Be a Freelance Blogger

By Jessica Denne Leave a Comment — Last updated October 14, 2017

5 Backup Plans for New Freelance Bloggers

The first, most difficult lesson that aspiring freelancers learn? Most clients do not want you.

To be successful, it is important that you come to terms with the fact that there are clients out there who do not, and will not ever, want any of your work.

Likewise, it is equally important that despite these rejections, you remain confident in yourself and your writing abilities. As long as you continue working to improve your writing, and as long as you do not give up on yourself, then you are bound to find success on your path to publication.

If you are just starting out, and are struggling with either the rejections from clients, or with maintaining confidence in your endeavors despite these rejections, then I strongly encourage you to refer to these 5 backup plans required for success in the field of freelance blogging: [Read more…]

By Lauren Tharp, BAFB Managing Editor 169 Comments — Last updated September 23, 2017

PITCHFEST: Maintaining Your Professional Freelance Blogging Integrity

[Note from Sophie: Yes, this is a Pitchfest announcement with the usual $100 prize. But don’t skip to the contest – first, Lauren has some helpful advice to share with you about how to spare yourself the horror of working on a project that goes against your personal ethics and values.]

When it comes to freelance blogging, what you don’t do is just as important as what you do.

Every once in a while, you’ll be faced with a tough decision, and you’ll have to look deep inside yourself to see what you’re truly capable of. Are you willing to sell out an entire race just to feed your family? Is earning a paycheck more important than your humanity?

Earlier this year, I was hired by what I’d assumed to be a legitimate publication. I quickly found out that they were peddling hate speech and wanted ME to write it for them. I refused and removed myself from the project.

From there, I wrote a few posts on my personal website about my views on certain issues – sexuality, racism, etc. – so that future clients wouldn’t be confused about where I stand. I made it clear that I don’t tolerate hate, and that I refuse to write about it (unless it’s in the context of stopping said hate).

This put me in the Famine part of the Feast or Famine cycle for a while. Turning down a high-paying job is never easy, even if you believe strongly in your moral convictions.

However, thanks to the posts I made, I ended up with one of the best jobs of my career. They liked what I had to say on issues that were important to them. Because we were in synch on the tough issues, we ended up getting along incredibly well – and I fully back their company’s mission statement.

By sharing a little about my personal views, I was able to weed out the clients who were bad for me; and draw in the clients who were a perfect fit. It was a risky move, but well worth it. [Read more…]

By Sarah Moore Leave a Comment — Last updated September 16, 2017

How to Maintain Your Blogging Autonomy by Ditching Fear

If you’ve worked as a freelance blogger for any length of time, then chances are good you’ve experienced the following scenario:

Client meets blogger.

Client falls in absolutely, positively, head-over-heels in love with blogger, and sends tons of work their way.

Client decides blogger is so awesome that they want them for other, “related” tasks. You know, a little social media management here, some slight image sourcing there, and – oh, heck, why not? – a few Facebook ads for that upcoming book launch.

Soon enough, blogger finds themselves losing autonomy, performing non-blogging tasks they don’t enjoy and getting paid way less for mere crumbs where before they had the whole pie. Even worse, blogger does this at the expense of getting new, better work. Goodness gracious, what happened?

The short answer: fear. Especially when new to the biz, freelance bloggers often suffer from the concern that they will never be able to find enough work. Like a vulture wheeling overhead, this anxiety seems ever-present, threatening serenity and nudging us toward poor choices. But consistent work isn’t the biggest problem we face as bloggers: It’s maintaining our autonomy and resisting the urge to compromise our standards out of fear.

So what can you do about it? Here are a few steps (and one non-step) to take if you want to avoid falling into this trap and helm your own ship for life. [Read more…]

By Lisa Fourman 5 Comments — Last updated August 26, 2017

How to Stop Anxiety from Ruining Your Freelance Blogging Career

You stare at your computer screen as your heart rate picks up speed. You can’t help yourself when it comes to your fear since this is how you always react.

Your cursor has been blinking at you for quite some time. You’ve been trying to figure out how to convince someone to use you as their freelance blogger.

It doesn’t make any sense. You’ve tried every way imaginable to calm yourself down. You’ve also tried to convince this person that you are the better blogger over the other person.

Won’t they use someone else in the end anyway? They’ve already asked you this question themselves. You conceded to this fact as you let this client walk away from using your services.

You’re worrying yourself sick with anxiety about this situation. You know you aren’t the best at convincing prospects to use you as their freelance blogger.

Here’s the problem I see with your anxiety, my friend. Anxiety shouldn’t be the determining factor in your decisions for your blogging business.

Let’s break down how to stop anxiety from ruining your freelance blogging career. [Read more…]

By Katherine Swarts 2 Comments — Last updated August 12, 2017

How Your Attitude Towards “Interruptions” Can Make or Break Your Freelance Blogging Career

“There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.” ~ Henry Kissinger

A “crisis” doesn’t have to mean a major war or a major accident. If you’re like me, it’s crisis enough to hear your e-mail beep when you’re rushing to finish the post you THOUGHT you’d left plenty of time to write. The freelance blogging vocation is full of emotional hells born from underestimating working time and overestimating life’s cooperation with your schedule.

Anger over that can hurt you mentally and physically. It can also hurt you professionally, if it poisons your overall attitude toward “interruptions.”

Opportunity Was Knocking, But I Resented the Noise

Have you ever had a potential high-paying client call out of the blue, and blown the opportunity because your brain was locked into a “Plan A” that brooked no alterations? I have. Silently fuming over the upset in how I expected things to go, I fumbled any show of enthusiasm and radiated the attitude “take your business elsewhere.” They usually did.

