More Newspaper Layoffs

Here's the world we live in- gossip blogs are multiplying like those gross mice with the red eyes, but newspapers are constantly going under. Hardly a city has more than one paper anymore, and now the cities that do are severely downsizing their newsrooms. Sadly, cutting 14 percent of the newsroom doesn't surprise me in the least. What does surprise me is that Reuters, writing about a Chicago paper, apparently used AP style. Yeah, I'm a nerd.

Is Cold Calling Really Necessary?

Cold Calls- Calling some random company and telling them that they should pay you to do something that they never asked you to do and might not even need done.

Is this really necessary? According to the big dogs on the block, it's essential to make cold calls to get new clients coming in and to get work that pays a fair rate. The big dogs, of course, being this guy, this guy and another guy whose blog I read.

I think that the whole cold calling concept is necessary for specific types of copywriting if you don't know anyone in the industry and don't have any samples to show anyone. In that respect, it's a carryover from when print copywriting roamed the Earth unchallenged by the digital gods that later came to power.

Nowadays, I don't see any reason that anyone would have to make cold calls. Yes, it's probably necessary if you want to go after the big names to get something impressive for the old resume. It's probably necessary if you want to get away from Web writing but don't actually want to work for just one company. If neither of these is your goal, cold calling is never necessary for a few reasons, namely:

People online rarely want to see a resume anyway. They mainly just want to see writing samples and to have a vague idea about your experience. If they do want a resume, it's to see your educational credentials and number of years of experience, not to see that one time you wrote this flier for LG and it rocked pretty hard.

There is no shortage of Web work. The amount of work is actually pretty overwhelming at times. There's no reason to look for off-Web work unless you just want less work and want to work harder to get it.

There's the skin crawlage factor. Imagine having to call people you don't know over and over again, trying to make yourself sound like someone they need even when you don't know if they need anyone. Imagine being turned down over and over again by people who don't know why you even called them because they never advertised a position and don't know who the heck you are. Yeah. Fun times.

How Much Can You Make With Suite101?

First of all, I can’t tell you. The site doesn’t allow anyone who writes for them to divulge how much they make from the site. However, people come here every day by searching Google for the answer to this very question. You won’t find the answer anywhere online, and if you do, it will probably be a very old number that was posted before they changed the payment structure.

So, the question is not really how much can be made on Suite101 but rather, is the money you make worth the effort that you put into the site. The answer to that is a profound yes and no.

There are two types of Suite101 writers- contributing writers and feature writers. As a contributor writer, your work gets little promotion and often little attention. The pay is fairly small, though there is a slight raise after you have 50 articles written for them. As a contributing writer, I did not feel that the income was remotely worth the effort. Maybe that’s because I don’t write about iPods and American Idol, or maybe it’s fairly standard. That I can’t say.

After I was made a feature writer, however, that all changed. There is a nice raise involved, but I think that the income shot up because you get better exposure. You write your category’s landing page and your latest creations are featured there. You also get a blog there that you’re required to post to every week. That also brings readers to your work.

After spending some time as a feature writer, I do think that the pay is well worth the amount of time I spend there. However, that isn’t generally my criteria for something with my name on it. About 98 percent of my work is never credited. It’s ghostwritten or simply work that the client doesn’t put a name on.

To have something online with my name on it, I require a good deal of creative control. In that respect, Suite101 does come through. I have to write weekly for my category, but the specific topics I choose are entirely up to me. I can also write additional articles for other categories if I so choose. If you want creative control- go for it. They don’t require that much of your time and they have pretty good page rank.

Meeting Clients in Person

Getting used to communicating with clients online wasn't too hard. There are a million ways to do it. But, when you're doing a local project there may come a time when a client wants to Meet in Person.

It looks like I'm going to have to meet with a client and a collaborator fairly soon for a mid-scale project that I've taken on.

That's right- not through email, not through Google chat, not through IMs. It won't be a suit kind of meeting, but it will be the kind where you have to put on a bra, get in the car and go somewhere. I haven't had to do this in several months. The last time I discovered several pros and cons of the face-to-face client meeting.

Con:
You can't wear pajama pants or eat egg rolls while you're meeting. You actually have to let the client dictate the space and parameters.
You have to be there at a specific time- not just a certain date or a range of dates. The client tells you the exact hour that you have to work. Oh no he di'int!

Pros:
For a complicated project, or one that involves several people working together, it really is the best way to communicate. You can collaborate more easily and get a feel for how to make the project turn out the best way possible.
You can see all of those buildings and trees and things you keep hearing about.
Sometimes a face-to-face meeting can get you and client working together better than days of emails. This saves time for both of you.

Whether it's with a suit or without, eventually most writers will have to meet with someone. For the most part, I think it's best to talk to clients in person the way you talk to kids- keep a pleasant tone in your voice and try not to swear too much.

Resisting a Writing Niche

When I started freelancing, I couldn't understand why so many freelance writers were limiting themselves to a niche. Wouldn't they be limiting their work? Wouldn't that cut down on the kind of jobs they could take on?

After awhile, I could see the temptation to take on a niche. Once you get used to writing about something, it gets easier and easier. You are then able to write it in less time and take on more work, making the day more profitable.

But, I have tried to resist the lure of the niche. For one thing, it does exactly what I feared. It does limit the kinds of projects you can take on. It won't matter much if someone is paying $25 a word for articles about mushrooms if the only thing you've ever written about is constipation. It isn't necessary to most clients that you have direct experience writing about their specific topic- if you can show that you write about many topics well.

