For me, personally, I receive numerous compliments on my work that I submit to clients.  I’m not meaning to toot my own horn because, in reality, my ability to write has more to do with my genetic makeup and the talents bestowed upon me by the Higher Power than my education or training in the field.  However – one thing that I am very good about is my dedication to going over my work multiple times before I call it ‘finished’.  On short articles, I probably only go over these pieces three times, but when I get into longer content, such as documents containing in excess of 1,000 words – I revise these pieces a minimum of four times.

By the time I’m making my second pass, I do not find a lot of mistakes – but a missing comma here, an awkward phrase there, and a run-on sentence in the mix really adds up, and can hinder the opinions that your clients have of you and your work.

I’m not saying that my methods are best, but I receive a number of compliments for my work – and I attribute that to the extra time I spend going over my work before I send it on as completed.  At least in my field, clients do not like to have to touch anything after-the-fact; essentially it is my job to forward a perfect document, from the angle and focus to the quality of the writing and accuracy of information, each and every time.  Because I save my clients time by not having to deal with ‘tweaks’ and after-submission revisions, I get a lot of repeat business.  What’s more, though, is that I receive a great deal of referrals from previous clients, which, referral-based business is largely how I come across new clients.

Here is, in general, how I proof my work before shooting it off to a client:

1. I will take my rough draft, and read through it in my head.  At this point I am mainly looking for sentence structure and clarity of purpose.  If the work is for an international audience (non-US English speakers), I’ll eliminate any regional dialect, idioms, etc., that sneak into my work.

2. I will go over the work again, this time paying closer attention to punctuation, unnecessary contractions (depending on how formal the work is), and so forth.

3. I will go over the work again, though this time, I read it aloud.

4. Again, I read over the work one more time, out loud, so that I am not only reading it in my head, but listening to the content with my ears.

That’s about it.  Sure, revising your work multiple times will add time to your project, but the dividends that it pays by way of satisfied clients and word-of-mouth referrals, is well worth it, in my opinion.

Disclaimer: I do not proofread these blog posts in almost any capacity… sometimes I’ll read through it once, but that’s about it. I’m just saying – these blog posts are not indicative of my professional work.

• You’re stubborn, and that’s why you’re broke
• When clients try to take advantage of writers
• How much do blogging gigs pay?
• Yes, you can get paid to write online – but here’s your problem
• Find Freelance Writing Opportunities Here

Overall, the pricing for the report itself will go down significantly, but the fees and benefits of the one-on-one support option will change drastically.

New freelance writer support and consultation features:

• Free placement evaluation – based on your skills and interests, we will suggest the recommended course of action for you. A new writer’s freelance writing plan to success, if you will. This is optional and available upon request.
• 60 day email support – You will have a direct line to us for any questions you may have about getting started in the writing field, how to establish yourself, etc.
• Free access to a freelance writing job finding feed that we will make available in early October.  We will be selling this resource, but any writer who purchases our report and opts to receive our support services will receive this time-saving tool free of charge.

The costs of the report will shoot down to $8.95 and right now we’re thinking that the optional support and bonuses will run between $47-$67.  Quite honestly, we’ve really expanded the reach of our support services, and I personally think that by lowering the costs of the report and offering support services as an optional charge, we’re enabling newer writers to get a very useful resource in their hands without a lot of out-of-pocket expense.

Now, our report on this website’s home page is $35, and the info contained within it is worth exorbitantly more than this amount.  However, due to sluggish sales (which, may be in part due to the horrendous formatting and layout of the home page), we’ve decided to mix things up a bit with our offer on DailyWritingJobs.com.

If you have any questions regarding these changes, feel free to let us know.

If you have already purchased the report, we will send you the freelance writing jobs feed free of charge, upon request, once it’s ready – but we cannot offer these expanded support services for the current purchase price of the report.

• Find Freelance Writing Opportunities Here
• Getting Established as a Freelance Writer
• Free writing tips mailing list
• Why do online freelancers earn so little?
• Yes, you can get paid to write online – but here’s your problem

Here’s my little story of one demanding client

This has actually happened to me twice in the last month.  I’ll give you a summarized version of one of these situations:

Client A has been ordering writing services from me since 2006 (nearly two years!).  He apparently loved my work and because we had been working together for such a long time, this person occasionally received very nice discounts on my writing services.  I use a fluid pricing schedule as opposed to a flat-rate schedule as this has worked out well for me.

