Freelance writers can find a variety of avenues to ply their trade. While you may be familiar with writing for customers directly, you may not know about business to business copywriting. Explained in easy terms, you may find this to be a form of writing that is a good choice for you.

Copywriting, in its simplest definition, is using words to promote a business, person, or idea. Business to business copywriting would be defined as using words to encourage one business to purchase from another business. Copywriters who can write compelling copy which entices the business purchaser to spend are in demand. This may not be a field you’ve considered in the past, but you may want to consider it now.

Read More…

Posted under Articles and Tips

By Kathryn Lang

“Your work is always on time and on count.”  I had to smile.  Never in my life would I have thought this would be a compliment.  Normal acts of business should be expected.  Being on time and following the described job should be the rule and not the exception.  His paper was new, so I decided to email a few others that I had worked with in the past.

It seems that following the job, getting it in on time and having basic good grammar were some of the top problems facing editors around the globe.  Freelance writers may be artists, but freelance writers are also running a business.

Developing Professionalism in the Art of Freelance Writing

1.    Be reliable – getting work in on time is important.  Editors need time to go over the work. The articles may need to be trimmed or tweaked to fit into the publication.  Additional writing may be necessary to make the article right or complete.

Being reliable will not only get you a one time paycheck but it will likely give you more paychecks through the same editor and other referrals.

2.    Follow the guidelines – every job will come with a description.  It should tell you what to write, what slant to take and how many words should be included.  The job description might also include limitations (like no bullets) or requests (like use a quote or add links).

If the job description is not clear then ask questions up front.  Writing is one of those times when more is not necessarily better.  Editors want what they ask for and giving them the thing that is requested will make you top on their lists for future assignments.

3.    Check spelling and grammar – the article you writing may be going to an editor but the less that editor has to do then the more that editor will want to work with you in the future.  You want to write right and not right write.  Little errors will make a big difference when it comes time to find writers in the future.

Three simple steps can make your writing stand out from the crowd.  Being on time, doing what is asked and providing clean work are the things that will make editors come to your door.  Keep your creative style but make that style professional so that your writing will become a business that provides you with the income to fund your dreams.

*****

Kathryn Lang is a freelance writer in Alabama. Her work has been published in regional papers, travel magazines and national religous publications along with multiple websites. She has been writing for pleasure since she was able to write and writing as a career for the last several years.

www.successfulfreelancewriter.com
www.proverbs31life.com
www.kathrynlang.com

Posted under Articles and Tips, Marketing Your Freelance Business

Freelance writers have quite a bit of competition, both for online and offline writing jobs. You may wonder how to gain more freelance writing assignments. By following some of these suggestions, new writing jobs may be in your future.

If you look around, you probably notice a number of buzzwords used in advertising. Those would include free and save. Advertisers expect campaigns with those words to bring in additional sales for those products. You can use the same type of tactic when freelance writing; you can use some client buzzwords to bring in more writing jobs.

YOU – This is by far one of the most powerful words you can use. It speaks directly to the reader and uses the advertising theory that potential customers want to know “what’s in it for me?” Why not take a page from an advertiser’s playbook and use the same idea when writing queries?

Using “you” in every query sent off allows you to speak directly to the prospective client and tell them how hiring you can benefit them. It makes the query personal rather than something you might send off to multiple businesses at one time. Explain to them how they can experience more free time because they’re not bogged down with writing blog posts, articles, or other content for their business.

Be sure to use “you” more than “I” or “me” when first contacting a potential client. It’s easy for writers to list their accomplishments, but the client wants to know how you can meet their needs rather than going on about yourself. Provide a link to your website or blog, but spend the most of the email explaining how you can benefit them, not the other way around.

EASY – Explain to prospective clients how hiring you as a freelance writer will make their job “easier.” One of the main reasons freelance writers are hired is because they either don’t have time to do their own writing, or they don’t have the man-power to do the work. Of course, they many have other reasons for not doing the writing themselves, but letting them know you can help get the job done with few complications will make them take notice.

Besides a query, how can you let potential clients know you can help? Here are some ideas:

• Make getting information about your services simple on your website. Provide a valid email address or short form where they can ask for a quote. When you do get their information, respond as quickly as you can.

• Explain how easy it is to work with you whenever you communicate with them. Make the process as simple as possible. Ask them what their needs are and how soon they need them returned. After receiving their information, depending upon the type of work they need, get back to them right away with a quote and when you expect to get the work back to them.

