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How To Increase Your Rates and Earnings As a Freelance Writer
Copyright (c) 2013-2023 Bill Platt
Freelance writers fill a very important role in today's business marketplace. They create the on-demand, customized content that business owners everywhere need to push their businesses forward.
The actual jobs might include writing copy for marketing brochures and flyers. Those jobs might also include creating white papers, newsletters, and articles for online and print publications. Other writing jobs might include ghost writing press releases, books or information products. Specific to the Internet, some folks might pay you to write product reviews, website copy, or blog posts.
I, for one, personally dabbled in writing for a number of years, until I realized that business owners and managers were willing to pay me to create content for them on-demand. I started creating articles that would be used by business owners to promote themselves online early in 2001. For the next decade, I earned a really nice living as a freelance ghost writer.
When I got started in this industry, there was no such thing as Elance.com, Odesk.com, or any of the myriad of other freelancing websites. I honestly believe that this was an advantage for me. I did not have to let someone else tell me how much I could earn as a writer. I had the freedom to test prices and marketing strategies to see what was really possible for the average writer.
By no means do I consider myself to be the average writer, but during my years in the freelance ghost writing industry, I hired hundreds of writers to work for me, to help me create content for my clients.
I have worked with wannabe writers, average writers, and the extraordinary writers who made me look really good.
Just so that we are clear, my definition of a wannabe writer is someone who looks at writing as an easy way to make money, without any real concern for the quality of work they deliver to their clients or readers.
Your Clients Should Profit From Your Work
Let me be perfectly clear at this point. Businesses are in business to generate a profit.
Regardless of what your customers pay you to do your work, they should be able to earn a profit on the work that you do on their behalf.
When I was much younger, I worked in the restaurant industry. My managers worked hard to meet prescribed cost formulas that basically broke down to something in the neighborhood of 30% labor costs, 30% food costs, and 30% fixed overhead costs.
In order to keep my job when working in the restaurant industry, I basically needed to create a minimum of $3.30 in earnings for every $1 I earned on my paycheck.
The same principle applies when you are working as a freelance writer. You must provide the kind of content that will help your employer earn a profit, or the employer will replace you with someone who can.
In order to help your employer profit from the work that you create on their behalf, there are two questions to which you must understand the answer, before you sit down to write:
1. Who is the target audience? and
2. What goal does your employer want to accomplish with the written work?
To put this into perspective, I do a lot of article marketing. My goal from the article is not to sell a product or service. Instead, my goal is inform my reader and to lead him/her to take a specific action at the conclusion of the article. The action I want most of my readers to take is to click a link that I have included in the "About The Author" section following my article.
Other employers might have different goals and a different measure of success, so it is important for you to ask and answer these questions before you begin your work.
Distinguish Yourself From The Wannabe
As I stated previously, my definition of a wannabe writer is someone who looks at writing as an easy way to make money, without any real concern for the quality of work they deliver to their clients or readers.
One of the easiest way to distinguish yourself from the wannabe's is to charge rates that are more consistent with a living wage. Figure out how much you want to earn "per hour", figure out how much time it will take you to do the job, then charge rates consistent with your target numbers.
Another method to set yourself apart from the wannabe writer is to provide real writing samples to prospective clients, without resorting to giving away your work for free.
Far too often, talented writers will provide "free samples" to people who turn out to never have wanted to hire anyone at all. "Prospective customers" take the free samples and then promptly disappear, leaving the writer full of false hope.
Real buyers simply want to know that you are capable of doing the job you have advertised to do. They don't want you to work for free. They just want to see samples of what you have done for others, to at least get an idea of what you are capable of doing for them.
Instead of giving stuff away for free to people who will probably never ever buy from you, take some time and care to write an assortment of "samples" in advance to share with those who might want to see some writing samples from you.
Believe In Your Marketing
You should have confidence in what you do, and you should have confidence in the value that you are capable of producing for your clients.
When your confidence exists and it is unshakeable, people will sense that in your writing advertisement and your communications with them.
Business people honestly want to work with other professionals, in this case writers, and people who can deliver the kinds of materials the business can use for its profit.
The first step is to advertise yourself and give prospective clients confidence in your ability to do the job they need done. Then, you must deliver a product that your clients are happy to keep buying.
