The Weekly Resource RoundUp

Things have been so hectic lately that I haven't had a chance to compile the roundup for a couple weeks. Hopefully this week's mega roundup will make up for it.

Obviously none of us got into freelancing to work for free. However, there are some times when working for nothing can be good for your business. In a guest post at The Wealthy Freelancer, Michelle Goodman shares thoughts on when it works in your favor as well as things to watch out for.

Word of mouth is how many of us advertise our services. Check out these 18 essential tools for word of mouth marketing. While the list is geared more towards those with established brands, there are still some great tools for those in the process of building their name.

For many of us, working from home is a dream. There are so many different work at home jobs out there that you are sure to find something. Some jobs may surprise you.

We know about passive income, but what about passive job hunting? Dana Prince offers tips on self-promotion so the clients come to you without you having to hunt them down.
If you are a work at home parent, it can be hectic. The Work at Home Woman offers some great tips to balance life, work and family.

If you are trying to get a book published, be sure to check out the SFWA Thumbs Down Agency List. The literary agents and agencies on the list have had a high number of complaints or have other issues that might make you rethink hiring them.

Chris Brogan shares some great tips on how to blog almost every day. Now I just need to put these tips into practice.

The Fine Line Between Busy and Overwhelmed

With my phlebotomy clinicals starting this week (tomorrow to be exact), I've been doing a lot of thinking on how I am going to balance everything. I already juggle being a SAHM, going to school 2 nights a week, handling the business end of my husband's business, dealing with his chronic illness and freelance writing. Now, with the addition of clinicals three days a week, I am wondering if my plate isn't getting a little crowded.

There is a fine line between busy and overwhelmed. Whether you are a stay at home parent trying to earn some extra money or a full-time employee freelancing on the side until you build your business enough to quit your day job, this line is something you will encounter at some point. How you handle it says a lot about you.

Personally, I thrive on being busy. I seem to do my best work when a deadline is bearing down on me. This weekend for the very first time, I participated in one of NAA's pushes. With the incentive of $1.75 extra per article, I wanted to knock out as many articles as possible. I ended up doing 16 articles in two days, three of which were over 500 words. Considering my husband was in the hospital (yes again), my daughter was cranky because she missed him and I was fighting a respiratory bug, I'm amazed at how much I was able to do. But it all goes back to the deadline. I knew I needed to do as much as I could during those two days of extra pay.

However, there does come a point when I get overwhelmed. When this happens, I break down and do the one thing I hate to do. I ask for help. In many cases, it doesn't take a lot to get me over the hump-a friend babysitting for a couple hours, a family member jumping in to quiz me on my notes for class or my husband telling me to take a nap rather than visit him at the hospital.

Where are you on the line between busy and overwhelmed? If you cross over to overwhelmed, how do you handle it?

*Photo by Ryan Smart.

The Importance of Breaks for Freelancers

Making a full time living working from home is probably one of the top reasons people choose to leave their 9-5 for a freelancing career. However, most people fail to take into account that it takes time to build that kind of income. They find themselves working long hours, taking on any job that comes their way, trying to get to that income level. Burnout is common.

Ask any freelancer what their secret is for maintaining their sanity and preventing burnout and they will tell you it is taking regular breaks. By regular breaks, I don't just mean a half hour lunch break or a few smoke breaks through the day. I'm talking about a break that involves staying away from the computer for an extended amount of time.

When I started my journey into freelance writing, I fell in the trap myself. Because my time was split between taking care of my family, going to school and helping my husband with his business, I took every chance I got to write. I ended up giving up time with my family on weekends since that was the only time my husband was home all day to be with our daughter.

Then it hit me. I can't be effective as a freelance writer if I don't give myself some downtime. My brain needs times to recharge, especially if I'm working on multiple orders on the same subject like I have been lately. My eyes and back also need the break. More importantly, my family needs me on weekends.

Now I make it a point to take at least one day a week off from work and everyone is happier. My family is happy because I'm not hidden away in my home office. My back and eyes are happy because they got a much needed rest. Even my clients are happier because a recharged brain is a creative one.

Do you take breaks?

*Photo by Vassiliki Koutsothanasi.

When Missing a Deadline is Unavoidable

For a freelance writer, or any freelancer for that matter, missing deadlines reflects badly. Miss too many and you get a reputation for being unreliable. However, there are times when missing a deadline is unavoidable due to circumstances beyond your control. How you handle these situations can go a long way in the client's impression of you.

