A Free-Reprint Article Written by: Bill Platt
Article Title:
How To Increase Your Rates and Earnings As a Freelance Writer
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Article Description:
Freelance writers fill a very important role in today's
business marketplace. They create the on-demand, customized
content that business owners everywhere need to push their
businesses forward. In this article, the author explains
what freelance writers should do to ensure that employers
will pay them well for their services.
Additional Article Information:
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Distribution Date and Time: 2013-07-29 11:00:00
Written By: Bill Platt
Copyright: 2013
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How To Increase Your Rates and Earnings As a Freelance Writer
Copyright (c) 2013 Bill Platt
Freelance Writers Review
http://FreelanceWritersReview.com/
Freelance writers fill a very important role in today's business
marketplace. They create the on-demand, customized content that
business owners everywhere need to push their businesses forward.
The actual jobs might include writing copy for marketing
brochures and flyers. Those jobs might also include creating
white papers, newsletters, and articles for online and print
publications. Other writing jobs might include ghost writing
press releases, books or information products. Specific to the
Internet, some folks might pay you to write product reviews,
website copy, or blog posts.
I, for one, personally dabbled in writing for a number of years,
until I realized that business owners and managers were willing
to pay me to create content for them on-demand. I started
creating articles that would be used by business owners to
promote themselves online early in 2001. For the next decade, I
earned a really nice living as a freelance ghost writer.
When I got started in this industry, there was no such thing as
Elance.com, Odesk.com, or any of the myriad of other freelancing
websites. I honestly believe that this was an advantage for me. I
did not have to let someone else tell me how much I could earn as
a writer. I had the freedom to test prices and marketing
strategies to see what was really possible for the average
writer.
By no means do I consider myself to be the average writer, but
during my years in the freelance ghost writing industry, I hired
hundreds of writers to work for me, to help me create content for
my clients.
I have worked with wannabe writers, average writers, and the
extraordinary writers who made me look really good.
Just so that we are clear, my definition of a wannabe writer is
someone who looks at writing as an easy way to make money,
without any real concern for the quality of work they deliver to
their clients or readers.
Your Clients Should Profit From Your Work
Let me be perfectly clear at this point. Businesses are in
business to generate a profit.
Regardless of what your customers pay you to do your work, they
should be able to earn a profit on the work that you do on their
behalf.
When I was much younger, I worked in the restaurant industry. My
managers worked hard to meet prescribed cost formulas that
basically broke down to something in the neighborhood of 30%
labor costs, 30% food costs, and 30% fixed overhead costs.
In order to keep my job when working in the restaurant industry,
I basically needed to create a minimum of $3.30 in earnings for
every $1 I earned on my paycheck.
The same principle applies when you are working as a freelance
writer. You must provide the kind of content that will help your
employer earn a profit, or the employer will replace you with
someone who can.
In order to help your employer profit from the work that you
create on their behalf, there are two questions to which you must
understand the answer, before you sit down to write:
1. Who is the target audience? and
2. What goal does your employer want to accomplish with the
written work?
To put this into perspective, I do a lot of article marketing. My
goal from the article is not to sell a product or service.
Instead, my goal is inform my reader and to lead him/her to take
a specific action at the conclusion of the article. The action I
want most of my readers to take is to click a link that I have
included in the "About The Author" section following my
article.
Other employers might have different goals and a different
measure of success, so it is important for you to ask and answer
these questions before you begin your work.
Distinguish Yourself From The Wannabe
As I stated previously, my definition of a wannabe writer is
someone who looks at writing as an easy way to make money,
without any real concern for the quality of work they deliver to
their clients or readers.
One of the easiest way to distinguish yourself from the
wannabe's is to charge rates that are more consistent with a
living wage. Figure out how much you want to earn "per hour",
figure out how much time it will take you to do the job, then
charge rates consistent with your target numbers.
Another method to set yourself apart from the wannabe writer is
to provide real writing samples to prospective clients, without
resorting to giving away your work for free.
Far too often, talented writers will provide "free samples" to
people who turn out to never have wanted to hire anyone at all.
"Prospective customers" take the free samples and then promptly
disappear, leaving the writer full of false hope.
Real buyers simply want to know that you are capable of doing the
job you have advertised to do. They don't want you to work for
free. They just want to see samples of what you have done for
others, to at least get an idea of what you are capable of doing
for them.
Instead of giving stuff away for free to people who will probably
never ever buy from you, take some time and care to write an
assortment of "samples" in advance to share with those who
might want to see some writing samples from you.
Believe In Your Marketing
You should have confidence in what you do, and you should have
confidence in the value that you are capable of producing for
your clients.
When your confidence exists and it is unshakeable, people will
sense that in your writing advertisement and your communications
with them.
Business people honestly want to work with other professionals,
in this case writers, and people who can deliver the kinds of
materials the business can use for its profit.
The first step is to advertise yourself and give prospective
clients confidence in your ability to do the job they need done.
Then, you must deliver a product that your clients are happy to
keep buying.
One Final Piece of Advice
A lot of new freelance writers make the mistake of believing that
if they offer their writing services for cheap early on, then
once they have proven themselves to their clients, they will be
able to raise their rates to something that is more consistent
with what they would like to earn.
However, with more than a decade of experience behind me, I
learned that every time I increased my prices, I would lose 90%
of my clients, and I would have to basically start building a
brand new customer list from scratch.
People don't like change, and they especially do not like price
increases.
If you still want to offer limited discounts to attract new
customers, then do so at your own risk.
Your results might be different from mine. But personally, I
would rather give discounts to people who spend a lot of money
with me, than to give discounts to people who have never spent
money with me and may never spend money with me again.
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If you are a talented and committed professional writer, I need
your help. I need freelance ghost writers, who are willing to
offer their writing services to the people shopping at my
freelance writers marketplace. Learn more about what I offer to
writers here: http://FreelanceWritersReview.com/launch_news.php
Then get signed up for free and start selling your writing
services to my customers. My name is Bill Platt, and I am
the owner of: http://FreelanceWritersReview.com/
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