Making A

Living As
A
Freelance
Writer
A Working Writer Shares
41 Secrets to Earning a
Fantastic Living and
Enjoying
the Writing Life



By Tim Vandehey
Co-author of The Chimp
Who Loved Me
Making a Living As
A Freelance Writer
By Tim Vandehey

Pacific W him Press

 I was speaking with my agent one evening
and she told me that when she does writer's
conferences where would-be authors are
#1: allowed three minutes to pitch a book idea to
Quit her, she might hear 50-60 pitches and invite
myth each person to send her their work when it's
making!
ready. Know how many of those people
actually send her anything, even something
that sucks? About ten percent.
What does that say? To me, it says
that people are mythologizing the act of
writing; they want to imagine what it would
be like to be published, but don't want to put
in the daily work of sitting down and
grinding out pages of copy. And believe me,
some days it can be a grind. I'm a nonfiction
ghostwriter, and there are days I absolutely
DO NOT want to write a word. But I suck it
up and write anyway, because I'm under
contract and it's my job. That's the work of a
working writer, not sitting back sipping
herbal tea and waiting for inspiration to
strike.
One of the most important steps you
can take toward making a living with your
2 writing is dumping the mythological crap
 around the profession of writing. Writing is
probably the most mythologized profession
on earth. Ninety percent of the writers I
meet are totally focused on writing fiction
that they will have no idea what to do with
when it's doneif it ever gets done, which
most of it won't. They're in love with the
IDEA of being a writer, not the act of writing
as a job and a profession. Writing is work,
like anything else, if you want to make a
living at it.
If you do, then my best advice is this:
stop thinking about loving every word you
write, because you'll be paralyzed and be
unable to produce much. Instead, focus on
the writing LIFE as your goal. Aspire to live
the lifestyle of a writer: working for yourself,
working at home, living a life of the mind,
meeting interesting people you interview for
your work, learning about all manner of
subjects, and making a living doing what you
love. Forget the nonsense about "pure"
writing and so on. If you have a passion for
writing a certain kind of thing, great. Do it.
3 But do it daily and do it with a plan. If you
want to be a hobbyist, writing in your spare
 time while you work a full-time job doing
something else, this is not the blog for you.
There's nothing wrong with being a hobbyist
writer, but don't then pretend you appreciate
what it means to be a working professional
writer.
Once you bury the myth and start
focus on the life you want to lead, and quit
obsessing over being passionately in love
with every paragraph you write, it becomes a
lot easier to treat writing as a job. It's a really
cool, fascinating, sometimes exceptionally
creative job, but it's a job.

4
 One of the most damaging misconceptions I
encounter when I talk with fledging writers is
#2: that there is basically only one way to BE an
Get over
aspiring writer: to be a novelist. While
your novel.
there's nothing wrong with aspiring to write a
novel, if you want to be a working writer (by
that, I mean someone who earns 100% of
their income with writing or writing-related
activities such as editing, proofreading,
research and so on) it's a pretty dead end.
Yet the obsession with novel continues.
Everybody wants to write the Great American
Novel, get published, make a million, blah
blah blah.
Get over it. The odds are NOT in your
favor. If you want to make a good living
writing, you must make writing your dream
novel a part-time job at best while you write
other things to pay the bills.
This goes back to that common and
destructive self-delusion that being a writer
means being an artiste. Bullshit. The only
people who believe that are people who've
never written for a living, just like the only
5
people who believe that acting is glamorous
are the ones who've never gotten up at 4 a.m.
 for makeup, spent 6 hours standing around a
set waiting for a shot only to have the lights
repositioned, then done 23 takes of the same
five-second scene and found nothing left but
brown vegetables and scary dip at the craft
services table. Wow. Glamorous.
If you want to write your big novel,
great. But to be a working writer, allocate no
more than 25% of your writing time to it.
Spend the rest working on paying projects
that subsidize your novel, which very likely
won't pay you anything. A few days ago I had
a delightful meeting with a woman who's a
teacher by day and wants to write to satisfy
something inside her. She doesn't care about
publishing or making money; she just wants
to express herself. That's fantastic. But she
still has to work as a teacher to pay the bills,
to be able to afford to write her essays and get
her feet wet in the writing world.
You've got to earn a living somehow,
and writing is a marvelous way to do it.
Remember, you're writing so you can have
the writer's LIFE, not just so you can feel all

6 literary. Like any job, writing should be

about fueling a lifestyle.
 Think of your novel in the way that
people who own sailboats think about their
boats: expensive luxuries that they can only
afford because they do something else. The
attorney with a 35-foot Hunter might wish he
could earn $150,000 a year giving sailing
lessons so he could spend all his time on the
water, but he can't. Unless he wants to take a
90 percent cut in pay, he's got to work to pay
for his passion. Your novel is your passion.
Don't give up on it, but don't let it dominate
all your time. Write articles, press releases,
manuals or whatever you have to so you can
spend a little time as a great novelist.

7
 I've been a freelance writer for 15 years, and in
that time I've written virtually everything one
can write for pay. I did it back in 1994

#3: because I wanted to leave my advertising

Be agency job, move to a house in Laguna Beach,
versatile. California with my best buddy Anton, and
grow and smoke my own dope. Life was
good, in part because I didn't delude myself
that the only way I could allow myself to
make a living was to write short stories or
some other such nonsense.
To make a decent living as a writer,
especially at the start, you can't afford to be a
specialist. I've been doing this for a long
time, and because of my experience and the
contacts I've made, I can spend most of my
time ghostwriting nonfiction books for major
publishers like St. Martin's Press and
HarperCollins. But even now, I also do other
things: edit manuscripts, write book
proposals and even ghostwrite a blog. I do
these things for several reasons: I'm good at

8 them, I'm well paid for doing them, and I

enjoy them.
 But when you're getting started, learn
to write everything possible, because that's
how you'll stay afloat in the first few years.
There are hundreds of ways to get paid for
writing, as you can see when you look on
Internet job postings for freelance writers.
These are a few of the types of writing you
can earn income doing:

Magazine and newspaper articles
Short stories and essays published in
magazines
Ghostwriting books and articles
Advertising copy
Press releases
Speeches
Technical manuals
PowerPoint presentations
Website copy
Direct mail and e-mail copy
Video scripts
Textbooks
Dummies books (which pay about
$5,000 each but you have to pass their
9
test)
Video game scripts
 Graphic novels
Online product reviews
Being a guide for About.com
Contract blogging
Online articles
Corporate bios
Resume writing
Book and movie reviews
Copy for packaging

That's just scratching the surface, and
it doesn't include related work like editing,
proofreading, research, interviewing, and
consulting with people about writing or
publishing. Like it or not, we live in a culture
where fewer and fewer people seem to be able
to manage communicating in the written
word at precisely the same time that the need
for scripts, journalism and other forms of
writing is booming. For us, that means
opportunity.
Some of these types of writing may
leave you cold, and that's fine. But if you're
smart you'll pick three or four that you find

10 intriguing, where you have some relevant

experience and/or you have some contacts
 that could help you get work, and you'll try to
earn some income doing those types of
writing. Who knows, you might actually
enjoy it.
Some of the better sites for finding
freelance writing work:

online-writing-jobs.com
freelancewriting.com
mediabistro.com
writersweekly.com

11
 Every time I see my father these days and we
talk about my work, he says, "You should
#4:
raise your rates." He's an accountant. He
Know what
to charge. thinks that way.
But he has a point. Most writers do
not charge enough for what they do, and the
problem is especially bad when they're just
starting out freelance. There seems to be an
embarrassment or reluctance to ask for a
certain amount of money because they fear
they will lose the work. Here's how this sort
of thing usually progresses (I know because I
did it myself early in my career):

1. Get asked to bid on a project.
2. Fret over what to bid.
3. Decide what you'd like to make for
the project based on the hours you
know you'll work.
4. Worry that it's too much and that the
client will drop you like a hot skillet.
5. Submit a bid 25% lower than what
you wanted.

12 6. Get the gig and find out the client

 thought your price was really low.
7. Kick yourself for not asking for more
money like you should have and vow
never to do that again.
8. Next time, do it again.

Now, there certainly are instances
where asking for less than you would like in a
perfect world makes sense. One is when
you're new without a lot of material in your
portfolio. Then, it's not a terrible idea to take
a 20% cut in pay to build your network of
clients and accrue some more samples.
Another is when the economy stinks, like,
well, now. I've even found myself reducing
my fees a few times this year, in part because
if I didn't, I wouldn't be writing some books
where a publisher's advance wasn't enough to
even cover my minimum fee for writing a
manuscript.
But in general, it's not a good idea to
undercharge even to get the business.
Whether you charge by the hour and keep a
log of your hours per job or do what I have

13 always done and estimate the hours for a

project and then develop a flat fee from that
 estimate, have a set hourly rate and stick to
it. If you have enough experience and skill to
justify freelancing in the first place, you
should not be charging less than $50 an hour.
I charge $100 per hour and that's probably too
low.
Keep in mind, you're probably not
going to be working 40 hours a week unless
you're the world's best marketer. You might
work 25 hours a week and spend the rest of
the time marketing yourself, networking,
billing, and writing your own personal
projects that pay you in satisfaction. That
means if you charge $50 an hour, you'll gross
$1250 in a typical week$5,000 per month or
$60,000 in a year, not bad but certainly not
"rolling in it." Keep the volatile nature of
workflow in mind as you decide what to
charge.
Another important reason to charge
enough for your work is that your fee level
will pre-qualify your clientsthat is, you'll
attract a better caliber of clients by charging
more. You'll scare away the bottom feeders

14 who don't want to pay much to enslave you

and who will bitch about everything. Believe
 me, it's much, much better to have one
nonfiction book client paying you $15,000
than five Website clients each paying you
$3,000, because at least two of those clients
will be a pain in your ass. It's a law of nature.
Remember this:

What people pay for a service affects
their perception of its value.

If you charge more, clients will
automatically assume you're more valuable
and better at what you do. Trust me on this.
So in the future, try this process, which I have
found to be very rewarding:

1. Get a request for a bid.
2. Submit a full price bid based on your
hours plus a 20% profit margin.
3. Prepare that 20% of your prospective
clients will drop out because you're
too costly. Good riddance.
4. Your client says, "Wow, that's high,
but you must be worth it."

15 5. You get the gig and earn what you're

worth.
 Believe me, this happens to me all the
time. It's amazing how, once you set
expectations, the clients who really want to
work with you will find the money. Know
where you stand in the pecking order (novice,
moderately experienced, experienced) and
how good your relationships with your clients
are, and don't be afraid to ask for more. If
you don't do it, nobody's going to do it for
you.

16
 From time to time, I run into those annoying
folk who delude themselves into thinking that
they are going to make a living writing their
#5: great historical mystery novel while never
Remember, dirtying their hands writing anything as
its about impure as ad copy or technical manuals.
the
lifestyle. When I do, I beat them to death, dissolve
their bodies with lye, bury the remains in a
shallow grave and plow the earth with salt,
just to be safe.
I'm kidding. I only wish I could do
that. What I really do is patiently try to
explain to them (usually in vain, because they
don't want to hear it) that there is nothing
whorish about getting paid to write press
releases, speeches, movie reviews or anything
else in the commercial writing world. It's all
communication, and if it's not as ideologically
"pure" as their 800-page epic about a plucky
female detective who also happens to be a
vampire, it has the advantage of a) actually
generating income and b) being read by
somebody.
But more importantly, what I remind
17 them is that writing advertising, websites,
articles, graphic novels or anything else isn't
 just about the act of writing or getting paid to
be creativebecause sometimes, writing that
stuff isn't terribly creative. Sometimes, it's
like painting by numbers. That's just the
reality.
No, the key is that writing for a living
is also about living the Writer's Life. That life
is a really, really good thing. I've been doing
it for 15 years now and I wouldn't trade it for
anything. That's my tip for today: when
you're tempted to feel like you're "selling out"
because you're doing commercial writing and
not spending all your time slaving away on
your novel, remember that in part you're
writing that stuff to fuel the Writer's Life.
What is the Writer's Life? Well, from my
perspective, it's:

Working for yourself as an
independent contractor and having
the freedom to decide who you work
for and what you earn.
Working at home or anyplace else you
like.

