9 Habits: Dress Up

Posted on October 24, 2018 by Jason Brick

Years ago, I wrote a bestselling book called 9 Habits of Highly Profitable Writing. I’m assaying a second edition now, and that process includes posting each of the habits here for you, for free.

Habit Two: Dress Up

Yes, freelance writing often means you get to telecommute.

Yes, that means my work day starts and ends with me in my jammies and a three-day stubble on my face. Yes, people who come to my door are lucky I’m wearing pants. Yes, this is one of the best parts of my job.

And yet….

You still have to maintain a professional appearance. The “face” you put forward to potential clients will determine whether or not they offer you a chance to impress them with your writing skills.

There’s a story…

Husband: Honey, would you still love me if I was ugly?

Wife: If you turned ugly tomorrow – got burned in a fire, or cursed by a witch or something – of course I’d still love you. It’s the parts on the inside that I fell in love with.

Husband: Awww. Thanks, honey, that’s just what I needed to hear.

Wife: But if you were born ugly, I wouldn’t have ever asked you out in the first place.

That’s doubly, maybe triply true in the world of finding clients. If you don’t show up at your best, then potential clients will never go on that first date than shows the substance behind your style. This doesn’t just apply to how you personally look.

8 Keys to Looking Good For Potential Clients

Having a professional website. Does yours look current and professional, or like you hand-coded it using a Dummies book in 1998? Does it demonstrate that you can write coherently, and edit what you write? Does it include current contact information, and a recent resume?
Maintaining a social media presence. Do you have a compelling profile on at least two social media platforms? Does your content there compel comments, likes, shares and retweets? Do you have a following that you can use to promote clients who hire you? Do your comments demonstrate professionalism and a positive attitude?
Using images effectively. Are all the images on your website of high quality? Do they show appropriate subject matter? Do your profiles include a photo of you looking good while doing what you do? Do you provide proper accreditation for images you didn’t make yourself?
Communicating professionally. Do your emails to potential clients observe proper grammar and get your point across as effectively as possible? Do you avoid foul language in your public posts, and in your messages to clients? Do you respond rapidly to questions, and give advance warning if something happens to put you off schedule? Do you follow basic professional protocols in your communication on the phone, in person and via electronic media?
Maintaining an impressive portfolio. Do you provide compelling and recent work samples related to the jobs you’re seeking? Is there a testimonials page on your website? Do you solicit testimonials from your favorite clients once or twice every year?
Grooming yourself. Do you see to basic hygiene before meeting somebody in person or via video chats? Can you put on a suit or good dress for important client meetings and initial interviews?
Have an elevator pitch. Can you communicate what you write, and why you’re great at it, in a 2-3 sentence statement taking less than a minute to deliver? Can you deliver it without stuttering or otherwise sounding unprofessional?
Getting those letters. They don’t have to be Ph.D. or MFA, but any kind of awards, testimonials, speaking credentials, or similar badges of authority go a long way towards making you look like a serious professional doing serious work.

If you have to answer “no” to some or even most of these questions, don’t panic. You’ve simply identified a few of the habits you need to build over the next several weeks.

Avoiding Dealbreakers

Here’s another story.

In 2014, I would take my toddler son (now 8 years old) to buy groceries. He liked identifying and counting food. I liked getting the job done and spending time with him. It was a win-win father-son outing of lovely proportions.

One day in line, a young woman in front of us offered her nannying services while we were both waiting at the register. A total stranger hit me up for a job, just like I tell all my writing coaching clients to do. She did a lot of things right.

She observed the first rule of freelance job hunting: tell everybody you meet what you do, and ask them to pay you for doing it.
She opened the conversation by demonstrating her knowledge of her field. In this case, she engaged me about parenting and her experience with children.
She asked me for work in a straightforward, almost abrupt, manner.
She told me about her past experience, and offered to provide references.
Her entire communication was professional, yet approachable and friendly.

It was an excellent pitch, but I never called her. Despite having five things in her “pro” column, she had two in the “neg” that absolutely nixed any possibility of my hiring her.

