Creativity: Pitch Like a Pro – 10 Tips (Part 1)

Creative Ideas

This coming week, we’re discussing creativity on the blog, and in the ezine.

If you’re not making the income you could be making, your creativity needs a boost. You’ll find this program useful – Turn Your Creativity Into Cash: Writers’ Creativity Secrets.

Creativity is hugely important when you’re pitching – it’s the difference between success and failure. If you’re a new writer, the concept of “pitching” may be new to you. Here are some definitions. A couple of the definitions you’ll find on that page are relevant, particularly this one… to pitch means: “to try to persuade someone to give you work, a business deal etc.”

Few writers pay sufficient attention to pitching. Think of it this way: pitching is IDEAS. Everyone needs ideas. Your job as a writer, is to be a fountain of ideas.

In my first year as a professional writer, I received a multi-book contract from MacDonald Futura, a major publisher of that time. Here’s why – I got creative and pitched my ideas. I sent out a novel proposal/ pitch a month. A couple of months into that process, I got editorial attention. A couple of months after that, I had my contract.

I’m fond of telling my writing students: if you do enough pitching, you’ll get whatever you want… often more than you ever expected.

My theory: enthusiasm sells YOU

Early in the 1990s, I got excited about computers. I read every magazine I could get my hands on. I read software manuals (which were the size of bricks at the time) from cover to cover.

Then I approached magazines. I wooed them with pitches. Within a few months, I had several regular writing gigs, contributing to magazines.

What’s not to like about someone who obviously LOVES your publication, and keeps sending you ideas? Enthusiasm sells – always. People want to work with people who are enthusiastic, and there’s no better way to show your enthusiasm than by pitching.

Many writers think of pitching solely as a way to sell articles or books. However, pitching is involved in most kinds of writing.

Now let’s look at ten tips to help you to pitch like a pro.

1. Become enthusiastic about your topic

It doesn’t matter what you’re pitching, enthusiasm sells. If you can’t get excited about what you want to pitch, build your enthusiasm first.

Often, your enthusiasm is low because you don’t know enough about the topic. Learn more. Talk to people. I’ve pitched and written about topics I had zero interest in, until I researched the topic enough to become interested in it, and then enthusiastic about it.

2. Create a schedule for your pitches

One idea is nothing. Five ideas get people interested in you, because you’re enthusiastic.

Therefore, when you’re pitching anything create a schedule for your pitches.

3. Start with the pitch (this is a basic marketing strategy)

Over on my “write a book” blog, I recommend that you sell your books/ ebooks while you’re writing them.

You need to pitch your book while you’re writing it. If you’re writing for a traditional publisher, NO ONE wants a completed book. They want ideas – they want you to pitch a book proposal, which is just a bunch of ideas. These ideas often bear little resemblance to the book for which you receive a contract.

Similarly, if you’re writing ebooks you need to pitch your books to readers while you’re writing them.

4. People hire people they know, so pitch

Pitching is auditioning. Some writers resent this. They believe that since they have writing credits, publications and clients should hire them, because they can write.

This is true. I got my first ghostwriting gigs from publishers who published my books. They knew I could write, because they knew my work. When they said “We want a book from _____ (someone or other), but he can’t write. Are you interested in working with him as a ghostwriter?”, I often said “Yes!”

However, you’ve still got to hustle if you’re a full-time writer. If you’re a pro, you can’t wait around for people to stumble across you.

You need to pitch.

5. Pitch every day – get creative

The more you pitch, the better the quality of the gigs you get, and the more gigs you get.

We ran a series of posts on making $500 a day from your writing.

In this article on making $500 a day, I said:

Few writers are natural extraverts. We choose a writing career because we love to work alone. If this sounds like you, you’ll need to shake yourself up and get out of your comfort zone. Become aggressive — contact top-paying publications and business and get highly-paid work.

In other words – pitch.

Initially, pitching may be a challenge, because you’re shy. However, sooner or later, that will wear off, because you do so much pitching. Familiarity will make you comfortable.

Just do it. Sooner or later, it will become easy, and FUN, I promise. ;-)

Watch for Part 2 of our article, for more tips on pitching.

This program, Turn Your Creativity Into Cash: Writers’ Creativity Secrets will help you with pitching.

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Flip It Magic: Add Anything You Like to Your Flipboard Magazines

You know I LOVE Flipboard Magazines, going so far as to write a guide for them.

Here’s an excellent video on how to add stuff to your Flipboard Magazines.

