If you’re a freelance writer, don’t make these mistakes.
As ad budgets come and go and staff writing jobs continue to evaporate, freelance content marketing is a viable way to earn a living (and buy you some time to work on that screenplay or novel). Avoid these mistakes; make your editor happy; get more work; keep the good life going.
1) Don’t understand the primary tool of your trade—the computer. As a staffer, you worked on a six-year old version of Microsoft Office, your IT team set up your email account and no one used IM because they loved sitting in unproductive meetings all day. So when you launch your freelance business, you buy a no-name computer from a friend loaded with software you don’t know how to use. You use webmail as your primary email source because you can’t figure out how to use a real email program. And you broadcast your outdated ways to the world by using an AOL or Hotmail email address.
Bottom line: Learn the technology of your industry. It’s your job. And get a Gmail account, already. Or better yet, buy your own domain.
2) Take full advantage of the fact that you work from home and you’re your own boss. Go out of pocket for blocks of time during the day so that when your editor has a question about a piece that’s hours away from going to press, there’s no way to reach you. Consistently take several hours—or even up to a day or more—to reply to simple email queries, thus holding your editor hostage and unable to shuttle your piece along.
Bottom line: Just because you work for yourself doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep normal office hours. If you’re committed to shopping at the mall on Wednesday afternoons, then get a Blackberry or iPhone. Make yourself available like a professional person.
3) Refuse to learn your editor’s style guide. Submit a 3,000-word story full of dashes or space-dash-dash-spaces instead of proper em-dashes—and if your editor is kind enough to explain to you how to create a proper em- or en-dash using the Mac shortcuts and you’re on a PC, don’t bother to do a simple Google search to figure out the PC equivalent. Editors LOVE combing through 15-page documents to convert your lazy dash-dashes to proper em-dashes.
Bottom line: Pay attention to the line edits you get back from your clients. Ask for a copy of their style guide. Keep a Post-it by your computer listing which clients use the serial comma and which don’t. Even though these are simple fixes we’re talking about, wouldn’t you rather have your editors focus on the content of your work rather than the mechanics?
4) Fill your word count criteria with lazy metaphors, throwaway quotes and “narrative resume” material. Hey, no one wants to read an actual story, right? Just take a look at a source’s resume and write it out in a series of paragraphs. That should do the trick.
Bottom line: If you’re bored by your writing, you can bet your readers will be, too. It’s your job to dig deeper in your research, get better material out of your interviewees and work an idea until you get an interesting angle or twist.
5) Your editor has spellcheck and proofreaders, so don’t bother printing out your work and reading it over before shooting it off. Spell your sources names two or even three different ways throughout your story. Forget a period here and there. Ignore the squiggly red line Word offers to help you identify typos throughout your work. And definitely don’t take time to proof for the things spellcheck wouldn’t catch, such as typing “if” instead of “it” or “an” instead of “and.”
Bottom line: You’re not just a writer; you’re an editor and proofreader, too. Read your own work.
6) Don’t bother to read the assignment letter detailing minor points like word count, where to send your draft, and when (and how) to submit your invoice. While your at it, go a few hundred words over the word count—that way the editor has plenty to work with, right? Send everything directly to your editor instead of their story inbox or accounting department—he or she will handle it for you, right? Shoot off an informal invoice in the body of your email instead of creating a proper Word doc or PDF—they’ll figure it out, right? Wrong, wrong and wrong.
Bottom line: Pay attention to the job details. Not following the guidelines your editor took the time to explain is no different from going to a restaurant and the waiter bringing you a “top shelf” margarita with Jose Cuervo tequila instead of Patron.
7) And the always popular—let deadlines come and go without alerting your editor in advance. Let the editor wake up in the middle of the night to realize your story didn’t come in. That’s a great way to build a relationship and get more work.
Bottom line: If you’re a week out from a deadline and still haven’t heard back from a key source, let your editor know right away. He may have an alternate source for you, or he may give you an extension. A week out from a deadline means there are still possibilities. A missed deadline means your editor is left scrambling to fill the hole left by your lack of a story.
-Britta