How to be a Writer Today
What are the essentials on how to be a writer, especially freelance? What does your schedule look like as you wear different hats and scale your business? What's the difference between content marketing work, copywriting projects, and large opportunities like strategy, consulting, and book ghostwriting? And how do you actually start feeling like a writer?
This week's livestream is covering how to be a writer in several different capacities plus how to NOT juggle too many plates at once and give yourself the opportunity to build a sustainable business.
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How to be a Writer Today
So you wanna be a writer. So does that mean that you wanna book, uh, ghost write books? Hey, Shasta, does you, do you wanna do content marketing? Wow, that wasn't very good. , as I'm like stumbling over my words. Do you want to do content strategy? Do you wanna do brand messaging? Do you wanna write case studies and white papers?
Do you wanna write blog posts or reported articles or write for magazines, right, or trade magazines or consumer magazines. This is for. So this is gonna go over how to actually become a writer. Hey Vicky. And the steps that we're going to use in order to do that. And I have two friends, one of which is being a wiggle bug and just bothered the other one.
So he is rubbing him around on hi Rebecca then, and she's not happy about it. So now she left Barry Barry. Wow. This is like the best view that we've had of you in a long time. Good job buddy. Good job buddy. I know Minnie doesn't like it when you do. Minnie doesn't like it. All right, MIY, go back to your hubba hole.
Let's get you all set up. All right. There you go. All right. There you go, bean. All right. Hey Margaret. So let's talk about this. Oops. I probably should mute all the sounds on my computer. . So let's talk about number one, when we're talking about all of the stuff that we're doing in order to, um, get our stuff up, right?
1) What are the essentials on how to be a writer, especially a freelance writer?
What are our essentials, right? This is the number one thing. What are our essentials? Really to be a writer, but also, um, To move into freelance writing. So when we're thinking about this, our first, it's kind of a mindset shift, and this was something that took me many years to actually do, right? So I didn't really believe I was a real writer until
This was something that I thought is so silly now that I'm looking back on it, you know, many like more than a decade later. Are you okay over there? Wiggle bug. Okay. We have some. So as I look back on it, right, it just seems so silly. So you first have to believe that you're a writer. Like you have to start with a mindset shift.
Of if you are writing, you are a writer, and this is, I know this sounds silly, I know it sounds crazy that this is the first step, but unless you believe you're an actual writer, you're not gonna take any steps. You're gonna let fear take over. You're gonna let imposter syndrome take over. You're gonna believe everybody else's better than you.
You're gonna compare and despair. It's gonna be a. Shit show. So the first thing you have to do is believe you're a writer, right? And when I was researching and looking up, um, things that I wanted to talk about for this topic, a lot of people were searching for like, can I be a writer? Or like, you know, like, how do I actually believe or become a writer?
Like, like, not just become the steps, but like, feel like I'm actually a writer. And this was my number one thing, um, that I get asked all the time, can I actually do it? If you go back, um, I'll put it in the description or like, I'll put up a little card, but there are questions that I get asked all the time.
As, uh, a freelance writing coach and as someone who has a course, um, freelance writer, wealth Lab. These are things I get asked all the time, but the number one thing that I get asked is, can I actually do it? Do you believe that I can actually become a writer? And it's crazy. Like, how would I know , right?
Like, how would I know that? You have to believe in you. This is the number one thing. What are, when it's essential to become a writer or a freelance writer or a free. Um, you know, like case study writer, freelance, content marketing, writer, uh, whatever type you wanna be, or freelance, uh, book ghost writing writer, right?
Any of those things, you actually have to believe you're a writer, okay? You have to believe that you're doing it. That means you have to take action. So this is your second phase One is a mindset shift. Two is like you actually have to take action. And a lot of times what ends up happening is people ask me, can I do it?
Because they haven't taken any, taken any actions, right? They haven't taken any actions to actually prove to themselves that they are writing. They are a writer and they are moving towards the goal of becoming a writer. So the second phase is you actually have to take action. So what does that mean?
