Hanging a writer-for-hire shingle?
Before you opt for the carpet commute, consider advice from
experts.
For
me, the writing life was an all or nothing plan. Quite naturally, the benefits
came to mind before the negatives set in. But even with the
challenges, most freelancers wouldn’t trade the business for a job
somewhere else. Gwen Moran, author of
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to
Business Plans and other works, sees her
profession as a plus. “My freelance business enhances my home life,” she says. “Sure it’s hectic and at times chaotic. But freelancing also
gives me the flexibility to spend more time with my husband and
daughter. I don’t miss school concerts or special events.” And if she
wants to have lunch with her husband or walk by the beach, she doesn't
have to ask permission. Moran considers the freelancing business “one
of the best decisions I’ve ever made, both personally and professionally.” What did I
have to lose? I
feel the same way. I walked away from a great job with a great salary. Several
of them, in fact. Most of my family thought I was nuts. But doing the
same thing every day was really driving me
nuts. I think it’s genetic. No one in my
father’s family worked for other people. They all ran businesses, and I
grew up either observing or helping with those businesses. When I was
in my teens, I wasn’t exactly happy about having to help. Years later I realized
I absorbed a valuable education by
osmosis. While I was in college, I worked
for a man who owned his own businesses. Tom Moseley was brilliant. I
often told him I should be paying him for everything I learned. Keeping
books, penning effective correspondence, composing ads in different media, and organizing events were a few of many skills I learned from this
entrepreneur. By the time I opted to start my
own business, I had a lot going for me, or so I thought. I liked to
write all sorts of things—poetry, nonfiction, fiction. I’d always read a lot of
books and when I read, I studied the way authors wrote. I still like to
consider how other writers construct sentences and how they transition
from one thought to the next.When I started writing, we weren’t in
debt. We lived simply. I didn’t have children yet. I figured those were assets. For one thing, if you don’t have anything, you don’t have much
you can lose. I reassured my husband with that well-worn
maxim. I still remember the first day in
my office. I had my nice used desk all set up. I’d pre- sold two
accounts. So I had work that would bring me a paycheck in a reasonable amount of time. One account was a monthly
magazine. I’d contracted to write it, lay it out and coordinate the
printing. Another account was the daily newspaper. I lucked into that one by pitching the editor a story for the Sunday insert. At the time,
newspapers did their own instead of serving up the national Sunday
insert we get now. Armed with a
Writer’s
Market, I picked about 100 publications. I
sent them all a letter. I was on a roll. Then reality closed in like an
invading army.To make a real living, I had to work about 60 hours a
week. It didn’t bother me because I was doing what I loved. But
it bothered my family and friends, and 20 years later, it still
does. For one thing, I can’t gab on the phone
or visit with people during office hours. I have to be militant about
it at times. Work usually requires a regular schedule, from 8 a.m. to 5
p.m. weekdays. There’s evening work too. Sometimes, I can’t interview a person
during the day because of his or her schedule. Sometimes, my day is
consumed with the business of writing—sending invoices, filing tax
forms, writing letters, filing, and all the other duties associated
with the running of a business. Often, I like to do my revisions
at night when there aren’t as many distractions. My husband supports my work, and that is key to my being able to do it.
Writers
explain the lifestyle.
“My husband
is pretty flexible and understanding about my business,” says Gretchen Roberts, a food, home and garden, and feature writer whose work is
published in magazines like Natural
Health and Better
Homes and Gardens. “We all try to take Fridays off together, but occasionally I’m stuck on deadline and have to
shut myself away. I know I feel worse about it than my husband and
daughter do.” This job also requires constantly sleuthing
for new markets and maintaining relationships with steady accounts.
Many aspiring writers ask me for tips on becoming a writer. I’d have to
say curiosity is the primary requirement. Writers often email to ask me
where they might publish a piece. Looking for markets is part of the job. If you
don’t like doing that, keep the steady
paycheck.
Brette Sember, author of over 25 books,
points to the unpredictable income as one of the “difficult
aspects” of freelancing. “It’s very hard,” she notes, “ to get a handle on what to expect you’ll bring in next month or the month after. You have to
be prepared to handle that.” Then there’s the location. “Your kids
think because you’re home, you’re available to them. I try to be very
flexible, so that I am here for them, but I also have to put my foot
down sometimes and say ‘not right now.’ ” At times,
the stress can be daunting. When work comes, it often comes in batches. Friends get angry when I can’t socialize. Relatives do not understand
because the freelance life will always look like the greener pasture to
an outsider. Once I became so frustrated with a loved one, I went to
have coffee with her and laid all the checks out on the table. I
figured my bank deposit right there in front of her. It blew her mind. “You really make money doing this,” she said.