In any case – this person wanted somewhere between 50-70 articles, probably more, but I could only verify about 70.  I was giving him a heck of a deal at only $10 per article for a couple of reasons:

1. The topic was very familiar.

2. We have an extensive work history and this guy had paid me thousands upon thousands of dollars over the years.

After I delivered about 20 articles, the guy wanted to change things around – he wanted me to lengthen my articles (agreement stated a minimum of 350 words); 17 of the articles were over 400 words, and several were actually over 550 words.

The end result – I dropped him.  Now, to be fair – I had a problem with him about a year ago as well, basically he started treating me like a $5 article writer.  If you do not know what that means, it basically means that the buyer changes the terms of the deal and expects the freelance writer to bend over backwards to save the contract because they are hard up for work.  However, at that time I told him that the way he was treating me was unacceptable and gave him an ultimatum – he changed his tone.

Why “cheapskate” buyers are bad for your business as a writer

So-called “cheapskate” buyers will suck you dry; once you give in to them, they will walk all over you.  They will expect the world from you and give you next to nothing in return.  There are good clients just as their are bad clients, and sometimes, such as the case here – there’s a fine line between the two.  Sometimes you’ll run into clients who will go along with your terms for a while, and then they’ll try to throw in a couple of additions here and there.  As a writer, you have to judge where your line is and weigh out the potential losses and gains by taking a certain action.

Quite honestly, by me dropping this client, I literally gave up thousands of dollars.  I’m ok with that.  I mostly cater to SEO companies, web development firms and professionals – I can make up those losses with a few writing projects.  If I were a new writer, or my clientbase was made up of “freebie seekers” where my clients had a hard time imagining paying $20 for an article, I probably would have sucked it up to get the $500 – $1,000 and then I probably would have called it quits.

I’m not in any way suggesting that you should drop your clients every time they want a little bit extra from you – that’s absurd.  With the right clients, there should be a little bit of give and take – plus, you can always make up for any current losses by increasing your bid a little bit on a future project if you are a decent writer who enjoys repeat business.

My advice for new online writers:

Beware.  There are people who will eat up the majority of your time, your energy and your resources and give you next to nothing in return.  If you show them that you are desperate or unsure of yourself, they will take note of that and use that point to their advantage.  While this isn’t the norm – there are plenty of good clients – this is something that is a part of the online writing field.

Bottom line: writing opportunities abound – if you have a client that is impossible to please, cut them loose.  There are plenty of people willing to pay you for your services – let the freebie-seeking cheapskates go and look for clients that appreciate the services that you provide for them.

• How much do blogging gigs pay?
• You’re stubborn, and that’s why you’re broke
• Yes, you can get paid to write online – but here’s your problem
• Last Call for Free Freelance Writer Support
• Getting Established as a Freelance Writer

So – to compliment the report we have decided to launch a free email series that offers writing tips and insights for new online content writers. Whether you’ve written a few articles for pay or you haven’t figured out how to make money online as a freelance writer, our free writing tips newsletter will help give you the footing you need to make more money as a content writer.

There’s no catch, no commitment and no requisites other than you sign up via our form. We’re not going to bombard you with advertisements nor are we going to insistently beg that you purchase the Daily Writing Jobs Report.

To sign up for the Daily Writing Jobs Writing Tips newsletter, just visit the blogs home page and fill out the form at the top of the page there.

Thanks for visiting our website and good luck with your writing career!

• Last Call for Free Freelance Writer Support
• Getting Established as a Freelance Writer
• Can I Write Full-Time Online?
• Finding Writing Jobs using Search Engines
• Yes, you can get paid to write online – but here’s your problem

Many writers are overworked and underpaid

Many new writers will try their hand at pay-per-performance type websites or bid-for-work freelance websites in hopes of making a living online as a writer, and there are some that manage to do this. However – these types of writing jobs don’t usually give writers the freedoms that they could be enjoying if they only took the time to establish themselves.