18 Being creative and strategic and

intellectually challenged.
 Learning about all manner of subjects
(this year alone I've learned about
grizzly bears, extreme races and
equine chiropractic).
Working as many or as few hours as
you wish.
Enjoying the status that comes with
being a freelance writer, a profession
most people envy.
Having the free time to travel, take
classes, write personal projects or just
delight in doing nothing.
Having the freedom to relocate
wherever you wish, which I did this
year in moving my family to
Washington.
Writing off all your reading material
from your taxes, which is a singular
joy.
Teaching others about writing,
making a living and publishing.
Meeting some incredible people.

That's why working writers do it. It's

19 not just about the writing. It's about the

freedom to work, earn, live, move and relax as
 we wish. With the economy the way it is, I've
said, "I've never been so glad to be self-
employed in my entire life" about 1000 times
since mid-2008. That's true whether things
are booming or busting, because it's always
about freedom. That's what being a working
writer is about.

20
 Not to brag, but in the last four years I've
written, edited or "book doctored" about 30
nonfiction books. That's an insane workload,
#6: I know, but it's also what has enabled me to
Multi-task. make a very nice living and build a referral
base that continues to bring me a steady flow
of work even in the crappy economy. And
that brings me to what is probably one of the
five most important tips I'll share in this book:

You must work on more than one
project at a time. Period.

I run into writers who claim that they
can't do this. Bullshit. They won't do it. You
mean to tell me that you can't work on a
magazine article until you're finished writing
the press kit materials for another client?
This is why, as I will share in my upcoming
book, Write Like an Adman, spending some
time paying your dues at an advertising
agency is so incredibly valuable for a working

21 writer. You learn to put your creative brain

on multiple tracks, to handle four different
 projects because they're coming at you
simultaneously and you have no choice. You
learn not to treat writing and creative
thinking as a hothouse flower, but as an act of
intellectual resistance training: the more you
do it, the stronger and faster you get.
My advice in this regard is quite
simple. As soon as you can get a regular flow
of work going, be working simultaneously on
at least 3 projects at any one time. I work on
as many as three books at one time, and I
manage it by making sure that the projects
are at different stages. I might be deep in
research and interviews for Book #1, engaged
in hardcore chapter writing for Book #2, and
doing editor's revisions on Book #3, plus
maybe writing a book proposal on the side.
That keeps my cash flow a little more spread
out, which is a big deal. It also means as soon
as there's space in my queue, I can say "Yes" to
the next project.
Another way to do this is to multi-task
with projects of different scopessomething
small, something medium and something

22 BIG. So you might work concurrently on a

major print advertising campaign, a press
 release and a product slogan, because that's
manageable. But you wouldn't want to take
on two big ad campaigns at the same time or
you'd be working 70 hours a week and your
quality of work and life would suffer.

23
 The last writer's group I belonged to was at
Cal State Fullerton in 1985, when I was a
college junior. It was a short fiction class and

#7: we all had to write at least three stories

Avoid during the semester. I think I managed to
writers write two. Since then, my best estimate is
groups.
that in 15 years of freelancing, first as an ad
and web copywriter and then as a ghostwriter,
I've written about two million words. So
much for the idea that workshops make you
more productive.
If you want to develop the ability to
crank out great writing fast on a deadline
(which is the most important skill for any
working writer, irrespective of talent, which is
beyond your control), then don't join a
writer's group. By and large, writer's groups
are for wannabes, people who buy into the
myth of being a writer. Instead, spend your
time writing or reading, which are the two
ways you'll learn your craft.
"But what if I need the support?"

24 That's one of the most common objections I

hear when I tell people to steer clear of
 writing clubs. It's bullshit. Look, if you're
going to make a living writing every day,
you're not going to have a cheering section at
hand to massage your delicate widdle ego.
You're going to have to write on your own, so
you may as well get used to it now.
"But what about feedback?" That's the
other complaint. You really think you're
going to get useful feedback from a bunch of
amateurs? You're not. Here's what you're
going to get:

If you're writing nonfiction or
something other than fiction, you're
going to get perplexed looks, because
90% of writer's group members are
dreamy, clueless would-be novelists
who don't even acknowledge that
there's any sort of "real" writing other
than derivative mystery, horror or
fantasy fiction.
You'll get nice, positive comments
even about your worst drivel because
the group members don't want to hurt

25 anyone's feelings. Yippee.

You'll get incorrect criticism about
 character, plot, dialogue, etc., because
you're soliciting advice from amateurs
who have probably never been
published.

What do you do if you want feedback? Write
something and submit it to a magazine or
newspaper (most online mags and blogs don't
have the professional standing to provide
really good editorial feedback, though there
are exceptions). Ask the editor for some
quick feedbackas brutal and honest as
possible. That way, you're getting advice from
a pro on how to truly make your writing
better.
If you want support, get a dog. Or try
Facebook. But don't waste your evenings in
writer's circles. Real writers don't let friends
join them.

26

Gatekeepers are individuals or companies
who have the ability to connect you to
#8: numerous writing jobs: literary agents,
Find advertising agencies, temporary agencies, PR
gatekeepers. firms, magazine and newspaper editors, etc.
These are people who sit at the neck of an
ongoing stream of writing needs coming
down the pipeline, from print ads and press
releases to articles and books. If you don't
have relationships with at least three solid
gatekeepers, do everything you can in the
next year to establish them. They will change
your writing career.
It's a very simple matter of math.
Let's say your goal is to gross $5,000 a month
as a freelance ad copywriter, a respectable
$60,000 annual income. Your average fee for
a project is $500, so you need to land 10
projects per month on average to make your
goal. This figure will fluctuate, so it's best to
average it out over a whole year rather than
freak if you only get 8 projects in one month.
If you have to pursue each of those 10 projects
27 individually, you might spend 20 hours a
month just making calls, sending out e-mails,
 writing bids and sending invoices.
But if you have an established,
trusting relationship with an ad agency that
loves your work, you might land 4 of those
jobs through them. They find the leads, call
and ask, "Are you available?" and already
know your rate so there's no bidding. Then,
let's say a magazine editor you work with
regularly hands you 2 assignments. That's 6
jobs down. You only need to corral 4 more to
make your goaland if some of those 6 pay
you more than your average, maybe you can
max out at 8 projects this month. That's more
time to work, network, and enjoy your writing
lifestyle.
There's another great reason to make
contact with gatekeepers: ACCESS. I can't
call an editor at a major New York publisher
and pitch them on using me to ghostwrite
their next big book. My agent can. I don't
have access to the marketing department at
NBC to find out if they need copy for a new
website. But the advertising shop I've been
working with for ten years does. Gatekeepers

28 get you work from sources you'd never find

on your own.

So how do you find and keep
gatekeepers? This is my simple, five-step
plan:

1. Go to eventswriting and publishing
conferences, advertising tradeshows,
etc.
2. Have cool business cards, talk to
people and hand them out.
3. Ask people, "What do you need from a
go-to writer and how can I provide it?"
4. Provide it.
5. Repeat.

Gatekeeper relationships are built on trust
and professionalism. Meet people, be a pro,
and find out how you can help them solve
their problems, not what they can do for you.
If you prove yourself, you'll end up with more
work than you can stand.

29
 Now, I'll confess that I violate this one. My
website sucks. No fault of the designer, a
brilliant guy here in the Seattle area named

#9: Paul Moment; his work is amazing and if you

Have a want an incredible site, Google him.
great My website sucks because it's six years
website.
old and hearkens back to the days when I
wrote primarily ad copy and edited a
branding magazine. I don't do that stuff
anymore. But I don't have a website that talks
about me as a ghostwriter and collaborator at
all. The reason is simple: I don't need one. I
get all my work through relationships and
referrals, so there's no urgency to spend
thousands on a new site. Sue me.
But for most freelancers, marketing
their skills and making a good living means
having a good website. Forget Flash and all
the geegaws and doodads; they're expensive
and you ain't got the money. Plus, they're
pointless. Here are Tim's tips on creating a
great website for your writing career:

30
1. Go to GoDaddy.com NOW and grab
 your name as a Web address. If it's
taken, grab it with a hyphen. If it's
taken with a hyphen, then grab your
name with the word "writer" tacked
onto the end.
2. If you don't know a good Web
designer or have a good referral
source, try xemion.com. Be sure to
view samples of everyone's work.
3. The most important qualities for your
site are a) Clarity, b) Ease of getting
information and contacting you, and
c) A sense of brand personality in the
design. Clarity means not cluttering
up the site with either design crap or
complex navigation. Keep it clean and
simple: an About Me section, a list of
services, a Portfolio with files that can
be downloaded as PDFs, a
Testimonials or References page, and a
Contact page. As for the brand
personality part, you're not a jar of
pasta sauce. You're a person. You
have a Personal Brand (I wrote a book

31 about this, so I know). Your site

should reflect that personality
 whether you're humorous, intense,
into classical music, into paintball or
whatever.
4. Spend a few hundred bucks on some
original photos of yourself, shot
against a white background.
5. Make sure your site is Web 2.0
compliant, meaning it links into the
interactive world of Facebook, Twitter,
blogging and so forth. Allow visitors
to sign up for a Twitter feed if you
have one, or join your Facebook fan
club. If you have the time to blog,
maybe build a blog into your site.
Make sure you give visitors a way to
sign up for your e-mail list.
6. Don't pay more than $2,500 for all this
work. Anyone who charges more than
that, especially since you're writing
the copy, is ripping you off. You're not
doing Flash, streaming video or an
immersive world, for pity's sake.
7. Keep the copy sincere, brief, sharp and
smart. Don't get ironic and don't get

32 flowery.
8. Make sure your site is built on a CMS,
 or Content Management System, so
you can easily update content yourself
over time.
9. Print your Web address on everything,
from business cards to your e-mail
signature.

In three to five months, you can have an easily
updated marketing tool that makes you look
like a real pro. And that will get you more
work.

33
 I run into a lot of frustrated novelists, short
story writers and essayists who lament their
inability to get a publishing deal. So many

#10: still cling to the outdated idea that they will

Self- write their great literary work, find a big New
publish York publisher who recognizes their genius,
your book.
cash in a huge advance and become a rich
celebrity author along the lines of a Michael
Chabon or Rebecca Wells. But since they
have no idea how to make this dream come
true, they spend years laboring over a project
that never approaches fruition.
If this is you, stop. The publishing
world doesn't work this way anymore, if it
ever did. These days, publishers are hurting.
They're taking fewer risks and supporting
their authors even less than before. At the
same time, the book market is absolutely
glutted with self-published works and books
from small presses, vanity presses and so-
called "entrepreneurial publishers" who share
the costs with their authors (more on those

34 later). Today, if you want to make a living

writing a book-length work, your best bet is
 to self-publish your own work and start
selling it and gaining readers in your own
community.
The Internet has made this easier than
ever. For a fantastic, comprehensive review
of self-publishing, the article at
reviews.cnet.com/self-publishing is a great
place to start. Beyond that, companies like
Lulu.com, Xlibris.com, CreateSpace.com and
AuthorHouse.com allow you to publish via
"print on demand," the best thing to happen
to authors since the advance check. POD
means that you upload your finished book
and cover to the POD company's website,
then a copy is only printed when someone
orders your book online. It's printed and
shipped, and you get a check each month. So
you don't have to pay to print 2,500 books
and then store them in your garage. If you
want to order 50 books for a speaking
engagement, you can. It's awesome.
You can also self-publish the more
traditional way if you like. My good friend
Andrea Patten did this in 2004 with her

35 wonderful childrearing manual What Kids

Need to Succeed
 (whatkidsneedtosucceed.wordpress.com).
She hired an excellent designer to create a
book that looks as good as anything from a
New York house and she's been very creative
in marketing the book. She hasn't gotten rich
from it, but she's consistently sold copies for
six years.
Self-publishing frees you from trying
to get an agent, dealing with contracts and all
the other muddle that takes time away from
writing and selling. Plus, you have a product.
You can promote yourself locally, get local
bookstores to carry it, and start earning
income from your work.
And one more thing most new
authors don't know: there's no rule that says
you can't self-publish, sell the daylights out of
your book for a year, then flip it to a New
York publisher having proven that you have a
saleable talent. If you can sell 5,000 copies of
your book in a year, you can cut a deal with a
publisher that will make it all worthwhile.