Enjoy… and use Magazines NOW. It makes content curation fabulously easy… and it’s fun, too.

Currently my Magazines guide is only available as part of Content Dynamite.

Writing for the Web? Go Beyond the Words

The Web is changing fast. Are you changing with it?

Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter…

Images, video and audio enhance content on the new Web. Do you know how to create them and use them to enhance your Web writing?

If you’re a newly minted Web writer, start by becoming a master at creating Web articles.

Then get experience as an audio-visual writer, and you’ll be streets ahead of other writers – you’ll out-pace the competition, and you can charge more.

Ready to master the new Web, and become a master content creator?

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Get Productive: Write Less, Use Your Content More

Hairdresser
Make the most of your clients’ content, and write less

The major theme in Content Dynamite is knowing content, and what you can do with it.

The Web is changing; a ocean of content flows onto the Web each day. If you look at your writing as discrete pieces, you’ll never make the income you could be making. We’ve talked about making a $500 a day writing plan, so if you haven’t done that, do that first.

Then think about how you can USE the content you create. Creating content takes time, so once you’ve created content, you need to figure out how you can do more with it.

Creating content for a client? Help him to make the most of it

In this post on SEO and on-going writing gigs, we talked about retainer clients. The easiest way to get retainer clients is to show them how you can help them to DO MORE with anything you create for them.

For example, Bunty, one of my copywriting students, was helping a hairdresser to set up her second salon. Bunty created a name for the business, a branding statement, several display ads, a bundle of social media services (Twitter, Facebook et al), as well as several direct mail letters.

Bunty’s no slouch, so she offered to create a two-page newsletter for the hairdresser as well. Each month, she chats with her client about what’s important for her clients to know right now, and snaps pics on her smartphone.

Then she creates the newsletter as a simple PDF. It’s emailed to the hairdresser’s clients. All up, Bunty says that each issue takes her around three hours. She charges a retainer of $1,780 a month, for the newsletter, writing ads for the local paper, and social media updates. Bunty’s making more than her hourly rate ($250 an hour) for the time she’s spending, and that $1,780 appears in her bank account on the first day of every month.

Here’s where repurposing comes in.

Bunty:

  • Takes dozens of images and posts them on Twitter and Instagram;

  • Uses newsletter content for social media, and vice versa;

  • Uses social media content and images in the ads she creates for the business.

When I asked her how much time she spends on the hairdresser’s account each month in total, Bunty estimated around five to six hours.

Write less, use your content more

Bunty’s making more than her hourly rate; and she’s paid on retainer, which means that she’s paid before she writes a single word.

I created Content Dynamite so that you could see some of the opportunities which are open to you right now – I hope that you can see some of the possibilities. The Web’s going beyond words, but words are always the foundation. Develop content mastery – you’ll write less, and earn more. ;-)

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$500 a Day in 2 Hours a Day (ezine)

Vintage reporter

This week’s theme is productivity. Sounds boring, doesn’t it? :-)

However, consistent productivity is the sure route to success as a writer. You must write consistently every day, so that $500 a day becomes the norm for you, and so that $1,000 days happen for you more often.

We live in amazing times. There’s a huge amount of Web content needed. It’s never been easier to get quality gigs.

Here’s a simple process:

  • Commit to getting quality clients, with our plan (below);

  • Be productive. Create a daily word count goal (start small, then aim for more words after a month of consistently meeting your goals);

  • Follow up with clients, so that you get several clients on retainer.

We discussed retainer clients here.

$500 a day in 2 Hours a Day

Want to make $500 a day in just 2 hours a day?

If you’re an experienced freelancer, you can set this goal, and achieve it – and more quickly than you imagine. Follow the $500 a day writing plan here. Then, once you’ve got clients, all you need to do is bump your fees up to $250 an hour.

Here’s a secret: once you get to a certain level in your writing, your clients will expect to pay you $200 and more an hour.

As I said in Devilish Writer, few writers understand that once you’re no longer a beginner, charging too little can cripple your writing career.

Follow the plan in the above article; it works. One of my students went from zero to $250 an hour in three months. The clients are out there. Educate them, and you can charge what you like.

I created the new Content Dynamite package so you can get the rates you want in today’s conditions. The Web is changing. (The prelaunch closes in 48 hours.)

Set a Daily Word Count Goal

Here’s my favorite productivity tool. It ensures that I get everything done each day. It’s a simple online timer. When you use a timer, you’ll find that you write more in less time. You don’t have time to dither, you just write. And please – for the sake of your peace of mind and sanity, learn to accept and love shitty first drafts. :-)

Then, master your To Do List.