One Final Piece of Advice
A lot of new freelance writers make the mistake of believing that if they offer their writing services for cheap early on, then once they have proven themselves to their clients, they will be able to raise their rates to something that is more consistent with what they would like to earn.
However, with more than a decade of experience behind me, I learned that every time I increased my prices, I would lose 90% of my clients, and I would have to basically start building a brand new customer list from scratch.
People don't like change, and they especially do not like price increases.
If you still want to offer limited discounts to attract new customers, then do so at your own risk.
Your results might be different from mine. But personally, I would rather give discounts to people who spend a lot of money with me, than to give discounts to people who have never spent money with me and may never spend money with me again.
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If you are a talented and committed professional writer, I need your help. I need freelance ghost writers, who are willing to offer their writing services to the people shopping at my freelance writers marketplace. Learn more about what I offer to writers here: http://FreelanceWritersReview.com/launch_news.php Then get signed up for free and start selling your writing services to my customers. My name is Bill Platt, and I am the owner of: http://FreelanceWritersReview.com/
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Top-Level Category: Business Online Articles || Related Categories: Writing and Speaking Articles and Business Offline Articles
10 Most Recent Articles Written by Bill Platt
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Distributed: 2013-08-27 |
Word Count: 1669 |
Page Views: 8276
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Rating: 2.50
In article marketing, there are many factors that will
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Distributed: 2013-08-27 |
Word Count: 1669 |
Page Views: 8276
| Votes: 18 |
Rating: 2.50
In article marketing, there are many factors that will
affect your articles' ability to promote your website in
the most effective manner. In this article, we will briefly
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the About The Author Information.
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Written by: Bill Platt |
Distributed: 2013-08-24 |
Word Count: 1149 |
Page Views: 9138
| Votes: 14 |
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Some people still believe that all they have to do is build
a website and customers will magically appear on their
site... Once they have built their websites, they wait
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| Votes: 10 |
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Visit several marketing blogs or marketing forums, and you
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Distributed: 2013-07-31 |
Word Count: 1025 |
Page Views: 8073
| Votes: 13 |
Rating: 2.08
If you've been marketing products online for any length of
time, you've likely heard people talk about the power and
promise of article marketing for the promotion of your
online business. Unfortunately, many online marketers have
tried to utilize article marketing to benefit their online
business and failed. In this article, I document the top ten
reasons why people fail to find success with article
marketing... And how to fix your article marketing
campaigns...
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Written by: Bill Platt |
Distributed: 2013-07-30 |
Word Count: 1229 |
Page Views: 6235
| Votes: 10 |
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The basic premise of article marketing is to present people
information that will be important to them, then at the end
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offer to the reader a means to see how the author can help
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continues to be one of the most effective methods of
promotion that one could employ online.
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Distributed: 2013-07-30 |
Word Count: 991 |
Page Views: 8660
| Votes: 14 |
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people on earth can be connected together in as little as
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Most people using search engines on the Internet are looking
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Many people suggest that you should write articles on the
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Distributed: 2013-07-25 |
Word Count: 769 |
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When visitors bookmark your site it is a sign that you have built
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Distributed: 2013-07-24 |
Word Count: 816 |
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Word Count: 493 |
Page Views: 14485
| Votes: 22 |
Rating: 2.55
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People must encounter a marketing message multiple times before
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Distributed: 2006-08-02 |
Word Count: 1061 |
Page Views: 14172
| Votes: 16 |
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Google currently indexes over 8 billion web pages. However,
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and how they affect you as a web master. We'll start with the
well-known GoogleBot.
Ten Tips For User Friendly Online Registration Forms
Written by: Jim Romanik |
Distributed: 2009-02-24 |
Word Count: 775 |
Page Views: 13369
| Votes: 15 |
Rating: 0.93
Have you ever registered or attempted to register for an event
and spent half an hour trying to figure out what you needed to
do? Or have you used an online registration form that lost your
data or was so complicated that it seemed like more work than
faxing the form?
Successful Forum JVs and How To Get Them
Written by: Diana Barnum |
Distributed: 2006-06-15 |
Word Count: 648 |
Page Views: 13105
| Votes: 19 |
Rating: 2.11
The forming of common alliances, also referred to as a joint
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One of the most popular means of linking people up online of so
that they can work together on their projects is via forums,
where people of all levels of business and expertise post in
common threads.
