Freelance Archives - GUJRAT INDIA

Quick Copy! Tips for Freelance Writers to Increase Income & Output (Part II of II)

The following is a continuation of the six tips I outline for increasing freelancing writing income and output in yesterday’s post. Without further ado:

4. Series: As in, split longer articles into Part I, Part II, etc. I like writing series for two reasons: i) I get more legs out of one subject; ii) I sell more, which can lead to more work from a publication.

After all, if a publisher likes your work enough to buy a series from you, they’ll probably be open to working with you on a more regular basis. This works well for publishers in some instances because, like a cliffhanger on a TV series, it keeps their readers coming back.

5. Write What You Don’t Know (In Bits): Eventually, you are going to run short on topics you know about – especially if you are in the habit of producing a certain volume of work.

Writing about what you don’t know broadens your body of work and your knowledge base. Researching a piece will usually lead to ideas for more articles.

NOTE: Writing about what you don’t know is going to take more time than writing about what you know. So, you will be producing less. To counteract this, write about what you don’t know in pieces. Eg, research it over a few days so as not to take away from your output too severely.

6. Write Tech: This type of writing usually pays more. The reason I single out this genre, rather than say, medicine, is that most use technology. We just don’t think about it because it is so commonplace.

You’d be amazed at how many people don’t know simple things you may take for granted. Eg, adding a signature to your email, saving pictures from a digital camera onto a computer, downloading songs into an iPod, etc.

I was listening to Z100, a popular radio station in Atlanta, a few weeks ago and I heard the host of the show, Bert, say that he had no clue how to download songs from the Internet. You’d think that if anyone would know this, it would be someone like him.

I got an iPod for Christmas, and I’m clueless as to how to download songs into (onto?) it? See, I don’t even know which phrase fits. Until my 13-year-old nephew gets time in his busy schedule for his Auntie, that’s just going to have to wait.

My point, you just never know who needs the information you take for granted. So, don’t take the tech knowledge you do have for granted. Make it pay – and do the rest of us a favor. “Loading Your iPod” – article anyone?

Freelance Writers: How to Develop a Niche with No Experience & Make it Profitable for Years to Come

One of the things I’ve learned in my 19+ years as a freelancer and recruiter in the editorial industry is that freelancers should develop a niche.

“BUT,” you may wonder, “how do you develop a niche with no experience?” It’s actually relatively easy and can be done in three easy steps.

1. Make a list of your experiences, likes, hobbies, etc. Why? Because the first step in developing a niche is to go with your strengths. Even if you have no professional experience in an area, if you like it, chances are you will work to become proficient in it.

For example, in my professional life, I’ve been a real estate agent, a loan officer, a credit counselor, a recruiter and a legal copy editor (among a few other things — but we’ll just stop here). Remember, this is just professionally.

My hobbies are running, real estate investing, reading historical romances, sewing, interior decorating and designing ethnic pottery, among a barrage of other things (I have a very active mind and a hint of ADD!).

Now that you have this list, what do you do with it?

2. Target lucrative markets: Not every interest you have will make a viable niche market. This may be because they are not willing to pay for your services, don’t need your services and/or there aren’t enough of their type to market to.

With your list in hand, choose markets where: a) your services are needed on a continual basis; b) your asking price can be met with relative ease; and c) there are sufficient numbers to market to.

Also, you might want to consider competition; as in, how much/little do you have? While there is always room for one more company to offer a product/service, my thought process is why fish in a crowded pond.

Go after a market that not many others are targeting. Sometimes this market will reveal itself in your list of professional experiences and/or hobbies. Other times, you may have to work harder to find it. Just make sure that however you choose your market, you keep in mind the points mentioned above.

Now that you know who you want to market to, how do you get those all important first few jobs which lead to samples, references, etc.? Simple.

3. Do low-cost/no-cost work: Always try to get paid for any work you do. You can target local charities; do work for friends with businesses; contact start-up companies, etc. Your mission starting out is to get those first 4 or 5 jobs under your belt.

If you’re not having any luck landing paid work, try this. Target a company and do the work without asking them (eg, rewrite their badly worded brochure you received in the mail; rework their ineffective web copy; design their logo; etc.). Then, contact them with their original and your NEW, improved version. Not many businesses will turn down improved work they don’t have to pay for. Just like that, a legitimate credit!

Even if a company refuses, you can still use it in your portfolio. Just change the name of the company to something that obviously reflects that it’s a fictitious company with the caveat that the name has been changed, but the revisions made were to original copy.

Now, you’re on your way!

Twitter For Freelance Writers – Tweet With a Plan

The world of freelance writing is changing fast; Twitter, the micro-blogging platform, is a great way to keep up to date with the changes. But beware: if you’re using Twitter, tweet with a plan — otherwise Twitter can be a fun time-sink and much less useful for your career than it should be.

Here are four tips to help you to build your writing success with Twitter.