• Keep contracts to a minimum unless the prospective client requires one. The fewer items the client has to contend with, the easier working with you will seem. Easier often results in more freelance writing assignments.

Take time to research the company you’d like to write for. If you understand the company, what they do, and their market, companies are more likely to hire you because you identify with their goals.

When you make your query more about the potential client and less about you, you’ll have learned the secret to how to gain more freelance writing assignments.

__________________________________________

I DIDN’T THINK IT WAS POSSIBLE TO GET RICH AS A FREELANCE WRITER

The problem was, I was in the wrong writing business. Instead of making a few hundred dollars a week writing articles for magazines and newspapers like I used to do, I now pull in, on average, $2,500 per week writing simple letters.

Here’s how I learned the secrets of this little-known freelance writing market:

Posted under Articles and Tips, Freelance lifestlye

By Kammy Thurman, AWAI-Trained Copywriter AND Graphic Designer

Have you ever seen a flier, a Web landing page, or some other advertisement where everything on the page is screaming at you so loudly that you didn’t know where to start reading?

You probably didn’t spend much time trying to figure out where to go before you gave up and trashed it.

You can avoid this by creating a reading “path” for your reader to follow. A well-constructed path feels so easy and natural your reader won’t even realize you’re intentionally leading him along.

Successful reading paths get their power to guide the reader by using this specific design hierarchy …

1. Big, bold headlines. The headline carries 80% of the responsibility for the sale. So you want to spend a good deal of time designing it for maximum impact. This means using big, bold letters at least 3 times larger than the body copy. Use bold colors too. Stay away from light colors – especially pastels. (They’re not good for readability.Break long headlines into easy-to-read chunks with line breaks. And put plenty of white space around them to tell the reader “I’m important, read me first!” Sans serif typefaces like Helvetica, Myriad, or Arial work great for headlines. They look clean and easily readable in large sizes.
2. The “neck” … I mean deck. This is the sub-headline that comes right underneath the headline and before the “Dear Reader” part of the sales letter. The deck helps readers move from the headline into the body copy. It is generally used to explain the headline further and give readers an additional push into the rest of the letter. Think of it as the neck that connects the headline to the body copy.The deck will be noticeably smaller than the headline, but quite a bit larger than the body copy. If you have a 36-point headline and 12-point body copy, figure 22- to 24-point type for the deck. You can either use the same font you used for the headline or the font you’ll use in the body copy. Don’t use a third font, as too many fonts will look confusing and amateurish. However, you can use a lighter weight font than you used for the headline: For example, Arial Bold instead of Arial Black.
3. Subheads. Subheads are used to break up the body copy and keep the page interesting. I use the same color in subheads that I used in the headline, as opposed to using black. Colored subheads draw attention and help hold the reader in the sales message. The headline, deck, and subheads together tell the sales story well enough that a reader could make a decision to buy if that’s all they read (which is what many people do). Folks who want more info will then go back and read the body copy.
4. Body copy. This is the main sales message – the body of your letter – and it needs to be very readable. In print copy, serif type – such as Times Roman or Georgia – is easier to read than sans serif (Arial or Verdana). But the opposite is true on the Web. Make sure the font is large enough – 11 or 12 points in most cases, and 13 or 14 points for older readers. Never go below 10 points. That’s too small for easy reading.
5. Sidebars, bursts, and pull-quotes. Place sidebars, bursts, pull-quotes, and other attention grabbers throughout the piece to pull readers’ attention to important information. These give readers a little surprise, and hold their interest much better than pages of text with a few subheads here and there.

And, finally … Help your reader turn the page. Never end a right-hand page on a complete sentence. Break the sentence so your reader is forced to turn the page to continue.

And to further encourage him to turn the page, add “Over please,” or something similar, at the bottom of every odd-numbered page. Even though this may seem unnecessary (who doesn’t know to turn the page?), testing has proven it keeps readers from using the end of the page as an excuse to bail out of the message.

This hierarchy should be used in every sales piece you write and/or design – fliers, posters, letters, buck slips, lift notes, postcards, magalogs, and even orders forms – to make reading (and making the sale) much easier.

This article appears courtesy of American Writers & Artists Inc.’s (AWAI) The Golden Thread, a free newsletter that delivers original, no-nonsense advice on the best wealth careers, lifestyle careers and work-at-home careers available. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.awaionline.com/signup/.

Posted under Uncategorized