For instance – in the two aforementioned types of writing gigs – pay for performance and bid-for-work writing gigs, a writer using these venues is really spending a lot of time and effort on work that doesn’t pay very well. You could liken trying to make a living by using these writer’s resources as working a minimum-wage job; sure, you’re making some money, but you’re putting in a whole lot of effort for a minimal amount of money, sometimes as little as $3-$5 per hour.

Yes, you can try to argue that you’re working from home while making money in your spare time – but let’s contemplate a hypothetical situation here.

Established writers can make more money working for themselves

Let’s say that you write for a bid-for-work type freelance website; there is an exceptional amount of competition and the buyers that frequent these websites are, by and large, seeking out the best deal on writing services. So – you’re competing against writers who will write for $2 per 400 word article even while there’s commissions being taken out of every project…. and, some of these $2 article writers may even write better than you can – which really puts you at a disadvantage.

Now, maybe you’ve built up a solid reputation as a good or even excellent writer on a certain bid-for-work freelance website; in cases such as this, maybe you can grab $10 per 400 word article, less commission, on a regular basis. That’s all fine and dandy – but you’re still only making $7 or so per article. In reality, this should be a bottom-of-the-barrel rate for English speaking writers from industrialized countries such as the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia.

However – if you’re making decent money on a bid-for-work freelance website comparatively speaking, there’s no reason that you couldn’t make $15+ per 400 word article as a contract writer offering writing services from your own website. In addition to making more money from your own website – you’ll probably get paid much faster and you may even be able to get your full writing fee in advance, you get to keep more of your money per project and you can really work less hours to make the same amount of money that you made when you were finding writing work through the bid-for-work resource.

How to get established as a freelance writer

Getting established as an online writer is quite simple – you have to put in your time as a “grunt-writer”, but once you have a few satisfied clients in your back pocket, it’s time to expand your services and start offering them directly to the general public.

Preferably you should acquire a domain name and your own web hosting account as you have full control over your website, hosting and content. Setting up a website is super-simple with Wordpress and if you choose a web hosting provider like Hostgator, you can install Wordpress with a couple of clicks.

Consequently, if you decide to obtain hosting services through Hostgator and you use the link above, I’ll help you setup Wordpress on your website free of charge. You can contact me from the link on the main site towards the bottom of the page.

However, if you want to get started by offering your services as a freelance writer without cost, you can use Blogger; it won’t cost you a penny and I’ve seen where many writers have used this free blogging platform to offer writing services and share their writing portfolios without any cost attached other than a little bit of setup time.

Promoting your writing website

Now, I don’t expect you to understand the intricacies of SEO or know how to market your website to any great degree of effectiveness – but even with nearly zero skills you can still point targeted buyers to your writing website:

1. Use Email Signatures. When you’re conversing with other people via email, be sure that you include a link to your writing website.   This is especially effective when you’re conversing with existing clients that you’ve worked with through various write-for-pay-type websites.
2. Send your writing website to your clients. If the bid-for-work type website that you write for allows you to communicate directly with the buyer – absolutely include your website’s URL in the email or though the website’s contact form (if allowed by the website, of course).  If a buyer likes your work and they find your rates affordable, you’ll more than likely pick up a few direct clients which can help you to put more money in your pocket for each writing project.
3. Include your website’s URL with your writing work. If you write for a pay-for-performance type website and they allow either an “about the author” bio for each article or they allow you to create an “about the author” page – including your website’s URL here may very well net you some direct-paying clients.

Now, these are only a few ways that you can use to promote your writing website, but they’re sure-fire winners that don’t require any technical know-how.

Getting established is the key to making more money as a freelance writer

While there are some low-paying writing gigs that a new writer must take on initially as they enter the online writing field – you really don’t have to settle as a low-paid writer if you have moderate skills as a freelance writer or better.  Purchasing written content is a popular tactic that website owners use because the need for website content is very real; if you just take the time to establish yourself and then take the time to setup your own writing website – you can be on your way to better writing rates for less effort.

Questions about getting established as a writer?

If you have any questions about getting established as an online freelancer, please post your questions here.  I’ll do my best to answer any questions you have ASAP.

• When clients try to take advantage of writers
• How much do blogging gigs pay?
• Get Paid with No Writing Experience
• You’re stubborn, and that’s why you’re broke
• Importance of revising and proofing your writing projects (get more clients)