1. Talk to your accountant. I handle most of the bookkeeping for my business myself, but I pay my CPA to handle my income tax return as well as advise me on what I can be doing for myself and my business from a financial point of view. Suggestions like when to open a retirement account and how to use it to minimize the taxes I pay have more than covered the amount that I pay my CPA — and those payments are tax deductible as well. As the year ends, it’s good to check in with your accountant about the state of your business. You can talk about what you need before January 1st to improve your tax situation, as well as make plans for the new year.
2. Touch base with your clients. It’s worth checking in with your clients before either of you start to take time off for the holidays: starting with Thanksgiving, it can be a bit hit or miss to catch people in the office. I find it worthwhile to chat about everyone’s availability during the holiday season, especially if there are any deadlines approaching. It’s also helpful to check if they’re going to be sending any work your way in the first quarter of 2010.
3. Take a look at your prices. The beginning of a new year is a great opportunity to raise prices if you aren’t earning what you’re worth. It’s easy to tell clients that your prices will be going up after the end of the year, while it can be harder for them to remember that things are changing mid-month or even mid-year. Since most writers have a hard time raising our rates, having a set date to do so can provide a little internal motivation as well.
4. Double check your expenses. While we freelance writers have less expenses than a lot of other small businesses, there are a few standards: utilities, internet access, banking fees. A lot of these services change their terms and prices over the course of time — just as we may increase our rates on New Year’s Day, so might they — so it’s important to take a look at where those prices have gone. Spending 15 minutes checking through bills and seeing if you can negotiate a lower rate or take advantage of a discount can make the difference for your business. It’s also a good opportunity to review what tools you’re using. If you’re using software to manage certain parts of your business, it may be time to make sure that you’re getting the most out of that tool.
5. See how your colleagues are doing. The holiday season offers a great chance to check in with other writers. Many of us feel like we really know what’s going on based on what our peers post to Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, but it’s worthwhile to send out an email directly, check in on folks and see what’s happening. These little chats may give you insight on where you’re going in the next year, opportunities to team up or even a chance to just enjoy some downtime with a friend.
6. Clean out your inbox. From my email to my filing cabinet, I want to have everything emptied out by the end of the year. It rarely happens that way, but in trying to get as far as I can, I often catch things that would otherwise slip through my fingers. Take some of that downtime that comes with every holiday season as clients reduce the work they’re sending out and apply it towards cleaning out the old and making room for the new.
7. Set goals for 2010. I feel like goals are my main motivation for moving forward as a freelancer. If I can’t tell myself that next month I’m going to make more money, it’s hard to get up and send out more queries. At the end of each year, I check how I’ve done in achieving my goals and set some new ones for the future. By preference, I prefer to set out monthly goals, but some people prefer yearly. No matter what works for you, this time of year seems to be a good time to stop and think about goals.

What are you planning to do before the end of the year? How are you setting yourself up to succeed in 2010?

I have a question about finding contact information for websites. I suppose I never really gave much thought to who contributes the content to websites, but now I realize that writing for sites can be some nice extra income. The problem I’m running into is finding contact information for submissions. I’ve tried using the generic “Info” button or “info@…” email address, but I haven’t had much luck. How do I track down this hard-to-find info? I might be missing out on some additional opportunities–help!

It’s been my experience that a lot of websites already have a plan in place to create content. This can be both good and bad for freelancers: if we can become part of that plan, we can earn money. But if we aren’t part of that plan, it can be hard to convince a prospective client to add us.

Personally, I’ve had the most luck getting work on sites with blogs or newsletters — sites that routinely need more content. If a site is static and the owner doesn’t need to keep adding lots of content, it can be harder to get a good paycheck. With blogs, even if you can’t find more than generic contact information on the site, you’ll at least find the name of the blog’s owner. That can be enough to help you connect through LinkedIn or another social networking site. I’ve even contacted someone through a direct message on Twitter to ask for a full email address.

It’s not a perfect system, unfortunately. Sometimes the reason that a site doesn’t list any submission information is because they aren’t currently taking any submissions. IYou’ll never find out if you don’t ask, but be prepared for a fairly high number of negative answers.