Even if you do write about one or two things more than any other (marketing!), it's still important to make the effort to write outside that niche. If you have some health samples (no, not urine), some marketing samples, a few home improvement samples and an article or two about onions, you can demonstrate that no topic is beyond you.

Article Prices

I've been through a lot of different payment methods for determining article and ebooks rates. For ebooks rates I've come up with a per-page system that reflects the length of the overall book in relation to how long it will take and how many other things I will have to turn down to get the ebook done. But for articles- pricing can be extremely tricky.

Per-Article Pricing
When I first began, I started with a per-article rate that was the same no matter how long the article was, how many keywords it needed and what it was about. I was able to slowly raise that rate as I developed more clients, more online bylines and experience with more topics. It was not, however, turning out to be a great method of pricing. One article might take 30 minutes while another might take two hours, but both were the same price. It didn't really make good sense.

Per-Word Pricing
I then moved to per-word pricing. This worked a lot better than the per-article pricing, but it still didn't tell the whole story. I was chugging along pretty well at my per-word rate when I got smacked in the head with a few highly-technical articles. They were short, and the per-word rate was good. Unfortunately, they took longer than most long articles and reduced my hourly income to about minimum wage. What to do? Funny you should ask because I did come up with something better.

Topic Rates
I've been using topic rates for the past two months or so and this has been working out better than either of the last two rates. With a topic rate, I charge more for things that I know for a fact will take longer. A longer article won't necessarily take longer, but a completely unfamiliar topic will. So far I've had no problems with this with private clients. As for companies, well, they generally won't change their rates to suit your new pricing plan, the bastards. So, in those cases I've been choosing topics that are more in line with what I would be charging another client for them if they were paying what the company does. Make sense? Well, it does to me.

Better Places to Find Freelance Writing Work

So, if not the standard places to get freelance writing jobs, then where? There are countless ways to go about finding better paying work. These examples comprise a combination of company work and getting your own customers. That means steady work from a variety of sources so that losing any one client doesn't mean living on beans until you find a new one.

Bidding Sites
I wrote a fairly long review about most of the freelance bidding sites and their potential for making money. The potential for a higher price per article is excellent with Elance and Guru and even RAC to some extent. These sites sometimes get bad mouthed by freelancers. Why? Because many of the people who run sites full of freelance jobs have a vested interest in doing so. If you're on bidding sites you won't be combing their sites for jobs. It's really as simple as that.

Using these sites is extremely lucrative and can get you as many regular customers as you want. It is also much, much less time consuming to get projects through these sites than by applying over and over again to those long lists of gigs. There is far less competition for these projects and there are always new ones being posted.

Companies
There are also a number of companies that hire hundreds of writers and pay them a per-article rate. One such company is WRG. They hire writers and editors periodically and are usually in the market for someone who is serious about getting articles in. If they aren't currently hiring, you might inquire about when they will be. The company has several projects, none of which I am allowed to mention specifically. The main one right now is very short articles that pay $10 apiece. That may not sound like a lot, but the articles are half sized, making them quick and pretty easy to write. The work is pretty much unlimited with no maximums. There are many people who make thousands a month with them.

Demand Studios is another company that has several projects requiring quick articles. They reportedly have maximums, however. For some people this probably works out well, though, as they don't feel like they're slacking for not writing hundreds of articles a month. It just depends on how many you want to write and how much you need to make. I'm told that this site does pay a little more than WRG on a per-article basis.

Love to Know is another company that pays per article. They reportedly also have maximums and they are fairly limited as far as topics. There is always a list available of topics that need writers.

There are countless other companies out there that pay per article- doing a little searching may help you to find more. I used to write for one that bought short articles about insurance for $12 apiece but I can't think of that sucker's name right now. So, they are out there. Having one or two companies that pay regularly is a great safety net for slow times.

Freelance Portfolios
If you have a portfolio on Freelance Portfolios, people will come to you. It's free to put a portfolio together and it does bring in the traffic. I've had quite a few people contact me through there. And, the people who look for writers through this site aren't usually the type that don't want to pay for writers. If they contact you, they already know what you are capable of and whether you are a native English speaker or not. You can also set a pay rate right there on the portfolio if you choose to.

Your Own Website
Having your own website is a great way to get business. People can contact you through contact form or through an email address that you post on the site. A few writing samples and a bio is generally enough to show what you do and what your skill level is. People can contact you directly and you can negotiate from there.

Job Sites
Mainstream sites like Monster.com have some writing jobs that are available for telecommuters. It may take some digging to find them, but since the site charges companies to post these ads, you know they are serious about paying. They will not be people looking for the cheapest possible writer. If they were so concerned about their pennies they would place a free ad somewhere else.

There are a number of other places that people find work that pays a decent wage. These are the ways that I generally get clients. I also get word-of-mouth clients who were told by other marketers that I was good and reliable. Word of mouth clients are great because they already know what you charge and come to you willing to pay it. It can take some time to get those types of clients, but it's certainly worth the wait.

If you want the ultra-high payers, there are many sites that pay much more than these. Of course, they will not pay for 200 articles from you and they may want story pitches first. I do know of people that go this route. They are certainly proud of the $800 article they wrote for an ultra mega site. Of course, it took days of pitching to get it, the article took quite a while to write and then there were revisions that needed to be made. And, that site was just one of many that were queried with story pitches, most of which were rejected. The whole process may have taken weeks.

On the other hand, my articles are mid-priced but they are always there. I made more than $800 last week and will this week as well. It's all a matter of what kind of income you need. Some want the prestige more than the money, and that's fine too. If you want to make a living at Web writing, eventually you have to make this type of decision.