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Lauren’s Last Post (And What Comes Next for BAFB)

A lot can happen in just over five years…

For those of you who don’t know me: My name is Lauren Tharp. I’m the owner of the multiple award-winning LittleZotz Writing. And, since the summer of 2013, I was the Managing Editor of Be a Freelance Blogger.

Yup. “Was.” I’m leaving.

Don’t cry. This is actually good news. I’m now a full-time editor for Syed Balkhi’s Awesome Motive.

With my new full-time employee status (no more freelancing!), I simply don’t have time for BAFB like I used to. But BAFB will always, always hold a special place in my heart.

Sophie Lizard is absolutely amazing, and Be a Freelance Blogger is a website I’m immensely proud to have been a part of.

I’ve met so many great writers – some of whom have become great friends! It’s been a blast.

I’ll let Sophie take over in a minute, but… in no particular order, here are my Top 10 favorite BAFB articles: [Read more…]

By Sophie Lizard 75 Comments

The Freelance Blogger’s Ultimate Guide to Using Jargon [Or Not…] PLUS a $100 Prize Contest!

“Hey Brad, what’s the CTR on that omnichannel growth hacking infographic?”

“Gee, Sally, I don’t know. Is that part of the remarketing campaign we designed the storyscape for last week?”

Tell you a secret…

I fucking strongly dislike jargon.

Mainly because I can never remember it all. At meetings, I sometimes need to Google to remind myself what it means, so I’m sat there looking up business-speak on my phone instead of joining the conversation. (“What’s a vertical? I forgot…”)

Makes me feel like the only kid in the gang who has to check Urban Dictionary to find out what “Netflix and chill” really means. 😉

But I’m gonna set aside my personal issues with jargon for now, and focus on giving you exactly what the title of this post promises: your ultimate guide to when and how to use jargon in freelance blogging, and when to avoid it entirely.

Just in case we’re not on the same page yet, jargon is specialist language used by a specific group or type of person, often in a business or academic setting.

And part of what defines it as jargon is the fact that it only makes sense to the specialists who already know and use it.

In other words, most people on the planet *don’t* use it and have no idea what it means.

So, first of all, the golden rule is simple:

[Read more…]

By Sophie Lizard 286 Comments

The Total Flake’s Guide to Getting Shit Done [Plus Your Chance to Win $100!]

OK, confession time:

People often ask me for productivity advice, and I usually point them elsewhere because…

…I’m actually a total flake.

Most of the time, I have no idea how I get shit done. In fact, I’m often surprised that I get ANYTHING done.

But recently, I had several conversations with my favourite client (who I just quit working with, even though they’re my uber-best client ever — that’s a story I’ll tell another day) about how I do what I do.

And I realised: Wow, I do get a lot of shit done!

In the past year, I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words of copy and content for my clients’ emails, sales pages, books, and blog posts…

…Published an ebook (with Lauren as my co-author)…

…Earned a *very* healthy income from working with a small handful of amazing people — and flew around the world to meet some of them in person…

…Helped my students to start and grow their freelance blogging careers…

…and that’s without even considering all the *other* stuff I’ve done, like taking weeks off work to travel with my family, or going to parent-teacher meetings, school performances, and sports events, or spending hours in IKEA sitting on all the furniture before going home with a multipack of plastic plates and a stuffed toy for each of my girls.

I’ve also wasted plenty of time flicking through Netflix and YouTube, reading articles about stuff I have absolutely no need to know, staring blankly out of the window while interesting thoughts scampered around in my mind, and dream-planning next year’s summer break. 😉

So the question my client asked me was this: “When we’re hiring someone to replace you, what should we look for? How do we identify someone like you, that gets done what needs to be done and doesn’t freak out under pressure?”

To which I said, “Umm… I dunno… I don’t do anything special, this is just how I work… and I DO freak out under pressure, I just do the work anyway.”

Because I’m helpful and articulate like that, right?

(Funny story: in the end, my client hired two new full-time writers to replace me. But their business is growing, so that hiring decision *wasn’t* purely about my mad productivity skillz.)

Now that I’ve had a bit of time to think about it, I’ve finally managed to figure out what I do that helps me get shit done. And now that I know what it is, I’m happy to share it!