Reason #1: She was dressed in a ratty sweatshirt and very (very) tight camo pants. Sure, it was Sunday morning at the grocery store, and she even apologized for the outfit. But if you’re in the game of asking for work every time you leave the house, you should dress for work every time you leave the house. It made me wonder what other details she was in the habit of forgetting.

Reason #2: She smelled like cigarette smoke. I don’t consider this the sin a lot of people seem to think it is these days, but it is a deal-breaker for anybody who wants to spend time with my kid. My attitude on this is pretty common up here in the granola-chewing, tree-hugging, holier-than-thou Pacific Northwest. She’d neglected to do basic market research in her chosen field.

Two small details of her appearance outweighed multiple excellent points in her favor. Remember: the people who make decisions about hiring freelancers are besieged by people asking for work. They’re not looking for reasons to say yes. They’re looking for reasons to say no.

Don’t give them easy reasons. You should never miss out on a client just because you didn’t feel like getting permission to use a photo, or put on your grownup pants on your way to get some milk. On the job, on the web, and in the world…dress up of you want to make it as a freelancer.

9 Habits: Write Nonfiction

Posted on October 9, 2018 by Jason Brick

Years ago, I wrote a bestselling book called 9 Habits of Highly Profitable Writing. I’massaying a second edition now, and that process includes posting each of the habits here for you, for free.

Habit One: Write Nonfiction

This is absolutely the most important piece of advice you will ever hear about making money from your writing. It’s simple, direct and to the point. In case the name of the habit didn’t make it clear enough, I’ll say it again:

If you want to make money writing, write nonfiction.

Why do I say that? Most people who say they want to write for a living envision turning in a novel or two a year, maybe going to a book signing or a reading in the Village every summer. Doesn’t writing nonfiction defeat the whole purpose of being a writer?

I say it for about 70,000 to 100,000 reasons every year that I earn in about three hours a day. If that’s not enough to convince you on its own, let’s break down some of the facts that make this so.

The market is much larger. Specifically, the 2013 Writer’s Market contains 412 pages of listings for magazines that buy words. Forty of those pages describe magazines that buy fiction. The other 372 are nonfiction markets. The ratio is even higher with online opportunities.

The competition for that tiny fiction market is ferocious. Just about everybody has a short story or half-finished novel sitting on a hard drive somewhere. People who can write compelling nonfiction are rarer, and people who want to rarer still. On average, even professionals can expect about 2% of their submissions to new markets to get accepted. Compare to 10% for nonfiction publishers.

Nonfiction rates per word range from 5 to 10 cents to a dollar or more. Most fiction magazines want you to give them work for “exposure” or a couple of copies of the magazine so you can show your parents. Of the fiction markets that do pay, even the high-end markets top out in the 10 to 25 cents range. An average of 2 cents per word is what you can expect starting out.

Add all of those together, multiplying each factor by the next. Using even the most generous numbers in the fiction range, and the most conservative in the nonfiction range, and here’s what you get:

See that tiny line on the left, the one that’s only visible because I doubled it from its original size? Yeah. Running the numbers above, nonfiction writing is over 200 times as profitable as fiction writing.

If you like those apples, here are a few more to add to the bushel:

You can take a single nonfiction idea and spin it into a dozen saleable articles without looking like a jerk.
Marketing copy is an excellent source of recurring work at 10 cents to a dollar per word.
In the past few years, nonfiction books have started hitting serious bestseller, lottery winner sales.
Nonfiction is much easier to write than fiction. That means you write more words per day, at a higher pay rate per word.
Nonfiction magazines and websites are far more open to repeat contributors.
Nonfiction books and articles have a much longer self-life than fiction. People buy them or bring them up years after their publication.

Best of all, you can work on your fiction in the time you’re not writing nonfiction to make a living…and while you write your nonfiction, you’re still exercising your writing skills. You improve your craft with every sentence you type into your keyboard. This beats the hell out of working a non-writing job to pay the bills, then trying to throw down a few hundred words in your off hours. (More on that in a minute).

Eight Ready Nonfiction Markets

My first paid nonfiction article was in Black Belt Magazine. I got $250 for 1,000 words. It was my first submission to that magazine, and led to more than 20 assignments over the next five years.

