Not to knock BAFB’s Pitchfest, but I have to say it: pitching sucks.

It’s so time-consuming! You could spend hours each week pitching and sometimes still not get anywhere.

While I appreciate having an opportunity to hone my craft as a blogger by creating short, to-the-point, attention-grabbing elevator speeches, every time I’ve done a pitch or written up a topic sample to submit for a guest blogging opportunity, a voice in the back of my head whispers, “How much are you getting paid per hour for this?”

As a stay-at-home mom, what little time I have to write between preparing snacks, changing diapers, talking down tantrums, and neglecting housework is valuable to me.

Plus I used to be an actress and pitching reminds me way too much of casting calls where hundreds of talented people line up, hoping to outshine everyone else and get the gig. Like most actors, I spent the majority of my time in auditions, only to be judged and rejected — and not getting paid. It wasn’t a healthy or lucrative way to focus my creative energy and I promised myself I wasn’t going to do it again.

So about 2 months into my freelancing career, I decided to stop spending all my time and energy on pitching, and try a different strategy to get work.

Guess what? Once I started treating writing like a business with its own brand, target audience, and social media strategy, my freelance blogging career took off. Here’s how you can do the same. 

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If you’re a freelance blogger (or want to be) you’re likely familiar with the obvious point I’m going to start with here:

Reputable businesses and online publications have a huge demand for high quality, valuable content for their websites.

Good news for you and your blogging career, right?

It gets better though. More specifically, these companies are looking for regular content. By definition, a blog is something that is constantly added to – it’s a process, a journey – so consistency is of the utmost importance.

Which is great news for your freelance blogging career (and subsequent bank balance).

To explain why this last point in particular is something to get so excited about, let me go out on a limb here by saying:

Pitching directly to clients for regular work is where the money’s at.

This is how I make my living from blogging, and I know it’s how many other successful online writers earn good money too.

That’s not to say that the writing gigs you can find on freelancing sites don’t have their place. They certainly do. In terms of earning a full-time living from blogging however, pitching directly to clients for regular and consistent work is your best shot at bringing in the big dollars.

Here’s how you can pitch to potential new blogging clients that will pay you a flat rate each and every month (or fortnight, or whatever) that you can come to rely on as regular income. 

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So, here’s how it works:

You start a blog, grow a big list of email subscribers, and then your loyal fans contact you to hire you as a freelance writer. The money comes in.

At least, that’s supposed to be what happens.

But what if your blog’s readers and your clients are completely different people? Strangely, your clients never seem to come from your blog’s email subscriber list.

When I first started a mailing list for my blog in a previous niche, I assumed that growing an email list meant I could pluck most of my clients from my list. But I then I noticed that some people who emailed me for help weren’t my blog readers or subscribers. The vast majority of my readers weren’t my clients either.

My business was doing OK. All seemed fine and well, except that I started to wonder whether I was being productive with my time when it came to writing blog posts.

If you’re in this situation, don’t despair. It happens more often than you think.

But before we get to the remedy, let’s get to the heart of the issue first: 

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Yep, it’s time for another $100 blog pitching contest! I’ll give you all the details of how to enter at the end of this post — but first, please read our guest Chana Roberts’ excellent advice on how to kick ass and win. 😉

So, you’ve found Sophie’s blog. You’ve seen the Pitchfest posts – they’re really cool. They make you drool. Oooh, a $100 prize for contributing a post, on a blog like this?

It’s a once-in-a-season contest. Pitchfests – and guest posts – are only accepted once every three months.

You want to be the winner. You want that $100 prize, and you want to show your post off. But you don’t feel qualified to enter.

Like, seriously. You’re just starting out, and you haven’t even been able to get a guest post published yet, much less find a client willing to pay more than $0.02 per word.

You feel like the biggest loser. All around you, there are successful freelancers, each with a story of, “I was in the worst place when I started, but within 6 months to a year, I was earning a full-time salary from part-time writing.”

You’re the only one left behind, you tell yourself. You suck. Big time.

And you know what? *That* is your biggest problem.

This Pitchfest is no different from any other site’s blogging job ads. Here’s how to win. 

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You see a job ad on a popular jobs board and you’re instantly excited — it seems like a perfect fit for your skills and experiences.

You give the listing a quick once-over and get your application materials ready.

Finally, you click “Send” — confident that you’ll have the job in no time at all.

And yet, days later… crickets.

No response. No rejection letter. What gives?

I’ve been on both sides of this frustration — as a writer who’s seen job applications go unanswered and as a hiring agent who sees applicants making the same mistakes again and again.

Today, I want to take you “behind the curtain” on the hiring side of things, showing you the mistakes I see all too often and how you can avoid them to increase your odds of landing the gig.

Ready? Let’s go… 

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