by Jargon Writer

Big Announcement: Changes to JW

There are soon to be some changes made here on JW. First, I’m changing wordpress themes. So there will be a new look rolling out (probably this weekend or early next week).

I’m going to change the name of the link round ups – they will be called “Around the Watercooler” or “The Freelance Watercooler” or something like that … I haven’t decided exactly what yet, but the idea is to make it catchier than “link roundup.” And there will be several new categories with posts on new topics (though don’t worry – I’ll still provide tips / progress reports on my freelancing biz).

See, I want to involve all of you awesome people in some of the projects I’m working on; I want to be able to talk to you equally about the PR project I’m taking on for my Dad’s motorcycle club, the online magazine I’m starting up, the day job (TDJ) and everything else that gets in the way of freelancing and how I balance (or fail to balance) all of it.

I started this blog and my freelancing business about 8 months ago; over that time I’ve build a small but steady audience for this blog, built just enough of a freelance client base to keep myself busy and decided to launch a HUGE new project. I want this site to reflect that, and to allow all of you to join me on that journey.

I’m also considering several major life changes – planning a move (although probably not for a year or more into the future still) that will hopefully allow me to go freelance full time – and looking for investors for Project Women, so that can turn into a full-fledged business (more about that in the near future).

Stay tuned…. new and exciting things are in the pipeline.

Link round up

How the Simple Dollar Works – I’ve read a lot of posts about how to make money from blogging. This post isn’t about that. Instead, it’s about how one man is making money from his blog; The Simple Dollar. For those of you who aren’t familiar with The Simple Dollar, it’s the story of a man who went from buried in debt to debt free. It’s tips and tricks for making life a bit more frugal, generally by investing money in areas that really matter to you and skimping on it in areas that aren’t so important (by doing things like making your own laundry detergent). The Simple Dollar gets 1.4 million page views a month, on average. It makes the writer enough to live well – if cheaply – and in this post he shares how that works and what it takes to do the same.

How Easy Is It To Do Business With You? – “Would you buy from yourself? I mean, honestly would you give yourself an order and most importantly one after that and one after that?” Pawel’s question reminds us to look at things from our clients’ perspective and seriously consider how we can generate the best clients who refer us to the largest possible number of their friends. And it all breaks down into three steps.

6 Steps to a Prettier Blog (sans designer) – “design does matter as there’s really nothing worse than a poorly laid out or cheesy site,” Marian writes. No designer herself, Marian explains how even with no knowledge of code a few small tweaks can take a blog from basic to awesome-sauce.

Fresh Direct’s Lesson: The Price of Bad Service – “It really costs a lot of money to give bad service,” Mr. Braddock chief executive of Fresh Direct is quoted as saying in this piece. If you’ve  ever doubted the impact of your attitude and level of customer service have on your business, think again. Ditto on the importance of building a repeat-customer base. Did you know it’s cheaper and more valuable to retain repeat customers than to find new ones? Fresh Direct gives us a perfect example of how these things made a big difference.

Is Your Freelancing Psychology Broken? – Most freelancers think they want to work hard and earn lots of money freelancing, but it’s a lie. Men with Pens’ writer “AgentX” gives you a simple test to figure out if you’re in the right frame of mind – and some tips on how to get there, if you find you’re not.

Stick it to ‘Em – Post-It notes recently celebrated their 30th anniversary – whether used to jot a congratz or a reminder, Post-Its are perhaps one of my favorite office supplies of all times (though, like the writer of this post, my heart goes into overdrive when walking into any office supply store).

When the Word Well Dries Up

I wanted to title this post Melissa and the Very Bad Day, but thought that might be a bit over dramatic.

See, last week I had a Bad Day.

You know, the kind where you feel like Eeyore? Your tail has fallen off and it’s raining only on you.

When I get in that mood, I have no creativity. No enthusiasm. I basically just want to crawl back into bed, pull the covers up until all you can see of me is my toes down at the bottom, and yell at the world to GO AWAY.