1. Use Separate Accounts for Business and Personal Tweets

Did you know that you can have as many Twitter accounts as you wish? Make use of this facility. You need to separate purely personal tweets for your family and friends, from business tweets.

On your personal Twitter account, tweet away on your shopping, the music you’re listening to, and the sandwich you just ate. On your business account, make useful contacts, network with other writers, and get writing jobs.

2. Set Goals and Achieve Them

Once you’ve separated business and purely personal, it’s time to set a goal for what you want to achieve. You can set as many goals as you wish, but each goal should have a deadline, and once the deadline has passed, take a few minutes to write a short report on your success, or failure.

A word about “failures”: I’m a big fan of failures, simply because with any goal worth achieving, you’ll FAIL your way to success… there’s no other way to achieve success than by shooting at a goal and missing.

You can set goals for anything, but let’s say you’ve found a Web site or magazine you love, and for which you think you could write. On your business account, tweet using hash tags to enquire about the company (more on hash tags below.)

Usually you’ll get a tweet back within moments, often from someone in the company asking how they can help you. This is much more effective than writing a query email or letter.

3. Use Hash Tags to Attract Attention from Your Target Audience

Hash tags are a way to tag your tweets, so that your tweets can be indexed and found. Tagging is simple, just prefix your topic/ tag with the hash sign: #.

Here are some examples:

You want to tag a tweet about Twitter: #Twitter

You want to tag a tweet about writing: #writing

You want to tag a freelance tweet: #freelance

4. Measure Your Success

It’s easy to waste time on sites like Twitter, for minimal results.

For example, I’ve chatted with several writers who were thrilled that their follower count was increasing day by day. But when I asked: “How’s that helping you?” they didn’t have an answer.

Building a big follower count can be useful if that’s a goal which will serve a purpose for you. Often however, follower counts are only used as a measure because they’re highly visible.

It’s much more useful to measure your success by the goals you’ve achieved — research you’ve found, sources who contacted you, writers with whom you’ve formed a relationship, editors who’ve contacted you… Twitter can help you to achieve your writing goals, as long as you tweet with a plan.

Online Freelance Writing – The Most in Demand Career As a Freelancer – A Great Income Builder

An Online Freelance writer is a self employed artist or journalist who sells services as an uncommitted independent writer. In the Freelance profession, writing skill is the most demanding opportunity. When it comes to the Internet, the introduction of websites and blogs to promote everything, and the need of fresh and relevant content has increased the freelance writer jobs to the top. Online freelance writing demand has more than doubled.

In fact online content writing is fast becoming one of the major source of freelance writing assignments. Other freelancers, such as freelance photographers, freelance web designer and graphic artists are also facing a great demand in their profession.

There are plenty of jobs for online freelance writing, this does not mean you will be getting a fair share of them, you still have to compete with a lot of freelance writers for jobs. You have to stay active smartly in writing competition. 80/20 rule applies in freelance writing. 20 % of all the freelancers get all outstanding good paying freelance writers jobs where as 80% of the freelance writers get average paying freelance writing job. But if you observe the market and pursue career properly with the current trends you can be in the 20% of the online freelance writers.

Do the following:

1. Do not accept low priced projects:

If you started following this pattern and started taking projects that are priced lower than the market rate, you will get a reputation of accepting cheaper price of your hard work. Do not fall in this trap. Be justified to yourself and charge a price that is acceptable to you happily. A price too high might at times end up losing the project to another low priced freelancer and therefore, stay in the norms.

2. Use advertising and marketing strategies to promote yourself:

Use both online and offline advertising and marketing campaigns to let everyone know that you are a freelance writer, is important. The more people will know you the more assignments you will get and you will be able to choose the reasonable priced ones. Off line, pass your card to everyone you know. Self marketing is essential as this will give you the contacts you need to start a freelance career.

3. Always write your best:

Provide latest relevant no fluff information. Your already written work is going to be the basis for the clients hiring you for future freelance work. Online freelance writing at its best is the primary goal to achieve best results.

4. Create a solid Reputation as a Writer:

And reputation is formed when you not only write good but also present a great reputation as a person, both online and off line. Use best work ethics and make sure to meet dead lines do not take the jobs that you can not finish before time.

5. Be active to find great jobs yourself:

Don’t completely depend on your ads, but look for new jobs everyday. Contact all happy clients and organizations that have used you as a writer before, and socialize with them. Make new relations everyday and let them know what you do? Spend sometime looking for more jobs every day.

6. Starting as a Freelance Writer, start as part-time:

When starting online freelance writing, begin writing as a part timer and continue your job. Eventually create clients and once you are very sure that you have become successful to create a full time income without problem then plunge into it full time.

7. As online freelance writer your opportunity is greater:

There are lots of people who need your services, everybody does not have the talent to write and every one does not have the time to write. But every one wants to make money online and that is where your business comes in.

So focus online freelance writing and you will achieve best results.

