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By Sophie Lizard 267 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…]

By Sophie Lizard 213 Comments — Last updated March 27, 2017

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 — Last updated March 4, 2017

Freelance Blogging IS a Numbers Game: The Throwdown

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

In May 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, BAFB Managing Editor 9 Comments — Last updated February 11, 2017

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…]

By Lauren Tharp, BAFB Managing Editor 72 Comments — Last updated December 10, 2016

We Want Freelance Blogging Templates! (And We’ll Pay You for ‘Em!)

So, Sophie and I were going through the BAFB archives and we came across THIS POST and we thought to ourselves, “Gee! Wouldn’t it be nice to have another post that involved templates?”

But neither of us felt like writing it ourselves…

So we decided to make “Templates” the theme of the December 2016 Pitchfest!

That’s right: It’s Pitchfest time again!!

We want to see YOUR pitch for the best template-themed post for freelance bloggers. And, if we absolutely love it, then we’ll give you a prize.

More importantly, this is your chance to view REAL pitches from REAL freelance bloggers – and see what REAL editors have to say about them!

This is your chance to get your pitching style critiqued in a “safe” environment. (Sophie and I are both nice ladies and promise we won’t bite your head off if you slip up!).

This contest is FREE to enter and the prizes and knowledge to be gained are fantastic.

Follow the directions carefully, stick to the theme, and have fun!

Here’s how you enter… [Read more…]

By Aisha Sulaiman 19 Comments — Last updated October 22, 2016

22 Lessons from Experienced Freelance Bloggers on How to Land Your First Client

So, you know you want to be a freelance blogger.

However, there’s a little problem.

You don’t have any clients yet, and a potential client will probably want to know if you’ve worked with anyone before.

Does this sound like you?

Well, the good news is that you’re not alone.

All the professional freelance bloggers you see today started with that very first client and I’m sure it wasn’t a pretty experience for all of them.

Today we’re going to take a peek at how other professional freelance bloggers landed their very first client. [Read more…]

By Lauren Tharp, BAFB Managing Editor 141 Comments — Last updated September 24, 2016

Can You Negotiate Your Way to a $100 Prize? It’s PITCHFEST Time!

PITCHFEST! PITCHFEST! PITCHFEST! *dances*

Pitchfest is one of my favorite things we do here on Be a Freelance Blogger!

There’s the excitement of knowing that some lucky entrant is going to win a $100 prize – but, more importantly, I love knowing how much these contests help freelance bloggers become better pitchers.

I’ve received literally thousands of pitches in my inbox since I started working for BAFB over three years ago – and most of them were terrible. And, honestly, that’s not surprising! Most freelance bloggers have no idea what a good pitch actually looks like. And that’s because, most of the time, the pitching process is kept private.

This is your chance to view REAL pitches from REAL freelance bloggers – and see what REAL editors have to say about them!

This is your chance to get your pitching style critiqued in a “safe” environment. (Sophie and I are both nice ladies and promise we won’t bite your head off if you slip up!).

This contest is FREE to enter and the prizes and knowledge to be gained are fantastic.

Follow the directions carefully, stick to the theme, and have fun!

Here’s how you enter… [Read more…]

By Karen Banes 6 Comments — Last updated September 3, 2016

How to Drastically Improve Your Freelance Acceptance Rate

If there’s one constant we all deal with as freelance bloggers, it’s rejection.

It happens to all of us. In different ways. Sometimes it’s a polite no thank you, sometimes it’s silence, and sometimes it’s a scathing commentary of why our idea sucks on every level.

Whether you’ve sent a quick query letter, spent hours on the perfect pitch, or written a whole piece from scratch, there’s only one thing you want, and that’s an acceptance. There are no guarantees in the world of freelance blogging, but there are some steps you can take to improve your chances. [Read more…]

By Kristy Rice Leave a Comment — Last updated August 20, 2016

The Ultimate Pre-Pitch Checklist

You know the feeling: you’ve just hit the send button on a pitch to a super-amazing blog and it’s like you have a lottery ticket in your pocket…and the jackpot is astronomical! Your whole body is charged with electric possibility. And then (at a varying percentage rate) comes the let down: rejection. And it hurts. Hell, it downright sucks.

So you buy books full of sample queries of what works and what doesn’t and you sign up for webinars that promise to show you how to fix your shitty pitches and if you’ve done your research before crafting your proposal, great! Obviously something else is wrong.

But what if you didn’t? The number one complaint of editors listed in Writer’s Market is that submissions are not suited to their publication. That means there’s a serious lack of research not going on. But that’s not going to happen to you because you’re going to follow a checklist for researching each and every blog before you pitch them your article and here’s what you’re going to look for: [Read more…]