This happens to me about once every two weeks, almost always right on schedule. You see, since I work full time and write whenever I’m not working, I run myself a bit ragged.

Every other weekend I take off. But when I’m not off, I’m ON.

On “Off” weekends, I go upstate (my family lives there) where I spend almost no time online or doing work. Those weekends I spend enjoying myself with my significant other, spend as much time as possible outside and generally relax.

But the weekends when I’m not “off” I am very definitely “ON.” Those weekends I spend 8-10 hours a day (or more) doing work. Writing, pitching, talking to clients, marketing… whatever it takes. And after working 5 full days, then spending 2 days doing yet more work, I tank. The Monday after an “ON” weekend, I generally feel dried out–and knowing that I still have another 5 days to go through before getting “off” time, I want to curl up and hide.

Unfortunately, hiding isn’t an option.

So on days when I want to hide, I don’t do client work (because if I did, I’d probably just have to redo it). Instead, since I have to do something, I do things that don’t require being creative or intelligent. I file paperwork. I fill out invoices. I update my excel spread sheets.

I give my writing brain the night off, and instead spend the day doing things that don’t require being a writer. Sometimes I deal with my inbox, responding to emails – other times I look over Craig’s list for freelance writing jobs I should apply to. Sometimes I do research for upcoming projects, learning more about the field or storing away links to explore later when I’m feeling passionate again.

My point is I spend the night working, because I have to, but I don’t try to force words when they don’t want to come.

Don’t get me wrong – I love what I do, or I wouldn’t put myself through it at all. But it’s not always easy.

How do  you cope with working on your business, even when you don’t really “feel” like it? How do you deal when you’re having a bad day? What about dealing with writer’s block?

My Story – How it all began

Last December

I was stressing out.

I was crunching numbers, comparing my salary from my “day job” to my projected student loan payments. The numbers didn’t balance. I realized that I would really be struggling to make payments and I began considering finding a second job.

Instead, my significant other suggested I freelance. He knew it was something I had always wanted to do. Freelancing full-time had been a long-time goal of mine, but one I had thought couldn’t happen until I was married with kids on the way and a significant chunk of “real world work experience” built up. It was something I really wanted to do, but I had a lot of doubts.

With his encouragement, I began marketing myself. I started this blog  (which follows my progress as I work to become a full-time freelancer) – and began to actively seek freelance work.

(I just want to pause for a minute and point out that having someone in your life – whether you’re a freelancer, a business owner or whether you still work for a boss – who is willing to encourage you to push your boundaries and work for what you want is essential. It’s no coincidence that I’m dating the person I’m dating. He’s an amazing person with an incredible ability to encourage me (and sometimes enable me) even when he doesn’t agree or share my passions.)

I fell in love with editing in High School…

My high school graduating class had over 600 people in it. I only remember this number because I was number 62 and still made it into the top 10%. While in school they broke us up by “academies,” each of which has a particular “major” (similar to how a college might break things down).

I spent my high school years in the communications academy, where I fell in love with the process of editing – of slowing going through something, tweaking it, making small changes, until the final project was much better than the sum of all those minor alterations.

I’ve always been a detail-oriented person who really enjoys slightly tedious tasks that allow me to learn, that require me to be incredibly organized and that revolve on a tight deadline.

But at the time I was divided. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to work with words or video.

College let me make that choice.

I experimented (the way one should in college) with multiple career goals, trying video editing (I worked in the student lab and frequently helped other students with projects), working on film sets, immersing myself in that culture. I also did a semester-long independent study where I read up on freelance writing, crafted queries and did other types of research (looking into publications I might want to write for, for example).

After trying both, I decided I wanted to write and ultimately, I wanted to freelance.

But self-doubt held me back.

I didn’t think I could freelance right out of the gate. At the time I wanted to write about the publishing industry, so I decided I’d get experience in the industry first. Thus my current “day-job.” Slowly, however, I’ve been realizing that I have what it takes.

What was a “maybe one day” is quickly becoming a “soon.” However, without that initial push, I wouldn’t have decided to give it a chance. Instead, I would have waited until who-knows-when (or if).