36
 One of the biggest issues for any self-
employed person is cash flow. Whether
you're a lawyer, artist or writer, if you work
#11: for yourself you become accustomed to the
Stagger "feast or famine" dynamic. That is, some
your months you close out two or three clients and
projects.
get paid big bucks.
Other months, you're in mid-project
or case and you're rubbing two nickels
together in the hopes of starting a fire to
warm your cold apartment. It's a constant
battle, and one of the better ways to manage
it (you'll never defeat it unless you can create
your own cash flow via retainer arrangements
and/or self-owned projects that pay monthly,
which I'll get into later) is to practice what I
call "status staggering."
Status staggering works like this. Let's
say most of your writing work is in three
areas: advertising copy, newspaper articles
and ghostwritten blogs. In September, you
have 6 new projects coming down your
pipeline (good for you)a brochure, a radio
ad, a newspaper feature, a newspaper humor
37 piece, and two blog postings. As you're
getting ready to schedule and sign contracts
 for this upcoming work, you don't set things
up so they all begin and end at the same
time. Instead, you stagger them so two
projects are always in the main three phases
of work: First Draft, Revision, and Final Draft.
You might do it like this:

Sept. 3Start brochure and feature
Sept. 10Start radio spot and blog #1
Sept. 17Start humor piece and blog
#2

This schedule means that as you're starting
your humor piece and second blog project,
the brochure and newspaper feature are likely
to be approaching completion. So you're not
working like a dog because you dumped 6
projects on your plate at once, you're staying
stimulated as you toggle back and forth
between different demands, and most
important, you're able to bill consistently.
By Sept. 20 or so, your first group of
projects is probably done and you're
invoicing, even while you're doing revisions

38 on the second round. Then, when that

second round is done and you're billing,
 you're doing final revisions on the third, and
so on.
This approach enables you to spread
your cash flow out more evenly throughout
the year, so you can minimize those famine
periods.

39
 When I started out as a freelance ad
copywriter (and sometime graphic designer)
back in 1995, the thing that saved me from
#12: constant anxiety over my ability to pay the
Get bills was the fact that I had signed up three
retainer retainer clients not long after leaving my full-
clients.
time advertising job. I had a real estate
company, a husband and wife Realtor team,
and a financial planner from central
California.
Each paid me $1,000 per monthnot
a great deal of money now, but nearly 15 years
ago, the prospect of having a $3,000 monthly
income while working for myself...well, that
was a miracle.
As you're struggling to make a living
as a writer, one of the best steps you can take
is to sign clients to a retainer contract.
Essentially, retainer for a freelance writer
means the following:

Your client pays you a set fee every
month, rain or shine, giving you some
40 predictable income.
In return, the fee covers all your
 services each month, even if you far
exceed the number of hours that
would be covered by the retainer fee.
Your client gets cost certainty,
knowing that no matter how much
work they ask you to do on a given
project, your fee will be the same.

In my experience, retainer deals usually
average out to the benefit of both parties.
Sure, there will be some months where you
work like a dog and lose money on the deal,
but there will also be months where you don't
do much work at all. Over a year, your fee
will probably work out just about right.
There are also other ways to structure
a retainer so you're not taken advantage of:

You could provide a set amount of
work for the fee, such as six postings
per month if you're writing someone's
blog. If the client asks you to exceed
the limit, you can bill them for the
additional work.

41 You could have the retainer cover a

set number of hours per month.
 Beyond that threshold, you can bill
additionally.
You could designate that the retainer
covers only a certain type of service.
For example, if youre paid a retainer
by a newspaper to write a column,
then any feature articles or news
stories you write beyond that column
would be billable separately.

Getting retainer deals usually requires having
a high degree of trust between writer and
client. After all, you're essentially getting
married for a year, or whatever the term of
the contract is. I suggest not even proposing
a retainer deal until you have worked steadily
for a client for at least 12 months, and then
only with clients you have gotten to know
well and who trust you to deliver topnotch
work consistently.
If you have such clients, give them a
formal retainer proposal that lists the
monthly fee, what they will get for that fee,
how long the initial agreement will last, and

42 what the renewal and exit options are.

Typically, you can have a mutual option (you
 and your client must both agree to continue
the arrangement after the initial period ends),
or an expiration (the contract is dead after the
initial period and you must renegotiate a new
one). You can also sign a month-to-month
agreement, which is like a month-to-month
lease on an apartment: at the end of each
month, you or the client can end the retainer
for any reason. It's also smart to set the terms
of backing out of the agreement, usually 30
days notice in writing.
Retainers are a sweet deal if you're
looking for a base of reliable, predictable
income on top of your other writing jobs.
They can really give you some peace of mind.

43
 What in hell is NaNoWriMo? It's shorthand
for National Novel Writing Month, a fabulous
idea put forth by the people at
#13: NaNoWriMo.com. Back in 1999, these whack
Do jobs came up with the notion that plenty of
NaNoWriMo.
people had always wanted to write novels but
had been thwarted by procrastination, self-
criticism and the bullshit mythology that's
accreted around writing like coral polyps on a
reef.
Their idea: encourage people to write
a 50,000 word novel from November 1 to
November 30. No worries about quality, no
literary pretensions, just balls-to-the-wall
writing abandon. In 2007, about 100,000
certifiably insane writers participated in this
lunacy, and 15,000 of them actually finished
their novels.
Sure, a lot of the writing had the
subtlety and refinement of a bottle of Night
Train, but that's not the point. The point is
that thousands of people actually finished a
novel and learned to write and write fast. Just
44 as important, they formed an incredible
online (and offline) community to lend each
 other support. NaNoWriMo is like a big
family of really crazy people who get off on
writing a breakneck speed.
Why is this so important to making a
living as a writer? Because if you're going to
do it, one of the most important skills you can
develop is learning to write fast. Really fast.
The faster you write, the more work you can
take on. The more work you take on, the
more money you'll make. One of the reasons
I can write between six and eight books in a
single year is because I can research, organize
and write a 70,000-word nonfiction
manuscript in as little as ten weeks. I don't
like working that fast and I would rather have
more time, but if I need to do it, I can.
The only way to learn to write at a
supersonic pace is to write and write a lot.
Slowly, you'll learn to edit on the fly. You'll
learn what phrasing doesn't work and crop it
out of your mind before your fingers even hit
the keys. You'll see the sentences complete in
your mind before you write them. You'll
build up your creative muscles and stop

45 treating words like hothouse flowers. They're

not. They're blackberry vines (an apt
 metaphor here on Bainbridge Island, where
the blackberry brambles rule the world and
we are but their slaves): abundant, prickly,
and impossible to kill, each with a sweet
reward that comes only when you can avoid
the thorns.
Try NaNoWriMo. It will help you
move from a jogger to a sprinter in your
writing, and that will clear your path toward
being a truly professional writer who earns a
great living. Its also a total blast.

46
 I mentioned gatekeepers in an earlier tip, and
if you want to write or edit books, the most
important gatekeepers you can get to know
#14: are literary agents. I have working
Get to relationships with several agents and they
know have been phenomenal boons for my career.
literary
agents. The agents don't, for the most part, represent
me, but the authors I ghost for and
collaborate with.
Agents are conduits to the publishing
world and the wealth of interesting, high-
paying writing jobs that world contains.
The beautiful thing about having good
relationships with one or more agents is that
they will become sources of some of the most
desirable work a writer can get. The agents I
work with have brought me numerous jobs
ghosting or collaborating on books that have
already sold to publishers and which have
given me some of my best writing credits to
date. But knowing active, respected agents
can hook a writer up with a wide range of
other projects as well:

47 Book proposals
Editing and "book doctoring" jobs
 Writing jacket copy
PR and marketing copy for authors
Author website copy
Articles and speeches for published
authors

Once you establish yourself as a go-to writer
for an agent, you'll usually find yourself kept
pretty busy with work that looks wonderful
on your resume and in your portfolio.
Of course, you've got to a) meet
agents and b) get them to like and trust you.
The first one isn't so hard: go to writing and
publishing conferences like Book Expo
America. There, agents often hold round
tables and "pitch sessions," in which would-be
authors can pitch their projects in a sort of
literary speed dating. Hand out your business
cards, be direct about the fact that you're
looking for work, invite the agent to view
your website to see your areas of expertise,
and say thank you.
The second, making an agent love
you, should be no mystery. Be professional,

48 reliable and quick and produce great work on

deadline. There are a lot of unreliable flakes
 in the publishing world and if you prove
yourself not to be one of them, you'll earn the
admirationand businessof enough agents
to help you earn a very nice income.

49
 I have a confession to make: I loathe the "bid
for the job" websites like Elance.com.
LOATHE them. Sure, I suppose they produce
#15: work for people or they wouldn't have been
Know your around so long, but here's the problem with
freelance them: it's a race to the bottom.
websites.
I've already written about the
importance of charging enough for your
writing work, and bid websites completely
undermine that. If you're not familiar with
the way sites like Elance work, here's a quick
and sarcastic primer:

1. Someone posts a freelance job on the
site.
2. You've registered on the site and get
an alert that the job is in your area of
skill.
3. You go to the job listing and see the
20 other people who have posted,
including the "bid" they have posted,
telling the prospective client they will
do the job for that much.
50 4. If you want the job, you have a
decision to make: do you undercut the
 lowest bid, or post a fair price? It
would be lovely to think that the
writer with the best blend of a high-
value bid and a great resum would
get the gig, but it rarely works that
way. Wal-Mart ain't the world's
biggest retailer by accident. The low
price usually wins.
5. If you do post a low bid, you can still
be undercut by someone else going
lower. Odds are the lowest bid that
doesn't get into the realm of pure
fantasy ($40 to write a 16-page
corporate brochure) wins.

It should be obvious what sucks about this
model. First of all, you're probably going to
end up having to take a lot less than your
normal hourly rate to get the work. Second,
you're probably going to be underbid by some
dumbass who has no idea what good writing
is worth. Third, Elance acts as an
intermediary between you and your client
and takes a commission from what you get

51 paid, which is bullshit. In any case, bid sites

are a bad deal. Stay away from them unless
 you're comfortable charging $10 an hour.
What freelance sites do I
recommend? The straight-up job listing sites
are best, because the people who run the
good ones are meticulous about finding the
best listings from all over the Web. I don't hit
them often anymore (though I did earlier in
2009 when the recession was really wicked for
publishing and I was trying to buy a house),
but these are the ones I like:

Online Writing Jobs (www.online-
writing-jobs.com)Pure listings, but
categorized into just about every
grouping freelancers could ever want.
It also includes editing jobs, which
makes me happy, since editing is a
great way to supplement your living.
Craigs List (www.craigslist.org)The
classifieds site to end all classifieds
sites is also a great place to find
updated writing and editing gigs.
Writers Weekly
(www.writersweekly.com)I've been

52 checking in with this weekly e-zine for

years. Go to the "Paying Markets and
 Jobs" page for the latest jobs.