Actually, this is part of freelancing’s learning curve. The self-employed life, with its limited income guarantees and potential dozen-plus “bosses,” is a constant balancing act between doing your best at everything that needs doing, and leaving room on the to-do list for new opportunities. If you aren’t careful, overcommitting on “Plan A” can rob you of a “Plan B” that might serve everyone far better. [Read more…]

By Ashley Gainer 2 Comments — Last updated August 1, 2017

When to Get Training/Coaching VS. When to Just Do the Work

By now, you’ve probably heard the concept that “investing in yourself is always a good idea.” And what that advice is usually referring to is paying for training, coaching, and other “learn and grow” info products.

I really hate this advice.

It’s not that I don’t agree; in many cases, I do agree. I’ve spent a lot of money over the years — even when money was exceedingly tight — “investing in myself” to get the training I needed to do better than I’d been doing previously.

It’s true that you can lose your stuff but you can’t lose your education. (Losing your mind, however, is something we’ll get to in a bit.)

There are definitely times when getting yet another course, watching yet another webinar, taking yet another 5-day or 2-week or 30-day challenge via email, joining yet another mastermind, and the like, are anything BUT a true investment in yourself.

Want to invest in yourself? Great. But don’t get it twisted: sometimes what you actually need to do to “invest in yourself” is put your head down and just do the actual work in front of you. [Read more…]

By Haneef Davenport 5 Comments — Last updated July 15, 2017

The Blogging Pitch Template That Gets You A “Yes”

Pitching potential clients, businesses, and other bloggers and websites (guest posting) is probably the hardest part of a freelance writer’s work. Being ignored or rejected is the last thing we want happening, especially in the beginning.

When you’re first starting out, you’re usually in an especially desperate state because let’s admit it: you’re trying to get paid! You’re not one of those people that want to write all these awesome posts and articles for free or for “exposure”. Simple exposure is not going to help you put food on the table right now. You’re not a hobbyist.

You don’t put in countless hours of work to help get someone else’s monetized blog more revenue for free. You want money. You need money, and we aren’t talking about pennies. Pennies are what you get at those terrible content mills. (Who else cringes just at the phrase “content mill”? Makes you sound like some factory worker, writing your ass off for pennies. Gross.)

One of the biggest questions besides what is the right way to pitch is what is that one way to pitch an editor or business that is 100% guaranteed to get them to say yes? Sadly while there are never any guarantees, there is a way to pitch that will certainly increase your chances of getting your prospect to strongly consider signing you on and paying you what you’re worth for your time and hard work.

Guest posting is a great way for writers to get their name out there, and getting paid at the same time. Who wouldn’t want to get paid while building an impressive portfolio? When a website calls for guest posts or you’re cold pitching, some are confused as to what exactly an awesome guest post pitch looks like. Whether you’re experienced or just started, these tips and the template I have here are sure fire to get you exactly the response you want.

Side note: If your reply is no reply, there’s nothing wrong with following up. Sometimes your email may have just gotten lost in the spam folder or the editor just missed it. If they don’t have a specific response timeframe given, just wait a week before contacting them again. If there’s still no response after the second follow up, just consider this a dud and move on. [Read more…]

By Sophie Lizard 194 Comments — Last updated July 1, 2017

Why You Should Step the Fuck Up to Be a Freelance Blogger

Do you love a challenge?

What if we call it a dare instead? You in?

Oh, you want to know what it is first. OK. In a nutshell:

I dare you to succeed as a freelance blogger.

Now let me ask you again: are you in?

If you are, I’ve got the one piece of information that will make a HUGE difference to your success as a freelance blogger. And I’m going to share it with you right here and now, so keep reading.

[If you have absolutely no interest in being a freelance blogger, feel free to leave.]

Excellent. Now that they’re gone, it’s just you and me, so let’s be honest with each other. Can we do that?

Get your business head on, and brace yourself: I’m going to be blunt. Because if I don’t tell you this, I’m not sure that anybody else will have the guts to say it to your face… [Read more…]

By Sophie Lizard 273 Comments — Last updated June 3, 2017

Feel the Fear and for F*ck’s Sake Get Over Yourself [$100 Prize!]

How many posts are there about fear on this blog?

How many about confidence? To most people, confidence implies an absence of fear, so it’s pretty much the same topic.

And, oh, you’ve felt the fear. You feel it and hurt under it and let it drag you down into this swamp of self-doubt so you don’t get as much done as you know you could. When you do take action, you take it so nervously it hardly makes any impact.

That’s why there are a bazillion self-help books and blog posts about courage and bravery and confidence and self-esteem and assertiveness and “fake it til you make it” and it goes on. I’m stopping there.

Listen, I get it. It’s kinda scary when you’re not 100% sure what you’re doing, or if it’ll work. In blogger mentoring sessions, I often spend time reassuring my students that yes, they’re doing this right, they’re doing fine, they should keep doing it and aim a bit higher next time, nobody’s going to mind, the universe will not implode…

I get it.

But here’s what YOU might not be getting:

It doesn’t matter. Your fear is irrelevant.

Freelance bloggers, it’s time to get over it and get freelance blogging.

If you have a genuine phobia that makes it extremely unpleasant for you to even think about writing a blog post or sending an email to a potential client, you’re excused. [And you should probably get professional treatment to make your phobia easier to manage.] I know if my laptop were swarming with spiders, Arachnophobia-style, I wouldn’t get any work done because I’d be too busy hyperventilating.

But if you’re just a bit scared… then you need to get past, through or over that feeling. [Read more…]

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Opportunity Was Knocking, But I Resented the Noise