Good Monday morning FWJ friends! It’s a new week and a fresh start. What are you doing to stay focused and positive today? Here are your leads for today, New Around the Freelance Writing Jobs Network The Formula for Subcontracting Success Reading Between the Lines with a Client Freelance Writing Jobs Content Writing Jobs Social Media Writer Freelance Writer – Gold River Freelance SEO Writers Freelance Writer – Minneapolis Blog/Article Writer Article Writer Needed Talented Writers for Brighthub.com Copy Writing Jobs Creative Copywriter for Politically Direct Mail Senior Copywriter with a Passion for Fashion Bloggers @ Organic Authority Blogger Jobs [Read more…]
Reading Between the Lines with a Client
June 7, 2010. 1 Comment
Writing a job ad is not an easy thing to do, and it’s no wonder that so many clients appear to struggle with putting what they need into words. Some of them seem to expect the reader to know what they want when all they post is “writer needed” and an e-mail address. Others have a lot of content in their ad, but that doesn’t mean they are stating their needs in a way that is easy to understand. If you are waiting for the perfect ad to answer, you may be missing out on some great opportunities. Just because [Read more…]
Freelance Writing Jobs for June 4, 2010
June 4, 2010. 6 Comments
Happy Friday FWJ Friends! Are you spending your weekend working, or are you taking some time for yourself? Here are your leads for today, New Around the Freelance Writing Jobs Network 5 Things About Freelance Writing You May Not Know if You’re Just Starting Out Why You Should Continue Your Job Search in the Summer Freelance Writing Jobs Content Writing Jobs Freelance Web Content Writer Post-Secondary Education Writers Beauty Writers Needed – Chicago Write About Bars! – Kansas City Freelance Writer/Social Media Content Author Needed Health Food Writer Needed Natural History Writer Needed Forex Writer Needed Copy Writing Jobs Local [Read more…]
Why You Should Continue Your Job Search in the Summer
June 3, 2010. 1 Comment
Summertime, and the living is easy…..It can be hard to get (and stay) motivated to look for work when it’s sunny and warm outside. The summer is a time when many people do take time off, but you would be mistaken if you concluded that there is no point in continuing to look for your next great freelance writing gig during the summer months. While people do take time off and some businesses may slow down during this time, it doesn’t mean that there are no clients who are hiring now. You should continue to make pitches, send out queries [Read more…]
Freelance Writing Jobs for June 3, 2010
June 3, 2010. 5 Comments
Good morning FWJ Friends! Are you busy trying to do five days worth of work in four if you celebrated Memorial Day this week? Here are your leads for today. New Around the Freelance Writing Jobs Network Reusing Research: Making Your Work Twice as Useful How Should You Dress for a Client Meeting? Freelance Writing Jobs Content Writing Jobs Freelance Writers – Personal Finance Editor/Writer with Recreational Experience Sustainable Living Writer Copy Writing Jobs Copy Writer for Health/Medical Products Expert Copy Writer Needed Sales Letter Needed Blogger Jobs Tech and Gadget Bloggers Money/Personal Finance Blogger Student Writer Blogger Needed Proofreading/Editing [Read more…]
Do You Tell a Client About a Disability or a Chronic Health Condition?
May 29, 2010. Leave a Comment
Working as a freelance writer is different from looking for work as an employee. You are sending pitches out or applying for gigs as a contractor. Where I live, an employer is required to provide accommodations for employees with disabilities, up to the point of extreme hardship. Contractors don’t have this level of protection. I believe that clients care about whether a particular freelancer can do the work that has been assigned, and turn it in by the deadline more than if the person they have hired has a disability or lives with a chronic condition. If you work remotely, [Read more…]
The Perfect Time to Launch Your Freelance Writing Career (or Take the Next Step)
May 24, 2010. Leave a Comment
You may have heard that timing is everything in life. Being in the right place at the right time is crucial, and you need to make sure that you’re “ready” to either stick your toe into the freelance writing pool, raise rates or send a pitch to a client you are dying to work with. I have a bit of a different take on this subject. If you wait for everything to line up perfectly and for the perfect moment to take action, you’ll never do anything. This is especially true if you decide that you won’t apply for any [Read more…]
Building Your Freelance Writing Career Broom – One Straw (Gig) at a Time
May 21, 2010. 1 Comment
Do you want to have a freelance writing career? You must be interested in writing if you are reading this. If you want to have a writing career, you need to start with a single freelance writing job and build it over time. By definition, a job is something that you do and you get paid for it. Usually a job implies that you are an employee, but let’s leave that out of the equation for the sake of argument. A career is something that a person dedicates him or herself to over the long term, and it has opportunities [Read more…]
