog reaches a certain traffic/bookmarking level, etc… So when you are supposed to get a revenue share, it helps if the blog you write gets extra traffic. Oh, and to reach a level of popularity, you need to promote it yourself.
Supposedly, you sit back and watch your revenue & popularity grow. In reality, a post hardly makes it very big without any effort from your end. And remember, it is usually also up to you to create that great content, optimize it for the search engines, and then let the world know about it.

Affiliate Marketing:

Making Money through Other People’s Products (& Services):
Sometimes, making money from affiliate marketing can be as simple as leaving your own affiliate link in an article. But not everyone who reads that article will sign up. Also keep in mind that some affiliate sign-ups or clicks don’t make you any money, unless there is a purchase involved. So not everyone who does click will make a purchase, no matter how popular you and your articles might be.

You need lots of readers, and many readers that will take the necessary action. In order to make the article popular, you need to reach your target audience. You need to make the necessary research to know where that target audience hangs out and hopefully develop a relationship with them. So after these conditions are met, maybe you will start making passive income from those affiliate links, products and services. Until then, a lot of effort awaits you. You might even need to spend money too, for marketing, hosting, autoresponders and other related activities.

Making Money through Your Own Products (& Products): Don’t even get me started on how much work goes into creating & promoting your own product. Yes, it is the favorite income stream of many probloggers. But this time you are not an affiliate. You have to have your own sales page, e-mail list, your own affiliates, money you pay to the merchant site (such as e-junkie), the relationships you manage with the other people who become your affiliates, relationship with your customers and paying your affiliates…The list of your tasks goes on.

If you create a great product for the right target market, and make a good job marketing it, it is true that you will make a good deal of money. You will also work very hard. And then you will work some more.

– Advertising:
Placing advertising on your website or blogs is a great way for making some passive income. However in order to make money from advertising (direct advertising, PPC, CPM, banner advertising….) from your own sites, or from the sites you share the revenues of, you need to have an audience. You need to have a large enough audience to be able to make money from ads, and hopefully that audience will be targeted enough to click on some of them.

And building an audience is a lot of hard work. It takes social networking, link-building, guest-blogging and/or many other actions before you can even reach the payout level of your advertising networks or your sponsors.
While watching that advertising income to grow might be passive, it takes a lot of activity to get to that point.

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Yes, it puts a smile on your face to watch your advertising revenue grow, and to see your affiliate income increase. It is also nice to make money from articles you posted on the web months ago. But it doesn’t happen overnight. However, what makes passive income really attractive is that you can see that you made money from something you promoted (and then forgot about) some time ago. The truth is, the pros of passive income overweigh the cons. Just keep in my mind that you are not going to be very passive in the process.

7 Great Query Letter Resources: A List of (E-)Books, Articles and Blog Links

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Carol Tice has posted one of her assignment winning queries.

 

The pros: You get to see how to craft a compelling query. And you get to see how you can pitch multipe ideas professionally in a single page query letter.

 

The con: Many magazines look down on multiple pitches, especially if you are not a yet established author, or you don’t have a relationship with that editor. Still, you can study and learn a lot from Carol’s sample.

 

Plus, she has a whole section of posts that feature “the tag” query letters. These posts might not be directly on query letters, but they do include valuable information on your relationships with editors.

 

  • Query Letter Clinic – (Mini) E-Book

 

Writer’s Market is an online resource for writers where they can find info about magazine. In order to be able to access these markets, you need to be a member- which requires a fee. I am a member, so Query Letter Clinic was already on my dashboard. However I don’t remember if this e-book is available to non-members. You need to check.

 

 

  • The Writer’s Digest Guide to Query Letters – E-book, Paperback

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Writer’s Digest Guide to Query Letters has over 200 pages of information: it starts with the basics of a query, then gives you the specific elements of different query letters, such as: querying to an agent about your novel, non-fiction book, querying about your articles to magazines. It tells you how and when to follow up, where to look for the necessary information and understanding writer’s guidelines, managing your relationships with editors, and agents and so much more. Yes, it is a lot of information to digest, but it is worth it. It is a must-have query source for any writer.

 

 

Anne Wayman has posted a good sample of a magazine query on her blog. She also explains which information is included where, and why. The rest of her blog is also full of useful and applicable tips for freelance writing and blogging.