[Read more…]

By Lauren Tharp 105 Comments

PITCHFEST: The Time is NOW!

This month’s theme is all about time: using it, saving it, managing it, billing for it…

So, in the interest of saving us all some time, let’s get right to the contest!

We Want to Hear YOUR Ideas

In case you’re not familiar, Pitchfest is a blog post pitching contest we run here on Be a Freelance Blogger every three months. You tell us your blog post idea and we choose our favorites, with prizes of up to $100 for the winners.

The contest starts today.

Your theme for this Pitchfest

This time we’re looking for pitches on the theme of “time.”

Interpret that theme any way you like! It could be anything from how to write faster blog posts for clients, how to bill for the time you’ve worked, or how to manage your time as a blogger when you’ve got newborn twins and three puppies to look after — anything!

We’re looking forward to seeing what YOU come up with.

[Read more…]

By Haneef Davenport 10 Comments

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 275 Comments

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…]

By Sophie Lizard 213 Comments

Your Freelance Blogging Plan B [How to Survive When Plan A Turns to Shit]

“Oh, holy fuck. Fuck fuckitty fuck fuck….”

That’s what my brain said. That’s probably what my mouth said too, but to be honest I can’t remember because I was too busy panicking.

Why?

Because my freelance blogging career took a nosedive from sweet, easy profit into the frozen, thumb-twiddling hell of I HAVE NO CLIENTS AND NO INCOME.

Plus I was the primary moneymaker in my little family and they were all depending on me to keep them housed and fed. So, y’know, no pressure. 😉

Shit happens

It was early 2012; Google had just updated its algorithms to stop crappy websites from ranking high in search results, and I’d been working 25 hours per week for a client whose websites were definitely kinda crappy. So when Google updated, those websites tanked and my client couldn’t afford to keep me.

I scrambled to pick up a couple of new clients, made sure this time that their websites were not crappy or grey-hatted, and kept on going. I also spent more than $10,000 on coaching and training programs to improve my business skills that year.

Fast forward 3 years to early 2015 and there I am, billing my clients up to $13,000 per month, owning a popular blog, working only part-time and only on projects that suit me, while planning my wedding and honeymoon.

So everything must have turned out just fine, right?

I wish.

[Read more…]

By Linda Formichelli 8 Comments

Freelance Blogging IS a Numbers Game: The Throwdown

Gary Korisko, you’re going DOWN! You too, Sophie Lizard.*

In 2014, Sophie collaborated with Gary on a post and video called “Why Freelance Blogging is NOT a Numbers Game” that contains this tidbit:

Dashing off sloppy pitches to every blog in the universe is not the most profitable use of your time.”

Since my pet saying is “Freelance writing is a numbers game,” I’m taking this very, very personally. What, Gary and Sophie, you lookin’ at me?

Wanna see me get mad? Just watch this video: [Read more…]

By Lauren Tharp 9 Comments

5 Steps to Take When You Lose Your Best Blogging Client

Before I became the Managing Editor of Be a Freelance Blogger, I was a reader, just like you. And I’m still an avid reader of the posts here to this very day.

One of my all-time favorite posts here on BAFB is this one on preparing for the Feast or Famine Cycle. It details how you can prepare yourself ahead of time for the “Famine” part of the cycle so that, when it comes, you won’t take as much of a hit financially or mentally. It’s great stuff!

But what about those times when – WHAMMO! – you find yourself in the “Famine” part of the cycle unexpectedly?

As freelancers, it’s not uncommon for us to be let go with little to no warning from contracts that were supposedly “steady.” It happened to me just last month! A company I was working for suddenly went under and laid off all of their employees (including me!) with zero warning ahead of time. None of us had any idea anything was financially wrong with the business until we found ourselves suddenly jobless. And that’s not an uncommon story among freelance bloggers.

First of all, don’t panic. What you’re going through is normal, and you will find another job.

After the bone-chilling realization that you’re suddenly “unemployed” sinks in, remind yourself that you’re a freelancer and that you’re never truly “unemployed.” You’re your own boss! The only way for you to be truly jobless is if you quit freelance blogging altogether. And you’re not about to do that, right? Yeah. I didn’t think so.

So, after you’ve come to grips with your new situation and reassured yourself that everything’s going to be fine eventually, there are a few steps you should take… [Read more…]