Monday Markets for May 17, 2010
May 18, 2010. Leave a Comment
Washington Monthly From the Web Site: The Washington Monthly is a publication covering politics, government, culture and the media. Before you pitch a story to us, we recommend you read through a few of our back issues online or in print to get a feel for the type of investigative, system-analysis journalism we value and promote. The magazine is published Bimonthly and includes investigative and opinion-based feature articles (2,000 to 5,000 words), occasional short news items and humorous sidebars (500 to 1,000 words), and book reviews of recent political and cultural titles (usually about 800 words). We occasionally print excerpts [Read more…]
Getting Back up After Rejection Knocks You Down
May 16, 2010. 3 Comments
Rejection is definitely part of a freelance writer’s life. No one gets hired for every gig they apply or submit a query for. Maybe it’s just as well, because there is no way that we could do all the work if everything came to us that easily. Despite the fact that I know that I’m not going to get hired every time, there are some times when not getting the gig really gets to me. If I know that I presented myself in the best possible way and I still didn’t get hired, then I must defer to the fact [Read more…]
Don't Neglect Your Current Clients While Looking for Freelance Writing Jobs
May 13, 2010. 3 Comments
Freelance writers are always thinking about finding their next project. We send out queries, send out pitches to prospective clients and check out the job boards looking for our next gig. While we need to thinking about where then next gig is going to come from, we shouldn’t ignore our existing clients as a source of work. One way to increase the chances of being hired for future projects is to give your clients your best effort on the work they have already assigned to you. Delivering what they have asked for, on time, will put you on the short [Read more…]
Monday Markets for May 10, 2010
May 11, 2010. 1 Comment
5280 From the Web Site: 5280 is the premiere monthly guide to the arts, entertainment, dining, and lifestyle issues in Denver. First published in 1993, the magazine has a circulation of 85,000 and is consistently among the top-selling magazines on metro newsstands. Many of our stories are written by 5280 staffers and a group of established freelance writers, but we welcome ideas from journalists we haven’t worked with in the past. Story pitches should convey that the writer understands the editorial thrust of the magazine and should be well researched, concise, and offer a creative and original argument. We accept [Read more…]
Skeletons in Your Freelance Writing Closet
May 8, 2010. 3 Comments
Everyone has a past. If an event happened before now, it’s relegated to the past. As freelance writers, we can’t rest on our laurels, nor can we spend time worrying about what someone will think about who we worked for previously or how much we were paid. Do you have some skeletons in your freelance writing closet? I’m willing to bet you do. There may be some gigs you may not be proud to admit that you took on, either because of the subject matter or what you were paid. I believe that we learn from all of our writing [Read more…]
Monday Markets for May 3, 2010
May 4, 2010. Leave a Comment
Today’s Parent From the Web Site: Today’s Parent is a consumer magazine for parents with children up to the age of 14. The circulation is approximately 190,000 and we have more than 1.7 million readers from across Canada. There are 12 issues per year. Today’s Parent and its sister publications (Today’s Parent: Pregnancy, Today’s Parent: Baby & Toddler) are wholly owned by Rogers Media Publishing. Today’s Parent offers a mixture of straightforward service articles and more philosophical or issue–oriented stories. The tone is positive and supportive, yet realistic. There are rarely black and white answers to child–rearing issues and we [Read more…]
Why I Don't Want to be the Best
May 3, 2010. 3 Comments
I know people say that freelance writing is a highly competitive field and that if you want to succeed, you need to be the best. Deb addressed the issue of convincing a client that you are the best in her blog post, If You Don’t Feel You’re the Best, How Will You Convince Your Clients? I’ve been thinking about the idea of being “the Best” and I want to explain why I don’t want that designation. I’m Enjoying the Journey To me, deciding that someone is the best means that they have peaked. If there is a summit as a [Read more…]
How to Stand Out from the Crowd When Applying for Gigs
April 28, 2010. Leave a Comment
When a client (or any employer) puts out an ad looking for help, they are usually swamped with responses. It’s not uncommon for a single ad to generate 200 responses (or more). How do you stand out from the crowd of other people (in a positive way) who are trying to get the same freelance writing gig? Follow Instructions One thing that will set you apart from the rest of the pack is to follow the instructions in the ad to the letter. If the client is asking for a resume, send your most recent version. On the other hand, [Read more…]
Which Trait is Most Important to Freelance Writing Success?
