After 30 years in Corporate America, I started my freelance business writing career in 2008.
The number one lesson I learned?
No matter how prepared you are — prepare to be surprised.
Do As I Say
Being a true southerner, my father had a treasure trove of sayings. An oft-repeated one was —
Do as I say – not as I do.
Since offering 30 ideas for your business blog, I incorporated only one of those ideas in this blog.
So, to do as I say, here is a post using #30 on the list —
Share what was the biggest surprise in your career/with the business.
Being an overachiever, I’ll share seven.
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise
In no particular order, here are 7 freelance writing surprises.
1. Business is time-consuming
I thought I prepared for the business side of freelancing.
Think again.
- You are CEO, Sales, Marketing, Information Technology, Accounting and Administrative Assistant
- Oh, and janitor, too (nobody picks up your trash or recycling)
- You face the same “internal” or “outsourcing” questions that corporations do
- Okay, maybe on a smaller scale, but you still have a decision to make
The sooner you can get administrative functions outsourced, the better – in my humble opinion.
I’m still working on that.
2. There is a freelance writing caste system.
I had no idea how explosive certain topics are for freelance writing.
- Content mills was a term I never heard, but I know it now
- Content mills are companies/organizations that crank out web content – cheap and fast – emphasis on cheap and fast
- If you want to boost your views and comments, post about content mills
- There are some traditional journalist versus blogger battles
- Some draw a line between ghostwriters and ghostbloggers
- Some don’t accept either
- Apparently, some shun the word freelance
3. There is no such thing as a standard fee.
Having worked in management during my corporate days, I was accustomed to salary ranges.
There was salary versus hourly, and commissions and bonuses.
Despite my research on freelance writing (through Writers Market), I had no idea there were so many variations.
- There are hourly fees
- And project fees
- There are fees per page
- And fees per word
- There are no fees – which leads me to my next surprise
4. On spec is a widespread offer
- On spec is when a freelance writer creates an article, post or other communication for free – no fee involved
- The tradeoff is increased visibility (for those millions of readers the client(?) has)
- Or it is a test to make sure you know how to write – hello? Can you spell portfolio?
- The really generous companies offer revenue share for those millions of clicks on your article – that 1/4 of a cent goes far
5. Payment in 3-6 months or more is not uncommon
- Some companies have no qualms about taking their time to pay a freelance writer
- Some completely ignore signed contracts
- It is not acceptable in the corporate world, so why is it acceptable in freelance work?
I am happy to report; my clients pay promptly (with the exception of one online magazine that went belly up).
6. Social media is a whole lot more than Tweets
- The number of platforms and what’s hot changes quickly
- The volume, the power, and the information is overwhelming
- Social media can be a major time-drain
- Social media gave birth to a huge family of experts
7. The freelance writing community is generous
- A nice surprise was the incredible generosity of fellow writers
- They blog and offer help to newbies
- When they do charge, it is typically very affordable for small business owners
It is one of the things I love best about my business.
I thought it would be good to end this on a positive note.
- I really love my business writing
- It opened a whole new world —with a few surprises —
But a whole lot of good, too.
What surprises did you find when you started your business?
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The long payment turnaround is something I heard early on but refused to tolerate. I’m the business owner. They’re customers. I set the rates. I set the payment terms. They can honor them or they are welcome to go elsewhere. And in the vast majority of cases my clients pay in full up front before I start a project at all.
It’s all in the markets you choose. It’s magazines specifically that are notorious for slow payments. But no one has to write for magazines (and given how their business model is questionable these days, it’s not something I’d want to put most of my emphasis on). You can do the same kind of writing for other types of clients and be treated as the business owner you are, including prompt payments. For example, companies often look for features for newsletters. They want similar content for their own sites or blogs to gain attention from their target market. And some even hire you to ghostwrite magazine features that they submit to trades. It’s all technically business writing, but it’s not about selling or writing directly promotional material about clients. If you want to write features, there are plenty of avenues to do that without the archaic magazine writing “rules.” They’ll either get with the times eventually or they’ll continue to to suffer as they have been as an industry (and lose writers to other publication outlets as writers themselves become more informed about them and what’s really involved — a lot of misinformation still out there).
I guess the point is ultimately that things are going to surprise you, but you don’t have to tolerate the negative surprises. You, and only you, control your freelance business and you have the ability to overcome them and make your own rules as you go.
Jenn-thanks for sharing some really good points, especially that you may get surprised, but it does not mean you have to accept it.
I do quite a bit of ghostwriting for trade magazines so I do not have the inherent problem of slow-paying magazines (since my client is the person whose name goes on the byline).
I will say that the magazine market was quite the surprise for me. That could be how I got into ghostwriting. I’d rather see my name on a check paid timely than a byline at a slow-paying magazine.
I guess I know the source of my inspiration in today’s post about ghostwriting. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by, Jenn.