Lessons From My First Year Freelancing Full-Time

This is a guest post by Denene Brox. Denene recently finished her first year working full-time as a freelancer writer and has graciously agreed to share the lessons she’s learned here.

After four years of juggling freelance writing assignments with working a full-time job, last July I decided to step out of the boat of comfort and security and freelance full time. I was working as a marketing manager for a small non-profit organization, and was itching to see if I could really make a living as a writer. I was also tired of spending my lunch hours conducting phone interviews with sources in my car and living a double life. Do I tell my clients that I work full time? Do I tell my work colleagues about the latest article I’m writing? It was very liberating to focus solely on my freelance business. But it was also the scariest thing I’ve ever done professionally (and I’ve taken several risks in my young career).

As I toast my first year as a full time freelancer, I’m also pondering some things that I’ve learned over the past 12 months. For anyone wondering what it’s really like to make the leap, here are my thoughts.

Lesson 1: You can’t predict what it’s really like–
You have to live it.

When I was contemplating quitting my day job, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what it would be like to go full time. Would I have enough clients? Would I make enough money? While it’s important to plan and map out goals for your business, like most things in life, you won’t really know until you give it a go. I’ve gained some new clients and I still work with clients that were on board before I made the switch. I couldn’t have predicted everything I’ve done simply because a lot of it has come my way simply because I’m full time. I have more time to market myself, come up with story ideas and network in my city as a writer (and not a marketing manager). Bottom line: It’s great to plan, but you can’t predict what will happen exactly.

Lesson 2: It can be hard working alone.

While I don’t miss office politics in the least, I do get lonely at times working all by my lonesome. There’s no water cooler chatter about celebrity gossip or the last episode of LOST. In fact, there’s not chatter at all most of the time. But, on the flip side, I’m hardly ever bored with work because I am my own boss and can focus on what I want to pursue. In recent months, I’ve started networking with old colleagues and attending networking events for young professionals to meet new people. Not only is this good for business, but it’s great to get out of the house and be around people.

Lesson 3: Despite my successes, I still struggle with doubts.

When people ask me, “So when are you going to get a real job?” it can cut like a knife. At times over the past year I’ve struggled with my decision to go full time — and hearing things like that don’t help. I’m finally starting to own my decision and do the best that I can to build my business. And I thought of a great answer to that annoying question (feel free to adopt it too): “When my clients start writing me fake checks, then I’ll get a real job.”

Lesson 4: Stay open to opportunities.

My decision to go full time was the best decision for me at this time in my career. A lot of times when we set goals for ourselves, we think they are life or death, do or die. I’m having fun with my business. Will I freelance for the rest of my career? I don’t know. I want to stay open to possibilities for new clients and even new job opportunities (if the right one came along). Freelancing feels like more of a professional adventure because I’m not on a “corporate ladder” or career track with pre-defined steps. It’s exciting (though scary sometimes) not knowing what’s around the next corner.

In the end, if you’re thinking about going full time, just know that there will be obstacles to overcome – both mental obstacles and obstacles with your business. You won’t land all the great gigs or build a sustainable business overnight (most likely), but you can gain clients and confidence along the way if you’re willing to try.

Denene Brox is a Kansas City-based freelance writer. She has written for more than 30 print and online publications including Yahoo! HotJobs, MyBusiness, Minority Nurse, and Heart & Soul. She is a copywriter for non-profit organizations in the health, arts, and social services. Denene is the author of the recently re-released eBook, The Weekend Writer: Launch Your Freelance Career (Part-Time), available on her website. Visit her online at www.DeneneBrox.com. Follow her on Twitter @DeneneWrites.

Opportunities are Everywhere

I’m taking a breather from my latest freelance assignment to write this. The assignment is a piece about effective micro-organisms for a small business owner in Brooklyn who I met at the social networking event I attended a while back.