8. Create a network of people:

This will help you get recommendations for writing jobs. Editors of magazines business owners who need ad writing and sales copies so often, newspapers and news letter publishers, just get to know many of them so you are in good hands to find new jobs for freelance writing.

9. Referral and Recommendations:

This becomes easy once you have established yourself as a great writer. Although writing is a big business, but the writers community is pretty small. Ask for recommendation to another person who needs a writer. This is one of the great ways to get better assignments and is based on your writing standards and your networking.

10. Present yourself as a highly developed and ethical person:

Only a reputation full of good qualities can make you go around effortlessly in the community when there is a need of writer. People will accept your high rate and your demands. So create a reputation and a contract that has benefits for both.

These are some of the strategies to follow. You will experience new and unique ways to create a good position as an online freelance writer.

Tax Tips for Freelance Writers: How to Lower Your Bill – 5 Things You Probably Didn’t Know

April 15th, the deadline for filing taxes for Americans, is almost here. If you’re a freelance writer — especially if you do your own taxes like I do — it’s critical that you get all the deductions you can to lower your tax bill. Why? Because running an online business can be very low cost, which is one of the reasons many are so attracted to the profession. If you have a computer and an internet connection, you’re pretty much ready to go.

So, following are five things you probably didn’t know that can help you lower your tax bill — making the difference between owing (possibly a lot) and getting a smidgen of a refund.

1. PayPal Fees: Do you deduct these? Almost very time you receive a payment, PayPal deducts fees, which are mostly 2.9% + $.30 per transaction.

For international sales, the PayPal fee is 3.9%, plus a fixed fee based on currency received. FYI, PayPal’s fees can be less if you sell more.

Visit PayPal to learn more about their transaction fees, and don’t forget to add this column to your expenses sheet moving forward, OK?

2. Banking Fees: For example, let’s say you’re a travel writer and you go away and use an ATM that charges you fees for withdrawals. This is a legitimate, deductible expense — because you’re on assignment.

3. Recurring Fees: For example, I publish ebooks. So I use an ebook cover-making site to help me with the designs. The monthly fee for this site is $9, which comes out of my PayPal account every month. I may go for three or four months without using the site (because I also outsource some of my ebook covers), then two or three where I use it all the time.

My point? It’s easy to forget these expenses and if you have two, three or four accounts like this (eg, magazine subscriptions, software subscription sites, paid newsletter subscriptions, etc.), it can really add up to $400, $500 or more per year — that you could be deducting as legitimate expenses.

4. E-File: If you’re in danger of missing the deadline (which could cost you penalties and interest if you owe), consider e-filing your taxes. Why? Because returns filed in this manner tend to be processed faster.

5. Don’t File & Save Money! Did you know that if you are owed money my by the IRS (ie, are expecting a refund), that there’s no penalty for filling late? Well, it’s true! According to the CNN article, Owed a refund? There’s no penalty for filling late:

If you’re owed a refund and you don’t file your taxes by Tuesday, you won’t get hit with a penalty. This has always been the case, but many people don’t realize it. The IRS is chomping at the bit to get its tax revenue. It’s less concerned about doling out refunds to people who haven’t claimed them yet.

So if you have a deadline you’re trying to meet (where you make money), and don’t have time to file taxes (which costs you time), by all means — meet that deadline. If you’re owed money, the IRS is not going to penalize you if you file your taxes late (wish this applied to me!).

Happy filing, and if you’re going to file late and owe, here’s a great tax calculator for estimating what you should send in.

Online Freelance Writing Jobs – How Article Writing Stands Apart?

There are several online freelancing companies. They are working 24 hours of the day allowing their writers produce quality write ups and earn some handsome amount of cash. Moreover, all internet marketers would want their business to get noticed through quality contents. A valuable and worthy content can draw lots of audience to a particular website. Good content help in building good relationships and also initiates the success of a business for a long period of time. A good content not only helps an online company make a handsome amount of profit, it also makes way for a writer to earn his daily bread and butter.

Content writing freelance jobs in India helps in better correspondence and worthy reciprocation. The more you write that better idea you can generate. When you start writing it is one sort of standard, when you continue writing your scribbling gets more relevant as you start developing more worthy ideas. Your sense of putting ideas into words develops each day. This is how Indian freelance writers have gained worldwide reputation and are able to write more profoundly maintaining an international style and standard. There are lots of companies throughout the world you are in search of quality Indian content writers because they know that there is a perfect crowd in this country that can really make products and concepts speak.

Online freelance jobs in India have become a custom because in this country literacy gets brushed up each day. People discover how to write better and how to write differently. Indian freelance writers have to handle so many things at one time. Their works involve sales, marketing, interacting with sub contractors, project work, marketing and billing. Thus, when an Indian writer handles so many things at one time and tries to put everything on paper accordingly his skill gets sharpened and his aptitude receives international recognition.

Article writing has always made a difference. An article can provide platform to your business. An article can make your working arena thrive each day. An article gives your work a perfect identity and helps people know you better. In this way an article always stands apart and helps in adding value to your work.