I hope so. I’m a big believer that NaNoWriMo can be an incredibly useful exercise for a writer, whether or not you’re currently freelancing. Even if you haven’t started yet, the exercise of writing 1,000 words a day can be worth trying.

I’m not about to suggest that writing a novel will necessarily make any a better writer — heck, even assuming a writer gets a complete novel out of NaNoWriMo, there’s no guarantee that it will be worth publishing. However, the simple act of forcing yourself to sit down at the computer and meet a goal is a skill that every freelance writer must have. Even if you don’t have a client project to work on, having that constant practice can make you a better freelancer.

• You’ll be able to write faster. While you may not be able to pound that 1,000 words in an hour, practice will improve the time it takes you to complete most written projects, especially those that focus more on copy or nonfiction.
• You’ll know that you can finish a 30,000 word manuscript in 30 days if you need to. That knowledge can give you confidence for bigger client projects, as well as for personal projects like other books or ebooks.
• You’ll build an excellent writing habit. Think about what you can accomplish, just by writing at least 1,000 words every day. Heck, if you get comfortable with that number and can up your word count, you can complete a very significant amount of writing.

It’s never to late to commit yourself to writing a novel (or another big project) in thirty days. Just because NaNoWriMo is already a week in doesn’t mean that you can’t start today.

However, we did get our mortgage and our house — and I came out of the experience with a few pieces of advice for freelancers ready to buy a home.

It’s All About Income Taxes

If you’re looking for a traditional mortgage, you must have at least two years worth of income tax returns showing at least your current income level. If you’ve made the switch to freelancing full-time in the last two years and don’t have income tax returns demonstrating how much you’re making, many lenders will essentially ignore your income. If you have a spouse who can manage the mortgage payment on his or her own, that’s not a big deal, but otherwise you are going to have to explore other options. I’ve also heard of freelancers taking part-time employment temporarily and having similar issues.

An FHA mortgage offers an alternative. Because the requirements have more flexibility, lenders who offer FHA mortgages are more willing to look at your current invoices and contracts to determine what your income really is. You’ll need a Year-To-Date report for your business as well as any supporting documents that the underwriter asks for. I was able to use a copy of my current outstanding invoices and list the projects that I already have lined up through the end of the year, along with providing a copy of my bank statement (I have a separate business checking account).

Think Ahead For A Home Office

Most freelance writers work from home. That means that making a dedicated home office area a priority during the hunt for a new home makes sense. The specifics of what you need may vary, but make sure you get what you need. As a bonus, it’s important to remember that if you have an area of your house used only for your freelance writing business, you can write off a portion of your utility bills and even your mortgage payments as a business expense.

Talk To A Tax Professional

Buying a house can make a big difference in your tax bill — even more so if you’re used to paying those quarterly estimated payments to the IRS. However, I would definitely recommend talking to your CPA or tax professional to see just how much you can save. My CPA was able to point out that not only would we qualify for this year’s first-time home buyer credit, but we’d also save a ton of money on our income taxes by deducting the interest we’re paying on the mortgage. We’ll actually have more money available after tax season by buying a house.

I want to know how you end up with eight hours for writing. I have yet to be able to make that happen around my home. Maybe I should just run away.

Some freelance writers struggle to schedule around day jobs. Some struggle to schedule around kids. There are plenty of other problems that can creep into a schedule — and sometimes they show up in combination. All of that means that setting a writing schedule can seem entirely impossible.

Because I know what can happen if I’m not careful, I’m very protective of my time. No matter who asks me for a favor or who I need to schedule an appointment with, I’m willing to say no if it doesn’t fit into my schedule. I do set aside a couple of day-time hours for errands and appointments and such, knowing that if I schedule time in, it’s easier to recover from the disruption of time away from the computer. To make up for that time, I may spend a couple of extra hours at the computer after dinner or on the weekend.

Just because I work for eight hours a day, though, doesn’t mean that you have to. I’m lucky to have a pretty flexible schedule (no kids yet, full-time freelancer), but my schedule would change in a heartbeat if I had another priority above work.

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Kathleen asks,

When someone emails you interested in your services, what do you say?

