What I'll be doing this December

As a freelance writer, I have found December can sometimes be a strange time of year when it comes to picking up work. New clients are often waiting until January when they are launching new projects or products, and regular clients are winding down ahead of Christmas.

And you know that "weird" week after Christmas and before New Year's Day when everything gets back to normal for a bit? Well, that is often the quietest week of the year for me; while I perhaps should just sit back and enjoy it, I like to keep busy, so this year I am going to make this time as productive as possible.

During my week "off", I am going to:

• Finish my resume writing and Business 2 Business courses so I'll have new skills to offer come January
• Draw up a list of potential new clients and find out their contact details so I am ready to e mail them.
• Update my website and LinkedIn profile; I have noticed some potential clients with often go to my LinkedIn profile before getting in touch with me.
• Write press releases for my novel and my adult colouring books.
• Draw up a list of new services to offer to clients.
• Update my CV.
• Create some tailored pitches for each of the niches I am passionate about.
• Set my goals for the first few months of the year.
• Draw up book outlines for my new novel and a non-fiction book.
• Write query letters for editors and publishers in order to line up work for coming months.
• Contact previous clients to see if they'll need any writers in the near future.
• Sort out some admin work.

And that's just for a start! I'm sure I can find plenty more to do until next year.

I am the type of person who always has to be doing something, which means I dread this time of year when every slows up, but by using this time productively, I can line up new prospects for the months ahead and give myself new opportunities to earn from my writing.

Jane Fazackarley is a freelance writer and author of the debut novel Then he left me. For further information, visit http://jfwriting.co.uk/ or find out more about the new novel by visiting Amazon.

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Finding Freelance Writing Work

Like any other self-employed work, finding freelance writing jobs isn't easy. However, if you are determined, and have a plan, then it can be much less of a challenge.

When I decided to go freelance on a full time basis, I ended up having a few sleepless nights and going over in my head which direct debits I could cancel. I also sent plenty of time trying to figure out where else I could save money, so I could make my savings just a little bit longer.

Fortunately, it didn't come to that as I re-discovered freelance writing sites. I had tried them in the past, but soon lost patience when I didn't win any projects. I guess I took the many rejections I had gotten just a little bit too personally, but when I went back to the freelance sites, I soon realised that if I was going to be successful, then I was going to have to get a thicker skin.

I also took some time out to ready other people's advice on how they secured work from freelance sites, and I read many accounts from people who had bid on 40 plus projects before getting their first job. It is just a matter of having some grit and determination and not giving u at the first hurdle. After 21 proposals, I was lucky enough to secure my first Elance project. I secured a project ghost writing a book, and I am just finishing a second book for the same client.

The work is was irregular to begin with, however, that is the nature of freelance work. I have since found that the more I pitch for work, the better I get at pitching, which means more work comes my  way every month. I also look for clients that require regular content so I can build up my client list that way.

The more clients I get, the more confident I become and the regular work makes the whole freelance writing business just a little less nerve-racking.

For now, I am working on Elance. Fiverr and People Per Hour. People Per Hour is one of my favourites as it is easier to secure work on there and they're fast at releasing funds when I've requested it

Do you have any tips for finding freelance writing work? Share your tips in the comments section below.

Free writing E-Books

I've found a site called FreelanceWriting.com and they are offering a number of free E-Books.

Titles include Creative Freelancing, Book writing for fun and profit, How to write a book proposal and Time Management for Freelancers.

The sites also full of other Freelance Writing resources including the latest jobs, contests.

The link you need is:

http://www.freelancewriting.com/ebooks-for-writers.php

All you need is Adobe reader to access the books.

Freelance or not to Freelance?

I signed up to one of the freelance sites some time last year and didn't win any of the projects that I applied for.  At first I thought it might have been the way I was pitching myself. Maybe I wasn't doing too good a job of selling myself to potential clients. Then I noticed that some of the people winning projects over me had limited English to say the least. If that's the case then how are they going to fare at article writing? Not too well would be my guess. I presume some, but not all, people posting projects on sites like these are going with the cheapest option, getting people to work for virtually nothing (0.50 cents an hour) and in some cases they aren't even going to pay that at the end of it.

I continued on applying for work and I was on the verge of giving up when last week my bids for two separate projects were accepted.

My first project was for $30.00 or at least it was supposed to be. I accepted the work and once I did was told that they wanted 10 pieces of work done for $5.00.  Each piece ran in to hundreds of words and would have taken around 30-60 minutes. Now, here's the really good bit. Had I completed the project I would have been charged $5 for the privilege. Since I didn't sign up to work on a voluntary basis I'm afraid I declined the work. I then got a short message from the employer saying that he was 'Proceeding with other providers' Well, good luck to him, and to them, they're going to need it.

My second project is - and will always be - my favourite. I was offered $50 per 750 word article. That sounded believable as it's in line with what I'd get paid for that amount of work with magazines etc.

I accepted the work and the moment I did, I received an email stating that they wanted 100 articles for that $50, each of them taking an hour to write and research.  That isn't worth my while or anyone else's and I doubt very much that I would have been paid as my request to be paid per article was politely turned down, those weren't the terms apparently.

If anyone has had any luck with these sites please let me know.

Before I finish, I plan to start my own Freelance site sooner rather than later. One that pays people a fair day's pay for a fair days work, you get what you pay for after all.