Pinar Tarhan - Be a Freelance Blogger

About Pinar Tarhan

Pinar Tarhan is an experienced freelance blogger and writer with bylines on CNN, The Washington Post, Be a Freelance Blogger, Horkey Handbook, and WOW! Women on Writing among others. She specializes in lifestyle, productivity, and blogging topics. She is currently busy marketing her first novel, Making A Difference (M.A.D.) and writing the second one. Catch up with her on Twitter @zoeyclark.

By Pinar Tarhan 154 Comments

How to Prepare for Freelance Blogging Emergencies

Freelance blogging is an amazing career.

You don’t have to write about something you don’t care about to make money. There are so many niches that you’re bound to find one (or several) that is both lucrative and fun.

You can find clients that make payment arrangements work for you, and you set your own hours. It’s possible to spend time with family and friends while still working on passion projects.

However, it’s also ripe with problems and complications that can drive you mad: disappearing websites, changing regulations, unpaid invoices, ghost clients, writer’s block… you name it. And life’s regular lemons like health problems, family emergencies, and beyond can also interfere.

I’ve been a freelance blogger for about a decade now. And even though it’s a dream career, it hasn’t been a smooth ride.

2019 proved especially challenging with a loss in the family, recurring health issues, computer breakdowns, and a decent-sized collection of rejections. There were times I questioned why I was doing this, whether I should follow a less bumpy career path.

But when I think about the pros of this life, they win easily. Every period in my time of freelancing also featured great moments. In this “awful” 2019, I got to go on a fantastic writers’ retreat where I met fellow writers and hung out in New York, have a beach vacation when I wanted because I don’t have a boss, release my second book, and work with wonderful editors at some of my favorite publications.

So yes, there are a lot of ups and downs. And while it’s not possible to be prepared for everything, improving your defenses can help your bank balance, sanity, and overall health.

Here are some suggestions on what you can do to offset (or even eliminate) the bad times:

[Read more…]

By Pinar Tarhan 17 Comments

Try This Uncomfortable (But Effective) Way to Grow Your Freelance Blogging Career

Congrats! You’ve come far as a freelance blogger.

You’ve been featured on reputable publications. Fellow bloggers come to you for advice. You have engaged subscribers on your email list. The blog posts you create attract comments and shares. Clients find you, leaving you more time to do the stuff you enjoy doing as opposed to feeling like you have to market all the time.

The problem? You’ve grown comfortable.

Maybe you haven’t raised your rates in a while. Perhaps you’re still shying away from pitching some of your favorite blogs and brands because even though you know you’re good, impostor syndrome is making a comeback in the middle of your career. The list of things you ought to learn more about keeps growing, and overwhelm is pissing you off.

Relax. We’ve all been there.

The thing about being a freelance blogger is that there’s always something new to try and something else to improve. And that’s fantastic! Your career will never be boring. (Challenging and occasionally frustrating, yes. But boring? Never.)

So where do you begin with leaving your comfort zone? How do you raise your rates, expand your reach, get more awesome bylines, and update your website? Worry not, we’re here for every step of the way.

[Read more…]

By Pinar Tarhan 13 Comments

F*** Conventional Wisdom: How to Get Shit Done as A Freelance Blogger by Breaking the Rules

Conventional people don’t generally become freelance bloggers. It makes sense since most of us regularly deal with anxiety, rejection, distraction, and other problems. It takes a different kind of beast to make deadlines, satisfy clients, overcome introversion, and destroy the feast or famine cycle.

As freelance bloggers, we constantly have to be on the top of our game. We need to know what’s going on in our chosen niches, find experts to quote in our articles, research potential clients and publications we want to work with, brainstorm for new ideas, keep up with our deadlines, and always be marketing. Since we also need to find time for important people and things in our life, we naturally desire to be at our most productive at all times.

While the Internet and self-development shelves overflow with productivity advice, they aren’t all designed for freelance bloggers. They don’t necessarily keep our health issues in mind, or the kids we have to look after as we strive to maintain a sane and stable working environment at home. Then there are differences in our personalities of course.

So below are my seemingly irrational tips that can work wonders for freelance bloggers with flaky tendencies, coming from a flaky freelance blogger who has been doing this for over eight years: [Read more…]

By Pinar Tarhan 17 Comments

Plans B, C, D, and Beyond to Keep Sane and Prolific as a Freelance Blogger

“Do you honestly believe I don’t have a plan B? And if that fails a plan C? Then a plan… You know how the alphabet goes, don’t you?” Katherine Pierce says in The Vampire Diaries, episode 6 of season 2 after Salvatore brothers, her arch-enemies and former lovers, take care of her plan A.

Though she’s one of the villains of the show and makes life very difficult for my favorite characters, she has my respect due to her strategic thinking. Freelance bloggers should take a page or two out of her planning book – just not the evil endgame part.

Because like life and all compelling TV, freelancing can be maddeningly unpredictable. Unexpected illnesses, recurring health problems, romantic distractions, loss of loved ones, disappearing clients, constantly changing editors, and more keep you on your toes, terrified to look at your bank balance.

Luckily, you already took efficient measures to keep one step ahead of the damn fast curveballs: your plans B, C, D and beyond: [Read more…]

By Pinar Tarhan 24 Comments

How to Get Paid As An International Freelance Blogger When You Can’t Use PayPal

Getting paid is a pain point for a lot of freelance bloggers. We mainly face these three questions: How, how often, and how much?

Now, how much you charge depends on a lot of factors including niche, experience and confidence. How often depends on whether you are getting paid monthly, weekly, per post and/or if you are charging a retainer for the privilege of receiving your kickass services. (Go, you! I’m so proud!)

And the how part is often solved through a mutual love for PayPal, the most popular online payment processor.

Ah, I love PayPal. Or I used to.

I used it religiously for getting paid, shopping online, and paying for stuff. How could I not? It’s easy to use, comes with a ready template for billing clients, and there’s no minimum amount at which you can withdraw the money to your linked bank account. Whether it is 5 bucks or 5000, you can withdraw it to your bank, and it is free to do so.

Then PayPal got lazy, didn’t comply with some of the business regulations in Turkey, and being an international writer became even more difficult. And Turkey isn’t the only country where PayPal doesn’t work in. This is a problem because editors are increasingly using PayPal as their preferred payment method. Fees are a lot less compared to checks, and some writers even figured out how to pay even less in transaction fees.

There are reputable marketplaces where you are matched with clients according to your experience and selected niches. ClearVoice is one of them. Guess the only way they pay their writers.

PayPal is also the default payment method for most merchants, so this negatively affects your affiliate income as well.

So what are alternative payment methods? [Read more…]