26 Feb 10 Freelance Writing: How Many clients You Should Keep?
A better title would have been: “Freelance writing: how many clients you should keep at one time?”, but I didn’t want to make the title run for miles.
Whatever! The answer is all the same, which is: as many as you can handle. Do not chew more than you can digest. It will give you an upset stomach.
What’s the benchmark?
There is no external benchmark; the benchmark is the quality of work you produce. The moment your quality starts deteriorating you should put a stop sign outside your home office. You would not like to risk producing second-rate content, articles, or whatever it is that you write for your clients.
Then…
How many should I keep?
I cannot say for sure how many you should keep, but I can tell you about how many I keep and how you can decide how many you should keep. Generally, I keep 2-3 fulltime clients—depending upon the volume of work given— and work 1-2 one-off projects that do not have too tight deadline.
How you can decide how many?
How much you want: Say what you may, but you are doing freelance writing to pay your bills, be it your fulltime venture or part-time juggle. Therefore, you need to keep in mind your monetary target for a month.
How many hours can you devote: You also need to find out how many hours in week you can put aside for your freelance writing job.
How many articles can you produce in an hour: I understand this sound like absurd, but bear with me because I know people who can produce two articles of 500 words in one hour. Initially, you will not be able to write more than 40-50% of an article in an hour, but soon you will improve.
Do the math
Use the number you got from the above and calculate to find how many articles you need to write in a month to meet your monthly monetary target. The number you will thus get is the amount of work you need per month. If one client can fulfill this requirement then you do not need a second client—which is unlikely.
So, how many clients do you need at a time to fulfill your goal? Post the number you get after doing the math. I am eagerly waiting to hear from you.
Tags: Benchmark, Content Articles, Find Articles, Freelance Job, Freelance Writing, Math, Part Time, Rate Content, Stop Sign, Target, Tight Deadline, Upset Stomach, Writing Articles, Writing Job
24 Jan 10 Freelance Writing – What to Do When Work is Slow
Everyone goes through a lean phase, and indeed, it could be very worrying. But, if you have a proper plan in place then you will take the lack of clients as an opportunity to do something big. I am serious. It is as easy to do as it is to write, if you do the proper planning.
What to do when clients are hard to come by?
- Look for more clients: This is the first thing you should do, but do not waste inordinate amount of time on client searching. 2-3 hours a day should be more than sufficient. Scan twitter, job sites, and freelance boards and see if you can land up in a good deal.
- Work on the basics: There are some shortcomings in your writing which you have noticed earlier as well, but due to unavailability of time, you could not work on improving them. Now as you do not have many works, why do not you take it as an opportunity to improve your writing skills? You may want to revisit English grammar, or you may want to read some books on writing, or attend some class. This is the right time to invest in improving your skills.
- Start you own project: In the years or months you worked for your clients, you must have thought of starting some exciting project: may be write an e-book or create an informational product, or a course, or a website, or a blog. This is the time to execute the plans you were making. Why do not you start working on the stuffs you have been planning for long?
- Spend time with your family: It often happens with us that when there are lots of works to finish within a tight deadline then we tend to overlook our family. As you do not have much work, you should spend your time with your family, and recover the lost family-time.
- Take a vacation: If you have sufficient bank balance to pay for your vacation then cash in on the opportunity you got and take your family for a long due family vacation.
These represent just tip of the iceberg. There are many more things that you can do. Just be creative and plan out something.
Tags: Amount Of Time, Bank Balance, Creative, e book, English Grammar, Family Time, Family Vacation, Freelance Work, Freelance Writing, Informational Product, Job Boards, Job Sites, Read Books, Right Time, Shortcomings, Stuffs, Tight Deadline, Tip Of The Iceberg, Unavailability, Writing Skills
14 Jan 10 Is Freelance Journalism a Viable Career Option?
For an adventurous type, Freelance journalism is indeed is a good career option. I am saying for the adventurous type because it requires lots of running through the cities, and scanning the rough neighborhoods for a story to cover. You need to be always on your foot, and constantly searching for stories to make a decent living as a freelance writer. It is not an easy job to do, at least not when one is starting out.
To succeed as a freelance journalist, you need to have:
- A willingness to spend as much time as required chasing a good story.
- A desire to travel from place to place in search of a good story.
- A knack for working under tight-deadline
If you have these three traits then freelance journalism is a right career for you, and the more you will do each of the things discussed above, the more successful you will become in your career. This is not a career for you, if you are looking for a job that gives you lots of personal space. The news story is the life of a freelance journalist, and he has time for nothing else.
A day of freelance journalist begins quite early in the morning when the editor of the newspaper gives the topic to cover, which is followed by calling up concerned person for interviews and interview bites. The information collection goes on till evening after which the journalist needs to sit down and craft a story using the information he collected. In the process, he may also require to verify the credential of data collected and recheck the numbers. He will have to do all these things before mid-night when the newspaper goes for printing.
The day of a freelance journalist ends after news submission to begin once again at 6 AM for the next day news. Not everyone can take this, so you need to ask yourself if you can handle such pressure or not.
Tags: Adventurous Type, Day News, Desire, Easy Job, Freelance Journalism, Freelance Journalist, Freelance Writer, Information Collection, Knack, Looking For A Job, Mid Night, News Story, Personal Space, Submission, Tight Deadline, Travel, Viable Career Option, Willingness
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