And the winner is...

I am so excited to announce the winner of our first mini-contest! There were some great entries! Thank you everyone for your participation! You guys give some great freelance writing advice.

And the winner is...

Courtney Latham! You can view her writing blog, which has some great writing insights, at rarebirdfreelancer.blogspot.com

Congrats Courtney! And thanks for the great tips!

The first bit of advice touches on what Stephen King refers to as "letting the boys in the basement do the work." Sometimes, even under pressing deadlines, it's better to stop forcing the writing and let your subconscious have a little time to pull it all together. When I'm really struggling with an article, I find that focusing on something else, even if it's only for five minutes helps me get past any stumbling blocks.

One of my favorite authors, Diana Gabaldon, has a great method for keeping up productivity while allowing whatever you're struggling with to "marinate" a little while. She simply works on more than one project/piece at a time by having several windows or tabs open on the computer. If she gets to a sticking point on one, she simply switches to the next window and starts working on a different project or portion of the story. Personally, I have trouble switching writing gears like that, but I am able to set aside something I'm struggling to write, switch to another window and work on researching something else. I've found her method has really helped me keep working rather than wandering away and getting distracted by the million things that need done around the house. (It's also helped keep me out of the fridge, which is a double-bonus!)

Anyway, here's Courtney's advice #1.

Mind Wandering

Maybe you’ve been here—you have a project due to your editor tomorrow morning and you’ve dabbled at it here and there for a week but now that it’s due tomorrow, it’s crunch time so you spend the entire day forcing words out, backspacing, forcing more words and it’s just not working. You start with a blank document thinking it will help you refocus your thoughts. Nothing. Eventually, in the middle of the night you end up with some semblance of an article that you turn in the next day, not necessarily happy with your work, but just happy to have it done. I’ve so been there. What I found as a remedy surprised me (and stressed me out until I got used to it). When you are trying to focus you are narrowing your mind, forcing it into a box that’s limited by your subject matter.

Have you happened to notice so many of the best ideas come when you’re in the shower? Your body goes on autopilot and your mind is left free to go anywhere it wants. Start out by thinking casually about the subject you are writing about and just let go. The mind may go off here and there to other subjects but often there can be some connection there and can produce some amazing results that likely never would have come about by focusing.
The shower is one of my favorite place to cure writer’s block. I let myself fall into my shower routine so that my hands have something to do, then I start out thinking about my subject, then somehow I start holding conversations in my head about it, going back and forth and sometimes getting off topic a little but usually coming back until suddenly I’m writing paragraphs in my head. This can be also one of the most frustrating places to let your mind wander as you sometimes have to jump out at any given moment with suds dropping off of you as you race to your computer or at least a pen and paper. You can’t let it go, it’s like a dream…if you don’t tend to it when you first wake up you likely won’t remember it 10 minutes later. But it’s by far one of the best for me.

Another mind-wandering task that works well for me is dish washing. Again, I just go on autopilot and let go. Sometimes people will walk in and see my lips moving because I’m sort of talking to myself but I really don’t care at all because the sentences I’m composing in my mind are worth far more than any judgment from them…and it’s something many people do whether they admit it or not.

And my absolute favorite…and yet another inconvenient tactic…mind-wandering while driving. I have certain routines I like to maintain and driving the same routes over and over to places I go regularly (like work or Taco Bueno) lets me go on autopilot. Some people think this is a bit scary but my body seems to be a better driver than my mind so it’s better to just turn it over and let it take control—my reflexes are awesome on autopilot. I’ve never been in an accident and never come close when I’m mind-wandering so I’m convinced it’s fine. The problem comes when I’m trying to write the ideas down while driving—not the best idea I ever had—and it’s also hard to drive in the dark. So what do you do? Buy a tape recorder and talk to it, talk freely, say whatever is happening in your mind, and if you don’t want to do that then call your own voicemail and leave a message. A few years ago I drove halfway across the country from Arkansas to Colorado and then down to Arizona just me and my dog and I found this method extremely helpful because all I did the entire trip was write in my mind and narrate everything that was going on. Somehow my brain can come up with great metaphors I’d never have thought of while actually trying. It makes some really satisfying connections most times and mind-wandering is one of the most gratifying things about being a writer.