It can be hard to decide how to approach a prospective client. If you start with your rates, he might get scared off. If you start with trying to educate a client about why you charge a certain way, he might get bored.

I’ve come to the conclusion that a good starting point is to ask the client about himself and his project first. In general, most people don’t include enough information about their projects for me to offer a fair quote, so I list out the details I need. Because so many clients start out by asking rates, I do have a boiler plate paragraph explaining that I charge per project and why.

I also make a point of asking about the client’s goals with a project. More times than I can count, a client has come to me with a project, hoping to reach a specific end — but I can tell from my experience that the project will need to be tweaked or altered in order to achieve that goal. If I can mention that up front, I can often save both myself and the client a lot of worry.

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Matt Willard is looking for tips to find opportunities to connect with the people relevant to the writing work he wants to find — and he’s a humor writer.

Connecting with potential clients and editors before you actually try to get them to put money can make it much easier to convince them of the value of your writing when the time comes. The problem is, for some niches, it’s hard to find those people. Humor writers like Matt may actually have the hardest time of it: assuming that you don’t want to get into scriptwriting or other related projects, your main opportunities for selling your work will be to humor magazines and humor websites.

That means that you’ve got to build strong connections with humor editors. You need to at least make yourself known to them. The best starting point is likely to be the publications that these editors work for. Commenting on articles can be a way to build up a presence among what the editors think of as their community. Do it often enough and they may even recognize your name when you send in a submission. Those comments do have to be meaningful and well-thought out to really get the attention of editors, though.

It’s also worthwhile to get involved in some of the forums and groups on various social networking sites that share jokes and humorous links. Just looking on Facebook, there are hundreds of groups dedicated to jokes. Get involved and start sharing (among other things) links to your own writing). I’d suggest not limiting yourself to your own work — you’ll be better able to become a part of the overall community if they don’t see you as only promoting your own work.

This sort of approach works for more than just humor writers, of course. It’s just a matter of creatively connecting with the folks in your field.

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Have a question about the business of freelance writing? Ask it in the comments and I’ll answer it next Saturday!

A little background: Nalo Hopkinson is an accomplished science fiction and fantasy novelist. Her teaching credentials include the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Workshops. At the end of September, Hopkinson offered one-on-one mentorships, offering to work with writers on a novel or other fiction project between October 15th and January 15th. Interested writers had to submit an application. The cost of the mentorship is $2,000.

I’ve spent the past couple of weeks thinking about this approach to mentorship and what it means for other writers considering new options for bringing in income. I think that it could be an incredible opportunity for writers — fiction or not — who have been writing for a long time and enjoy teaching. When I say a long time, I do mean years and years of experience. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for someone in search of a mentor to look for writers who have been in the game for at least ten years. Without extensive experience, it isn’t so clear that the time required for mentoring a new writer would be worthwhile, either.

New writers may be more interested in this sort of mentorship for fiction projects, as opposed to learning about magazine writing or copy writing. Think about the kinds of writing classes that are popular in college: the poetry and fiction classes all seemed to fill up first. Interestingly, that’s the sort of student Hopkinson seems to be aiming towards: it’s almost as if she was a writer in residence at a school where she could work with a handful of students. She’s even had a few people offer scholarship funds with that approach in mind.

If you’ve got the experience to make a mentorship worthwhile for an aspiring writer, it’s worth considering mentorships or other teaching opportunities, if only to diversify the income you’re bringing in. It’s not the only option, of course, but there are a couple of factors that may make it worthwhile: The number of freelance writers is rising, especially as many people are turning to freelance work while job hunting (and quickly realizing that they need additional skills and training to be able to handle it). There are also more jobs that require effective written communication and the ability to use blogging and social media tools — which can provide an opportunity far beyond fiction writing.

In your first year of writing or so, would you have been willing to pay for a mentor to work through the process with you?

How does a freelance writer best schedule their time?

Very carefully! I know that many writers use very different systems of managing their time: some people like to spend only a certain amount of time a day working on client work, while others ascribe to the philosophy that there are 24 usable hours in every day. I think it’s important to find a system that works well with the times you do your best work as well as your own habits. I know I can’t stay in a chair for more than an hour, for instance, so I schedule around that.

