by Nick Darlington | Jan 26, 2017 | Freelance Writing Tips |
Day 4 of my goal to write every day, document my freelance writing journey, and share the knowledge with others who want to become freelance writers. I provide writing tips, tactics, and strategies to help you earn well. I share everything I’ve learned to date, together with hacks and tricks that have helped me.
It took me two months, but I did it. I achieved my goal! As a total beginner freelance writer. I’d earned my first $1000 in two months. And the best thing about it? I hadn’t slaved away for content mills. I hadn’t written a thousand word articles for $5. I wasn’t paid peanuts! Instead, I’d written a total of 12 articles, nine at $50 each, one at $100, one at $200, and another for $300.
Yes, you heard right, there was one article I landed for $300! As a South African, at that exchange rate it works out to R4200 per article (at the time of writing).
As someone who was writing articles for a content mill at $15 per article before that, this was remarkable. Not only had I achieved the goal, but I’d created a freelance writing business. And at the time of writing this, two of the clients who helped me achieve this goal are still regular clients.”
That’s the introduction paragraph to an ebook I started compiling months ago. The idea was to share my success with others by writing an ebook. So, I wrote about 7000 words, and then stopped writing altogether. Why? Well, It was due to a combination of factors:
- I didn’t set a deadline. With no cut off date, procrastination was easy.
- I also had more time to think about how I wanted to release this information. Was an ebook the way to go? What about creating a blog post series? What about pitching the article idea for an online publication?
With the last point in mind, I pitched an idea for an article to SitePoint. They rejected it because freelance writing articles don’t seem to gain much traction. Fair enough. Maybe that was a blessing in disguise.
As I sit here writing this, I accept that I can release this information in all three ways (ebook, blog post series, and another publication).
Currently, the latter way is in the process of happening. Rype, a language learning platform accepted a three part article series titled, “A Proven Strategy to Become a Freelance Writer and Work From Anywhere”. I’m not sure when those posts go live. But I’ll let you know when they do.
Similarly, as highlighted in a previous post, I’ll be sharing this information on the “Daily Writing Tips” blog. The idea is to share this in bite-size information. Because I already have a backlog of content to draw from I’ll rewrite, edit, and polish before publishing.
Lastly, for those who want this information all in one place, I’ll create an ebook. Completion date? Yet to be determined.
You see, sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too.
If you enjoy writing and are serious about improving your writing skills, becoming a freelance writer, and want to earn more, I can help!
Feel free to email me at nick@nickdarlington.com.
P.S. No, I’m not selling you anything. I’m not going to ask you to buy my book or even sign up for my course (I don’t have one) or weekly newsletter, I’m simply offering you help.
But remember while I can offer you assistance and support, you have to put in the work. No action = No results.
Cheers
Nick D
by Nick Darlington | Jan 25, 2017 | Freelance Writing Tips |
Day 3 of my goal to write every day, document my freelance writing journey, and share the knowledge with others who want to become freelance writers. I provide writing tips, tactics, and strategies to help you earn well. I share everything I’ve learned to date, together with hacks and tricks that have helped me.
I’m not sure how many of you know Trello? I’m not going to go into too much detail because it’s been a long day, instead, I’m going to insert a quote from their site:
“Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and where something is in a process.”
Using Trello cards you can upload documents and add comments. But what does Trello have to do with why freelance writers should set deadlines? Well, nothing really.
But there’s one important aspect you should know as it has relevance to what I’m going to tell you. When you want to communicate with someone on Trello cards, you add a comment and add @personname. The person then receives an email notification that there’s a comment awaiting their attention. Failing to do this simply means the person will have no idea there’s a comment for them; the only way they’ll know is if they visit a card and stumble upon it.
Well, the other day, person x, at the agency I write for sent me a message saying that a blog post I’m writing for them was overdue. In fact, according to her, it’s a day late and she requested I submit it to her by 12:00 that morning. It’s now 09:00 am and I haven’t even started! I thought to myself, “Hang on. The due date wasn’t even specified”.
I’m sure you can guess what I’m going to say next. Yes, she failed to notify me of the due date because she didn’t use @personame. Granted, she was actually communicating with someone else on that board where she notified him to tell me about the date. But yes, you guessed it, he failed too.
In either case, I did the logical thing: I committed to sending them the article by 12:00 am. I had three hours to write, rewrite, edit, polish, and send a 600-800 word article, together with extra bits and bobs of research, and not too mention some time wasting, a cigarette break, a visit from a girlfriend and long stares out the window. But you know what? I finished the article at 11:55 am.”How do I remember the time”, you may be asking. Well, because I was so aware of the time! Who wouldn’t be when a deadline is looming?
The whole process made me think. I finished that article in time because there was a deadline and I gave myself no choice but to finish. Without a deadline, I’d be writing that article for another two hours, if not more. And that’s the thing – freelance writer or not – without deadlines you’ll wonder aimlessly. Sure, you’ll get the work done, but it’ll take that much longer.
As the cliche goes, time is money, especially in the world of freelance writing. So today’s freelance writing tip for you (and myself): set deadlines.
Here are a few extra resources if you want to take things further:
- Learn about the Pomodoro Time Management Technique, developed by Francesco Cirillo. The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals.Are you a master procrastinator?