When you’re on a deadline it can be nerve-wracking to try and move away from your computer. Many of us were taught that daydreaming was a waste of time, my name was written on the board at least 500 times throughout grade-school for daydreaming, but it’s actually one of the most efficient things you can do for your writing. There’s a little bit of genius in all of us and mind-wandering just allows that genius to come out and play.


I like this second bit of advice because so often as freelancers we become so concerned with the writing aspect that we forget to properly market ourselves. I've heard different opinions, but generally, you should be spending between 30 and 50 percent of your time on marketing. It's wonderful fun to write, but if you're hoping to make a living at it, or even just get paid for it, you've got to take the time to market yourself.

Courtney's advice #2:

Pretending you are Robert Scoble simply means you should run your freelance writing as a marketing firm. Businesses often have several different departments, as should your freelance business. You sell your own product, you do your own accounting, you perform all administrative tasks, you are your customer service representative and perhaps most importantly, you are your own marketing department.
In theory, your actual billable hours should be about 50% of your time and your marketing should be the other 50% with the rest as overtime…does any freelancer actually only work 40 hours a week? I have a day job as a marketing manager and I’m still putting in over 40 in all the tasks that must be done as a freelancer.
So here are three ideas you should consider about your freelance writing marketing efforts:
1) Market yourself as if your job is marketing associate at a firm. At a marketing firm you will put all the resources you have available into your best clients. When I was in marketing at a publishing company in Colorado we pulled out all the stops for our customers on our “A” list—those who would bring in the most money and the ROI was always high. So learn marketing, read books, look at what other companies do, not just freelancers but companies in general. Don’t just get a book on marketing for freelancers, just get a book on marketing because there are tons of ideas that you can take and modify for your own purposes as a freelancer that a more specialized book may not give you. Also, there’s often useful information to help you become a specialized marketing writer which is one of the more lucrative niches of writing. I recommend for amazing marketing reading The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott. Marketing is one of those things that changes rapidly and this book is useful for what’s “cool” in the marketing realm right now.
2) Brand yourself. Figure out what your clients are seeing and how you want them to see you and your business. It’s hard to cater to every demographic out there so look at your niches and analyze who your clients are and create your materials accordingly. Check out this site: www.thirdrailcreative.com, to me their site conveys an urban, professional and…witty feel. My kind of company. Ultimately branding should help you appear more professional but can also say more about who you and your niches are.
Then, apply your logo to everything. Your website, your letterhead, your invoices, your email signature, go ahead and get it embroidered on your laptop case…cheap marketing! But whatever you do, be very sure you like your branding (your logo, your colors etc.) and do not change them. When you become a household-named-conglomerate complete with golden arches you can change it and send out a press release. Until then, make sure you love it.

3) Blog. Small and large businesses everywhere are using blogs and you should too. I once saw a question on www.therenegadewriter.com site that went like this:
“in some ways, I just don’t “get” all this freelancer blogging. How much time can one spend blogging about writing, or reading blogs about writing, or blogging about reading writing blogs? When is there time left for, well, the actual writing… Is there a point when all of this busy-ness hurts, rather than helps, a career?”
Well, yes, there is a point when it hurts your career, and you have to be careful not to get addicted to reading blogs and updating yours all the time. Everything in moderation, right? But here’s what it does for marketing: a) it increases your visibility on search engines, b) helps your networking, c) helps your branding, and d) establishes you as knowledgeable in your field therefore increasing your credibility—if you have other niche blogs apart from freelancing you establish yourself in those arenas as well which helps you to be a “specialized writer” and specialized writers tend to make more money per assignment than general writers do. If you specialize, your credibility goes way up, the time it takes to write an assignment goes way down and you will definitely be more in demand than a generalist writer.

All in all my marketing background is proving to be the most useful tool I have available to my freelance career. I still have things I’m working to launch, but what I’ve done so far, according to the above, has driven some great leads to my door. I hope you find it does for you as well.