It tell you this because my first paid nonfiction article was in the industry where I had been working before I became a writer.

When you’re wondering where you’ll find nonfiction markets to by your words, ideas and expertise, look to these options for starters.

The blogs you already read right now.
The magazines in the hobby shop you regularly visit.
The web pages of businesses you go to frequently.
Trade magazines from your previous careers.
The website and newsletters for any trade, professional, or alumni associations to which you belong.
Consumer magazines for your hobby or your industry.
YouTube channels about your areas of expertise. These people often buy scripts.
Publishers focusing on your hobbies and professional realm.

If you list everything you already know about in all eight categories, you’ll likely end up with a list of 50-100 ready-made markets for your words. That’s not a bad lead list for someone new to any game.

But Aren’t You Selling Out?

When I talk about this at conferences, I hear a few people every time talk about how writing commercially is somehow “selling out.” They seem to consider it a pedestrian sullying of their talent, something to which they could never condescend to stoop.

If that’s how you want to live your writing life, go right ahead. It’s a free country. But consider these two scenarios:

Scenario One: Spend two or three hours a day writing commercial copy, business documents and nonfiction articles. Spend another three hours working on your novels, poetry and short stories. Finish work two hours earlier than at a regular job, without a commute. Recharge with your friends and family, and then do it again tomorrow.

Scenario Two: Burn eight hours of every day working at Starbucks or Home Depot, then commute home and give your family the attention they need. Then find the time and energy to produce your writing in the corners of time left over.

Which of these truly “sells out” your talent as a writer? Which is more likely to mean you never finish, let alone sell, the masterpiece that’s waiting inside you? It should be pretty obvious which of those two I think constitutes a crime against my writing talent.

What do you think?

A Would-Be Writer’s Story

Posted on August 11, 2018 by Jason Brick

Larry Paz of Soar Without Limits when he contributed to my first flash fictionanthology Baby Shoes. We’ve since become friends and take turns giving one another advice about writing and life. This is a guest blog post he sent my way.

I want to tell you a story about a man who, four years ago, dreamed of becoming an author. I knew what I wanted to do, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it. I’m a semi-retired (semi because I can’t make myself stop working) businessman, educator, and consultant.

Then I found Jason’s book The 9 Habits of Highly Profitable Writing on Amazon. I read several other books like his, but for some reason I still wasn’t motivated. I know that nobody can motivate me except myself, but Jason’s book was encouraging. When I brazenly asked him to mentor me, he agreed! He encouraged me to try, so I did.

But still I stalled.

Then, still the mentor, Jason sent me a copy of his book Mastering the Business of Writing. Of course I read it. This one steered me in a different direction. It spoke in a language this businessman understood. Following this roadmap, I decided that my skills and temperament were best suited to editing. My wife is a superb proofreader. I love to read other peoples’ work and see if I can help them tell their story in their own voice. Therefore, I set up the Soar Without Limits Media and Learning Center. It’s a dream in progress. The mainstay is my editorial business. Currently I’m up on Thumbtack, Writers’ Works, and Upwork looking for further opportunities.

I haven’t given up on writing. I’m fortunate to have Michael Piazza as a faithful and talented writing partner. He creates moving dialog from my narrative.

In addition to my editorial services, I am using my book Soar Without Limits as a foundation for associated blogs and webinar courses. Now I can add Author and Editor to my resume. I’m having fun, and isn’t that what really counts?

Are you ready to have fun?

Start writing.

Writing Professionally: Rates and Negotiating Rats

Posted on June 30, 2018 by Jason Brick

In a recent conversation with somebody I’m mentoring about freelance writing, my friend asked the following question:

“How do you negotiate your rates?”

It’s an important question for freelancers — and for those who hire us. It’s also the worst kind of question: too complex for a short answer, but so “squishy” that it’s hard to put together a long answer that’s meaningful or useful. Here’s my attempt.

