Snagging Clients – A Dozen Low or No-Cost Techniques to Pick Up Paying Assignments ASAP – An Excerpt from Jumpstart Your Writing Career and Snag Paying Assignments http://filbertpublishing.com/jumpstart.htm  

By Beth Ann Erickson 

Because this is sooooo important, here’s a quick recap of some of the techniques you can use to land paying clients that we covered earlier.  You must remember to promote your business on a REGULAR basis.  Don’t shoot off a few ads or letters, then wait three months before you do it again.  Promote your business DAILY.

Depending on where you live, landing those paying jobs may not be as hard as you think.  The secret is to start small and build from there.

If you’ll remember, I began my writing career covering local city council and school board meetings.  That job alone gave me more clips than I knew what to do with. 

So here’s your first technique to start your writing business: approach your local newspaper editor.  Ask if they need someone to cover meetings.  If they do, you’re on your way earning a living as a writer.

Armed with your local clips, you can start approaching bigger markets.  Markets like small and mid-sized magazines that are hungry for new articles.  Start querying them and wait for their response.  (Technique 2.)

While you’re waiting to hear from your magazine queries, chat with few of the mayors, city council people, school board members, etc. that you’ve met at your meetings.  Most of them are business people.  Ask if they need their brochures updated, ads or direct mail letters written, or if they need a writer-for-hire for any project they may have brewing.  You’d be surprised how many business people will take you up on your offer after they’ve witnessed your diligence and accuracy while covering their meetings.  (Technique 3.)

Now target local businesses and contact them.  See what they need to have written and offer to do it.  (Technique 4.)

To start attracting commercial clients, you can run a small ad in your local paper.  As your expertise increases, place more ads in surrounding papers.  Maybe you’ll want to write a snappy classified ad in the business section. (Technique 5.)

Join your local Chamber of Commerce.  You’ll meet business owners and make invaluable contacts. (Technique 6.)

Send out a direct mail piece advertising your writing services.  Write an entire direct mail package, write a sales letter, put together a newsletter.  Target the businesses you’d like to work with.  (Technique number 7.)

Another technique to keep the money rolling in as a freelance writer is to have lots of irons in the fire.  Along with the magazine queries, and copywriting, always have a book in the works and send out proposals for it.  I know one local writer who has cultivated a devoted clientele who has her write all their correspondence… including Christmas letters.  Your projects are only limited by your imagination.  (Technique 8.)

Make goals each day.  Decide how many queries you’ll send out.  Decide how many sales letters you’ll mail.  How many words are you going to write in your book?  How many new contacts are you going to make this week?  Make your goals… then follow through with them.  (Technique 9.)

Ask and you may receive.  Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want.  If you’re a stringer for your local newspaper, ask the editor if it’s possible for them to run a small ad promoting your business at a discount (after all you’re a staff writer.)  If you run an e-mag, ask to exchange links or ads.  If you write for local businesses, ask them to recommend your writing services to their friends.  (Technique 10.)

Never tell anyone your phone number.  GIVE it to them.  Print up a bunch of business cards and whenever anyone asks for your phone number, give them your card instead.  (Technique 11.)

Network.  Make friends in your field.  Give each other leads and help each other become the best writers you can be.  (Technique 12.)

Carry your latest project with you.  If you’ve written a book, bring it wherever you go.  If you just finished a big copywriting project, have it nearby.  Got an article in the latest issue of a magazine or newspaper?  Better bring it with you….  Nothing sparks a conversation faster than “What ‘cha been up to lately?”  Then, next thing you know, you’ve got a prospective customer.  (Technique 13.)

I know, I know… I promised twelve strategies to start making money TODAY as a writer.  But I got on a roll and thirteen (I’ve heard) is an unlucky number so here’s one more strategy.

Read.  Read everything you can get your hands on.  If you write novels, read novels.  If you write direct mail, read EVERY piece of direct mail that lands on your doorstep.  If you write ads, read ads.  Read what your competition is writing.  Read what your friends are writing.  Make note of what “works” for you and what doesn’t.  Then write something better.

Read e-mags that will help you make your writing as sharp as possible.  Perfect your craft, become the best writer you can be, promote your business, and you’ll have more work than you can handle.

So there you have it.  Fourteen of the best strategies to land business and make a living as a writer.  The possibilities are endless.  That’s why this job is so great.  Find out what works for you and then run with it.  You just may find yourself earning a nice income.

By now you should have queries in the mail, sales letters set to go, articles forming in your mind.  If you aren’t that far yet, don’t worry.  Skip writing in your journal for a couple days and get to work.  Start today and jumpstart your writing career.

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