What's an essential step for action? Well, one, you actually have to. and you can, um, like some writers start on Medium, which is not my favorite. I really don't like that . Um, and some writers start, um, just writing for themselves on a blog. There is always, um, like I did that I start out on hub pages and you can probably still find it.
HubPages was like where I wrote about food and other stuff, and I kind of used it as like samples. But a lot of times you want actual samples from a client, which you can get with no experience being a total beginner. If you pitch some ideas to a trade magazine, if you pitch some ideas out and get a story, excuse me, now you have paid work and a, excuse me, and a sample.
So that's really important. . Those things are available to everybody. You just have to have a good idea and you have to read the material. Like read the magazine, read the newspaper, read the local, whatever. Uh, oh my goodness. We've got, uh, very, very, you can't just like conquer every space cuz you're like a thousand years old.
Okay, hold on Barry. Hold on. Let's get you settled. Do you wanna be over here now? Okay. You can be over here now. Here you go. You have now.
All right, here we go. All right, Minnie, can you come back? Can you go in there? Come. I get a little pause in your ear. Okay. Go back in your ho hole over here. Come here, . This was an important thing you guys. Ugh. All right. Come on, bean. Let's go in. Let's go over here. Come here. Over there. Oh, we have to stretch.
All right, Deanan. There you go. Go over to your little D place. We've got bean, bean disorganization. Go back to your little, have a hole. He, she's like, he's in my seat. Okay. So whether it's a trade magazine or a local publication or whatever, a lot of writers can start out with actual clips from real places.
You don't have to write for free. You don't have to make a fake PPO portfolio on medium or on, um, HubPages. Or on your own blog, you can actually get paid to go do stuff. So go do that. Start pitching ideas. Start learning about pitching. Read the publication, read the newspaper. Learn what types of stories they're doing.
Woo. Go back to your woo hole. Go back to your woo hole. This is important. Woo. Go back to your woo hole. That's not your woo hole now. Woo. You're over here now. All right. We how? We had a little disorganization there. , are we good? Is everybody good now? All right. for the most part. So you have to actually take actions.
That means learning, right? Learning how to pitch, going to the, get these actual things and being a writer, actually writing things. And if I'm getting the question of like, can I actually be a writer? The answer is yes. If you're willing to take the actions and you're willing to actually believe you're a writer and you're willing to actually do the stuff that matters, , right?
All those things really are important and a lot of times, like I said, if you're not taking action and you're not even trying to learn how to pitch or trying to learn what gets published or trying to learn what types of content, um, businesses work on, or trying to learn, book ghost writing, if that's your thing.
Um, if you're not even trying to learn those things, then you're not gonna become a. , you just won't. You have to actually take action and write, because a lot of times, and this is true for every creative endeavor, the first. I don't know. The first while that you're a writer, your stuff sucks , like, it's terrible.
I look back on stuff that I wrote more than 10 years ago and I'm like, Ugh. Like gross. Why would you? Ugh. You know? And it's, it's a process. We get better through taking action. We get better through feedback. We get better through repetition. We get better from learning from others. Right. But we actually have to.
So that's your phase two. Your essential thing for number three in our part one here is that you actually have to do your marketing, right? Your marketing is sending your lois, your letters of introduction, l o i and your pitches. You actually have to get out there. This is after or not after, but in tandem with taking action, you actually have to market your business and a lot of.
Are really scared of this because they're so used to like this 1920s through 1950s marketing where it's like, just tell 'em that, that, oh my gosh. Um, what's, Mikey likes it and then they'll just buy it. Or like, they're really used to this really cheesy marketing that. And this doesn't, this is not a, a generational thing like the, I talk to writers who are even younger, like much younger than I am, who are like 20 and they're still like thinking that selling is trying to convince someone to get something they don't want.
That is not selling. That's like 1920s to 1950s selling or even a little bit later. Um, and food is a really good example, right? Like I write about food, I love food history. And that's a really good example is like how foods are marketed as like health foods when they clearly are not , um, back then. And or, um, they add like a little bit of something to it.