Steer clear of Elance, Guru.com and
any other sites that ask you to bid for work. If
you have decent networking skills, do quality
work and charge a fair fee, you don't need
them.

53
 Boy, have I seen my share of these since I
started writing books in 2002. Because I have
made so many connections thanks to
#16: superstar pals like Chicken Soup for the Soul
Avoid the co-creator Mark Victor Hansen and A-list
percentage agent Jillian Manus, I've been approached by
of sales
deal. about 3 would-be authors for every one book
I've writtenwhich is to say, I've turned
down a lot of proposed projects.
One of the main reasons I've done this
is because a decent percentage of these non-
clients (and a huge percentage of people who
post "book writer wanted" ads online) are
only offering a percentage of the book's sales
as payment.
That's a rip-off for you, the writer,
about ninety-nine percent of the time.
Clients will offer such a "deal" because a) they
think you're dumb enough to take it; b)
they're deluding themselves about how their
book will sell; c) they don't have any cash to
pay a writer; or d) all of the above. It may
seem tempting to take on such projects
54 because you want to have a book credit and
because it's easy to talk yourself into believing
 that said book will sell enough copies to pay
you what you're worth.
Reality check: It won't. If someone
wants you to write a complete book without a
publishing deal in hand, it's virtually certain
that they are self-publishing. Now, self-
publishing doesn't mean that a book won't
sell many copies, but the average self-
publisher doesn't have a clue what they're
doing. They don't know about design,
marketing, distribution, PR or any of the
other parts of the book sales machine.
Often, a book is just a vanity project
and they think, like the restaurateur who
thinks he can just open for business and hang
out a sing and people will flock, that somehow
readers will find out about the book and buy
it in droves. Somehow is not a success
strategy.
I use this as a helpful, if harsh, rule of
thumb: if you're talking to a would-be book
client about her self-published book and she
insists that her marketing plan will sell 5,000
books (a very respectable showing), divide

55 that number by 10 and you'll get closer to the

actual number of copies the book will sell.
 Look at it this way: Let's say you
would normally charge $15,000 to write a
50,000-word manuscript. You agree to a
back-end, percentage of sales deal with an
author where you get 50% of the net sales
from each book (after the per-book cost of
editing, design, printing and shipping is
accounted for). The book will sell for $20, less
$5 of costs per book, so you're going to get
half of $15 or $7.50 per copy sold. For you to
break even based on your normal fee, the
book would have to sell 2,000 copies. That's
assuming that your author doesn't fudge the
costs, reports all sales to you and actually pays
you all the money you're due on time.
I'm not being negative here. I'm being
realistic based on long experience. Having a
book is the dream of many, many, many
people. Some of them will screw you either
because they don't know what they are doing
or because they're dishonest. Either way, you
lose. Percentage of sales deals are going to be
losers for you most of the time.
If you're tempted anyway, here are the

56 questions to ask before you say yes to

anything:

What's your marketing plan?
Where will you be selling the book?
Do you have any built-in markets such
as corporations or organizations?
How will you be distributing the
book?
What will be the sale price?
What will be the net from the sale?
How will you pay me and how often?
Can you pay me even a small advance?
Will we have a contract?

If any of the answers are unsatisfactory, take a
walk.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have
taken my first-ever back-end-only deal this
year. However, I did it with a legit publisher
and an author who is a marketing whiz, is on
TV and radio constantly, and who could sell
ice to Inuit. It was a calculated risk with a
high upside. But it's always a gamble. Know
when to fold 'em.

57
 Early in my freelance career, I didn't feel as
though I had the luxury of turning away any
business. I would say yes to every prospective
#17: client because I worried about getting enough
Know which work to pay my bills. As a result, I worked
clients to with some people and companies who were a
turn away.
real pain in the ass, including a furniture and
cabinet company that was the single most
joyless, stressed out, doom-and-gloom
organization I've ever seen. But as time went
along and I gained a strong network of happy
clients and became more confident that I
could always create or find more work, I
started turning away clients I didn't want to
work with.
I immediately found my working life
improving. I was working with fewer people
and companies that didn't pay me on time,
made unreasonable demands or gave me
useless feedback. I was working with fewer
assholes. I was spending less time on
pointless revisions and in meetings that
should never have been held (including the
58 time I was in the process of traveling 100
miles in rush hour traffic into Los Angeles for
 a meeting with the client of one of my ad
agency clientsan abusive company that
treated the agency like a dogwhen the CEO
called in mid-trip and canceled for the third
time that day, asking us to reschedule for the
next day; I refused). I had more time to enjoy
the writing life.
So one of the major keys to making a
great living as a writer and enjoying the life
has got to be knowing which prospective
clients to send packing. Give them a referral,
say you're too busy, lie through your teeth if it
makes you feel better, but once you get to a
certain point in your career, you must start
saying "No." What are the reasons to turn
down clients? These are the best ones I've
run across:

The person or company seems
unpleasant and rude
They balk at your fair fee quote
They don't respect what you do
They won't work with you to come up
with a fair deadline

59 They have a reputation for screwing

writers
 They won't pay you an advance

Basically, if someone I talk to about writing a
book is evasive, tries to "sell" me on how
wonderful the deal will be for me, won't shut
up or is egotistical, I'll generally pass on the
work. I'll do it politely, because there's no
excuse for being rude even if someone is rude
to you. I'll provide a referral if they ask for
one, but then I'll quietly alert the person I'm
referring them to and let them know what the
prospect is like, so they can make up their
own mind. But I'm always firm about it. No
means no.
You'll never regret this. If your gut
says the prospective client is going to waste
your time, drive you crazy, call you at home at
6 a.m. and act like they own you, shine them
on. You'll make more money and have more
fun doing work for people who appreciate the
value of your writing, respect your time and
who you genuinely like.

60
 Early in your career, you will probably need to
find a decent percentage of your work
through the online freelance writing websites
#18: I've talked about before. That's typical. But
Network, as you progress and (hopefully) develop a
network, longer and longer list of happy clients, you're
network.
likely to need to rely on online ads and other
sources less and less. Eventually, you'll get
about 95% of your work from relationships
and the sooner you can get to that point, the
better. That's why you've got to network until
you're blue in the face.
Networking isn't easy for some
writers. Ours is a solitary profession and
some writershow can I say this politely?
let their social skills slip until they're basically
mumbling trolls with bad haircuts. Was that
diplomatic enough? Simply put, we get
comfortable behind our keyboards and get
nervous about stepping out into a social
situation to shake hands and give out
business cards. Fine, but if you're going to
make a nice living and enjoy the writing
lifestyle, remember the good reasons to
network:
61
 1. It's fun to get out from behind your
keyboard and meet people, you
hermit.
2. It's free marketing.
3. It works.
4. Relationships are the absolute best
way to get incredible new business.

The word "relationships" is key. That's all
networking is: meeting people, letting them
get to know you, coming through for them
when they need you, turning them into fans
who want you to do well and letting that
affinity for you drive them to refer you to new
clients. So you don't have to go out and be a
slick self-marketer. A perpetual self-
promoter is about as popular as a fart in
church.
Just get into environments where
people who are in the industry for which you
want to write will be gathering, hand out
business cards, give people a brief (very brief)
precis of who you are and what you do, and
for God's sake, do a lot of listening.
Of course, what makes networking
62 into an income-generating monster is
 performance. Once you meet an ad agency
creative director, when she calls you to write
a radio campaign, you've got to deliver
incredible work right on the deadline. Just
like a plumber, chiropractor or pet sitter,
you're a problem-solver, only you do it with
words instead of an adjustable pipe wrench.
If you come through repeatedly for your
contacts, they will love you and refer you to
others.
I can attest to this personally. These
days, I have relationships with four literary
agents, about 30 past authors, a dozen editors
and several book designers, all of whom
constantly refer me potential projects or just
flat out bring me books that already have
publishers and need a ghostwriter. I turn
away work all the time because of this, and
because my network has talked me up so
positively, I have multiple authors who are
putting their projects on hold until my
schedule opens up so I can write their book
for them. That's not boasting. It's just an
illustration of how powerful a network can be.
How to network? Find out about the
63 events that relate to your favorite or most
 lucrative type of writing in your area. If
you're writing books, go to writer's
conferences, trade shows like Book Expo
America and publishing events. If you're
writing ad copy, attend meetings of your local
ad club and advertising awards. Search
Meetup.com for meetings of writers in your
region. And just go to social events like
symphony opening nights, charity auctions
and such so you can meet people who know
people.
I've landed five-figure books at events
that had nothing to do with writing just
because I met a guy who knew a CEO who
wanted to write his biography (ego, how do I
love thee, let me count the dollar signs?).
Try writer and media professional websites
like MediaBistro.com and of course,
Facebook. There are a million ways to
connect with people who can bring you
business. Just get out of your chair and make
it happen.

64
 When you juggle as many deadlines as I do
(to illustrate, as I write this I'm currently
handling final revisions for 5 books, writing 3
#19: others and writing one book proposal),
Get staying organized is EVERYTHING. If I
organized couldn't do it, I'd be dead. I'm a Mac user, so
with a
calendar. I can use Apple's awesome iCal application to
track all my phone calls, appointments and
deadlines. It's a godsend.
So today's secret is, if you want to
handle a heavy workload and make the
healthy income that comes with it, use some
sort of calendar/organizer tool. If you're a
Mac user, you probably already have iCal as
part of OS X. What, you don't use iCal? Do
you like pain? Do you LIKE missing deadlines
and flaking on phone appointments? If you
use a Mac, check out iCal. It will become
your best friend. If you're on a Windows
machine, Yahoo Calendar and Google
Calendar are the cream of the crop here.
They're free, they're Web-based so

65 you can access them from anywhere, and

they're rich in features. Yahoo Calendar
 integrates contacts and calendar better, while
Google Calendar has a much cleaner
interface, but they're both awesome.
Another site that I love is
RemembertheMilk.com, which is a task
management service that also comes in an
iPhone application. Hell, the name alone
makes it worth checking out.
There are a bunch of other free
services online like Todoist, Toodledo and
Voo2do (the fact that these names exist at all
is testimony to how few good URLs are out
there anymore), so test drive a bunch and
find what works best for you. These are the
qualities I find most lifesaving in a calendar
application:

An interface that lets me create new
events quickly
Multiple options for alerting me that I
have an upcoming event, including e-
mail, IM and text message, with audio
Month, week and day views

What makes Apple's iCal application so great
66 is that if you get your mail through the Mac
 Mail application and a message comes in that
says, "How about we have a phone call at
10:30 Thursday morning?", you can create a
new iCal event with a mouse click. That
rules.
Anyway, if you're going to be a pro,
get pro tools. An online or computer-based
calendar is one of them. It will save your
sanity and probably your ass more than once.

