Writing jobs: What’s In It For Me?

Want to have more writing jobs than you can handle?

Here’s all you need to know: think WIIFM (What’s In It For Me.)

Remembering to think like your buyers is difficult for writers, especially new writers, although established writers certainly aren’t immune from making the fundamental mistake of focusing on themselves and completely turning off buyers.

Here’s a little exercise for you.

Go to Google’s home page.

There’s not much to the page is there, aside from the search query field? Google’s home page is a prime example of WIIFM — it’s completely focused on the people who use Google, not on Google itself.

People want what they want, not what YOU want.

If you remember this one point, you’ll always have more writing jobs than you can handle.

Next week in Fab Freelance Writing Ezine, our theme is “Turn Your Writer’s Website into A Money Machine”. If you can remember WIIFM, you’ll be well on the way to doing that.

I encourage you to grab a sticky note and write WIIFM on it, then paste it onto your computer monitor, and remember it, by completing one simple daily exercise for the next three weeks. (After three weeks, it will be an ingrained habit.)

Here’s the exercise.

WIIFM exercise — daily for three weeks

1. Who do you want to write for? (Or for whom do you want to write, if you’re a grammar purist.)

Write down the name of one magazine, one website, one company… just choose ONE today.

2. Think about what this business wants, and how you can help them to get it.

(BTW, there’s no way you can do this exercise incorrectly, so relax. )

For example, let’s say you’d dearly love to write for X magazine. Grab the magazine, and flick through it. See all the ads? Magazines (and many websites) survive by selling advertising.

The editorial material (articles, photos etc) are just there to make the magazine a happy hunting ground for the advertisers so they can sell their products. You can learn a lot about the magazine and its readers from the advertising, so make sure you read the ads, as well as the articles.

Now just free write for 5 minutes. Start your free-writing session with this phrase: “This buyer wants_______”

Keep writing for five minutes, without lifting your fingers from the keyboard or your pen from the paper.

What you write is immaterial. What’s important about this exercise is that you’re changing your mental perspective. For five minutes per day, you’re thinking what a BUYER of your writing wants, rather than what you want.

The exercise is powerful. If you really want a fantastic writing career, do it. You’ll be amazed at the change in yourself, and the change in your fortunes if you do it.

“If You Want to See Your Name in Newsstand Magazines, You Can!”

Many writers start high-profile careers by writing for magazines.

Magazine writing is both easy and highly profitable. Once you’ve learned the techniques in Angela Booth’s new writing guide “Freelance Writing: Make Great Money Writing Articles For Magazines (In Your Spare Time)”, you’ll soon be writing for magazines which pay from $1 to $4 PER WORD.