Murphy's Law states that if anything can go wrong, it will. Maybe you or someone in your family gets sick or hurt. Perhaps your computer crashes. Or maybe a storm knocks out your power. You never know when something might happen so planning for the eventuality is difficult.

This week was the first time ever when I knew I was going to miss a deadline. My husband had to be hospitalized unexpectedly. Then my daughter got sick and finally I got sick. Needless to say, it's been a rough week.

There are a few ways you can handle a situation like this. Not all of them are right. Some freelancers make the mistake of not contacting the client and just submitting the work when it is ready. Others may just blow off the client entirely, not even bothering to complete the job. Both of these are wrong ways to handle the situation. They leave the client in the dark. Even with the first option when the work is completed, the lack of communication will probably leave the client with a poor impression of you.

Better ways to handle the situation would be to contact the client to advise them of the problem and either request more time or suggest another writer. While suggesting another writer may seem like you're working against yourself, it actually benefits you in two ways. One, it lets the client know you care about the satisfaction of your clients. Two, by sending business to a fellow writer, you increase the chance that they'll refer business your way.

When handled correctly, a missed deadline can work to your benefit. However, keep in mind that a habit of missing deadlines, no matter how well you handle it, will not do your freelance writing reputation any good.

*Photo by Paavo Leinonen.

The Weekly Resource RoundUp

No one wants to put a lot of work into applying for a writing job only to find out that it's a scam. James of Men With Pens shares three scams freelancers face and how to avoid them. It is an older post (September 2007), but many of these scams are still in use today.

If you're writing content for the web, search engine optimization, often referred to as SEO, is something you need to know about. Check out this great list of free SEO tools. If you're writing for a share of ad revenue, you'll definitely want to check out the keyword tools.

Unless you plan to stay with content sites, odds are you're going to start looking for your own clients at some point in the future. Daily Writing Tips gives us 5 tips when bidding for freelance work.

Freelance Parent gives us 67 freelance niche writing markets you may have never considered.

The Weekly Resource RoundUp

A few more good resources this week. If you know of any that may be helpful to me or other readers, please comment and let me know.

If you're looking for information on how to monitor for content theft or how to deal with it if you find it, you need to check out Hey That Blogger Stole My Content at Blog World Expo.

If you're constantly fighting distraction, then check out 155 ways to work at home without distractions. There's lots of great tips from people that work from home.

Twitter has become the new social media. Learn 62 ways to use Twitter for business.

Ever wonder why you are not more productive? Check these 6 reasons on Dumb Little Man and learn how to get past them.

Your bio is an important part of how client's perceive you. Learn how to write a killer bio that lets clients see who you are and what you have to offer them.

Writer's Block

I've had writer's block lately. It's a frustrating condition, especially for a freelancer on a deadline. No one wants the dreaded label of "writer who misses deadlines." So how does a writer break through writer's block and get the words flowing again?

I did some research to find out what other writers do and came across an interesting post by Matt at Signal vs Noise. In his blog post Writer's Block is Sometimes Just Typer's Block, he theorizes that we have the words we need, but our fingers fail to follow through. He recommends speaking the words, then going back and transcribing what you recorded. In theory, this allows you to bypass your fingers, allowing your words to shine as they're meant to.

It actually makes perfect sense. I spend so much time struggling to get the typed words to match the words in my head that I end up cluttering them up, rendering my writing incomprehensible. By speaking the words naturally and then going back and typing, I skipped all the extra words by fingers were trying to add and managed to complete my article.

What's your method for dealing with writer's block?

*Photo by Robert Linder.

Freelance Progress Report: June 2009

This month I added another paid writing gig with Review Stream. The pay isn't the greatest-a few dollars per review, a fraction of that if they consider it a bulk review. Thankfully, all of my submitted reviews were paid at the full rate. You can review anything-products in your home, local businesses, etc. I did a couple reviews on supplements I take and a few on local businesses. Judging from some of the reviews I read on the site, they're not too picky about how good the writing is.

It is a little different from other writing sites in that it doesn't have a log in. Initially, I thought it was a scam, but I did a little research and it appears they are legit. I don't plan on it being a big money stream, but it's okay for a little extra when I don't have any other work to do.

