Practical Tips for Creative Writers
Most writers get into the profession because they enjoy reading fiction and writing creatively, but picking up the additional business skill set needed to write for a living can be challenging. Here are seven tips to help you improve the business side of your writing.
Cultivate a Business Writing Mindset
If you’re going to write for a living, you need to start thinking of writing as a business rather than a hobby or a creative art. Think of yourself as a professional providing a skilled service, not an artist. (You can still be an artist on your own time, but when you’re writing for an employer or a client, you’re a hired pen.) Approach writing with a sense of urgency in the realization that it’s a job tied to your livelihood. Pursue your writing goals with the same discipline you would apply to a regular job.
Practice Professional Habits
Writing professionally means practicing professional habits. Set a routine writing schedule with time set aside just as it was work on the clock at a regular job. If you’re a freelancer, you will also need to schedule a certain amount of time per week to promote yourself. Similarly, if you’re looking for a full-time writing job, you can set aside time for job hunting. When prospecting or job hunting, you will meet the greatest success if you set target numbers for how many people you contact per day.
Develop a Business Plan for Your Writing Career
In addition to setting short-term job hunting goals, you can advance your writing career over the long term by developing a business plan for your writing career. Think about what type of writing you’d like to do, how many hours you’d like to work per week, and how much you’d like to make. Develop a plan to build the skills and make the connections and sales you’ll need to achieve your goals. To help you work towards your goals step-by-step, break them down into plans for shorter intervals such as ten years, five years, two years, one year, one quarter, one month, and one week.
Set Profitable Rates
In order to achieve your earnings goals as a writer, you must set your rates high enough to hit your targets. To estimate your target rates, take the amount you’d like to earn per year, convert it into a per-week equivalent, set how many hours you plan to work per week, and use these figures as a basis to calculate what you’ll need to earn per hour to earn as much as you want. This will help you determine what types of jobs you need to target and how much work you’ll need. Determining this will in turn help you estimate how much promotion you’ll need to do to get enough business.
Target Professional Markets
You will earn more revenue per hour if you target the right types of markets. Low-paying jobs for start-up blogs and the like are plentiful, but do not pay very much. You will earn more by focusing on professional markets requiring more specialized skill sets like business correspondence, copywriting, public relations writing, journalism, medical writing, technical writing, educational writing, or writing for government agencies.
Position Yourself in Your Market
Once you’ve picked one or more markets to target, you should think about how to position yourself in your market. What is your specialty? What services do you offer? What industries do you serve? What geographic locations do you serve? What makes you stand out from your competition? Asking these types of questions will help you pinpoint what you should emphasize in your promotional efforts.
Promote Yourself
After you’ve verbalized your promotional message, the next step is to start promoting yourself. You can use many promotional tools, both traditional and online, including word-of-mouth, referrals, public speaking, networking, blogging, social media, email marketing, and direct mail, among others. Whatever methods you use, you should focus on targeting the right market, building a contact list, engaging in promotional activity on a regular basis, and following up with hot leads.
Learn Sales Skills
Once you connect with a potential client, the key to capitalizing on the opportunity pivots on your sales skills. The key to effective sales is not so much being a born salesman but following the steps in the sales process. Two big steps to work on are how you set an appointment to discuss a writing project and how you conduct the appointment. These steps work best over the phone or in person, but can also be done by email or through other media.
It’s important to keep these steps separate so you don’t try to close a sale prematurely before you know what the person needs. Focus on scheduling the appointment first. Agree on a date and time, and follow up with a reminder.
Then during the appointment, focus on asking questions to determine what the person needs and what their project requires. You will find it much easier to close sales if you keep your focus on how you can help the other person with their writing project instead of getting distracted by your own sales anxiety. If you cultivate the mindset that your goal as a professional writer is to serve other people through your writing skills, your sales closing rate will increase significantly, and your writing business will grow.
