Tag Archive for: lucrative commercial writing

PB NOTE: I’m delighted to have Jennifer Mattern as our first guest blogger in this go-round (AND to have this piece be part of her virtual blog tour). Jennifer, the founder of the critically acclaimed AllFreelanceWriting blog, is a consummate freelance professional and someone with a wealth of knowledge and experience in all aspects of freelancing and freelance business-building.

In this piece, she shares a great story that encapsulates any commercial writer’s ultimate scenario: clients finding them, not the other way around. Hence the term “query-free freelancing.” And don’t get hung up on the term “query” – which, yes, is usually associated with magazine writing. Here, she simply means it as any contact made directly to a prospect. Thanks again, Jenn, and take it away!

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Build Your Own Demand!

Query-free freelancing means, first and foremost, building demand for your services – not waiting around hoping clients are going to find you. I’d like to share a story about how I not only did that, but how I created demand in a relatively new market at the time by identifying a need and choosing to fill it.

(NOTE: If querying works well for you, then stick to it. But understand it’s not the only way to land lucrative commercial writing gigs. To put yourself in a position where prospects find you, not the reverse, you build demand and increase your visibility. Most freelance professionals I know get at least some gigs this way. I chose to build a career on it. And despite the common “you have to pitch, pitch, pitch” thoughts, I’ve never hurt for work since going query-free.)

I ran a music PR firm. I worked with clients throughout my region. It’s an industry where everyone knows everyone else in the local scene, so word spreads. We had a few well-known publicists in the area so I needed a way to stand out. I knew I needed to increase my visibility if I was going to create greater natural demand for my work, so I launched an indie music webzine. After a while, I turned to a webmaster forum to ask for advice on improving the site.

Identifying the Needs of a New Market
As I spent time there learning and improving my own site, discussions cropped up among the online business owners. They were interested in press release writing but didn’t understand it. The few press release writing jobs advertised in the community were picked up by generic Web content writers (the “Sure, I’ll write you over-hyped, keyword-stuffed garbage content for $10 and throw it into a press release template” kind of writers).

There was a need for better information. I took part in press release discussions there, trying to educate the market about how to use them more effectively. I emphasized focusing on real coverage and exposure over blatant links and how that could actually do more to help their SEO efforts too. Interest quickly spread within that group about press releases (not just in that community, but all over the Web due to the growth of distribution sites like PRWeb).

Because I stepped into that market, building my visibility and authority status early on, the work flowed in naturally, even though I charged much higher rates than most that started targeting the market. That played a role in my move from music PR to online PR for a wider variety of clients, and even now that I’m solely a full-time writer it doesn’t stop. That’s what happens when you build a platform, build visibility, and build a strong professional network — the building blocks of a query-free career.

Plenty of Opportunities Still Exist
It’s something you can do too. Let’s say you’re a sales letter writer. It doesn’t matter how many other sales letter writers are out there. All that matters is how many competitors are focusing on the same target market in the same places. Not all people looking to hire a sales letter writer fall into the same market group. You may find client groups that have a demand for the service but who aren’t being exposed to qualified writers. They’re itching to find someone like you, but no one’s making it easy enough on them. Step in and fill the void.

What have you done to build your professional platform as a commercial freelancer?

Have you ever landed gigs without directly pitching prospects — where they came to you? How did you get those gigs?

Contributing to a larger community is how to show prospects you know your stuff and are competent at what you do. How might you be able to increase that interaction (and sharing) to demonstrate your own authority status within your specialty area?

Or if you’ve done so successfully, what’s worked best for you so far?

About Jennifer Mattern
Jennifer Mattern is a freelance business writer and professional blogger who writes about freelance writing, social media, indie publishing, and small business. She also publishes e-books for freelance writers and is scheduled to publish her first nonfiction book, The Query-Free Freelancer, next year.

Want to be a guest blogger on The Well-Fed Writer Blog? I welcome your contribution to the Well-Fed writing community! Check out the guidelines here.

Tanking economy. Up-and-down stock market. High and growing unemployment. The end of the world as we know it. Etc, etc, etc. How’s all this affecting your commercial writing business? Perhaps less than you might imagine…

Okay, rest assured, I’m not here to say that all the economic turmoil is just a mirage. It’s not. But I am here to say that you’re in control of how you view it, and in turn, the extent to which you allow it to affect you.

I thought about offering a collection of tips on dealing with your commercial freelancing clients in tough times, but others, like Mike Stelzner are doing a good job of that. Instead, let’s talk about our thinking….

When you watch the news (Mistake #1), do you go into a sort of trance-like state, mumbling to yourself along the lines of,

Ohthislooksbadallmyclientsaregoingtostopreturningmycallscutbackorgooutofbusinessaltogetherwhichmeanslessworkforme
IshouldlookatgettingajobwhoamIkiddingtheyrelayingoffrightnownothiringmaybeajobworkingatthemallduringtheholidayswaita
minutethatwon’tworkeitherbecausenoonewillbebuyinganythingIknowIsurewontnextstopstreetcornerwithasignwillwriteforfood
whatwasithinkinggettingintothisstupidbusiness
… STOP!!

Okay, that’s called flabby thinking. Understandable, perhaps, but still flabby. Let’s toughen it up a bit. No mind-control hocus-pocus here. Just a few facts. During tough times, will businesses stop marketing, stop communicating with employees (internal communications), stop trying to reach new customers (ads, direct mail case studies), stop building web sites or updating existing ones, and all crawl into holes and wait and hope for things to get better? The very idea is ludicrous. And incidentally, I’m busier than I’ve been in a long time…

Will some businesses cut back on outside resources and perhaps bring projects in-house? Yes. But many can’t because they don’t have the in-house resources to do them.

And if there will be some cutting back, does that mean that bigger companies who’ve been using pricey ad agencies, design/PR firms and marketing companies might be cutting back on them? Yes. At which point, might the idea of hiring a far more economical, but-just-as-if-not-more effective freelance writer/designer team sound much more attractive? You bet it will.

And how much effect does the economy truly have on ONE person’s quest for financial self-sufficiency and freelance success? Given that that ONE person needs to garner only a tiny sliver of the entire universe of possible lucrative commercial writing work out there? Not much.

And don’t forget: there will be a certain chunk of your competition who will buy all the gloom and doom, will blink and run, opting for something they perceive will be more secure, and will leave you with less competition.

Feeling better yet?

If you’ve been around the block a few times, what are your thoughts?

What other tough-thinking strategies can you suggest?

What are you seeing from your clients?

What do you see as the keys to getting through tough times?