It happened. Earlier this week, the editor of a magazine I’ve been writing for told me she can’t buy more freelance pieces until summer because of budget cuts. It’s the first time in years that economic cutbacks have directly affected my business. It’s also bad news because I’d just pitched a story I thought was […]
Freelancers' Strategies for Prospering in Bad Times
I recently shared a marketing expert’s advice for freelancer writers and other self-employed creative types to stay happy and solvent during shaky economic times. His suggestions boiled down to a few simple maxims: cultivate existing client relationships, specialize, learn new skills and network. Reality check time. Do freelancers heed such advice? Or do they use […]
WordCount Q&A: Marketing your freelance business in bad times
The publishing industry is in tumult. Publications are trying to do more with less – less advertising revenue, editorial staff and readers. Throw worries about a recession into the mix, and it means trouble for freelance writers who depend on magazines, newspapers and customer publishers for their livelihoods. Or does it? Not necessarily. Hard times […]
10 Reasons Every Freelance Writer Should Have a Blog
I took to blogging fairly quickly and I finally figured out why. I wrote a weekly newspaper column for more than five years. After that, I wrote a weekly column for Reuters, the financial wire service, for seven years. After a dozen years, writing something once a week – or more – was so second […]
Best Blogs for Writers
When writers aren’t writing, they’re reading about how to be a better writer, or be a better marketer of their writing, or about who else they could be writing for. That’s what I found when I asked freelance, newspaper and magazine writers and editors to name some of their favorite blogs for writers. It’s an […]
The Myth of the Paperless Office
Computers were going to wipe out paper. That’s what we believed back at the dawn of the PC era. Twenty-six years later, people are still overwhelmed by the stuff. Face it, getting rid of paper completely won’t happen. It’s too big a part of our lives. The thing is, it doesn’t have to be as […]