I can give you a quick run down on how I schedule my days. I have a basic schedule that I start from: I plan to spend four hours a day on client projects, two hours on my own projects and one hour on marketing. I know about how long most types of writing projects will take me and I generally try to schedule about four hours worth of work each day. I rarely have less and I often have more, which means I’m taking time away from my personal projects or marketing. I don’t, however, write down on a calendar that I’m going to work on Project X from 9 AM to 10 AM and switch to Project Y from 10 AM to 11 AM. Instead, I just focus on what is listed on my task list and work my way through it. This allows me to get up and wander around for five minutes every hour or so without having to make special accommodations in my schedule.

However, that really is just what I do. I know some freelancers work much better with a more regimented schedule and I know a few who think that I plan out my day too much — they just sit down with a list and see what happens. It’s up to you to find a comfortable schedule for your own writing. Once you find it, though, stick to it. Make it a habit. You know you’re doing it right if a day away from your schedule makes you a little bit uncomfortable.

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Jennifer Vaughn asks,

I’m curious to know what your sourcing/research process is like after you land a piece of writing.

While there are some differences in the articles that I pitch to editors and the long-term blogging assignments I don’t necessarily need to pitch for, I do handle certain parts of my research for both.

When I’m developing a query, I try to have at least one source that I already know will be able to work with me on the piece before I even pitch. I make a note of who that person is in my query, along with their relevant expertise. If, after my query is accepted, I need more sources, I follow these steps:

• I check my contact list for anyone who would be a good fit.
• I post a note on Twitter about who I’m looking for — but I don’t hold my breath. Twitter is great for tech-heavy articles and certain articles involving marketing. But otherwise, unless you’re looking for someone at a specific company, it can be tough to find a relevant source.

I submit a request to HARO. Even my truly obscure requests get at least one or two answers from prospective sources. I’ve had more than 70 responses for broader requests.

I’ll also do a couple of searches online to find other information and resources. Wikipedia is not a source, of course, but it can be a good way to start tracking down articles and websites that have mentioned your topic in the past. On certain projects, I’ve even been known to request books from the library. My district allows me to place a request online: they’ll find the book at whatever branch it was last turned in at and then deliver it to my local branch.

Once I start getting notes and interviews together, I tend to email them to myself. I use Gmail, so I can search for specific pieces of information very easily as I’m writing. That’s also why I like email interviews for a lot of the topics I work with.

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Have a question about the business of freelance writing? Ask it in the comments and I’ll answer it next Saturday!

Juliet explores each aspect of submitting a bid or proposal through the various job sites. From the details of setting up a professional profile that conveys your abilities to actually writing a proposal to building a solid reputation, Juliet goes through everything you’ll need to know. Particularly valuable, in my opinion, are the many examples she provides. In addition to full templates that you can model your bids on, the ebook has examples for practically every section. I’m one of those writers who simply telling how to do something isn’t enough, so actually being able to see these suggestions in action is incredibly helpful. There are even some examples of what not to do, making it easier to avoid problems in the long run.

Overall, this ebook is a good resource. With information on every aspect of the proposal process, down to determining whether you actually want to win a particular job, it’s a solid starting point for anyone interested in finding work through bidding sites but not entirely sure how to actually win projects.

The Winning Proposal is available for purchase through Juliet’s site, FreelanceWise. It’s priced at $12.

Personally, I have to say that I’m not a big fan of bid sites. I try to focus my work on finding clients that want to work with one freelancer for the long term, while most bid sites seem to focus on short-term projects. However, I know plenty of writers who earn good income primarily through work they’ve found through such sites. Bid sites do make finding work significantly easier: rather than having to search out job listings on a variety of sites or pitch potential clients, you can look through a list of new opportunities every day. Newer freelancers can also often build up clips through bid sites faster than they might otherwise. If you’re not sure what you think you bid sites, go ahead and try them out. There’s no requirement that you keep using bid sites if you decide you aren’t comfortable.

Note: Juliet du Preez provided me with a review copy of her ebook. Thanks, Juliet!

I am sold on doing many of these things online. My concern is what happens to my content if these websites fail. I saw what happened to Magnolia (web book marking site) and understand that google notebook is no longer supported. If I put my whole life out there…how do I back it up? Am I crazy to be concerned about this?