67
 Financial management is not the forte for
most writers, nor was it mine when I started
freelancing. Heck, it's still notsomething
#20: that, as the son of an accountant, I don't get.
Track Nevertheless, I've had to learn to manage
payments payment and billing data as a matter of
on a
spreadsheet. survival. When you're busy, it's so incredibly
easy to lose track of who owes you what,
who's been billed already and so on. Keeping
track of your billing and cash flow is vital. As
my pal and author Jen Groover says, numbers
are the lifeblood of your business.
Here's what I recommend: learn to
use Microsoft Excel or Apple Numbers (if you
don't already) and set up a very basic
spreadsheet to track all your billings. Here
are the columns you need to have:

Client name
Project (since you could be doing
several projects for the same client)
The deadline
Your fee for the project
Terms (50% in advance, 33% in
68 advance, 33% on delivery, 30 days net,
 etc.)
First invoice sent (date, invoice
number, amount)
Second invoice sent (date, invoice
number, amount)
Additional invoices sent, which could
happen if you were doing a large
project like a book (date, invoice
number, amount)
Invoices paid, yes or no? If paid,
what date did you receive a check?
The unpaid balance still due for the
job

I have found that this last column, the
unpaid balance, is extremely valuable. As I
wrote in a past column, succeeding as a
freelancer in, in part, about managing your
cash flow. When you know how much
money you're likely to have coming in over
the next 30 to 45 days, it takes a lot of stress
off. Plus, when you track all this you're
much less likely to forget to bill a client when
a job is done. You'll also avoid double-
billing, which can make clients mad and
69 embarrass the hell out of you.
 My other trick with this goes back to
the posting about using online calendars.
For each project that has a payment-on-
delivery aspect (such as a book editing job
where you might receive 1/3 of your money
when you deliver the finished first draft),
create a calendar alert for the day after the
deadline to remind you to bill the client. Of
course, you have to deliver at the deadline,
but that's up to you.
Billing in a timely manner, not double
billing and knowing the terms of each job is
part of your value proposition for your
clients. Especially if you're dealing with ad
agencies, PR firms, corporate
communications departments or periodicals,
they are accustomed to working with
vendors who bill quickly and accurately.
Doing so adds a professional patina to your
relationship, and that's only going to benefit
you.

70
 An important point about making a living in
the writing biz is don't waste time. Common
sense, no? Well, no, at least not for a lot of
#21: people. One of the things I like best about
Minimize the freelance writing life is that I have the
meetings. power to assert my own control over how,
when and if I meet with people. That's the
key: having a choice about meetings.
All too often in corporate life, people
substitute meetings for actual productivity.
But when you're a self-employed writer
working at home, you have a lot more
discretion over whether or not you meet with
someone in person, via phone, via online
meeting application like Webex, or not at all.
In general, I'll make the claim that at
least 50% of the meetings in my business are
completely unnecessary for me to do my job.
They're primarily for the client to develop a
comfort level with me or feel like they're in
control. Many times a meeting is worse than
a waste: I recently paid for my own travel to
meet with a publisher about a book only to
discover later that there had been a prior
meeting with the author to discuss issues
71 with the book that I wasn't privy to, and no
 one told me about it. So not only did I waste
my money traveling but I didn't get the
information I really needed.
My policy regarding 80% of meetings
is very simple: I'll meet in person if it's a last
resort. It's kind of like technical support
escalating a trouble ticket for your new PC,
with me asking a series of binary "if, then"
questions:

Do we really need to meet?
If yes, then can we exchange the
information via e-mail?
If not, can we do a phone call?
If not, can you come to me for a
meeting?
If not, then what's the best way for
me to optimize my time in coming to
you?

In other words, if I have to travel to your city,
can I also schedule meetings with other
authors, clients, agents or editors? Can I do
research for another project? Or can I bring
my family and after our meeting, have a
72 mini-vacation? Most of the time, e-mail and
 phone calls are enough. I've written at least
half a dozen books for people whom I've
never met face to face.
The other twenty percent of
meetings? Those are the ones I enjoy and
want to take: meetings in downtown Seattle
where I can just walk on and off the ferry
from Bainbridge Island, meetings with people
whose company I really enjoy, or just
meetings that get me out of the house for a
while, which is refreshing. There's nothing
inherently wrong with meetings. They're
kind of like bees or politicians: they're
beneficial as long as you don't let them get
out of control.

73
 Most writers write too much. Meaning, they
use too many words. I can be a verbose
bugger, but this post will be an example of

#22: concision. That is, use the words you need

Be concise. and no more. Precise language, short
sentences. Yes, I'm violating grammar rules
by writing fragments, but here's the thing
about grammar rules: screw em. You want
rules, teach English 101 at a community
college. You want to get more work, read.
I see it in book proposals, ad copy,
manuscripts, speeches, you name itwriters
using 40 words to say what could be said in
ten. It's a competitive disadvantage for you
as a writer. Ad copy is always short; the
average radio commercial has gone from 60
seconds to 30 seconds to 15 seconds. Book
proposals need to be brief out of respect for a
busy editor's time. Books are still a long-
form product, but even they are getting
shorter, and having a contractual
commitment to deliver 70,000 words is no
excuse for having 20,000 of them be as
pointless as male nipples.
74
 Why are most writers not concise?
Because they don't practice it. Look at it this
way: one of the goals of great writing craft
(not to be confused with storytelling, which
is a different animal; I'm talking about the
technical practice of any kind of writing)
should always be stripping down the idea to
the minimum number of exquisitely precise
words. It should become a game and a
personal challenge: "In how few words can I
say this while still having an impact on my
reader?" There is such a thing as too brief as
well as too sloppy.
Here's an example:

Wordy and sloppy:
"He pushed the boy, who fell backward to
the floor and began to cry."

Too brief and lacking in reader connection:
"He pushed the boy down."

Just right:
"He threw the boy to the floor, where he
wept."
75
 In the first phrase, "who fell
backward" is completely unnecessary, as is
"began to." Much can be implied by the
skillful writer. The second phrase strips
away all the power by reducing things to
subject, predicate and modifier. The just-
right option adds more propulsive verbs and
creates more of a picture in fewer words.
Learning to write well but sparsely
will give you an edge in landing all kinds of
work, because editors, publishers, creative
directors and other decision makers admire
the professionalism and craft of someone
who can say what needs to be said quickly
and precisely. It makes their jobs easier. Just
don't charge by the word.

76
 Unless you've spent the last five years in a
crater on the moon, you know that Facebook
is the hottest thing to hit the Web since

#23: porn. Well, and of course there's Twitter,

Facebook too. The two sites seem to be joined at the
yourself. hip in a kind of social networking/marketing
pas de deux, but that's because they work.
You can use social networking sites to grow
your writing business and attract work you
might not have pursued otherwise.
Very simply, starting a Facebook page
is an instant way to connect with hundreds of
people and increase your personal contacts. I
was resistant to it because I don't have the
time to cruise around and play Mafia Wars,
but when a client finally nagged me (thank
you, Jen!) into Facebooking myself, I
reconnected with friends as far back as the
sixth grade. By starting a personal Facebook
page, you can let the world know you're a
freelance writer. This is valuable because
there is a great deal of prestige associated
with being a professional writer. It's one of

77 those things most people wish they could do

 but can't or won't.
An even better way to leverage
Facebook is to start a page for your writing
business. This lets you baldly promote
yourself and invite people to become fans.
You can link to online portfolio samples, use
the page as a temporary business website
until you get your site launched, and
probably find a lot of key contacts in your
field of writing who have pages of their own
(Facebook has more than 200 million users,
not all of them active).
Into this category also falls Twitter,
the 140-character micro-blogging annoyance
that, despite my best efforts, has become
HUGE. Why don't I like it? Well, because I
think it's inane to share every move of your
day with strangers. I've long thought of
launching my own spinoff: Shitter, a micro-
blog where you could only post while on the
toilet. Seems just as useful; at least you could
type sitting down.
But Twitter is a big deal because it's
mobile and quick and easy. Now, writing is
not an especially mobile profession, so it's
78 not as useful for a writer as for, say, a
 trucker. But if you're in the field doing
research, a few Tweets here and there can
grab some attention. I still prefer Facebook,
but since Twitter is free, why not?
Finally, get on LinkedIn. It's a
professional networking site more aimed at
businesspeople and business. People come
there all the time trying to connect with
colleagues and find vendors. Again, it's free
and there's zero downside to having a
presence on the top social networking sites.
If nothing else, you show the world that
you're a savvy pro who knows what the latest
tools are. Branding, baby, branding.

79
 One of the biggest mistakes inexperienced
writers make when they try to settle into a
regular paying writing routine is shoehorning

#24: themselves into a regimen that doesnt work

Work the for them. They feel that if the last pro writer
way you they spoke to said she works for seven hours
like.
straight every morning from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.,
they must do the same thing. But if that's
not the way your mind works or the way your
family works, your writing ain't gonna work,
either.
Writing is hard enough when you're
not stifling your creativity by forcing yourself
to work in ways that you're not comfortable
with. Ideally, you should feel free to work in
the manner that makes writing most
enjoyable; at the very least, you should work
in such a way that you can be productive,
even if you're not leaping for joy at every
keystroke.
For example, I have a short attention
span and I like to multi-track my mind. I
don't say multi-task because it's actually
80
quite rare that people can do more than one
thing at a time. But at any one time on a
 workday, I might be writing three different
chapters in three different books, reading
two online newspapers, writing this blog and
doing research. That's just how I roll. I'm a
"burst worker": I might write for two hours in
the morning, take four hours off, come back
and work until dinner, then get my kids to
bed and write from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. It all
depends on how I feel.
I might also jump between my
detached office, my kitchen and a
coffeehouse in the village of Winslow (where
I'm writing this now) or Seattle. I love
working in coffeehouses because I like being
surrounded by people and activity. It works
for me, though it might not work for
everyone. The point is, I have a chaotic
routine that enables me to be productive
even when I'm overwhelmed and tired. You
need to develop the same thing. It might
involve the window of time you write, where
you write, the surrounding environment or
other factors I'm not even thinking about,
but it doesn't matter so long as it works for
81
you.
There is no right way to write. There
 is only the routine and environment that
empowers you to think clearly, be creative
and get a lot of work done fast. Figure out
what that is and go for it.

82
 Dan Poynter, the self-publishing guru, says
that "No one should die with a book inside
them." Apart from the fact that that sounds

#25: more like a problem for the emergency room

Blog for a than a writer's studio, most people do die
book. with their book inside them. Finishing a
book-length manuscript, not lack of talent or
a good idea, is the principal barrier to most
folks living their dream of completing a
book. Life gets in the way: work sucks up
hours, kids need attention, and so on and so
on. Then, as Pink Floyd says, ten years have
got behind you and still no book.
But your faithful writing pro has a
solution for you. It's one that I'm actually
using myself to complete my first book.
Whoa, you say. First book? Tim, you've
written something like 30 books! Yes, but
they were all for other people. At press time,
I have never written a book of my own. I'm
too busy being paid by other people to write
theirs. I'm a whore but a proud whore.
Anyway, I'm finally working on my

83 own book. I wrote it by blogging regularly.

 The trouble with the prospect of writing a
book is that you feel like you're committed to
crashing out massive bricks of text at a time:
3,000 words, 5,000 words. It's horribly
intimidating. You think, "My God, there's no
way I can get all that writing done with my
schedule." So you don't do it, again and
again. Repeat. No book.
Instead, write a blog about the
subject of your book! Go to LiveJournal or
WordPress or Blogger and start a blog. Then
write it at least three times per week. Each
post can be a chapter or part of a chapter, but
the point is you're writing without feeling the
pressure to crank out massive knots of text.
Let's do the math: if you write three times per
week at 500 words per post on average, in
one month you'll have written 6,000 words.
In a year, that's 70,000 words, a full-length
book. Voila.
It's kind of like sneaking up on your
own writing goal. You can do this with
essays, tips, anecdotes, even fiction.
The main thing is to trick yourself
into writing a small amount regularly so that
84 over time, you build up a large amount of
 copy. It's like walking three miles for
exercise three times per week: over a year,
you can lose 15 pounds by doing nothing
else. It's the slow accumulation model for
writing a book, and it can be your salvation if
part of your personal goal set has always been
to get something between covers besides
your significant other.
Now, go start a blog already.