April 24, 2010. 4 Comments
If you think about the people you know (or know online) that are successful freelance writers, what do you think they have in common? This question can be a bit challenging because freelancers come from a number of different backgrounds. They can be any age, and while some have studied writing in university, others hold degrees in other subject areas. Some successful freelance writers didn’t go to university at all. For some people, writing is something that they have done from the time they were old enough to put pen(cil) to paper. For others, and I’m in this category, the [Read more…]
The Myth of the Perfect Freelance Writing Gig
April 21, 2010. 3 Comments
Do you dream of the “perfect” freelance writing gig? I bet that a lot of us do. It might be a certain client you would do just about anything to work with (the name “Deb Ng” might come to mind right about now, but I digress…..). I used to think there was one perfect gig, too, but now that I’ve been a freelance writer for awhile, I’ve changed my thinking on this subject. Much like there isn’t a Perfect Man (or Woman, as the case may be), there isn’t one perfect gig – and what a wonderful thing that is! [Read more…]
Monday Markets for April 19, 2010
April 20, 2010. Leave a Comment
Art Calendar From the Web Site: We welcome nuts-and-bolts, practical articles of interest to serious visual artists, emerging or professional. Examples: marketing how-to’s, pieces on business practices and other topics of use to artists. The tone of our magazine is practical, can-do and uplifting. We prefer very specific topics, as opposed to general overviews. So, for example, an article on how artists should write a press release and where they should send it would stand a good chance of being accepted, whereas as an article about why marketing is important to artists would not. We also prefer articles from writers [Read more…]
Freelance Writing Jobs for April 19, 2010
April 19, 2010. 2 Comments
We’re talking about what attracts us to certain bloggers – and what turns us off – at the Freelance Writing Jobs Facebook Group. Won’t you join the conversation? New Around the Freelance Writing Jobs Network The Dark Side of Freelance Writing: Other Freelance Writers How Valuable is Your Service? Will It Make You Famous? Do You Quote by the Hour or by the Word? Are You Busier as a Freelance Writer? What is the Future of Reading? The Scarcity, Myth, Persistence and Coporate Freelance Writing Jobs Recommended Reading William Boyd on Respect for Words – Quotes to Inspire Writers Defeating [Read more…]
Do You Quote by the Hour or by the Word?
April 18, 2010. 10 Comments
How do you quote jobs for new clients? Not everyone is specific about what they are looking for when they ask for a quote, unfortunately. I know some freelance writers talk about how much they charge per hour, but I want to focus on why it may be a better idea to offer a per-word rate than an hourly one. If you quote a client an hourly rate, the client may not understand what they are getting for their money. Although the freelance writer is probably more likely to eat some time than pad his or her bill when charging [Read more…]
Are You Trying to be a Big Deal or the Real Deal?
April 15, 2010. 1 Comment
Before I started freelance writing, I worked as a legal assistant. My first job was working at a very large firm (250 lawyers at the time) and I’ve worked for a sole practitioner, as well as a few firms with staffing numbers in between. One thing I noticed was that the lawyers who had the worst attitudes were generally the ones at or close to the bottom of the firm letterhead. (If a law firm lists its lawyers, the most senior ones are at the top.) The senior partners have already proven themselves and don’t need to go around telling [Read more…]
Monday Markets for April 12, 2010
April 13, 2010. Leave a Comment
Leatherneck: Magazine of the Marines From the Web Site: We encourage writers who have a Marine Corps background to submit articles. It is best to query first. Material is reviewed on a speculative basis. Since Leatherneck is a magazine published primarily for U.S. Marines, all of our material must be targeted accordingly. Our usual requirements for articles are 1,500 to 2,000 words, accompanied by 8 to 10 color or black and white photographs, or illustrations and maps where appropriate, with complete caption information. We reserve the right to edit in order to meet space limitations or magazine format criteria. All [Read more…]
Does Politeness Matter When Looking for Work?
April 8, 2010. 2 Comments
I admit that rudeness really gets under my skin. There is never an excuse for it. I can deal with someone being direct, and I can be that way myself when the situation warrants it. You can be assertive without being nasty to the person you are interacting with. If you were interested in hiring someone to do some work for you, does the applicant’s demeanor matter or should you be focused on his or her skill set only? The candidate’s skills and experience matter, of course. Unless you are looking to fill an entry-level opportunity, you do need to [Read more…]
Monday Markets for April 5, 2010
April 6, 2010. 1 Comment
GreenPrints From the Web Site: Thanks for your interest! GreenPrints lives because people like you care about gardening—and about sharing with other gardeners. Without your garden writing, the magazine simply would not exist. So, thank you! Now, what do I want? 1) The best, personal (important word, that) garden writing I can get. Expressive, thoughtful, humorous, angry, contrite, flippant, searching, witty, observant, sad, inviting— whatever! We focus on the human, not how-to side of gardening. On the people as well as the plants. After all, gardening is a relationship, not a recipe. GreenPrints explores that relationship, not by instructing, preaching, [Read more…]
