It's been a wild ride in my freelance writing career. As I cross over into my seventh year of freelancing and finally find my stride, it's amazing to look back at how far I've come from the woman who was scared to write her first pitch email.
Having nice business cards and a beautiful website are nice, but they don't really move the needle in a freelance writing business — especially when you're just starting out. I really wish I hadn't spent so much time fiddling on my website or scrolling through websites for hours looking at pretty business cards.help? Doing research on prospective clients and reaching out to them with a simple email or phone call.
Learning to negotiate well isn't about taking the client for a ride. You're providing a quality service and should be paid handsomely for it. As I got better at commanding my rates and slowly increasing ones with existing clients, I found that I did better work and my clients were more appreciative of what I did for them.
As I got busier and my workload grew, I would often forget what was what when I would check my credit card and bank statements. Not only that, but all that confusion made it more time consuming to reconcile my books and work out how much I needed to pay for quarterly taxes.