News and Bacon

I haven't been around Ye Olde Blogge in awhile, but anyone who reads it may forgive me when they hear my so-sad tale of woe. Actually, I'm not all that sad about it and I don't really have any woe. Sorry. My spouse was laid off since last I posted and I have had to keep us all afloat with my freelance writing.

I've been earning a good percentage of the family's income for a year now, and before that I was earning most of it. Unfortunately, spouse works in an industry that is no longer what it once was in this country and this is not the first time there's been a layoff. I don't think I expected it this time, though, even with the bad economy. But, a freelancer must press on. If you are freelance writing and don't think you could pull it off, you might be surprised by what is possible. Here's what I did as soon as I heard the word "layoff" (redundancy, for my Brit friends):

I bought a very tiny vacuum. Now I can giggle as I vacuum my desk with its retro hideousness. No kidding. First thing.

I made a layoff budget to keep things we can't live without (Netflix!) and to get rid of things that we can (McDonald's).

I figured out exactly how much that I need to earn per day in order to meet that goal. I usually work seven days a week anyway and I already had a daily goal of what I had to make before in order to meet bills, pay off debts and buy stuff we want. The new daily goal is more than double the old one, but it's still doable.

I figured out what the most lucrative gigs are that I have been doing lately and started concentrating on those more than my millions of side projects. That has increased my income and I'm really not working many more hours than I did before.

I started adding bacon to random websites to amuse myself.

If you're a freelancer and are fearing the economy, it is possible to keep going online and to earn a respectable income. Business on the Web is actually increasing, according to the latest figures. I have heard that PPC rates have gone down a little, but people are buying online, setting up websites and hiring writers just like they did before. I suspect that the Web content business is staying afloat because as people lose their jobs they are attempting to set up businesses online to replace their income.

And That is a Big But

I was recently in negotiations with a client for a large number of Web content articles. I had written a handful for him before and he was interested in hiring one of several writers who had written for him before to handle a much larger project. After much back-and-forth negotiation (including on Christmas Day), the answer came that he was choosing someone else. Why? Well, the answer comes down to the "but" that shouldn't have been.

In the end, this client, like many others out there, made their decision based on the price per article rather than what he wanted to market, how it could be marketed and the potential readership of the resulting articles. In other words, he cheaped out. I was told that I was the best of all the writers he was considering, but that I was also the highest priced so he couldn't hire me for the project. Did you see the but? Let's examine the but.

If you really think about it, the but is the problem with a lot of clients. It should never have been a but- it should have been an and. I was the best of the writers in the running and I charged the highest price. You get what you pay for, though many clients still don't realize it. They still think that a virtual product is different from a physical one or that the laws of business don't apply to Web businesses. Both of these myths couldn't be more wrong.

If someone is fairly good, expect them to charge more than people who aren't. If you want a plumber who will take his shoes off and won't call you "sweetie," expect to pay more. If you want someone to write your content who has a degree as well as experience in corporate communications, print news writing and Web writing and marketing, expect to pay a little more than someone dabbling in writing to pay off their credit card. And don't ever but me again.

New Year's Resolutions

Yeah, it's already the 11th. Don't judge. I still have last year's resolutions in the back of my mind to do. I think at this point it's time to let go of the old and to make new ones. I've been thinking about new goals since the 1st of the year because I take resolutions very seriously. I actually have all of my resolutions for each year since I was 16. Seriously.

Last year's resolutions went sort of OK, though I didn't do the ones that I thought were the most challenging, so that's pretty much a fail. In reality, this year's will likely end up like this, but I will press on anyway. Here's what I've come up with:

Stick to a basic work schedule. For a freelancer, that doesn't necessarily mean that work is done at a specific time- just that a set amount of work gets done each day. I've been trying since the first to work with a daily schedule planned out a week at a time to ensure that I don't try to take on too much work in a day, burn out for a day and then come back with trepidation at the thought of more misery.

Work on my novels. I have a list (yes, I am waaay into lists) of the novels that I have either begun or have in mind to begin. Some of them have been buzzing around in my head for about 15 years. If I can stick to my work schedule and can feel assured that enough work is getting done to allow us to continue to eat and all of that, I should feel no guilt at delving into my novels and perhaps actually finishing one.

Read my work more often. Once a piece is written and proofread, I tend to never want to see it again. It's over. Finished. I have come to believe, however, that reading over your work after it's cold and dead will give you some objective insight about your style in a way that reading over a still-warm work can't. I have been reading some items that I wrote a year ago or more and I have seen several spots that could be improved. I think that a person's writing style is always evolving and that this evolution can be helped by sucking up your pride and visiting those old items.

Continue to build residuals. This has become important to my income and I hope it will allow me to take it a little easier this summer. Last summer was rotten as the economy tanked and work dried up. With less free time at that time of year, I had less time to market myself and communicate with potential clients and we all suffered for it. To offset this, I am working hard at creating income streams that will continue to come in even if the freelancing market slows. Having a little bit of cushioning like that is important when you rely on your freelancing income for the basics.

2008's Resolutions

I've kept my 2008 New Year's resolutions in the back of my head throughout the year, fully intending to implement all of them. In some ways I succeeded and in some I failed. Rather than just make new resolutions on top of old ones this year, I thought I'd look back at the last batch and see where things could have been improved. Here are last year's in a nutshell and how I did with each:

Get less distracted by shiny things and entertaining YouTube videos: Sadly, this will probably never happen. I have just found ways to integrate the shiny moments with the work that needs to be done so that I still get to catch up on SNL sketches that I missed and get work completed on time.