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Is Your Business 'Out Of Site'? Employ The Ultimate Marketing Tool
Written by: Rick Sloboda |
Distributed: 2007-01-09 |
Word Count: 445 |
Page Views: 5579
| Votes: 21 |
Rating: 3.76
With the rapid expansion of the digital economy, the web site is
conceivably the most powerful marketing and sales tool you can employ.
Find out what a web site can do for you.
How To Use Your Race To Get Rich
Written by: Herbert Harris |
Distributed: 2009-07-07 |
Word Count: 1407 |
Page Views: 5992
| Votes: 48 |
Rating: 3.71
Amid recent news reports that there continues to be an ongoing
and substantial gap between the net worth of Whites and other
racial groups, it is easy to be distracted and overwhelmed by the
raw data. However, I am immediately reminded of a quote offered
by an economic expert from the past... "There are lies, damned
lies, and statistics!"
Why I'm A 'B-Level Marketer!'
Written by: Willie Crawford |
Distributed: 2007-07-16 |
Word Count: 917 |
Page Views: 6861
| Votes: 26 |
Rating: 3.58
At a recent Internet marketing seminar, I was sitting around the
hotel lobby with approximately 20 other seminar attendees and
speakers. The seminar's host was in attendance, and the
conversation covered a range of internet marketing topics with
extreme frankness. Our proximity to the hotel bar certainly
contributed to our 'conviviality.'
15 fixes for a failing website
Written by: Rick Sloboda |
Distributed: 2007-02-07 |
Word Count: 593 |
Page Views: 3551
| Votes: 25 |
Rating: 3.48
Employ these 15 tactics to improve your search engine rankings,
engage visitors and convert more sales.
The Most Important Ingredient for Info Product Success (is You)
Written by: Judy Murdoch |
Distributed: 2008-04-15 |
Word Count: 981 |
Page Views: 6040
| Votes: 15 |
Rating: 3.47
Last week I was attending a conference and mentioned to someone I
help small business owners create information products. The other
person was very friendly until I said "information products."
Then the temperature in the room dropped about 10-degrees
How to Keep Your Article Content Fresh and Interesting
Written by: Craig Ritsema |
Distributed: 2006-08-29 |
Word Count: 699 |
Page Views: 5562
| Votes: 25 |
Rating: 3.44
Webmasters everywhere are constantly on the lookout for fresh and
interesting content for their website. Along with these content
qualities is the requirement that it be unique. Everyone wants
their website to stand out above the others in the search engine
results. So what is the trick for you to keep a steady supply of
this quality content coming your way?
How To Build A Profitable Twitter Profile
Written by: Harold Hemmings |
Distributed: 2009-08-06 |
Word Count: 1357 |
Page Views: 2743
| Votes: 8 |
Rating: 3.38
Online marketers everywhere are finally starting to tap into
the Twitter Marketplace. Marketers are getting involved in
Twitter at awesome rates, but all seem to have one
unanswered question: How do we actually monetize this
marketplace? It is my goal that by the time you have read
this article, you will have a clear idea of exactly how to
monetize your activities in Twitter.
Increasing Productivity In Your Online Business
Written by: Willie Crawford |
Distributed: 2006-06-14 |
Word Count: 1407 |
Page Views: 7451
| Votes: 40 |
Rating: 3.35
Running an online "empire" of approximately 1600 websites and
blogs, selling a variety of products, services and ideas, I
have to be much more productive than the average person in a
"regular job."
Turn A One-Night-Stand With Google Into A Long-Term Relationship
Written by: Diane Metz |
Distributed: 2007-07-10 |
Word Count: 882 |
Page Views: 2708
| Votes: 6 |
Rating: 3.33
Want to win the favor of Google? Then you've got to build a
long-term relationship with her. Many new SEO strategies are
simply recycled old-tricks. And Google is a smart gal who can see
right through them. Position your website for the future by
understanding what Google really likes â€" and what she
really loathes.
Treat Online 'Guests' With Respect
Written by: Rick Sloboda |
Distributed: 2007-07-27 |
Word Count: 472 |
Page Views: 30469
| Votes: 33 |
Rating: 3.33
Does your website show your customers lack of respect? Review the
following checklist to find out.
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