A New Take on an Old Business

Hi there.

I’m Bob, and I’ll be your host for the foreseeable future here at the Business Tips for Writers section of FWJ. I won’t waste your time with a long post about how grateful I am to the FWJ staff for the opportunity (and I am), or what big shoes I have to fill in James Chartrand’s former column (and they are big shoes).

Instead, let me tell you a little about myself. I’ll try to make it at least a little relevant to the freelance business, or at least marginally interesting.

I’ve been a professional freelance writer for several years now. I started out writing pregnancy and parenting articles for a dear friend who desperately needed some content. It wasn’t entirely a selfless endeavor; I needed the cash. I’d recently quit my job in the Information Technology field and was working on my Master’s degree in Humanities, and student loans weren’t enough to cover all of the bills.

From there, I spent some time writing as a work-at-home mom (that’s another story altogether, which you can read at Freelance Folder). I’ve done just about every type of freelance writing work since then, too. Since I picked up the virtual pen, I haven’t looked back.

If you want to know more about how I fell into the freelance writing career, and about my own personal philosophy of writing, read my highly self-indulgent and sometimes tedious Bang the Gong series over at my blog.

So, how am I qualified to give you advice on the writing business? I could go into my academic training, or I could tell you about seminars I’ve attended or professional organizations I’ve joined. Really, though, I don’t think those things will impress you. They don’t particularly impress me.

No, here’s why I think I might have something useful to say, and why I am qualified to give you business tips: I make a living with my writing today. My writing business is successful enough to provide for my family and even give us an occasional vacation. Oh, and pay taxes.

I should also tell you a little bit about how that business is structured. My wife, Angie, is not only the world’s tastiest food blogger, she’s also my business partner. She does the sales and management stuff, I do the writing. We also employ a handful of other writers on a part-time basis. As I mentioned, we do all sorts of writing, from sales pages to web copy to blogging.

Blogging is probably my favorite medium, and the medium whose style I seem to excel at. I’ve been published here, as well as at Freelance Switch, Freelance Folder and other blogs. I do a lot of blogging for other folks, too, as a ghost blogger. One of the reasons I took this job is because here I can blog as me, without having to fit someone else’s voice and style.

I’ll be posting here twice a week, usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Make sure to come back this Thursday, as I’ve got a truly kick-butt post on the top mistakes work-at-home freelancers can make.