The Breakdown
3 reviews at regular rate-$6

I haven't did a lot of work at Associated Content this month. This is partially due to the fact that writing assignments have been few and far between. Most of the assignment list is made up of video and audio assignments. While I have the equipment to do those type of assignments, I prefer writing. I haven't claimed the few writing assignments because they have all been on topics I'm not familiar with. While I don't mind researching, it's just not productive for me to do that much research on an article that only offers a couple dollars. In the time I spend researching something I have absolutely no knowledge on, I would have been able to write a couple articles for TextBroker or a handful of reviews for Review Stream and made a lot more money. With limited time to write, I need to make sure the pay is enough to compensate for the time spent.

I did run into a problem with my Father's Day article. Apparently someone stole it and "spun" it. When I was checking the standing of my articles on the search engines, something I do on a regular basis, I came across the other one. The idiot who stole it was not the brightest crayon in the box. Their spun version made no sense, not to mention they neglected to steal the second page of the article. This is the first time I've ran into an issue with any of my articles and it was frustrating. Logically, I know it's bound to happen if my articles are online. However, that doesn't stop me from feeling very ticked off at the person for ripping off my article.

The Breakdown
4 articles
1 assignment-$3.75
3 offered upfront-$9.09
April PV bonus-$0.30
May PV bonus-$1.79
total for month-$14.93
total since start-$103.14

I ended up giving Textbroker the majority of my writing time this month. They've had pretty steady work almost all month. Of the articles I wrote, only a couple were in the 3 category so I made out pretty well. I definitely surpassed last month's income with the site.

I got lucky the other day and snagged an article that paid between $14 and $28. It ended up being a little more work than I had expected, but I did get it finished. Even with falling short of the upper limit (which I almost always hit with other articles), I still made $23.58.

I did send in my request to be moved up to a 5 rating. One of the editors answered my request and said that they would review my writing. She also let me know that the process can take up to a few weeks. So far, I haven't heard anything back other than that and I'm still at a 4 rating, but I'm not giving up on it.

They had another bonus weekend, but I only got a $1 bonus, just like the last bonus weekend. It never fails; I'm always busy doing other stuff when one is going on so I end up missing out on a nice bonus.

The Breakdown
9 articles in the 4 category-$75.10
2 articles in the 3 category-$10.00
bonus weekend-$1.00
Total for month-$86.10
Total to date-$162.70

July will be my last month before I add another aspect to my already busy schedule. I start classes at the end of the month to become a phlebotomist. I still plan to continue in my efforts to make a career as a freelance writer, but phlebotomy will give me a steady income while my business gains momentum.

*Photo by Sigurd Decross.

Writing in Chaos

I normally don't have a problem writing with my three-year-old in the house. She'll sit in my home office and play while I'll work. Occasionally, she'll want to play one of the educational computer games we have for and I'll set her up on my husband's computer. It's rare I have trouble working with her around.

My husband has chronic pancreatitis. When he's sick, it does add a degree of difficulty as I'm not only trying to keep him comfortable, but I'm also attempting to keep our daughter and the puppy away from him. It slows down my writing, but generally I can still get some writing done.

However, this weekend has taught me that writing in chaos is nearly impossible. My sister is currently attending college full-time to be a medical office administrator. Between school and taking care of her family, she hasn't had any time for herself in a long time. So when she was offered the opportunity to attend a bike rally over the weekend, I volunteered to babysit my nieces so she could go. They're four and five.

It was a very chaotic weekend. While my daughter is good at playing quietly, my nieces are not. Our puppy tends to sleep a lot, but since my nieces had brought their puppy along, he spent the whole time chasing her around the house while they both barked at each other and anything else that caught their eyes. On top of all the ruckus the kids and dogs were making, my husband got sick and ended up being hospitalized on Friday. Then, my aunt called Saturday night to tell me that my great-grandmother had passed away.

By Sunday, I was ready to pull my hair out. I had planned to write over the weekend, but hadn't had a chance with everything going on. My husband got out of the hospital around lunchtime. On the way to pick him up, my sister called to let me know she was coming back early and ask if I could meet her at three so she could pick up the girls. I ended up rushing home, feeding everyone lunch, then loading them all back in the car for the two hour trip to meet my sister.

By the time I finally made it home Sunday evening and got my daughter in bed, I was so exhausted that I crawled in bed as well. Not a very productive weekend for me unfortunately.

This weekend was a learning experience for me. If I plan to make a career as a freelance writer, I need to be able to work around obstacles that come up.

*Photo by Carl Dwyer