Like I watched something about um, wonder Bread, right? And then. I forget what the disease was called, but there was a disease going on where like it was a severe lack of vitamin B and if you guys watched the , the, um, the food that made America History Channel, like, that's like my, one of my favorite shows.
Um, in any case, they added some, like, you know, powders and put vitamin B in the bread so that Americans would stop dying from this disease. And they were like, it's a health food now. It's not, it's not a health food. , this is the same thing. That's not the marketing that we're. We are reaching out to people to say, Hey, do you need help?
If you need help, I'm here to help and I'm qualified. That's literally, So if you take away anything from this, if you wanna be a writer, marketing is not gross or sleazy or annoying or convincing someone to get something they don't want. That is not what you're doing. Okay. These lois that you send, and I have templates if you wanted to check them out, I always forget about this, but if you go to mandis.com/bundle, I have L O I templates, marketing templates, contract templates.
Magazine and business, uh, uh, contract templates, um, like basically all of the functional documents that you need to get started with freelance writing and grow with freelance writing. So as we're kind of doing that right, , like we , we have to get away from the idea that selling or, or letting people know about our service is gross or sleazy, or like, Ew, I'm a writer.
I don't like marketing. bad. We don't like bad marketing. We like good marketing where we reach out to people who we think we can help. People who have the right amount of, uh, revenue, the people who are actually creating content, and the people who are the right fit for us in our niches than the type of work we want.
That's all, that's all. Don't pressurize it more than you have to. And I'm, I'm kind of doing a broad brushstrokes overview on this today. Um, but there's a lot more sp specificity that we can go. Um, I will, ans these are good questions, so I will make sure, um, we'll answer those at the end. , I like the arrow too, so we'll answer those at the end.
The, if you ever have any questions, if you're on this live stream, you can always put 'em in the chat and we'll get to those. So as we're kind of going along, right, we have to do the marketing, we have to get our name out there. If you don't get your name out there, it's really hard to get more clients right?
And it's hard to become a freelance writer or any writer, right? It's really hard to get. So we have to kind of get over this essential roadblock, right, of like, marketing is gross. Then the next phase in the essentials pack is that we have to set up our website and our LinkedIn. We have to set those up so that we at least have some place for a portfolio and some place for people to find us.
The only way to get more inbound leads and more people finding you is to have some sort of, can you not bug her? Oh, here we go. Now we start the rake fest. Um, I know Minnie, today's a hard day. Barry's having a little bit of like a antsy pany day . So we have to have a place for our portfolio and we have to have a place for people to find us.
The website is great because more people can find you. This helps with seo. This helps with what are you doing?
You want this? Um, this helps with seo. This helps with people understanding who you work for, what type of work you do. It helps with you getting found, like your clips and your portfolio and all the things in your website. Your website is also a living document. You need to update it regularly, like every three to six months, and every time you get a clip, you need to put it in your website.
That's really important. Go back to your hub. Oh my gosh. What is going on? You're wild beast today. Go back to your ho hole. Go back to your ha hole goof. I know, I know. Go back to your hava hole. Oh my gosh. She went into position two. She's anchored. She's not going anywhere. She anchored. Hi Barry. Why don't you lay down buddy.
So we need to have these things up and running and regularly attuned to. So LinkedIn is a great place where I find clients all the time and a, uh, we haven't done any snacks today. So it's a really great place to find business clients and all types of freelance writing clients, whether they're editors for publications.
Go back to your Haba hole. Nope. Go back to your Haba hole. Nope. Go back to your Haba hole. So they're really, really important pieces of your finance writing business. And I meet people who don't have websites, um, and who don't have LinkedIn, and I just feel like they're missing out on a lot of potential client opportunities.
Good job. And they're missing out on the fact that like a lot more people can find them, which means they get more inbound leads, which means they don't have to do as much outbound marketing, which is Lois and pitches. So that's really important. That's our first phase. That's our phase one is we have to do those things.