That is a very legitimate concern — especially for writers who are in the business of creating content. For sites you control, such as a blog on your own domain, backing up your information is relatively simple. However, with other sites, it can be harder. In some cases, you can send information between sites (including to your own) so that you can back up information — that approach works with Twitter, Delicious and some other sites. There are also now several tools for downloading and backing up your social networking profiles. Most recently, I’ve seen Lifestreambackup — I received a free account in order to review the service for Web Worker Daily —which can backup Google Docs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and plenty of other sites. There are other tools out there, but I’ve actually used Lifestreambackup and know it to be reliable.

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Got a question about the business of freelance writing? Post it in the comments or email it to me and I’ll make sure you get an answer next week.

Personally, I think that every writer needs to have some sort of CRM system in place. It’s the easiest way I know of to keep track of people. Not only do I have all their contact information in one place, but I can label my contacts, search for them by keyword (instead of by name or company), and even keep notes on them:

• Editors: I have every editor I know listed in my system, with notes on what sort of topics they’re interested in and any inside information I have on pitching them.
• Sources: I’ve worked with a long list of sources, most of whom continue to be active in the fields I write about. Why should I go find new sources when I can just run a search on my software?
• Clients: If you work with other kinds of freelance writing clients, having the ability to track your communications can be absolutely crucial — and CRM software can provide that.

I know that telling someone that they should be using CRM software is one thing. Actually getting them to do so is often a lot harder: you may be worried about what it will take to get a system set up, how much it might cost or even whether you have the time to take care of it. In order to answer these questions, I’m going to go through each step I took to get my own system set up.

Why Gist?

For the purposes of this project, I’m talking about Gist because that’s the application I use. It’s set up so that it can pull in information from social media — I’ll go into depth on just how helpful that can be for a writer a little farther down. It’s also free to use (which I know is a big factor for many writers). It can automate some parts of keeping your contacts up to date.

You can manage your contacts elsewhere, of course. Gist is still in beta, so there’s always a chance that things won’t go quite as expected. It is an online application, which I find preferable to desktop software. I can access it from anywhere, without having to figure out how to synchronize my files on my desktop and my laptop.

Setting up an account with Gist is a simple matter: all you have to do is give the site your name and email address and your account will be created. You’ll need to confirm your account by clicking a link the site emails to you, but after that, you’ll be ready to go.

Getting Your Contacts In Order

Once you’ve got an account on Gist, it’s time to start getting your contacts into your profile. Luckily, Gist has a very simple import tool that works with a lot of different sites. I started with importing my email account. All of my emails wind up in my Gmail account eventually (most of my other email addresses simply forward to Gmail), so I clicked on the Gmail button to import my account. I did have to give Gist both my Gmail address and my password — for those of us who are security conscious, an easy solution is to change your password after you’ve finished importing your contacts.

Adding other email accounts is a fairly simple task. If you use Outlook to manage your email, Gist offers a plugin that will connect your Gist account and your Outlook account. You’ll need to download and install the plugin, but you’ll actually get a few tools not available to non-Outlook users, like the ability to access Gist within your email application.

With any other email address, you’ll need an IMAP connection — the same type of connection Outlook uses to download email. Your email provider will probably list information about your IMAP server in the options on your email settings page. If this is not the case, it may be necessary to contact the person in charge of setting up your email account.

To add contacts from your Twitter and Facebook accounts, the process is much easier. With Twitter, you simply give Gist your user name — you don’t need to give the application your password or anything. With Facebook, you just have to already be logged into your Facebook account: Gist uses Facebook Connect to get your Facebook contacts.

LinkedIn can take a bit more: you’ll need to visit the LinkedIn website and download a copy of your contacts as a CSV file. On the ‘Contacts’ page, scroll all the way to the bottom and select ‘Download connections.’ From there, just follow the directions to export your contacts as a CSV file. Once you have that file, upload it to Gist’s LinkedIn section. The site will process your information and add your LinkedIn contacts. You can also bring in other lists of contacts as CSV files — for instance, if you have a spreadsheet listing out a bunch of editors or sources in Excel, you can export that document as a CSV file and add it to Gist.