Part One: What the Market Pays

First things first. You can’t ask for $1,000 a day to write blog posts for a small business. Our skill doesn’t demand that rate, and the customer base can’t afford it. Although a lot of wiggle room exists from assignment to assignment, here’s a breakdown of approximately average earnings:

Insulting. Some publishers want to pay 1c or less per word. Do not accept offers for this price point. You’ll make less than minimum wage. Worse, accepting those offers perpetuates the idea that this is a reasonable amount to pay for what we do.
Barter. Never work for free. But if your first assignment is in exchange for a gift certificate at the restaurant you wrote the menu for, or for free lessons at a karate school, there’s no shame in that. Big Exception: never write “for exposure.” Get exposure by seeing people post things they paid (or traded) for you to write.
Breaking In. There’s a wealth of writing opportunities out there that pay between $15 and $50 for about 500 words. A lot of it is with content mills, but some smaller “legitimate” publishers will pay about this amount. It’s not what you deserve, but can still add up to a decent living — if you take 30 minutes to write one, that’s $30 to $60 an hour.
Professional. A portfolio of strong copy coupled with good references will land you jobs where you get $60 to $100 for a single blog or online article. You’ll also start to get assignments with some of the mid-range national print publications, for about the same amount per word. At this rate, it’s possible to clear six figures if you’re willing to make it a real job. I used to work mostly at this tier, and made a solid middle-class living while working about three to four hours on weekdays.
High-Tier. You’re looking at 25-50c per word here. Leading magazines and websites pay about this much, as do lot of freshly capitalled startups. Somewhere between 5 and 10 years into your career, you should be getting most of your assignments in this range. This is my sweet spot these days.
Elite. I’ve completed exactly two assignments in this tier, and would love to do more. Rates of $1 per word for articles of several hundred or thousands of words are the norm here. Major national magazines, ghostwriting for major clients, and a few top online publishers pay these rates.

Keep in mind, these numbers are for nonfiction work. Fiction pays less because the market is more saturated, so it’s okay to write in exchange for contributor copies as you break in to that market.

Part Two: Negotiating Price

When dealing with publications, you’re usually stuck accepting whatever their standard rate is. At least at first. But with business clients, everything is negotiable. Sadly, not a lot of the writers I work with have a lot of experience or comfort with negotiating pay rates.

Though this skill takes a long time to learn and could fill a book on its own, here’s the short version of how to do it.

Step One: Know Your Price. I like to make between $100 and $150 per hour, which I do by bidding on work produced as opposed to dollars per hour whenever I can. I work quickly, despite my high-quality output, so I can usually make more per hour if I negotiate on that basis. Whether you go for an hourly or production base, start any negotiation by knowing what you’re willing to work for — and what offers you’ll walk away from.
Step Two: Know Their Price. In my experience, about 1/3 to 1/2 of the job listings will give you a ballpark idea of what they’re willing to pay. Of those who don’t, it’s about a 50/50 split between those who’ll tell you what they think and those who’ll ask you to answer first. It’s good to go into negotiations with this information, but I won’t risk a client by refusing to answer the question if it’s asked.
Step Three: Give a Range. If I have to answer first, I’ll give a range of about $50, for example “I usually get between $100 and $150 per item for the work you describe.” I say that the rates vary according to how much work is offered, and how interesting I find the project.
Step Four: Is That Your Final Answer? Your client will reply with a yes, a no, or a counter offer. From here, it’s just like haggling for everything else. Just remember that it’s not a competition — getting another dollar an hour out of a client isn’t as important as everybody feeling like they got a good deal. Just never go below your minimum price.

One last thing on this: I don’t believe good negotiation is when I seek to hammer the client into paying more than they’re happy with. That just leaves hard feelings. Instead, negotiate to a point where both parties are happy, but not entirely thrilled. That’s how you form the beginnings of a good long-term relationship.

Part Three: The Magic Words

I’m giving away a trade secret here, and it’s possible I’ll do worse on some negotiations moving forward, but I have a paragraph I always say when I’m asked how much I cost. It goes like this:

“I know how much I like to charge, but this sounds like a fun project so let’s make it work. Between you and me, what’s your budget?”

It’s a little cheesy, but it really works. One person recently asked my advice about rates, and our conversation led to the conclusion she’d be happy doing a job for $500. I advised her to use that line, and her client opened with $2,000 for the same amount of work.

