Networking Your Articles into More Work

Carson, one of our newest bloggers at FWJ had a great post today: Writing Talent and Success as a Freelancer. Carson discussed how writing talent will only get you so far and your ability to master the business end of freelance writing is what is going to make the difference between eating steak or bologna. I added the bologna part, but it’s an important point to consider. Writers define their success in different ways – first when they get published, then when they can live off their earnings. The question is what are you eating steak or bologna?

There are many talented writers who never get out of the lunchmeat stage because they don’t know how to roll their published work into more work. The idea is that once you finally get a coveted published clip under your belt you can write your ticket to success on your talent. The problem is if no one knows about you, if no one outside the publication’s audience sees your work you may not get too far.

It’s not enough to write an article and forward the clip to editors in a query anymore. Successful freelance writing is about building relationships with editors, clients, bloggers, readers and others in the business or your niche. Social networking, whether micro-blogging on Twitter or being active on Facebook, is an essential skill for writers.

The goals of networking your work are to build up your own buzz, connect with others in your field and show publications you write for that you can bring in readers, clicks, etc. You also want to become the person others think about when they are looking for writers to hire. I have gotten more work, speaking opportunities, etc. through people coming across my work via Twitter and Facebook and the relationships I’ve developed through these sites.

Writers have to go beyond opening a Twitter or Facebook account and just posting links to their articles. Successful social networking is like networking out in the real world – you have to build relationships and conversation around your work and the work of others. If you only post links to your items you quickly go the way of commercials in cyberspace – earning barely a glance. To network your articles:

• Seek out and follow those in your field, well-known and lesser-known alike. Everyone’s following ProBlogger and should he’s got fantastic stuff, but what about those other bloggers who aren’t huge cyber-stars? There are other sites, editors and publications that offer up great opportunities as well.
• Contribute to the conversation when you have something to contribute. Tweets or FB comments with “I agree.” or “LOL!” are fine, but if that’s 90 percent of your comments you start to look like that weird person at the meeting who hovers just on the outside of the group dying to get into the conversation by laughing when everyone else laughs and hrrumps when others do. You become forgettable.
• Include your article links, but read and forward other links as well. There’s a lot of great work out there, including yours. People will trust you have a good selection of retweet or article links when you forward other things worth reading as well as your own. They are also more likely to click your links.
• Add a catchy title where there is none. What makes people click? What is going to get editor’s interested in your post? An interesting headline or blurb. When I retweet I’ll add a little bit of what the article is about or one interesting point in the piece.
• Add a tweeted/FB response to a query letter. When relevant, remind the editor of a previous article they liked or responded to and roll that into your pitch to them.
• Send a link to an editor when it’s something you know they might like. Not a link to a competitor’s site though, you can imagine how well this would go over: “Hey Anna [Wintour], I thought you’d might like this article I wrote for Harper’s Bazaar.” I’m talking more about a tech article on kid apps for your iPhone-loving editor whose wife just had a baby.

Networking your work shouldn’t take a lot of time or effort, if you make it a part of your regular work cycle and you enjoy the relationship aspect of it, you’ll look forward to this little piece of freelance upkeep.

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5 Days, 5 Ways to Enhance Your Writing Skills

Advice is a good thing, helpful advice is even better and advice that you can use and implement over a period of time is the best. I love gathering helpful writing tips and tricks from others in the field, however, if you’re like me you’ll come across a list that has several great things you want to start doing or using and in the end you find yourself on new method overload. So over the next five days I’m going to ease you into five ways to shine up your writing skills.

Today’s tip: Editorial Calendar

If you’ve been in the business for a while or are a quick study, you’ll know the editorial calendar is one of the most written about writing tool out there. This horse has been beaten, dissected, examined, cloned and put in a jar of formaldehyde, but there is a reason why the editorial calendar gets so much attention – it works.

An editorial calendar is not just a calendar that lists assignment due dates, it is a roadmap to consistent, effective output. To have a helpful editorial calendar you need:

• To use it consistently. It’s a daily/weekly tracking tool, using it monthly defeats the purpose.
• To use what works for you. Don’t buy a giant wall calendar to record everything when your other important information is on your electronic calendar and vice versa.
• To plan more than due dates. Plan your brainstorming, interviewing, researching, writing and editing time as well.
• To pen, not pencil in freetime and rewards. You work hard, give yourself a break.
• To see when you’re booked. A day, week or month can fill up pretty fast when you plan out the time it takes to research, produce and edit quality work. Writing it down prevents overbooking.
• To use it as motivation. A full calendar means you’re blessed to be a working writer and you can track and manage where and with which clients you spend your time. A less than full calendar either means you are ahead of the game and have taken care of most of your duties or you have opportunities to turn those bare spots to work spots.

It’s inescapable, writers need an editorial calendar. It’s useless and inefficient to try to keep it all in your head and will cost you through hurried writing and missed deadlines. Writers who keep a consistent calendar allow those brain cells that were once used to keep track of all of your assignments to focus on creating impressive turns of phrase and producing heralded work. Give it a try for a month and tell me what you think!

How do you set up your editorial calendar? How has it evolved?

Writing Tip of the Day: Your productivity equation

By Terreece M. Clarke

Productivity is the name of the game when it comes to freelancing. We are always looking for a way to shave a significant amount of time off any project or task. Sometimes, in our haste to do it faster, we forget to do it better. We make boneheaded mistakes. We make mistakes in our blogs, articles, social networking posts, at-home tasks, etc., that we’d normally never make if we weren’t in such a hurry.

My productivity equation is equal parts time + efficiency + effectiveness.

It is completely unproductive to get it done quick, but have to waste time redoing something or spend time kicking yourself because of a goof. So, slow down and get it right. Proof that article one more time, check that Tweet before you send, don’t guess the oven is off – know it is. It’s a constant balance

What’s your productivity equation?

Break the election tension & boost your productivity

By Terreece M. Clarke

If you have not voted yet do not start reading this column. You are to immediately get yourself to a polling location.

Tension, excitement and curiosity is high around the country today as Americans vote and wait to hear the news of who will be the next president of the United States. Some of you are trying in vain to stay on task, but your finger keeps taking you to news sites to get updates and you’re having a hard time not following the updates on Twitter. There’s two ways to get past this time until the results begin to roll in and stay productive – volunteer with a campaign or organize your writing space.

Volunteering

It’s never too late to drop by a local campaign office and offer up your services. You may find yourself given the task of calling people to remind them of their polling location, helping at polling precincts to make the wait in line easier by handing out water and chatting people up. So how does all of this increase your writing productivity?

Sources and ideas. Writers have always sought the masses when it’s time to come up with new ideas and angles on articles and getting in there with the election crowd is no different. Where else can you find people of vastly different biographical backgrounds standing together in one place with nothing else to do, but talk to you? Fellow volunteers can also be a source of article inspiration or a resource that could be utilized at a later date.

Get Organized

Can you see your desk? Maybe I should be specific, can you see something besides the legs of your desk? If not it’s time to get with it. Take a day away from the laptop and organize your paperwork. Go through your ideas folder and if you don’t have one, make some up and separate them according to category. Update and fill out your editorial calendar. Compile your invoices and stubs – tax time will be here before you realize it. Sort through the tons of reading materials – magazines, trade pubs, etc. and keep only what you know you’ll need for references. Locate and catalogue your clips and test all of your pens getting rid of those that don’t work. Gather, organize and label your notes from interviews and research. Read more