Tagging And Searching

Once I had all my contacts imported into Gist, I sat down in front of the television. I had a couple of episodes of Project Runway that I’d been meaning to watch (guilty pleasure) and I took my laptop with me. While the show was going on in front of me, I went through the list of my contacts in Gist and added tags to all of them. Here are just a few of the tags I used:

• editor
• source
• tech
• smallbiz
• publicrelations

You can probably figure out which contacts I tagged as editors and sources, but I also added a couple of other tags. For my sources, I also tagged them with ‘publicrelations’ if I knew that they did public relations — when I’m in a real pinch for a source, I’ll check out who I know in public relations who could possibly make a connection for me to another source.

I also tagged my contacts with their areas of expertise. If I had talked to a particular source about small business issues, I tagged him with ’smallbiz.’ If an editor works at a publication covering technology, I tagged her with ‘tech.’ You can use different tags, of course, and you may wind up with quite a few different tags.

Once you’ve got those tags in place, you’ve got a secret weapon when it comes to looking through your contacts, however. You can search for contacts by name or company, just as you might in an address book. But you can also click on a particular tag and get a list of every source you have on a particular topic or check out every editor who might be interested in a story on a particular topic. This ability alone has cut the time I spend on finding sources and pitching stories in half.

One additional tip: I’ve also tagged all of my contacts with where I met them (if I remember). If I know that I met an editor that I want to pitch at a particular conference, but I can’t remember her name, having that tag will be very helpful in the long run. To make the most of this tip, though, it’s important to add any new contacts you make to your Gist account as soon as you meet them.

The Usefulness Of A Dossier

Gist does offer another set of tools that seem custom-built for writers: the ability to bring together information about your contacts. In addition to being able to tag a contact, Gist can list their Twitter, Facebook and other social media accounts. The application can even go out and find those accounts, so you can avoid spending a lot of time on gathering information. When you’re getting ready to contact a source you haven’t spoken to in a while, you can refresh your knowledge just by looking at the dossier that Gist has created: without leaving the site, you can see your source’s tweets and blog posts, as well as news about that person on other sites. These details can also make it easier to determine just which of your many contacts will be able to help you.

I know that if the editor I want to reach out to tweeted that she’s having a bad day today, it’s probably best to wait to make contact. In the same vein, if an editor has made a comment in her blog about the types of articles she needs currently, that information is now at your fingertips.

You can also add notes of your own to a dossier. If, for instance, you write primarily fiction, you might want to make notes about a particular editor’s taste or the overall submissions process for the publication. You can bring all sorts of information together that might otherwise be scattered across spreadsheets, emails and so forth.

Gist can also pull in your correspondence with your contacts: you can see at a glance the emails you’ve sent. That sort of information can be useful for following up with an editor on an idea or checking back with a source about an interview time. As you browse through your list of contacts, you can also see how long it’s been since you contacted them — if you have a query in to an editor, that information can be invaluable. After all, if you follow up too soon, it’s possible to annoy the editor. But if it’s been too long, the editor may have forgotten all about you.

Gist Can Give You Stories

Lastly, Gist can actually find you stories, if you learn how to browse the news section of your account. For each of your contacts, Gist automatically searches for news, listing their own online posts as well as news from other sites. You can look at the news about each of your contacts on their contact page.

You can also browse through news about all of your contacts on the front page of your account. Several times, I’ve found news that I could quickly turn into a pitch for one editor or another. I’ve also found a couple of stories that spiked ideas for fiction writing. A quick run through of your news can find you all sorts of information that will allow you to turn out a couple of queries without ever leaving Gist.

Even better, you can read the news related to people you’ve tagged in a certain way. Every so often, I like to pull up the news for my ‘editor’ tag: sometimes there will be a call for submissions in there, sometimes I’ll find a tip on pitching a particular editor, sometimes I’ll find a reason to touch base with an editor just so they remember I’m out there.

There are plenty of other features in Gist, many of which come in handy for different types of freelance writers. If you concentrate more on writing for clients, you’ll still find an application like Gist helpful. This is really just an introduction to what a CRM tool can do for you.