When I met her I don’t think either of us really expected to end up working together. She runs a composting-alternative company. The company sells  a product called Bokashi to break down organic waste; they deliver an empty bucket and enough Bokashi to mix it appropriately (you layer it) with waste (left over foods, scraps, etc.). When the bucket is full, they pick it up and give you a fresh one.

I’m pretty sure she saw me as a potential client or at least one more name to add to her email list. She was manning a booth at the event, so I saw her as someone to talk to until I got my bearings and relaxed enough to do real networking. We exchanged cards and I began receiving her e-newsletter.

Then, last week, the newsletter mentioned that she was hosting an event–so I shot her back an email and asked if she wanted an official press release written up. I included my hourly rate. I didn’t honestly expect to hear back, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.

I heard back.

We chatted on the phone about what I did and what she does, and agreed that I would attend the event and then write up a summary/paper of the information presented. It’s that paper I’m working on now.

I do stuff like this a lot. Sometimes it pans out, sometimes it doesn’t. But it never hurts to try.

I make a point to always be on the lookout for potential clients. When I see a website with obvious mistakes or simple typos, I email the company and let them know.

Sometimes this results in a thank you email – sometimes it doesn’t result in anything. But if I get a thank you email, I may email them and let them know that’s what I do for a living–and if they’d be interested in having the rest of the site read, I’d be happy to do it for my hourly rate.

While this doesn’t result in a flood of work, it does help keep me busy. And the nice thing about emailing corrections to a website is that you can hold off on emailing them until your short on the time required to do other forms of marketing; it can help keep you from hitting a slump.

Project: Woman.

First, the history:

Since early on in my publishing career, I’ve wanted to address what I saw as a gap in the publishing sphere: professional, smart, scrappy women. I subscribed to Pink Magazine, thinking I might have found what I was looking for. “PINK represents more than a color. It´s a badge of honor celebrating a global mission of equity and opportunity - a movement acknowledging all that women are today and will be tomorrow,” claims it’s website. But as I read issue after issue, I was disappointed to find that it’s demographic was women who are already breasting the top of their fields. It wasn’t targeted at me. I’ve gone searching for something to quench that thirst, looking for a magazine or blog or website that made me go “ahhh!”

The closest I’ve found? Esquire Magazine. Smart, funny, irreverent and intelligent, it’s tone assumes it’s reader is sauve and has it all together – perhaps they just need one last tip. It’s targeted at a wide ranging age group, and each issue features something for everyone. The only problem? It’s for men.

And so, an idea was born.

I think women would enjoy a similar product geared specifically toward them. Smart political ideas like those at Double X and  Janehasajob.com, but less “typical women’s mag.” In other words, probably not articles on celebrities or make up (unless there is a bigger issue being discussed – like is make up a given in the professional world? How does it affect your image, how others see you?) And, like Esquire, it should assume it’s reader is smart, sassy and sophisticated. It shouldn’t be worried about offending them, shouldn’t take itself too seriously – but it should be intelligent too. A perfect example of the type of story I’d love the site to cover would be Michelle Tripp’s recent post about TEDWomen – if you haven’t seen it, definitely check it out.

I also think there is a audience career-specific items (profiles/professional advice or Q&As with leading women in their fields). One idea was a Q&A “What xyz person in reads in their field to stay on the cutting edge.” The question is, would that be engaging enough? Would it have a wide enough appeal?

I’ve also chatted with a number of women about women-to-women mentoring, and I think some of that would be (IMHO) great to incorporate. Other ideas include financial info like at The Simple Dollar or Daily Worth.

I think the key is amazing content & a great voice.

These are just a few ideas, not things that necessarily need to be included. Ideally, it would start as a number of writers who each write a post once a month – if I have four writers, a post would go up once a week, if I have 12 a post would go up 3x a week. Once a month makes it less time consuming for each of the contributors, since it wouldn’t (at least at first) be a money-making endeavor. Although I’d love it to grow, adding more writers, so that we could get post several times a week and maybe turn it into a for-profit site.

Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts, comments, ideas … if I can get some people seriously interested I’d love to start this thing. Also, I’d totally appreciate it if you’d pass this info along to any other women you feel fit the bill. I’ve posted on Brazen & Twitter about this project and had a number of people say they are interested in getting involved. It looks like we can do this.

So, the first thing is finding a name.

This idea has been with me for a few years now – I even did a design mock-up in a magazine design class while working on my Master’s degree. I called that pub Neon: Helping professional women stand out. Unfortunately, there is already a Neon magazine (a literary mag in the UK). So I’ve been brainstorming. And running ideas through godaddy.com to see if the domain name is available as a .com. One suggestion (from someone interested) was Athena Writes, however that’s taken.

The ideas I’ve come up with that aren’t taken include “No Jane Doe” and “Daughter of the Dame.” If you have any better suggestions or even just a suggestion (I’m still completely open at this point) post it below. If you want to get involved or help out on ANY level (designing the site, hosting, writing, editing, being a test user/reader  or even just brainstorming) let me know. You can comment here or email me – mbreau (at) jargonwriter (dot) com.

Because We All Get Rained On Sometimes

One of the most dis-heartening parts of being a writer is dealing with the rejection. Often writers put work into writing out query letters and proposals, just to have them turned down–or worse yet, they don’t hear back at all.

As a result, sometimes there are days when we believe that rejection letter more than we believe in ourselves. You know, those days where you’ve fought with your significant other, spilled your morning coffee (or in my case, tea) and burned yourself, you’re behind on a project that is due that day and then you get a rejection letter. You find yourself believing you’ve made a mistake becoming a freelancer, or even thinking that you might be able to make a living from words.

Alisa at Project Happily Ever After, an excellent writer / blogger (one of my favorites, and one of the few whose every post I read) offered up a suggestion to bring us back from the edge. She calls it her “I don’t suck” list. Her blog is dedicated to “the story of how she went from wishing her husband dead to renewing her wedding vows. Her four-month project was a last ditch effort to save a marriage that many—her friends, her colleagues and even her own mother—had written off as hopeless,” this post (as do many of those that she writes) was about fending off the bad with the good.

She keeps a folder where she puts all the “feel good” letters, comments, emails, etc. that she’s received over the years. Since reading her post I started a Google document, that has slowly been growing with compliments, thank yous and other things that make me smile. It includes the comment from one of my closest friends, where he called me “A smart sassy sweetheart who has a knack for kicking it back” and comments like the one from a poster on Brazen who I helped–”I appreciate your advice so much, that I am going make a plastic likeness of you, and put it on the dash of my car!” Stored in the cloud, so I can access it anywhere, anytime, this one file can make me smile even on the worst of days.

Writers can specifically stock comments from editors they’ve worked with (“Great job on that piece”) or clients they have done projects for. That way, next time someone turns you down you can just look over the comments from someone who didn’t, and you’ll be able to rededicate yourself to the task, removing the morning-coffee stain, resolve the argument with your significant other, finish the project that’s due and re-pitch your query to a new magazine where it’s sure to be accepted (and where you’ll be paid twice as much) – or at the least, it will make you smile, and a smile is worth almost that much some days.

On a Mission: Setting Goals

Okay, so we all know goals are important right? Whether it’s baseball or soccer, without scoring you can’t win. But just having goals isn’t enough. Once you have them, you need to write them down.

A study done by the Ford Foundation and mentioned in Never Eat Alone (by Keith Ferrazzi) says that only 10% of the population has specific well-defined goals. But 7 out of 10 of that 10% only achieved their goals 50% of the time. The other 3 out of 10 people surveyed, however, achieved their goals a resounding 89% of the time–the difference? They wrote their goals down.

That’s the idea behind my goals page. To keep me accountable and working toward my goals, I write them down where the big wide world (aka all of you) can see them. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re going to have a lot of trouble getting there.

I recently went to lunch with a good friend. She has always thought she wanted to go into law–but now that she’s working as an assistant at a law office, she’s changed her mind. As a result, she’s looking for another job. But when I asked her what type of job she was looking for, she couldn’t tell me. So, even though I check job boards religiously and forward leads to all my friends (I know it’s a weird hobby), there’s nothing I can do to help her reach her goals–because she doesn’t have them.

