Be a Freelance Blogger

Lessons My Loser Lovers Taught Me About Freelance Writing

Have you ever felt like crying so badly, the tears won’t even flow?

OK, rewind: it was a Sunday morning and I stared in shock at my laptop screen. I had a funny feeling that my writing client was trying to skip out on paying my invoice.

He’d shown signs of bailing on me a few days earlier, but he claimed that he’d keep his word and pay me as we’d previously discussed.

Although my gut warned me that I probably had a rat on my hands, my memory reminded me that the fellow behaved like a reliable gentleman during our first transaction together. Still, I braced myself for the worst and sure enough, the worst took place. The client coldly and arrogantly informed me that my invoice would not be paid and that I should have no issue with finding other sources of work elsewhere.

I was now short hundreds of dollars and oh yeah, three of my bills, including my rent, were due within a few days!

Has anything like this ever happened to you? Maybe you’ve dealt with a client that left you feeling spent, dizzy, tired and shocked. If this has happened more than once, you might ask yourself why this keeps happening to you…again and again. You might ask yourself if you’ve missed signs, if you spelled everything out to the client in the beginning. You might question if you were naive in any way.

Don’t feel bad.

You’re not alone and the good news is, there is a way for you to keep these toxic client relationships from happening again. I’ll let you in on a secret: It’s my firm belief that the laws of business and the laws of love often overlap.

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By Dana Sitar

The Perfect Pitch Email to Get Your Guest Post Accepted

When you’re sending pitches to blogs big and small every day, it can feel like screaming into the wind. Most editors won’t even grace you with a response, and many of the ones who do offer little more than a form rejection.

Freelancing is a tough game to play.

Maybe you’re a great writer, and your pitch just needs sprucing up to catch an editor’s eye and garner that response you’re looking for: a big, fat, enthusiastic Yes!

Would-be bloggers and content creators send me emails all the time with generic guest post pitches for the DIY Writing community blog I manage, seeking links back to their website (or, more likely, to their client’s site). But every once in a while, I get a pitch that is so irresistible, that shows so much respect for the work I do, that is such a perfect fit for my community, that I can’t wait to get it on the site.

I received one of these perfect pitch emails from a WritersBucketList reader. With her permission, I’m including a copy of her message in this post to show you exactly why I loved this pitch so much.

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By Lauren Spear

From Zero to Freelance Blogger: Start Your Engines

The journey to become a freelance blogger—or proofreader , copywriter, editor, freelance anything really!—can be an overwhelming one.

You know you want to, you just don’t know where the heck to start!

Do you print up business cards? Build a website? Talk to your accountant? Start looking for work immediately… or wait a few months? Ugh!

Writing has been my sole source of income for over 3 years now and even I get a little queasy looking at that. I remember all-too-well what it was like to be a newbie: As exciting and full of opportunity as it was, it was also gut-wrenchingly frightening.

It doesn’t have to be.

When I first took the plunge and went freelance, I kept wishing that there was a map I could look at. Some sort of step-by-step guide. I understood that the journey was my own—and that everyone’s freelance journey is different—but there were some things that everyone experienced, weren’t there? There had to be!

Turns out, I was right.

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By Sarah Clachar

Warning! Neglecting This Freelance Business Asset Could Kill You

There’s a crucial investment missing from your freelance blogging plans, despite the fact that it’s the most valuable and critical asset of your freelance business.

It’s something too many freelancers neglect and don’t account for… and end up paying for in the long run. Some pay with their lives.

What is this invaluable freelance asset?

You.

Without you, your business won’t happen. Now forgive me for stating the obvious, but here’s why I’m pointing this out:

If you don’t take care of this critical asset, you’re doing your business harm.

Statistically speaking, 1 out of every 6 small businesses fail because of personal reasons such as divorce or illness.

That’s a staggering statistic. But if you think about it, it makes sense. In fact it may be even more of an issue when you’re an itsy bitsy solopreneur freelance blogging business. When something comes up that keeps you from working, no one’s there to pick up the slack.

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By Lisa C Baker

How to Make Money as a Parenting Blogger

If you’ve got kids and you like writing, chances are you blog about parenting.

Maybe you don’t even mind when people call you a “mommy (or daddy) blogger”. After all, you’re a parent. You’re a blogger. And your family inspires your writing.

Maybe you started blogging as a kind of baby book, a way to remember all the cute things your kids did. Maybe it was just a way for you vent about your experiences as a parent. But at some point, you realized that what you’re doing is different from what most “mom bloggers” do.

Not to be rude about it, but you’re damn good at this.

The truth is—and I don’t want to sound mean, but it’s a fact—a lot of parenting bloggers aren’t that great at writing. And many of them don’t even want to be. Some of them struggle with basics like grammar and word connotation. Others are good writers but don’t really understand blogging style, so their blogs rarely gain traction. Only a handful write at a professional standard.

Luckily, you’re one of them.

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