Create your “Why am I doing this?” sticky note, and glue it onto your monitor – it’s easy to while away minutes and hours, doing nothing in particular. Always have an agenda.

How would your life change if you were making $500 a day in two hours? Think about it.

Fab Freelance Writing Ezine – stay up to date

The writing world is changing rapidly. Stay up to date with it, with Fab Freelance Writing Ezine. The ezine’s the companion to several of my writing blogs.

Join thousands of other writers who use the tips in the ezine to build lucrative writing careers and businesses.

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Productivity Magic: Shitty First Drafts Lead to $500 a Day

The Gap - suicide
The Gap at Watson’s Bay in Sydney, infamous for suicides. My own shitty first drafts tempted me to leap off The Gap into eternity many, many times

I’m currently working with a writing student we’ll call Bruno. He’s an amazing writer – very talented.

We’ve been working together for a couple of months. He’s fun, charming and enthusiastic, but getting material from him is a challenge. He assured me that he’s writing every day. What’s the hold up?

Finally I got him on Skype, and asked straight out – where’s your stuff?

“I’ve got to get it right first,” he said. “It’s horrible.”

“It’s supposed to be, Bruno,” I said gently. “That’s exactly what it’s supposed to be – shitty. Send it. We’ll fix it.”

Bruno hadn’t heard of shitty first drafts. It’s a term popularized by Anne Lamott in her book, Bird by Bird.

Everything you write is shitty at first. That’s the definition of a first draft – complete and utter crap.

If it’s not shitty, you’re not trying

I’m currently getting back to my writing my own Kindle ebooks, after spending the last 18 months ghostwriting novels. (Some writers won’t ghost. They want their name on their books. I on the other hand, am a happy little ghost – I don’t care whose name’s on the book, I just love to write.)

When I started writing over 30 years ago, writing fiction taught me all about shitty first drafts. Everything I wrote was HORRIBLE. I had to resist the temptation to leap off The Gap at Watson’s Bay. Tempting as it was, it wasn’t an option. Too many people depended on me.

So I ignored the horror of my shitty first drafts and kept writing… And I discovered that no matter how horrible a piece of writing is, you can FIX IT.

Learning this took several years, and many needless bouts of depression. Finally, I woke up to this: everything you write can be fixed, and if your first drafts aren’t shitty, you’re not trying.

Expect crap. Be DELIGHTED to write crap. You wrote, didn’t you? You got words on the computer screen which weren’t there before, and that’s a huge achievement. It’s the first step.

Bruno’s become a wonderful student. He sends me his material regularly. Here’s the thing: his crap is pretty good. With a little tidying, some new approaches and some little tricks he’s learning, he’s planned, and has achieved his first $500 day.

Get productive: write shitty first drafts

Once you accept the horror of shitty first drafts, you’ll become productive. You’ll accept that what you wrote is what you wrote, and you can fix it tomorrow.

Shitty first drafts are the road to your own $500 days.

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Get Productive: Time Your Writing, Make More Money

Online Timer

A simple, free and effective online timer: start using it today

Here’s a simple truth: if you don’t write it, you can’t sell it.

Every writer has challenges with productivity. Days and weeks can go by, during which you’re very busy, but… you don’t accomplish anything which helps you to achieve your ultimate goals as a writer.

A timer won’t eliminate every hassle you have to write and make money, but it can be your most powerful writing tool.

Set a timer for everything

We all have limited time to write.

If you’re a part-time writer, you’re constantly tired. You find it hard to carve out writing time. It’s essential that you make the most of the time you have.

Oddly enough, when you become a full-time writer, it’s just as hard to find the time to write what’s most important to you. You work on client projects, and at the end of six months, you realize that while exchanging time for dollars puts food on the table, you might as well be working a job. You haven’t created any residual income streams.

A timer helps you to use your time in the best way possible.

Set a timer for everything: writing, research, email, Facebook and Twitter, phone calls…

Work on your most important task first

Do you have goals for your writing? If you don’t, set a goal NOW. (One goal is fine.)

Then, at the start of your writing time each day, work on that goal-related task first, before you do anything else.

Set a timer. I like to work in 25 minute blocks. I don’t use the Pomodoro Technique as such. (You may find it helpful.) 25 minutes is short enough to eliminate procrastination. You can chain the 25-minute sessions together in blocks of two or three if you need to.

Writing for the Web? Go Beyond the Words

The Web is changing fast. Are you changing with it?

Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter…

Images, video and audio enhance content on the new Web. Do you know how to create them and use them to enhance your Web writing?

If you’re a newly minted Web writer, start by becoming a master at creating Web articles.

Then get experience as an audio-visual writer, and you’ll be streets ahead of other writers – you’ll out-pace the competition, and you can charge more.

Ready to master the new Web, and become a master content creator?

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Your $500 a Day Writing Plan: Act Now

Writing Plan
Often freelance writers spend more time planning their next dinner party or barbecue than they spend planning their writing career

Here’s a freelance writing secret: people will pay you the rates YOU choose to charge. If you want to make $500 a day and more, you’ll need to decide that that is how much money you want and need to earn each day. Then, set out to get it.

So, how much money do you want to earn?

It’s a good idea to discover how much other writers are charging. What are the “standard” rates? (Please remember there are no “standard” rates, you can charge what you like.) In Australia, the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance has established a national freelance rate at AUD $227 an hour; this is around the same amount in USD. You may not yet be ready to earn this amount, because you may not have the writing credits, or the experience. However, even if you’re a new writer, you can set your hourly rate at $80 an hour.

Now you’ve set your hourly rate, whether you earn this or not will depend on your ability to PLAN. Perhaps one in 100 writers actually plans his writing each month, each week, and each day. If you decide to plan, you will immediately put yourself in the top one per cent of writers.

Let’s imagine that you’ve decided to make $500 a day from your writing. Let’s also say that you’ve chosen to make $150 an hour. You have some writing experience, you have a website, and you’re keen.

1. Who will pay you $150 per hour?

Think about this carefully. The companies which will pay you $150 an hour have a need for writers.

You’re in luck. These days many companies have websites and perform some marketing activities, and they need writers. However, this may not be obvious to them. Chances are that they’ve never hired a creative before.

Therefore, in addition to deciding how much you want to make, and the kind of companies which can afford to pay you this amount, you’ll need to focus on a program of educating these clients.

Make a list of the kinds of companies who could pay you your hourly rate.

These companies could include: advertising and marketing agencies, companies which do a lot of business online, real estate and building companies, companies engaged in travel, insurance companies, and so on. There are a lot of companies which will pay for good communication skills.

2. How would you approach those companies?

You can send up smoke signals if you like. (Yes, I’m trying to be witty…;-)

How you approach these companies is up to you. I advise that you send out at least one email message to introduce yourself to every company you select.

However, before you do that, you need to make some preparations.

Remember we discussed education? People are people. They tend to see what’s in front of them. It’s up to you to educate your prospective clients in what you can do for them.

I suggest that you create a short report to educate your clients, and have it available on your website as a free download. This report is both an educational, and a sales tool.

3. Create a plan and put it into action

Now you know what you need to do, it’s time to create a plan, then put that plan into action. Nothing will work unless you do.

Making $500 a day is within your reach. Many writers make much more. Create YOUR writing plan, immediately.

In our new program, Content Dynamite, we discuss the new Web. If you want to make $200 an hour and more; it will give you all the ammunition you need to do that.

Writing for the Web? Go Beyond the Words

The Web is changing fast. Are you changing with it?

Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter…

Images, video and audio enhance content on the new Web. Do you know how to create them and use them to enhance your Web writing?

If you’re a newly minted Web writer, start by becoming a master at creating Web articles.

Then get experience as an audio-visual writer, and you’ll be streets ahead of other writers – you’ll out-pace the competition, and you can charge more.

Ready to master the new Web, and become a master content creator?

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How To Sell 200,000 Ebooks (Or Anything Else)

Writing

These days, writers have endless opportunities and power.

I wish I could clone myself… and I certainly wish I were 30 years younger. There are many, many things I could write if there were two or three of me.

It doesn’t matter where you are in your writing career, whether you’re a completely new writer, or you’ve been writing for years. In 2013 you can achieve ANYTHING.

This was brought home to me by two of my students.

One – Rick – has just been hired by a Web development company at triple his former salary. The other – Nicole – made $113,000 in her first year as a freelance copywriter.

I’m thrilled for both of them.

While chatting with them, and reading Russell Blake’s forum posting (he’s on track to sell 200,000 Kindle ebooks this year just 23 months after he started Kindle publication), I realized that four things contributed to their success.

1. Know what you want

Can you write down what you want in a short paragraph?

Rick knew what he wanted. He wrote down the amount of money he wanted to be paid each year, and the hours he wanted to work. He even wrote down that he wanted to be able to take the family dog to work with him.