Amazing. I admit this is the best job I’ve ever
had. It permits me incredible flexibility at times, and I have met more
interesting people than I imagined when I began this
journey. Gretchen Roberts enjoys the flexibility too.
“I love the freedom of setting my own rules,” she explains. “I work as
hard as I want and I see the payoff.” She adds that she has “a lower
threshold for social contact than some people, so working alone at home is an ideal situation for me.” For Brette
Sember, one of the best things about her work is “doing what I love.” She sees the positives in “being able to earn money doing something that
fulfills me, makes me happy, and perfectly fits my needs.” Sember also
likes the option of being able to “work 10 hours straight or take the
day off and go shopping.” Gwen Moran likes having
“the freedom to develop ideas into projects, to work as much or as
little as I wish.” A big benefit, she has learned, is being able to “change the
course of my career if I feel that it is not headed in the best
direction for me.” None of this would be possible, she knows, if she
worked for someone else.
The
benefits and the challenges.
The
benefits are bountiful, but maintaining self-employment as a writer is not easy.
If it were, writers wouldn’t keep a day job like teaching or working in
the publishing industry. For me, this was the only day job I ever
wanted. I feel blessed I’ve been able to
maintain it. And to paraphrase a thought poet and novelist Kim
Addonizio once shared, I’m afraid I won’t be able to write all the things I want to before I die. It’s a good problem to have.--By Kay B. Day
(9-14-06)
Get educated on
marketing and making cold calls.
Learn how to overcome Sales Call
Reluctance, because you will be marketing yourself like crazy if you want to
be successful at this. If you
don't, you won't. It's that simple.
You really need to realize this is your
business, and it won't grow if you
don't grow
it.—Jackie
Dishner
Discipline yourself to
work set hours and market, market, market. You may be a talented writer, but unless you put yourself
out there in front of editors, no
one else will ever know that. And
never give up. If you want a writing career badly enough, you'll achieve it--and be very successful at
it.—Gretchen Roberts
Find a specialty. If
you can draw on a particular aspect
of your education, experience, or knowledge, you can set yourself above and apart from other writers. It also makes it easier to
kind of hone in on what to do to
succeed since you somewhat limit your options and can focus
more
clearly.—Brette
Sember
Treat freelance
writing as a business – be
professional, work on the quality of
what you sell, be a perpetual student of the
business of writing and of
your craft, and be tenacious. It’s not
an easy road to follow, but it’s a
road with many
benefits.—Gwen Moran
About our
experts
A former McGraw-Hill construction
magazine editor and newspaper features reporter, Jackie Dishner now freelances full time, focusing
mainly on mind/body health, lifestyle, social issues, and
travel. Her articles appear in Tribune Newspapers, Phoenix Magazine,
Arizona Highways, Business Journal, Northstar Travel Media
and many other publications and sites.
Gretchen
Roberts is founder and editor of
The Smart Woman’s Guide to a
Simple Life. She specializes in food, nutrition,
recipe development, home, garden, and simple living. Her credits and
clients include Better Homes & Gardens,
Cooking Light, Organic Gardening, Health, Alternative Medicine,
Old-House Journal, Cooking Pleasures, Better Nutrition, Natural Home & Garden, The Writer and numerous other
publications. Visit her sites on the Net. http://smartsimplewoman.com www.WriteRoberts.com
Brette
Sember is a freelance writer and author of over 25 books including The Complete Credit Repair
Kit, Your Practical Pregnancy Planner, and
Your Plus-Size
Pregnancy. Learn more about Sember,
her nonfiction book proposal class and other opportunities at her Net site,
www.BretteSember.com. Visit Brett’s other site
at www.YourPlusSizePregnancy.com
Gwen
Moran is a freelance writer specializing
in business, health, travel, women's issues and career. She
reports on the latest marketing, management, advertising and retail
trends in her regular columns for Entrepreneur and
Yarn Market
News, and has contributed to MyBusiness, Family
Business, WomensWallStreet.com, Woman's Day, Ladies' Home Journal, Family Circle, USA Weekend and many others. Co-author of
The Complete Idiot's Guide
to Business Plans (Alpha Books, October 2005)
and Build Your Own Home on a
Shoestring (Alpha Books), Moran has
expertise in business, real estate investing, and personal finance, and
always delivers engaging, informative copy on deadline. She is
currently working on a book about business diversity.
On the
lighter side, she is a humorist whose work has appeared in
The Chicago
Tribune, WomensWallStreet.com,
MommaSaid.net, and in a monthly column in
Your Child
Today. Visit her on the
Net. http://www.gwenmoran.com