- Then watch this comical TedTalk by Tim Urban about how setting deadlines can reduce anxiety and procrastination.
If you enjoy writing and are serious about improving your writing skills, becoming a freelance writer, and want to earn more, I can help!
Feel free to email me at nick@nickdarlington.com.
P.S. No, I’m not selling you anything. I’m not going to ask you to buy my book or sign up for my course (I don’t have one), I’m simply offering you help.
But remember while I can offer you assistance and support, you have to put in the work. No action = No results.
Cheers
Nick D
by Nick Darlington | Jan 24, 2017 | Freelance Writing Tips |
Day 2 of my goal to write every day, document my freelance writing journey, and share the knowledge with others who want to become freelance writers. I provide writing tips, tactics, and strategies to help you earn well. I share everything I’ve learned to date, together with hacks and tricks that have helped me.
My freelance writing journey started in 2015 when I launched getButterflied – another blog of mine – and October 2015 was the month when I launched a challenge to become a freelance writer.
Can you guess what happened in the days, weeks, and months that followed? Nothing. Absolutely nothing! Why? Because I took no action. But more on that later.
Fast forward to June 2016. I decided to apply to become a contributor for Lifehack through a job posting on ProBlogger. I landed the writing gig and spent the next few months writing for Lifehack. Granted I was earning peanuts, but it was a stepping stone for something better.
Over a few months, I wrote a total of 35 posts, and while low paying, I’ve landed two regular clients through the exposure gained on Lifehack. So, while I don’t advocate writing for content mills, there are instances when they may prove beneficial.
Anyways, a few months later professional blogger Bamidele Onibalusi, CEO of Writers in Charge, announced that he’s launching an “Earn Your First $1000 as a Freelance Writer” challenge.
He launched a Facebook group that’s currently 2000 members strong, created a pseudonym, Joseph, and documented step-by-step how to earn $1000 in two months by following – what is now – a proven strategy.
It works. I’m proof of that, earning $1050 in two months. I now have a freelance writing business. I can also reference other writers who achieved similar feats, like Richard Rowlands who I mentioned in the post on Day 1.
I’m thankful for what I believe is one of the best freelance writing resources on the internet. And you know what? It was free! Yes, you heard right, I didn’t pay a cent!
In the weeks to follow, I’ll share this strategy with you and show you step-by-by step how I earned my first $1000 as a newbie freelance writer. Why? Firstly because I can, and secondly, because I firmly believe in helping others. I want to see others succeed.
Sharing what you know is how you build success. This is where the value lies.
Update – follow the journey here.
If you enjoy writing and are serious about improving your writing skills, becoming a freelance writer, and want to earn more, I can help!
Feel free to email me at nick@nickdarlington.com.
P.S. No, I’m not selling you anything. I’m not going to ask you to buy my book or sign up for my course (I don’t have one), I’m simply offering you help.
But remember while I can offer you assistance and support, you have to put in the work. No action = No results.
Cheers
Nick D
by Nick Darlington | Jan 23, 2017 | Freelance Writing Tips |
Day 1 of my goal to write every day, document my freelance writing journey, and share the knowledge with others who want to become freelance writers. I provide freelance writing tips, tactics, and strategies to help you earn well. I share everything I’ve learned to date, together with hacks and tricks that have helped me along the way.
I’ve been toying with the idea of launching a blog for a while now. From an SEO perspective, this is a good idea. However, I’ve been procrastinating because I wanted to do keyword research and ensure I had a list of topic ideas lined up.
But, yesterday I had a chat with a friend of mine – Richard Rowlands. We started talking about launching a blog. The copywriter Ben Settle came into the discussion. He writes daily posts on his blog and shares them in his newsletter.
I won’t go into much more detail, other than – we concluded that writing daily posts and treating the blog as a personal blog was a good way to go.
So, no more procrastination! Today marks the day when I launch my blog. I’ll use it as a place to share my thoughts, experiences and daily freelance writing tips with you.
Also, because I’ve achieved a lot in a short space of time as a freelance writer I want to help aspiring (or even established) freelance writers do the same. I believe firmly that sharing what you know is where success is built. This is where the value lies.
So, expects daily posts. Somedays these may just be rants. Other days I’ll share writing tips with you and some days I’ll show you how to get high-paying clients.
I’m launching this blog with this simple idea: to document my thoughts and share my freelancing writing journey with you to help you become a freelance writer, and more importantly, help you earn well!
Six months ago becoming a freelance writer wasn’t even on the radar. Now I comfortably make in excess of $1000 a month through freelance writing, and in my highest grossing month I made $1840. How did I achieve that? I’ll let you know on Day 2 on the “Daily Freelance Writing Tips Blog”.
If you enjoy writing and are serious about improving your writing skills, becoming a freelance writer, and want to earn more, I can help!
Feel free to email me at nick@nickdarlington.com.
P.S. No, I’m not selling you anything. I’m not going to ask you to buy my book or sign up for my course (I don’t have one), I’m simply offering you help.
But remember while I can offer you assistance and support, you have to put in the work. No action = No results.
Cheers
Nick D
