Writing for yourself equals CASH: Writing for self-promotion

If you’re a freelance writer, you’re in business. Writing for yourself – for your writing business – is a vital part of running your freelance writing business.

The more attention you pay to promoting yourself, more your name will become known; the more authoritative you will seem to your clients; and the more credibility you will have as a writer.

Patsi Krakoff nails it in this post “Core Message of this Blog: Writing Great Ezines & Blog”. She says:

When I started this blog (September 4, 2004), it was to have a platform to write content for an ebook, Secrets of Successful Ezines. Since then, I discovered the power of blogs for professionals who want to get their message out to people. Blogs or ezines, blogs AND ezines – it doesn’t matter if you do one or both, as long as at least one is a blog!

In the next phase of evolving an online business, I realized the importance of interesting, relevant, keyword-rich content: articles, information products such as special reports, tips, white papers, and ebooks.

Patsi knows that copywriting writing, writing for your own business, is vital to any business’s success, and as a freelance writer you’re in business. Ergo, you’ll have to tap your little fingers raw in promoting your business – by writing… writing for cash. (BTW: writing for self-promotion is a form of copywriting. Learn how to write copy: it will improve ALL the writing you do.)

You need to build your platform: when your name is known, you’re a recognized professional writer, and you can charge appropriately. You’re a price maker. If no one knows your name, you’re a price taker.

Writing for $5 an hour? That’s what YOU think you’re worth

Over the past year there’s been a fuss on freelance writers’ blogs about low payments for writers, and even a movement toward “minimum payments” for writers. I got a lot of amusement out of this. Who, precisely, was forcing these freelancers to write for tiny sums? Did someone hold a gun to their head?

The fact is, YOU set your writing fees, no one else. YOU decide whether you’ll write for $5 an hour or $150 an hour, no one else. YOU decide whether you’re a professional writer, or an inhabitant of a virtual sweatshop, no one else.

These blogging writers were tip-toeing in the right direction: I give them huge kudos for self-promotion, because it’s necessary. However, blogging about the low payments they were receiving was wrong-headed. It would have been much more effective if they started blogging about the value their writing services provided to their clients. It would have made more sense, too.

You add value to your clients’ businesses – you’re making money for them

As a freelance writer, you have a way with words. You add value to your clients’ businesses. In many cases (book publishing, magazines) your clients’ businesses would not even exist without writers.

When you recognize the value you provide, you will take a great pride in what you do, you will charge appropriately, and you will write for yourself for for cash – for self-promotion.

Writing for yourself equals cash. When you understand that, you will be amazed at how much more comfortable you feel promoting your writing services. And when you start promoting your writing services, you will make more money.

Resources

* “Seven Days To Easy Money: Copywriting Success, new 2007 edition” – discover how to create and promote a copywriting services business. All writers are copywriters – discover the skills you need;

* “You CAN Sell Your Writing Now: Marketing Skills For Writers” – how to market your writing so you make more money.

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