As a freelancer, you can’t always know how many of your queries will be accepted or how many project proposals will result in you landing the job, which makes it hard to set goals. However you can set yourself goals based on work once its awarded. You can also set yourself word count goals, or goals for number of queries submitted.

Which is exactly the point of my goals page. Although for a while now I haven’t been updating it nearly often enough, if you visit it now you’ll find I’m back on the wagon. I have several concrete goals to accomplish. In addition to writing my goals there, I have a cork board on my wall that I pin notes too. Personally, I find a great deal of satisfaction in crossing something off a list (or putting a check mark next to it). Each task has it’s own small piece of paper, pinned to my board that I can tear down when that item is completed.

Of course, everyone has their own methods, but the important part is having goals, writing them down, and spending time each day dedicated to achieving them. Slowly but surely it’s working for me.

A Different Take on Marketing

One of my pet peeves is people who don’t understand that marketing via social media takes time and effort, and that unless you’re doing it yourself, you’re going to have to pay someone else for the time they spend pursuing those ends and setting up those communities (you can’t just add social media to their job description).

I agree with all those out there who have made the case that social media is a great way to market both oneself and one’s business – but, I also believe (firmly) that there are other options that are less time consuming (and, in many cases, cheaper).

Social media is a GREAT tool, but it’s one that only works if you can enjoy it. Think of it this way: would you want to be friends with someone who was forced to attend a party and spent the whole time making it clear that party WAS NOT where they wanted to be? If you don’t embrace social media, chances are it won’t work.

Bertrand Russell got it spot on–”A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not be endured with patient resignation.”

And some people just aren’t ready to jump aboard yet. They approach social media with “patient resignation.” For those people, it won’t work.

If you’re ready to go for it and just don’t know where to start, check out Marian’s blog and shoot her an email. She offers some seriously kickass services in that regard. But if you’re not, don’t fear my friend. This post is for you. Here are two tips (with more to come if this post is popular) for marketing your business without using Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin or even MySpace.

Join HARO. If you’re not familiar, HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out. The website (www.helpareporter.com) sends out a daily email with a list of articles that reporters are working on, that they need sources for. And you can volunteer to be a source.

As a writer I can submit a story topic and say that I need to talk to interview a lawyer or a bookkeeper… and they will include my request when they email everyone on their email list.

As a small business, what better way is there to get free press than to be interviewed on your industry for a magazine or newspaper? It’s free editorial content that positions you as an authority in your industry. And sometimes the queries are even just a call for products to include in reviews. So rather than begging to be included in a publication, you get an email requesting information. And all you have to do is scan these daily emails to see if any of them apply to you.

Host a party–or attend one. Have you heard of Tupperware parties? What about sex toy parties? Well, now they have candle parties and pocketbook parties too. There’s a reason for this–parties are a powerful marketing tool. Many of the pet stores I profile for the day job hold “Yappy Hours,” where customers are encouraged to come back after hours with their dogs, to chat with other customers over a glass of wine or a few pizzas and, naturally,  free bones for the dogs.

Merchandise is sold at these events, but the focus is on having a good time. They create word-of-mouth; they give people something to talk about. And, more importantly, they don’t have to be expensive. One retailer I talked to said Yappy Hours cost her about $60–but bring in significantly more than that in revenue. Another retailer, this one the owner of a clothing boutique that sells Mother-of-the-Bride dresses, actually has events where customers pay to be the first to peek at that season’s dresses at an after-hours event. Imagine, customers paying to come shop.

This works just as well for services industries or for individuals. For example, one freelancer I know has gotten involved with Media Bistro and hosts media parties–what better way is there to be well connected! Or you can give seminars.

The key is to set up  a situation where you meet people who you may not have met before; people who may become customers or who may recommend you to someone who may then become a customer.

Being social in real-life is just like being social online; it puts you and your business out there. So go ahead–wine & dine ‘em!