85
 Anyone who's been in this business long
enough and made a decent living will tell you
exactly what I'm about to tell you: when you

#26: build up a strong base of people who will

Cultivate refer you clients, you can do away with every
your other kind of marketing you've ever done.
referral
Direct e-mailing to ad agencies? Gone. Ads
garden.
in local publications? Gone. Surfing the
freelance job boards? Adios. When you
reach critical mass, you'll have all the
business you can handle and then some
without lifting a finger or spending a dime to
get your name out there.
But, of course, you've got to plant and
till that garden of referral heirloom tomatoes,
don't you? That's the hard part. However,
it's SO worth it. To illustrate, I gross an
average of about $120,000 a year as a
ghostwriter and book doctor, and I don't do a
single bit of marketing. My website even
stinks. It's more out of date than M.C.
Hammer's balloon pants, and it stays that
way because I don't need it. I have agents,
86
book designers, editor and past authors
referring me new work all the time.
 Now, I don't always take the work;
sometimes I'm too busy, sometimes it's not a
good fit, and sometimes the author can't
afford me. But I get enough work via referral
to keep me buried and constantly busyyes,
even in this economy. And I'm going to
share you with you the ways to make that
happen for yourself.

1. Do stellar work and be ultra-
dependable. Nothing is more
important than this. If you want
gold-plated referrals, you need to
become a savior to your clients in
whatever area of writing you're
practicing. Deliver superb copy to an
ad agency that's on a tight and
desperate deadline. Pinch-hit for an
editor with an article to get done,
space to fill and a reporter who
decided to vanish to Las Vegas. Step
in to rescue a book whose first
ghostwriter has botched the job,
saving the bacon (and commission) of
87
both the agent and author. To reach
savior status, you've got to produce
 awesome work, hit your deadlines,
come through under pressure and be
cool about it.
2. Network. Get out and meet people,
and I don't mean on Facebook. It's all
well and good to have a Facebook and
Twitter presence, but I don't have a
Twitter account at all and barely use
Facebook, and I'm always busy.
Nothing is a substitute for face-to-
face contact. Go to conferences,
meetings, awards dinners and so on,
and hand out cards. Let people know
what you do. Writing is a scarce skill
these days and there is always a need
for it. You want 100 people walking
the avenues of commerce and media
who know you and can recommend
you.
3. Ask for the business. Let people
know you're always open to referrals
and would love it if they would send
you some business when it comes
along.
88
4. Reward the ones who refer you great
clients. I always send people who
 refer me a great new author or project
a gift like an Amazon gift card, or I
pay them a finder's fee. It's important
to say "Thank you" whenever you can,
because aside from making your
solid-gold referral sources more likely
to keep bringing you business, it's
simply the courteous, right thing to
do.

It's demanding to maintain the level of
quality and dependability that lead to such a
strong referral stream. But man, is it
rewarding.

89
 When you have a roster of clients who trust
and like you, youre not bound to wait
passively for them to send you work. Be

#27: entrepreneurial and propose projects

Propose proactively. There is no better way to
your own generate work on your own terms.
projects.
Of course, you cant do this with
every kind of writing. Ad copywriting, for
example, is client driven for the ad agency, so
until theres a client who need something
written you can propose all the work you like
and get nowhere. But what about proposing
that an agency update its website? Or
pitching articles or a column to a local
magazine or newspaper? Or suggesting that
a past ghosting or editing client write
another book? Ive done all of those in my
career and more than once they have paid off
with paying work.
This is a judgment call above all else.
Several factors should be in place before you
can take the initiative like this:

90

 You should have several clients
with whom you have a
longstanding, trusting
relationship that allows you to
pitch work without seeming
completely self-serving.
You should know the clients well
enough to know their needs and
perhaps even anticipate them
before they dofor example, an
ad agency whose website is
hopelessly out of date.
You should be skilled in creating a
formal proposal that breaks down
your proposed project according
to deliverables, time and cost.
You should be savvy enough to
know when its the right time to
pitch a new book or a newspaper
column and when such a proposal
will get you nothing more than
the stink-eye and a quick exit.

It can take a few years to reverse the work
91
creation flow from client to vendor. That can
really only happen when your clients perceive
 you as an equal. But when you get to the
point where that dynamic comes into play,
you can really boost your business when
things get slow. Just feel out a client about
a possible project that might meet their
needs while being tailor-made for you.

92
 Case in point, this book. The ability to write,
design and self-publish your own e-books is
probably the most democratic event in

#28: publishing since Gutenberg came along.

Publish Thanks to the effect of e-readers like the
e-books. Amazon Kindle and the iPad, millions more
e-books are flying off the digital shelves,
making them a viable earning and
promotional option for writers who want to
earn a little extra money and get their work
seen by a larger audience.
Why would you publish an e-book?
Because you have information that you feel
would be valuable to an audience in a
nonfiction format. Because you have a novel
or collection of short stories that youd love
to get out. Because you have a bunch of
articles or columns that are gathering dust
and youd love to do something with them.
In any of these situations, an e-book offers a
simple, low-cost, low-barrier way to get a
book out.
Now, an e-book isnt going to make

93 you rich or get you on the talk show circuit.

Selling 1,000 copies of your e-book could be
considered a monstrous success. But so
 what? If youre self-publishing in any format,
youre not expecting to make a killing unless
youre seriously delusional. But lets say that
youve been writing columns on local
environmental issues for your city newspaper
for three years and that you own the reprint
rights to those columns (check with the
publication to make sure). You take your 30
best columns, lay them out in InDesign,
Quark, Apples Pages, or even Microsoft
Word, slap a cover on the thing and call it
good. Then you toss up a quick e-storefront
to sell the thing for $12 and promote it via
your e-mail list, local city blogs, friends e-
mail and Facebook pages and so on.
Lets say you sell 400 copies in a year.
Thats $4,800 of almost pure profit, because
your costs were almost zero. Plus, youve
reached a new group of readers and gotten
your name noticed, which is probably going
to create new opportunities for you. You
might even find a publisher interested in
putting out your e-book as a print book.
Heres the simple, quick and dirty
94
way to get started:

 Write or compile your material.
Yeah, thats a no brainer. But e-
books dont have to be long;
30,000 words is plenty.
Lay the book out in one of the
software applications I listed
above. Make the pages look like
something you see in a book
youd get at Borders. Make sure
you have page numbers, etc. If
youre struggling, ask a designer
friend to help you. Its worth a
few hundred bucks not to have
your author photo be bald from
tearing out your hair.
Grab a free stock photo from
MorgueFile.com and create your
cover with a clear title and a
clever subtitle. Hint: list books
that contain 20 ways to do
something (or 50 ways to make a
living writing, ahem) are always
popular.
Edit and proofread. Have at least
95
three others proof your book for
you. Please. Typos are a disease
 and proofreading is the cure.
Finally, convert your file to a PDF,
something you can often do
within your word processing or
layout program. This allows
people to download and read it
with software like Acrobat or
Apples Preview but not alter it.

And just like that, you have an e-book.
When its time to sell, you can also turn to
sites like ClickBank, PayLoadz and
Commission Junction (cj.com) to sell direct
or build affiliate relationships with other
high-traffic websites that will sell your e-
book for a cut of the revenue. There are a lot
of ways to hack the self-publishing quandary,
and e-books are one of the best.




96
 Writers dont just write, you know. Were
experts in communication. That means if
you have some experience under your belt,

#29: youre probably better qualified than most to

Work as supplement your income working as a
an editor. freelance editor when youre not writing.
There are plenty of people out there
who need editors to hone and polish their
work: self-publishing authors, authors with
publishing deals who want their manuscript
checked before sending it to their editors,
newspapers and magazines, businesses with
internal marketing departments, even
entrepreneurs with business plans who dont
have a lot of skill in polishing written
material. Theres a lot of work for a decent
editor.
Over the years, especially since 2004
when I really started writing books at steady
pace, Ive worn the editors hat many times.
Its a wonderful way to get some work thats
less intense and time-consuming than
writing a book but just as high-demand.

97 There are basically three types of work that

 fall under the broad headline of editing:

1. Content editing. This is what book
editors do and probably what youre
most familiar with. Content editors
take a written piece (a manuscript,
short story, article or even a script)
and edit it for clarity, voice, flow,
structure, consistency, usage
basically everything. For a typical job
content editing a full-length
manuscript, Ill charge from $7,500 to
$12,000, depending on the condition
of the work.
2. Book doctoring. This is content
editing on steroids. Book doctoring
involves everything content editing
does, but also rewriting substantial
text and often researching and adding
a great deal of new material to a
manuscript that needs a lot of help. I
charge as much as $15,000 to book
doctor a piece.
3. Proofreading. Doubtless youre
familiar with proofreading, going
98 through a manuscript to check for
 errors in spelling, grammar,
punctuation, style and usage. If youre
going to take on professional proofing
work, youd better know the proper
use of its and its, and a split infinitive
from passive voice. I dont proofread
because its not my specialty, but
there is a lot of work to be had.

You can find editing gigs in the same places
you find freelance writing jobs, on the more
popular freelance websites or on Craigs List.
If youre looking to increase your income
while sticking with your strong skill set, I
suggest you consider pursuing editing work.
You might even enjoy it.

99
 One of the most common questions I hear is,
How do you charge for your work? And
while Im always tempted to answer, By the

#30: migraine, in actuality I dont charge the way

Charge a you might think. Many writers I know track
flat rate. their hours and keep time sheets and all that
hullaballoo (Ive always wanted to use that
word in a sentence), but I think thats a waste
of time. Instead, I recommend that if youre
working with clients who accept this, charge
a flat rate for your work.
That means that instead of tallying
your hours and charging by the hour, you
estimate the number of hours you think a job
will take youincluding three rounds of
revisionsand then multiply that by your
hourly rate, which shouldnt be less than $50
per hour, even if youre just starting out.
You can only do this if you have a
clear notion of how long a job is going to take
you. If you estimate that writing a corporate
brochure will take ten hours and it takes you
twenty, youre losing money. Thats the main
100
risk with billing this way: underestimating
your hours. But if youve been writing in
 your field for a while, you probably have a
good idea how long jobs take given a
reasonable number of revisions. So my
advice is, write out an hours sheet for tpical
jobs (that you show to no one), add 20% for a
profit margin to those hours, and turn those
hours into your flat rates for various work.
There are many advantages to doing
this:

You dont waste time tracking
your hours, which is a major pain
in the ass.
You can get paid for some of your
work in advance by having a 50%
up front, 50% on completion
policy.
If youre very efficient and get the
work done faster than expected,
or have few revisions, you have
two very nice choices. Either you
can rebate the client some money
on the back end of the project,
which makes you look like a hero,
101
or keep mum about the speed of
your work and pocket the extra
 profit.
Your clients get greater cost
predictability than they would get
from someone whos charging by
the hour.
You dont have to submit hours
sheets at the end of a job and
possibly have them challenged.
Your income is more predictable,
always very nice for a freelancer.

If youre not comfortable doing this,
especially when youre just starting out, thats
fine. But as you gain more and more
experience, you will get a sense of just how
long that brochure, radio commercial,
business plan, editing job or speech is going
to take you to write and edit. When you do,
its smart to charge flat rates.
One caveat: do NOT print out and
provide rate sheets to your clients for
typical jobs. There are no typical jobs.
Every project is different and every client falls
somewhere on the service continuum
102
between A dream to deal with and I would
rather be waterboarded than call you. Rate
 sheets lock you into a certain price that may
not reflect the time and trouble the job will
require. Have hours in mind, but keep them
between your ears. Assess the job, assess the
client, assess the challenge, then make the
professional call. Remember, most of the
time you are worth what you say you are
worth.