 

 

You don’t need to be Writer’s Digest magazine subscriber to access the vast  content on their website. While having the magazine is also helpful, you can always read the articles on the web for free.  I bookmarked 2 query letter articles I liked. While these articles were mostly written with the novel writer querying the agent/publisher in mind, you can easily adapt, and use the information for magazine article queries.

 

These articles are:

Basics of a Solid 3-Paragraph Query

 

10 Query Letter No-Nos

 

  • 12 New Things Writers Must Do Today to Make Money – E-book

Wooden Horse Publishing’s Meg Weaver’s e-book Twelve New Things Writers Must Do Today to Make Money is not solely about query letters, but it teaches you more about understanding the magazine (understanding its target audience and slant, and voice) than any other book around. And trust me,  I devoured more than my share of e-books and books, both free and unpaid, on the subject of magazine writing. And since you understand that particular magazine perfectly, your chances of writing a terrific query letter becomes much higher. But she doesn’t just leave you with the understanding of magazines. She teaches you how to create queries from scratch as well. Oh, she also goes on to give you information about what extras will go to the article (such as decks and photographs), how to arrange them and so on. At $14.95, it is really worth it.

 

*By the way, the link for this e-book is NOT an affiliate link.

 

  • Power Queries – E-book

 

Filbertpublishing’s Beth Erickson has written a 20-page e-book on query letters called “Power Queries”, and it is a free gift to the website’s e-mail subscribers.

Here, Erickson talks about the many ways you can start your query letter, gives examples and explains the reasons why those examples might be attention-worthy. Seeing examples, and not just sentences about how-to-write-queries, makes it much easier for the writer to get the grasp.

She also gives you tips on what not to do as well, when it comes to voice, language and style. And don’t worry- she doesn’t stop with how to start a great query letter. She goes on to give tips on how to draft the rest of your query. Yes, these are powerful 20 pages!

My Favorite Writing/Blogging Job Search Resources

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freelance writing jobs
image via allfreelancewriting.com

It’s true that most well-paying jobs aren’t advertised, but sometimes we just want to write a fun blog post or an article without going through the querying process. If you are looking for jobs that will make you a nice little side income, these are the sites to go about hunting for them. Mind you, this is not meant to be a comprehensive list, but rather my favorites.

 

Freelancewritinggigs.com – Not only does it come with a nice collection of daily freelance writing gigs Monday through-Friday, it also has valuable info on freelance writing. Plus, you can try and have a guest post published on the side. If you are a regular contributor, there is a chance you might be hired as a paid writer too.

Jobs.problogger.net – Posted on Darren Rowse’s Problogger, you get a list of blogging jobs. Of course it costs for the job poster to be listed here (even though it is only $50 for 30 days), so some employers might prefer craiglist (which doesn’t charge).

Write-jobs-blogspot

The good thing about this site is that they list a lot of contests, as well as writing and blogging jobs. They don’t list any jobs that pay less than $10, so it is up to you to dig a little to find better paying ones.

BloggingPro: Another source of blogging jobs.

 

11 Writing Job Requirements That Are Against Freelance Nature

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freelance picture
Image via teknosarj.com.

This is how wikipedia defines freelancing:

“A freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is somebody who is self-employed and is not committed to a particular employer long term.”

Pay attention to the “free” in the word freelancing. Freelancing is -by definition- different than a regular desk/office job. You don’t have one boss, you don’t have set working hours. You don’t typically make the same income every month.

Unfortuntely, economy is almost always tough, and many employers in the marketplace have some unreasonable demands, or just demands that resemble more of the demands of a controlling office boss.

Below are some of these unreasonable, un-freelance-like demands that I run into often:

1. Hourly pays

Some employers want to pay you hourly. While it can make sense for some writers, most freelancers like to freelance because of the freedom.

Some jobs can take you 30 minutes and some can take 4 hours. When you are expected to bill in, your performance and motivation can dramatically decrease.

Of course if you manage to snatch a writing job that pays $500/hour, by all means please take it. I know I would.

But jobs that pay $10/hour? Thanks, but no, thanks.