Nicole wanted freedom from a stressful job. She knew that as a freelance copywriter, she could charge whatever she wanted to charge, so she quit her day job, after writing down how much money she wanted to make (six figures.)

Have you written down exactly what you want?

Write down how much money you want to make from your writing annually.

Remember Napoleon Hill: “what the mind can conceive, believe and achieve.” Here’s an excellent video of the great man.

2. Know what you’ll give in exchange for what you want

What will you give for what you want?

Write that down, as well.

3. Focus on writing

Whatever you want to do as a writer, you need to write every day.

As Russell says:

“Allocate time every day to write, and be disciplined. I suggest minimum one hour per day, or 1000 words. I actually ignore that and shoot for 5000–7000 a day when writing a novel, but that’s just my approach, and it’s not for everyone. My point is that you must be disciplined about your writing and develop that muscle.”

4. Remember that you have to sell what you write

By “sell” I don’t mean that you need to write and sell books; selling applies to all forms of writing. You need to promote your writing and writing skills. Usually, that means more writing, and it’s often writing you do for free.

Rick wrote a lot for free. He kept approaching companies, and wrote a lot of material for them, for free. I don’t recommend this as an approach to follow, if you don’t know precisely why you’re doing it.

Rick says that he wanted to be hired by one of five companies. He checked each company’s online portfolio, to discover which companies they worked with.

Then he wrote articles, video scripts, and sales pages for those companies. He made it plain to his prospective employers that he was prepared to WRITE, and that he COULD write.

Nicole wooed the companies with which she wanted to work as well. She stalked them on social media, and wrote freebies for them, without expectation. Like Rick, she “auditioned”. Nothing was too much trouble for her to do. She stepped in and wrote material in 24 hours which could have taken any other writer a week.

Nic told me: “I never looked on anything I wrote as writing for ‘free’. The companies knew what I wanted – I wanted copywriting projects. But I was new to them, so until they knew what I could do, why would they hire me?”

We’re living in amazing times. You can achieve anything you want to achieve as a writer – all you need to know is what you want. Then go ahead and get what you want.

Writing for the Web? Go Beyond the Words

The Web is changing fast. Are you changing with it?

Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter…

Images, video and audio enhance content on the new Web. Do you know how to create them and use them to enhance your Web writing?

If you’re a newly minted Web writer, start by becoming a master at creating Web articles.

Then get experience as an audio-visual writer, and you’ll be streets ahead of other writers – you’ll out-pace the competition, and you can charge more.

Ready to master the new Web, and become a master content creator?

photo credit: blakespot via photopin cc

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Web Writing 2.0: Succeeding On The New Web

Content Dynamite

The Web’s changed over the past couple of years. Are you taking advantage of all the new opportunities?

I’ve just completed Content Dynamite: Succeed As a Web Writer Today, and said:

“Write less, and earn more on the ever-expanding Web

I wrote Content Dynamite: Succeed As a Web Writer Today for you because the demands on website writers are changing — as are the demands on all writers.

In 2010, I focused on the text I wrote for the Web. I might tinker with the occasional photo or other image, but Web writing was all about writing webpages and articles.

In 2013, I’m writing more scripts, and am creating more presentations. So are other Web writers. You need to grab attention. Images, and audio-visual content do that.”

Please use these new tools to make more money… ;-)

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It’s Team Up Time Again: Get Ready to Succeed

Team Up with Angela

Just a short note. I’m excited, and I hope you will be, too.

It’s Team Up time again… Our chance to team up to achieve your writing dreams. Team Up is always fun, because I get to work with you one on one:

Team Up will be great for you if you need help with:

* Getting started as a writer — develop a writing-for-money career

* Writing career direction: doubling and tripling your income (quit your day job)

* Getting bigger clients — writing for large companies

* Ebook creation and sales — building your sales on the Kindle, and on the Web

* Get started on the Kindle platform: write short stories, novels, or nonfiction (includes formatting and uploading your ebooks)

* Getting traditionally published: create a book proposal, and get an agent

* Pro blogging — get clients on retailer

* Building your platform — kick your career up a notch or two

* Copywriting — get your first client, or get bigger clients

* Build motivation, and get rid of bad habits

* Magazine and/ website content writing

* Anything you like… :-)

Most of my products include coaching. In a sense, Team Up offers you power coaching.

What do you want to achieve? What’s holding you back?

Take a tiny step forward, into your future.

If you got in touch because you missed out last time; here’s your chance.

(Please be aware that Team Up may close early.)

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