103
 Another key strategy for making a living as a
freelancer, especially in the early years before
youve hit that critical mass of past clients

#31: who send you constant referrals, is to write

Write other kinds of material, particularly those in
business demand by people who have money but no
plans.
writing skills. One of these is the business
plan.
Ive written a few business plans in
my day and while they are not the most
exciting writing youll ever do, they can
certainly be lucrative. Lets face it,
sometimes you gotta write what you gotta
write to pay the bills and give you the time to
bust out that great novel. Business plan work
for freelancers typically consists of taking
deadly boring business histories, executive
summaries and marketing information and
turning them into something with punch and
zing while still sounding professional.
Basically, youre adding spice to a dish that
still needs to taste like steak. No potential
investor or partner wants to be bored into
104
doing business with someone, so this sort of
work is in fairly constant demand.
Some freelancers insist that they cant
 write business plans because they dont have
a business background. Bosh. No one is
asking you to put together a supply chain
management strategy or, God forbid, to do
the financials for the company. But what you
can do is take all the specialized information
the client gives you and make it palatable and
comprehensible to non-MBAs. If you have a
marketing or advertising background, you
may also be able to add some ideas to the
companys marketing plan.
The other area of the business plan
where a writer can add value is in research.
Writers are researchers by nature; we have to
be in order to learn what we need to know to
write articles, books, speeches or websites.
Business plan clients will often need you to
find case studies, statistics, opinion poll
figures, sales data or economic numbers to
support their business model or justify the
money theyre asking for. You should be
good at this if you want to write business
105 plans. If youre not accustomed to trolling
the Internet for reliable (thats critical)
sources of data, then business plans may not
be a great idea.
 So, what should you expect if you
decide to go after business plans as part of
your portfolio?

One-time clients. Most
entrepreneurs wont be needing
another business plan anytime soon.
Referrals, if youre good.
Entrepreneurs always know other
entrepreneurs.
Time pressure. Typically, business
plans are an ASAP sort of thing.
Good pay. You could demand as
much as $10,000 for a plan once you
have a few under your belt that have
achieved their goal: to get funding for
their companies. One tip: dont
accept a percentage of the money the
company raises in lieu of a fee. If they
dont get their $$, youre screwed.
Youll learn something about
business, which is always useful.
106 After all, a successful writer is an
entrepreneurial writer.
 Do you know what a full bleed is? How
about a sans-serif font? A Pantone? You
should, at least if you intend to make any

#32: part of your living writing for advertising or

Get some marketing agencies. These are basic terms
design used in printing and graphic design, referring
knowledge.
to a color or image that goes to the edge of a
page, a typeface with those little tabs and
curlicues on it, and a category of pre-
formulated colors, respectively.
If you have any intention of working
with the advertising or marketing industries,
it makes sense to learn some design basics.
This is also true if you want to design and sell
your own print-on-demand books or e-books.
Its useful to have a basic education about
design software, effects, and terminology and
offset printing terms when youre talking
with creatives at an ad shop, because youre
at least able to participate in the
conversation.
Knowing something about design
keeps you in the loop when youre writing

107 something that will have to go through a

design processwhich, in advertising, is just
about everything. When a graphic designer
 talks about knocked out text or FPO
graphics, if youre called upon to provide
something in those areas, youll know what
they mean.
I got a four-year crash course in
design, desktop publishing and printing
when I did a stint at a boutique ad agency
before going freelance, and it was one of the
most valuable educations Ive ever received.
Time and time again, even though I no
longer write advertising, Ive found myself
turning to my design knowledge: in using
Photoshop to customize photos for the
covers of my e-books, in choosing fonts for
my business cards, and in making layout
suggestions for book covers.
Becoming familiar with the basics of
design and printing will make you even more
of a resource to agencies and printers and
help you with your own projects.

108
 For years, I was an idiot (to those of you who
are insisting I still am, go jump in Lake
Washington). Why? Because I didnt back

#33: up my files regularly. Theres really no

Back excuse for it. I was lazy and complacent
everything because Id never had a major computer
up.
meltdown and lost irreplaceable files like
some people I knew had. So I said,
Someday. But someday never came.
In the end, I was very lucky, proving
that fortune favors not the bold but the really
fucking dumb. My old reliable MacBook ate
itself one evening but gave me enough
warning signs to take action. I called an old
buddy and Mac expert and explained the
actions of my laptop, to which he said, Back
up right now. I was able to do a panic
backup of all my essential files, mostly Word
documents. Then my hard drive turned to
scrap. But I didnt lose anything.
Today, I leave nothing to chance. I
use an online service called Carbonite
(carbonite.com), which for $55 a year backs

109 up your hard drive via the Internet, so your

 files reside in the so-called cloud. Because
theyre offsite, even if you have a fire or flood,
your data is safe. Because the service
automatically backs up any altered files every
day, your data is always safe. Im not a paid
shill for Carbonite, but its pretty great.
More important, whatever method
you use, if youre going to write for a living,
youve got to become obsessive about
backing up your files. Use a physical hard
drive, a home wireless backup system like
Apples Time Machine paired with their Time
Capsule backup drive, or something else. But
dont do the someday or it wont happen to
me thing. Thats like not wearing your seat
belt in a car because youve been driving for
40 years and never had an accident; thats
zero guarantee that some more careless
driver wont hit you next Tuesday. By the
time you know you need the seat belt, its too
late.
Even if you use a Mac, which are
fairly immune to viruses and malware, you
need to back up your system just to protect
you from the dangerous crap you can load
110 onto your computer from surfing the Net.
 And dont just think of backups as protection
against computer failure; they also protect
you against accidentally throwing out files
that you need later on, and can even give you
legal cover if you need an important e-mail or
document that you might otherwise have
deleted.
But the most important use of backup
is to keep you from letting your clients down.
If youre on a tight deadline, the last thing
you want to do is miss it because your PC
crashes and you lose hours or days trying to
either recover files or rewrite things from
scratch. As any writer whos done it knows,
rewriting work from word one is about as
much fun as a root canal without anesthetic.
Be smart. Back stuff up. Do it
regularly. Make it automatic so you dont
have to remember. Youll thank me later.






111
 You wont always be called upon to sign
contracts, especially if youre writing things
like ad copy or articles for the newspaper.

#34: But if and when you get into bigger, higher-

Have a stakes work like books, business plans or
boilerplate scripts, you may indeed be called upon to
contract.
sign a contract. It may be in your best
interest to do so, since a contract spells out
the terms of your work and compensation in
plain black and white.
But what I have found more often
than not is that most writers get that deer in
the headlights look when asked about
contracts. Usually, this is because they have
no experience reading contracts and they fear
being locked into some sort of terrible deal.
There is a simple way out of this situation:
have your own bloody boilerplate contract,
ready to complete and send.
The term boilerplate simply refers
to the fact that m0st of the language in the
contract does not change. All you do is fill in
the specificsthe client, the job description,
112
deliverables, deadlines, compensation and
terms and so onand send the contract off.
 I have a boilerplate agreement that I use for
many of my book proposal and book writing
projects. Its been vetted by several attorneys
and literary agents, so I know its sound. You
can find examples of typical freelancer
agreements such as work for hire contracts
and non-disclosure agreements at
Elance.com, among other places.
Having your own contract ready to
complete benefits you in many important
ways:

It allows you to control the language
of the contract to ensure that your
interests as well as those of your
client are being protected.
It gives clients who may not have
their own contracts peace of mind
and makes you look more
professional.
It speeds things up because youre not
waiting for a lawyer to draw up a
contract.
It protects you from hidden or obtuse
113
clauses that could harm you.

 Keep in mind, no do-it-yourself contract
should ever, ever be seen as a substitute for
the advice of a qualified attorney. Contracts
are tricky things, and while 98% of your
clients will probably be honorable people
who will not take advantage of a contract
screw-up, its that 2% who will give you both
the elevator and the shaft. So even if you
either adapt a contract from something you
find online, get a sample contract from a
literary agent or other professional colleague,
or write it yourself, always have a lawyer
review it.
A few more tipsyou may encounter
a client who wants to provide his own
contract. Thats fine; the client has the right
to do that. But dont sign anything until
youve had your lawyer or agent go over it, so
you dont lock yourself into anything that will
hurt you. And if you run into a client who
wants you to take on a large project like a
book on just a handshake, walk. Walk away
fast.

114


 This is an odd tip, I know. So, why interview
three people a year, especially if youre
writing technical manuals, greeting cards or

#35: grants? Because no matter what kind of

Interview writing you do, youre a communications
at least 3 professional. Eventually, thats going to
people a
mean talking to people and getting them to
year.
tell you things that you want them to tell
you. So you can only benefit from enriching
your interviewing skills.
Good interviewing is a rare thing,
part raw talent, part carefully honed skill.
The great interviewers like Mike Wallace and
James Lipton know just how much to turn
the screws on their subjects to get them to
reveal things they might not otherwise
reveal. Given that at some point in your
career you will probably be called upon to
interview people, the only way to maintain
this skill at a strong level is to use it. Regular
interviewing is to a writer what batting
practice is to a baseball player.
Dont do interviews now, you protest?

115 Well, what if you:


Get work ghostwriting a book and
need to interview the author to
write it?
Write copy for an ad agency and
need to interview the client to get
the story on a new product or
service?
Want to write your memoir and
need to get childhood stories and
poignant memories from friends
and family?
Write a speech and need to find
out not only the story the speaker
wants to tell but the cadence,
style and timing of his speech?

Getting the picture, Tonto? Interviewing is
everywhere in writing, not just journalism.
Its a basic skill that every writer should
possess at a reasonable level. For the record,
my take on the key attributes of a good
interviewer are as follows:

1. Preparation. You simply cannot
116 prepare enough. You should always
 research your subject to a fare-thee-
well, which allows you to ask
unexpected questions and get
unexpected answers. This is
especially true if your subject is often-
interviewed. The power of the
unexpected question is immense: it
can make your subject take you more
seriously because he or she knows
that you have done your homework.
2. Listen actively. Meaning, listen to
what the person is saying but also the
subtext. Its important to have
prepared questions, but equally
important to be ready to veer off into
uncharted territory if you think there
might be gold there in the form of
unexpected insight or a revelation
that no one else has elicited.
3. Ask open-ended questions. This one
should be obvious, but many novice
interviewers botch it. Dont ever ask
questions that can be answered with a
yes or no.
4. Dont record the interview unless you
117 need legal cover. I have struggled
 with this for years, because I loathe
transcribing recorded material. Its
such a waste of time. So now I take
notes in real time on my laptop,
which is possible because I type 80
words per minute. But it takes
practice to type and listen actively at
the same time. When someone,
someday, invents decent software
that can turn recordings into text, I
will make him a millionaire.

Ive learned these things through trial and
error and hundreds of interviews. Start now
and hone your skills the only way you can.

118
 Research is the lifeblood of any writer. No
matter what kind of work you do, youll be
conducting research. And these days, thank

#36: the gods, most of it will be on the Internet.

Find 3 By the way, how did we manage vast
go-to amounts of research in the days before
research
Google? I know, I know, we did it the old-
resources.
fashioned way: went to the library, read
magazines and journals and looked through
miles of microfiche. It wasnt pretty, and it
was damned slow. The only advantage of
those times was that the information was
likely to be more reliable.
Thats the rub when it comes to this
secret. You need to have three research
resources you can turn to regularly when
youre in need of useful facts. They will
probably reside on the Web, because lets
face it, the Internet is the greatest
information tool ever devised. But the
trouble with the trillions of bits of knowledge
is that there is not much of a filter. Quality
varies hugely. If youre not careful with your

119 research to vet and verify the accuracy of the

 information you find, you can make a fool of
yourself and your clients.
In my experience, a go-to research
resource has three qualities:

1. Its based on quality standards such as
peer review. Governmental
department websites, journal articles,
New York Times stories, Gallup
pollsthey are all based on
information gathering and
verification procedures that are both
widely accepted and transparent.
Journals have peer review of
experiments, newspapers have
corroboration and ombudsmen,
government surveys have vast
resources and years of experience
behind them, and so on. You can
probably trust that this information is
correct.
2. Its comprehensive. Your main
research tools should be broad-based,
rather than centered on a single
subject.
120 3. Its updated. You dont want a search
 engine that wont give you any
articles published since 2006, for
example. A good research tool is
constantly refreshed.