8 Ways Not to Screw Up Your Query Letter

Posted on May 1, 2018 by Jason Brick

angry-computer-guy So I’m hanging out this morning with several professionals in the publishing and writing industries, after almost two weeks of doing the same. We’re all raging against the obvious mistakes people make before sending a query letter to an agent or editor.

For publishers, agents and editors it’s just a part of the job. They’re inundated with unprofessional queries by people who obviously didn’t bother to Google either how to query or even the most basic facts about their publication. The only good news in this situation is the letters do mean they can ignore the query quickly and spend less time in the slush pile on that particular day.

Professional writers, we rail against how that misrepresents us. For every terrible, terrible query letter an agent receives, that agent becomes a little more hardened against queries from good writers who do the proper research. The only good news in this situation is it does mean we stand out against the crowd if the editor gives us a chance to prove ourselves.

Over the course of many conversations in various states of inebriation and sobriety, I found common threads for the nine best ways to avoid screwing this essential task up.

1. Don’t miss basic facts.

Don’t query a science fiction magazine with a detective story. Don’t email a nonfiction agent with your epic fantasy novel. Don’t get the name wrong in your greeting, or misspell the name of the magazine. Don’t lie and say you’ve loved somebody’s work for 20 years when he started editing last month. Get your facts straight. If you’re not sure of your facts, get sure of your facts. If you can’t find the information, find a way to avoid bringing it up.

2. Keep it simple, stupid.

The average time an agent or editor gives an unsolicited query is under a minute. One agent I talked to burns through 100-120 book queries an hour when buckling down and getting to work. A long, complex description of your work, and process, and emotional state ain’t gonna fly here. Aim for terse sentences in short paragraphs in a letter nobody has to scroll down on to get all the important details.

Rachel:

3. Remember who’s doing who a favor here.

Yes, you and your agent or editor are in a symbiotic relationship. Yes, you are peers and equals in most senses. But you’re the one sending somebody else unsolicited sales material. Be polite. Several of the folks I talked with ranted at some length about how frequently the initial queries (and especially follow up communication) read like a missive from a spoiled preteen who wrote Santa a flamer over not getting everything on his Christmas list. Seriously. Be nice. Just. Be. Nice.

4. Spellcheck.

If you think you’re going to impress an agent or editor with your writing skills without proofreading your email, you are wrong. There’s not much more to say about this.

5. Grammar check.

If you think you’re going to impress an agent or editor with your writing skills without proofreading your email, you are wrong. There’s not much more to say about this, either.

6. Follow the damn rules.

Almost every publication or agency has a page on their website telling you exactly how they want to be queries. Almost every publication or agency has a method that’s slightly different from all the other publications and agencies. That’s just life. When you query, read and follow those instructions to the letter. Some places use it as a test to see who’s going to be reasonably easy to work with. Others might let it slide if you miss a trick or two, but why be rude about it? It’s their house. Follow their rules.

7. Understand the process.

Failing to understand the basic process of publication mystifies me. If you want to go flip burgers at McDonald’s, you’ll know the basics of what hamburgers are and how they’re made before walking in. If you want to be a neurosurgeon, you won’t apply for work until you’ve mastered the skill. I was shown some query letters from people who obviously didn’t understand what agents or editors actually do, or how long things take, or what reasonable payment for a book or article even looks like. On one hand, I feel a little bad for folks who make this mistake. Everybody has one or two things where they’re so clueless they don’t realize how clueless they are. But if you want to get published, don’t make this one of those things.

8. Now is not the time to show off.

Even if your work is an avant garde piece of noneuclidean sentence structure held together with multiple, colorful fonts in a truly cohesive whole, never apply that to your query. Do not play with fun tense structures or flowery language. Save that for your book or article. Agents, publishers and editors are exhausted, overworked and undercoffeed. Make your query easy to understand. Always.

QUERY_Op

Do you have any embarrassing stories about how you fucked up a query letter? Or a screwed up query letter you received? Share your tales in the comments and tell us all where the bad words touched you.

Jason Brick

Your Business and Writing Sensei

Category Archives: Writing