Make more residual income: I've continued with this and make roughly seven times as much per month in residuals as I did last year at this time. That's still not great, actually, but it is starting to become something that I can count on as part of my income.

Start writing for magazines: Whammy. Never happened.

Read more classics: Um, do Kim Harrison novels count? I think they'll be classics someday. No, I laid off the Regency novels this year and got into Colonial history for some reason. I wouldn't consider any of them classics, but I think that most of what I read this year had merit.

Ignore more advice: Oh hells yeah. Most of the advice I get from other Web writers just doesn't work out for me. I know they are a nice, helpful bunch and they are only trying to share what they have learned, but I very, very rarely ever have success doing anything that another Web writer has suggested. I love ya, but I'll stick to my own methods for now. Good luck in 2009!

The Praise File

As a freelancer, you don't have the luxury of a boss telling you that you've done some darn fine work. If you're freelancing at home, you don't get to see the face of someone reading your work so that you can see that you've made them happy with it, or at least that they haven't become angry, turned green and started ripping the place up. All you have is email.

The email can be an important tool for gauging how well you're actually doing at pleasing your clients. When I start to think that my work is basically crap and that there's no reason for me even to apply to a really good gig because no one would ever hire me, I go to my praise file.

The praise file is a collection of emails that I started filing about a year ago when I realized that I was actually doing pretty well and that clients were sending me nice emails about my work. The praise file currently has 30 emails in it, all complimenting stuff that I've written. Ok, one of them is an online compliment of some work that I copied and then emailed to myself, but the rest of them were actually sent to me. It's come in very handy when I need a confidence boost before applying to something or when I think up a new idea and wonder if I'm even good enough implement my own ideas.

If you don't have a praise file- get one. Start archiving those compliments. Pretty soon you'll have a nice email crop growing there to feed you when you're starving for a little resolve.

Tax Time is Coming

For freelancers, the end of the year means just one thing: paperwork. Well, paperwork and booze, but I digress. The beginning of tax season can be a confusing prospect if you haven't stayed organized with your paperwork over the past year. If you've never experienced a freelance tax season, here's how it will break down.

Any company that has paid you $600 or more over the course of the year is required to send you a 1099 form detailing the payment amounts. This is of course a simple way of keeping track, but not everyone you earn from will do this. The nature of freelance writing online means that many clients are middlemen who aren't keeping track of the amounts for you and won't be issuing you with a form.

I can think of two clients I've had this year that I have collected a few thousand from but that have never asked me for any tax forms and did not send me a 1099 last year. I'm not sure how that gets reconciled on the client's end, but on the freelancer's end, the records can be kept in any number of ways. The easiest is simply to use PayPal's own record keeping, if you are using PayPal to collect. They have an account history that can be used at the end of the year to see when and how much you have been paid. To make it easier, go through the payments tab to separate your income from the amounts that you've sent to others.

If you have a business license or are incorporated, you may have to fill out separate taxes for your business and your personal income. If you aren't operating under any licensing, the easiest method when you have multiple clients is just to file your income under "miscellaneous" income. This covers it all and is simple to do.

If you have an in-house writing job, take pictures of it. You'll want to keep those memories when the writing gets outsourced along with every other company's writing and PR departments.

Christmas Gifts for Writers

Last year I had a bunch of people come here to The Writer's Journey searching for Christmas gifts for writers. Then I noticed a bunch of other writing blogs pandering to the keywords by running posts about what to get writers, most of which was writing crap. This year I don't think anyone has come here looking for that, but I'm pandering anyway.

The main problem with buying a Christmas gift is that you are assuming that they want something that relates to writing. Much of the time, in the case of professional writers, they don't want pens or writing calendars or any of that stuff. I really could puke if I get another fancy pen or a book about manuscripts. A person who writes for a living may not want to be reminded about their job all the time- especially on one of the only days (or part of the day) that they take off from that job.

Here are a few things that a writer might actually like to get for Christmas:

This t-shirt is perfect. If you don't know anyone who will love it, I will. Get it for me.

This is a great album that is Christmas themed but that can be played at any time of year. Many of the Christmas songs on it aren't really recognizable as Christmas music unless you've seen the special a million times. Most of it is pretty catchy and the audience for it is wide. In other words, it won't get annoying like those barking Christmas dogs. Too predictable? I can be of assistance.

Here's a Coneheads action figure. Why? I don't know. But, everyone likes the Coneheads and you can be assured that your gift recipient won' t already be up to their ears in Coneheads action figures this year. If you can't stand the thought of giving the gift of Beldar, there's another action figure you might prefer. Or not.

You can also be assured that your writer friend or relative will not have one of these. These are useful for decorating, cooking and keeping the annoying neighbor kids away.

For the writer in your life that you're pretty sure hasn't actually written anything, but who spends a lot of time at home trying to, there's this.

Have a writer in your life that you hate but that you nevertheless have to buy a gift for? Try a set of these. Not only are they annoying, your writer "friend" will have to spend hours making them into something annoying.

Friend or foe, a gift should never tie in to a person's profession too closely. Imagine if we got doctors tongue depressors and preschool teachers tiny screaming things that throw paint for Christmas.