My main research resource tends to be
Google, since Im always writing different
kinds of books. But there are some sites I
come back to again and again. Highbeam is a
subscription research service that pulls
articles from newspapers, magazines, press
releases and more, all over the world.
American Factfinder is a wonderful source of
data on population, demographic,
employment, life expectancy and so on. And
PubMed.gov is my sweet spot for finding
citations from medical journals and scientific
studies.
Be careful about your own resources.
If you have something youve used for years,
stick with it. But anything new, verify.
Thats why I dont use Wikipedia as an
authoritative source for anything I write. Its
too easily influenced and altered; no serious
writer takes it seriously. Use Wikipedia to
121 guide you to more reputable resources, but
dont cite it as gospel.
 When I was spending most of my time
writing copy for ad agencies, corporate
marketing departments and dotcoms, I also

#37: subscribed to the bibles of the advertising

Subscribe biz, Adweek and Advertising Age. I got a lot
to the of useful information out of those weeklies:
industry
freelance classifieds, examples of the latest
trades for
your work, news about agencies that might either
specialty. need my services or (occasionally) were going
under and would no longer be paying me,
and so on.
Whatever kind of writing pays most
of your bills, its worth your time and cash to
subscribe to the relevant trade publications
for that niche, whether its ad copywriting,
technical writing or whatever. Keep in mind
that for some niches, there arent any print
trades out there because there isnt enough of
an advertising base to support them. But you
can always find online publications and
blogs, some of them obscure, but usually
worth checking out. Here are a few examples
of what Im talking about:
122

Speech writingJeff Porro writes an
excellent blog at blog.porrollc.com, and
 there is actually a UK Speechwriters
Guild at ukspeechwritersguild.co.uk
Technical writingIntercom, a print and
online magazine for tech communicators,
and there is also the Journal of Technical
Writing and Communication.
Grant writingFind Funding magazine
(findfunding.net/blog), grant-writing-
resources.blogspot.com

The point is, there are online and even some
print resources out there for even the most
obscure writing specialty. The short list
above is merely scratching the surface. Its
worth a Google search or a visit to a really
comprehensive newsstand (like the kind you
find in a big city) to see what turns up. Also,
visit a really great independent bookstore
and ask someone who works there about
trades for writing professionals.
A corollary to this secret is that you
should also consider joining the major trade
group (or groups) for your professional niche,
123
if one exists. For instance, there is no real
ghostwriters guild, so I belong to the
Authors Guild, a highly professional
 organization for writers who earn their living
writing. Its a very serious organization that
boasts some major, major names as
members. If theres no organization for your
style of writing, then consider organizations
like the National Writers Union. If you write
genre fiction, there are organizations like the
Romance Writers of America and Horror
Writers Association. These groups usually
have magazines and other resources that can
be very useful.
One warning, and if youve been
reading this mag for a while, you may not like
this, but since when has that stopped me.
Dont waste your time or money on Writers
Digest. In my opinion, its a magazine for
wannabes, nothing more. In the same way
that most of the people who read Shape or
Mens Fitness are never going to get really fit,
most people who read WD are going to futz
about for years on their novel and never get
paid a dime. If you want to be a pro, read
124 what the pros read. It aint Writers Digest.
 I had lunch with a gent not too long ago who
told me that one of the reasons he asked me
to write his book and become part of the

#38: information empire he was creating (which

Specialize includes a reality TV show) was that I told
in 2-3 him how much work I habitually turned
areas.
down. Its true. I turn down a great deal of
work thats not in the pocket as we say in
the blues music world. Theres a narrow lane
of professional expertise in which I drive, and
anything outside that lane, I pass on.
Turn down work? Am I nuts? Nope.
Its a great way to create the kind of artificial
scarcity that allows you to increase your fees.
It makes you look like youre in demand and
able to be picky about your projects, and lets
you work on only the projects that excite you.
So as you advance in your career and start
getting a good idea of a) what kinds of work
are available to you and b) what kinds of
work youre best at, its smart to begin
turning away work that doesnt fall into those
niches.

125 For example, back in 2007 I made the

decision not to take on any more work
 writing advertising copy or marketing
materials. I simply didnt have the time, and
though I could have supplemented my
income nicely with that work, I wanted to
build my brand as a ghostwriter/collaborator.
Specialists get paid better and get more
respect. Jacks-of-all-trades dont. When was
the last time you saw a utility infielder get a
$100 million contract from the New York
Yankees? So today I basically take on three
kinds of projects: writing nonfiction books,
writing nonfiction book proposals, and book
doctoring nonfiction manuscripts. Anything
else, I refer out.
There are many reasons that this
makes sense. First and most important,
being a specialist creates respect. Youre not
a desperate dog sniffing after any bone you
can dig up. Youre a highly paid expert, a
surgeon, a fighter pilot with a unique skill.
Specializing also helps others refer you,
because they can say, Oh, you should call
Bob Smith. Hes a fantastic business plan
writer.

126 Just as critical, specializing means

you spend most of your time honing your
 skills in just a few areas of writing, so you
become better, faster and more
knowledgeable. If youre writing magazine
articles, speeches, blogs, the odd e-book,
greeting cards, brochure copy and on-hold
messages for local businesses, youre not ever
going to become particularly skilled at any of
them.
Dont worry about turning away
work. Sure, early on you probably want to
take on everything so you can find out if
youve got an aptitude for it, if you enjoy it
and how well it pays. But within three years
of launching your writing career, start to
break out specialties and peel away the other
work thats not fun or doesnt pay much.
Believe me, if youre good, youll have plenty
of work.

127
 I know, I know. I can practically feel the
spittle flecks hit the computer screen as you
read that word. Resum? Youve got to be

#39: smoking something, Vandehey. Well, I

Write might be, but that has nothing to do with
resums. this secret. Remember, were talking about
making a living as a writer, not just doing
work that gets you all hot and horny. No
matter what you think being a writer is going
to be about, its going to be a balance
between doing work you dig and work that
pays the bills. And resums, if you do them
well, will pay the bills.
The reason for this is simple: people
are always looking for work and everybody
wants an edge. If you can use your skills to
give them that edge, theyll pay for it. The
resum is a horribly misused document
crying out for a creative touch. By that, I do
NOT mean you should write lies for a client.
I do mean that you should help them turn
mundane, boring information into something
that attracts attention and turns them into
128
someone that an employer wants to meet.
 To quote one of the best pieces of advice
about ad writing I ever got, You cant bore
someone into doing business with you.
Im not going to claim that writing
somebodys employment document is
creative or incredibly challenging. But it
provides work with a short turnaround and a
pretty constant demand. If you can develop
some solid skills in Microsoft Word, you can
even add some design sizzle to your writing
steak and become a resum writing starif
thats the sort of thing one becomes a star
for.
Look at it this way. People are
desperate for jobs, and a good resum gives
them an edge. You will never lack for work
in this area. So lets say a resum takes you
one day of work to write and polish and you
charge $250 per job. Do eight resums per
month and thats $2,000 with loads of time
left over for more interesting work.
When youre trying to build your
writing practice (and it is a practice, no
different from that of a physician or

129 attorney), the first commandment is

survive. Writing resums helps.
 Many of the books I write begin their lives as
proposals; thats how nonfiction books are
sold to the publishing industry. So it would

#40: follow that if you want to write nonfiction

Write book books, its smart to also learn to write book
proposals. proposals. I write three or four proposals a
year, and every one of them offers me some
incredible benefits:

They pay well, typically $6,000 to
$7,500 per proposal.
They usually give me the right to
write the book if it sells to a
publisher.
They almost always come from an
agent, meaning while I have to pay a
commission, the agent has judged the
idea and the author to be worthy of
representation, so I know the book
will be shopped to the industry.
If the book sells, I have a chance to
write a potential bestseller.
The whole thing takes six to eight
130
weeks.
 In 2009, I had three proposals sell to the
publishing industry, and all three books came
out in 2010, two of them with my name on
them. Thats a big year. So I can safely say
that if you want to make literary agents adore
you, learn to write strong book proposals.
You dont even have to write the full-length
book if you dont want to; you can just be a
proposal writer. I dont know why anyone
would go that way, but its an option.
The components of a strong book
proposal are:

A detailed overview of the book, its
structure message, audience and
marketing strategy.
A bio of the author.
An analysis of the market for the
book and how many potential core
readers it has.
A detailed marketing plan. This is the
most important part of the proposal,
because publishers want to sell books.
I go more into this in another book,

131 but the four main legs of the author

marketing table are speaking
 engagements, media appearances,
Internet (Facebook, Twitter, blogging,
author website, e-mail) and
corporate/organizational partnerships
where companies buy books in bulk.
A breakdown of similar titles already
on the market. The object is to show
that the subject matter has interest
and can sell.
A detailed table of contents with
about two paragraphs describing the
contents of each chapter.
Two to three sample chapters.

Master the form and you can land seriously
lucrative, prestigious and fun work from
literary agents, and even build a career as a
co-author or ghostwriter. I have a couple of
examples of successful proposals on my
website, writelikeanadman.com. Download,
learn and enjoy.
132

 A lot of writers, as they first start to build
their careers, are so focused on delivering the
first draft of a project that they ignore the

#41: very important later phases. Its

Specify understandable; the first draft is what the
rounds of deadline is calibrated to, when your next
revisions.
payment is coming and so on. But in some
areas of writing, especially ad copywriting
and books, not paying close attention to the
post-first draft details can cost you time and
money.
Specifically, when you establish your
work rules for an ongoing relationship with
an ad agency or create your boilerplate
contract for a book or book proposal, you
should always specify how many rounds of
revisions are included in your fee. Revisions
are part of working as a writer; they are
inevitable. What you want to do is make
sure that your client doesnt feel that he or
she has carte blanche to spend endless time
on endless rounds of revisions, unable to
make up his or her mind.

130 The accepted standard for revision

rounds is three: including three rounds of
 revisions in your standard contract or
working handshake. That means, after you
turn in the copy or manuscript or whatever,
the client can come back to you three times
with changes and incur no additional cost.
After that, youre on the clock again.
Typically, this is the way it should
work:
1. Your client sends back your work
with a moderate list of large-scale
revisions, including structure,
corrections of factual errors and so
on. You make these, submit a second
draft, and get the client to sign off
indicating they accept this set of
revisions.
2. Your client then makes a set of more
granular revisions (typos,
punctuation, word choice) and sends
these to you. You make them and
submit a third draft. The client signs
off again.
3. You go through the same process one
last time for final revisions. The

131 client signs a document stating that

they accept the work as final and
 approved and that if they change
their minds and want additional
revisions, they will pay you $XX per
hour for that work.

This is not about getting extra money. Its
about keeping your clients from taking
advantage of you and wasting your time
while they hem and haw over changes.
Setting specific revision limits forces
discipline on your clients and prevents
them from taking advantage of you. Its a
professional tactic that you should be
using if you want to attract the best
clients and keep them.
One key: have a pre-made revision
approval form ready to e-mail or fax to
clients. It should contain boxes for Draft
2, Draft 3 and Final Draft with places to
sign to show that the client accepts the
latest round of revisions. If they dont
132 sign, you dont do additional work.

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Vandehey is a professional co-author and ghostwriter

who has written nonfiction books for major publishers
including Random House, McGraw-Hill, St. Martins Press,
HarperCollins and Thomas Nelson. His most recent book
is a self-published book of humorous essays, The Chimp Who
Loved Me, co-written with Annie Greer. The book, which
comes out August 1, 2010, can be found at
www.thechimpwholovedme.com.