2. Webcam on desktop turned on

There are freelance job sites (such as odesk) and employers who request that they can see you working. It is a very odd demand, as even your ex office boss didn’t probably have a chance to watch you directly, unless you worked in a very small office.

How can you concentrate or feel liberated when you know someone can observe you anytime? Yikes.

3. Bidding

There are many bidding job sites, such as Elance, Guru, oDesk and more.

The concept on these sites is that an employer gives you his budget and you estimate how much your time should be worth. Then you make a bid at a common denominator.

But of course the employer will be likely to choose the writer that charges less, given that the credentials are equal. This doesn’t work in the favor of the writer as the cheapest most qualified writer tends to get the job. The only benefits here is obtained by the employer.

And since most projects don’t really involve impressive budgets, these bidding sites decrease the amount of money the writer is going to make.

4. No-pay jobs and Internships

The idea behind applying to a job is to make money. Some job posters do not disclose how much they are offering. And you quickly find out that this is mostly because they don’t intend to pay at all. Under the name of internship, recognition and work-experience, you are supposed to work for free. But who is going to pay for the bills?

5. Very low pay

Some businesses ask you to turn in about 10-20 articles a week. This is doable, unless you are expected to get $5 or less for each article. Then why would you do it? You could write whatever you wanted for user-generated content sites, and maybe earn even a little more, without being obliged to write about something you don’t have control over.

I am not defending content mills blindly, but I am really opposed to taking $5/article jobs. The lowest I ever went for was $10/500 words -on a topic I could write my eyes closed. Let me put it this way: I used to talk about these topics (my favorite bands) all the time when I was in high school. No one paid me then.

If an article is going to take you a lot of time, and it is not on a subject you’d write about even for free, even $20/500 words is low.

6. Low pay, but maximum quality requirements

Some companies do offer to pay you $1-5 per article, and moreover, they demand the quality of a $50-100 article. Yes, you heard right. This is not any more rational than a guy who demands a loyal wife while he wants to be allowed to sleep with whomever he wants. These are things that should never happen!

If noones takes these jobs, no matter how desperate they are, people won’t post it. If there is no supply, how can there be demand?

7. Only employing people from certain countries

Many  employers have some specific location requirements. Of course being from New York would help if you are to write New York-related articles. But if you are going to write about universal topics, such as blog traffic tips, what difference does it make if you are in New Zealand and your employer lives in Japan?

8. Only hiring people of 5 years’ experience

Some jobs go very overboard with their requirements, such as demanding multiple years of experience. While experience is a bonus, not all jobs really require that much experience. Sometimes experience is wanted only for experience’s sake alone.

I mean, if you have 5 years of experience, chances are you are not applying to jobs to get clients. Clients are contacting to hire you.

9. Phone calls and face-to-face interviews

One of the most appealing things about freelancing in the 21st Century is that you can handle anything via an internet connection and a laptop.

However some editors like to treat their freelance writers as they are office-bound, or as if freelancers need to live nearby. While it might be helpful on some occasions, having to meet/see your employers is something you did frequently when you weren’t freelancing.

I’m not opposed to the occasional skype conferencing, but commuting to offices? It wouldn’t work unless you lived close to where the hiring company is located. Remember one of the most attractive things about freelancing versus office jobs: Eliminating commute!!!!

10. Revenue-sharing job ads

Many internet writers take advantage of revenue sharing sites such as Factoidz. I did.  I actually still do. It is fun to get paid while I do article marketing and link-building.

However when I am searching for writing gigs, I don’t want to run into ads of a million sites who only pay according to your adsense earnings. There are already many websites that work in that fashion. If I were satisfied with their paychecks, I’d write for them only. After all, nothing hardly beats the freedom of writing about whatever you want.

11. Job ads of sites already famous for revenue sharing such as Hubpages and Suite 101

It might be a blessing for newbies to find out about as many revenue-sharing sites as they can but for a more seasoned web-writer, it becomes old and boring news. Because chances are you already checked out Hubpages or Suite 101 ages ago and you are either writing for them or you aren’t.

I really don’t want to see their ads on my favorite job-hunting sites!

 

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What writing job requirements do you find against freelance nature? Do you agree with any of these 11 pet peeves of mine? What are yours?

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