We have to do. We have to change our mindset. We have to make sure that we're getting rid of this idea about marketing being gross. We actually have to do the marketing right and be a writer. We have to take action and actually write things, and we have options all over the place to do that. And then , we actually have to have a website in LinkedIn, so we have a place for our portfolio and also we have a place for people to find us so we have more inbound leads.
So that's our first phase, our second phase. Actually, before I do the second phase, I'll answer these questions. So Shta says, I was always told to write one to two free medium posts or guest posts for free to get paid work. And I did that, but it's good to hear, uh, Mandy talk about writing paid posts from the get-go.
Yeah. Go back to your hava hole. Nope. Go back to your hava hole. Go back to your hava hole. Oh my goodness. You're sassy today. Yeah, don't work for free . I don't care. This is something that people like, and by people I mean writers. I talk to writers that are like, but I live in X country, or I, this magic circumstance applies to me.
No, it doesn't. I know writers, I've been in this game long. To know writers who only have electricity part of the day. There are people, um, there are writers I know in Africa and around the world who only have electricity part-time throughout the day and they make it work. Okay. I also know writers that, um, have never worked for free.
That's me. Like no matter where they are in the world, they've never worked for free. I have never worked for. Um, you do not need to do free medium posts. You need, you don't need to do that. Ideas are paid, okay? Ideas are always paid. If you send the right idea to a publication, newspaper, local community, whatever, you can get paid.
I don't care if it's $25 or 50 bucks. If you're starting out as a writer, which obviously we like to get paid more, But at least if we have a paid clip now, we didn't work for free and we have a real clip in a real paper magazine, news site, online publication, whatever, that we can put in our portfolio.
Okay. And then, um, hold on. So I have to cough
Question: How is tech journalism different than general tech news?
Shaistha says, um, how is tech journalism different than general tech news? Well, I mean, that would be. You're only different. Anything that's journalism is reported. Right. So like you would be interviewing sources or you would be pulling research or you would be going to conferences and reporting on that.
I mean, general tech news could be just roundups. It couldn't, it's may not be the same thing. Like anytime you're adding journalism, it's just, you know, research and interviews and it's a reported piece. I mean there's, I don't even think there's really that big of a difference. I mean, most of the time your general tech news is, Like either updates or it could be just reported articles, which is tech journalism.
So I don't even think, I wouldn't even worry about it. I would just go about my business and read whatever the publication has. If the publication has interviews, you need to do that. If the newspaper or online publication has research or whatever, then you need to do that. Um, hey, go back to your haa hole Stop bar.
Stop being sass. Go back to your ha. Go back to your hobbit hole. We got some, let's do some update stuff real quick. Oh my gosh. It's just the 80% is bear. Bear. Your eye looks go. I gotta get you cleaned up. There we go. There you go. Uhoh. I'm about outta snacks. Hold on. I might have to go get some more snacks.
We have snacks. All right, let's get everybody some snacks. I always try to get them both on there, but for some reason everybody doesn't wanna be on there. All right, here you go. Good job. All right.
How you doing today? Bear you having a sassy day. Good job. All right, Minnie, did you show everybody your high fives? Good job. Good job. All right. Let me answer she this question before I move on.
Question: What’s the minimal amount of marketing (LOIs and pitches) writers should do to get better clients?
Shaistha says, what's the minimal amount of market? We should do to find better clients. For example, s n S Post, I don't know what an S n S post is, or free stuff.
So Shta, you already know the answer to this. It's al, it's 50 to 75 Lois a month, or doing your marketing every single day. There's no like minimal amount of marketing. So you're sending those lois and making sure that you're reaching out to clients who have those better revenue. . Um, and it's not just, it's not about posting free stuff like this is also the difference between active marketing and building a.
You actually have to do active marketing first. Then you can worry about building a brand, which is free stuff, which is more LinkedIn posts, which is, um, doing a bunch of stuff that would have people like see you as a thought leader. So you have to do your active marketing first. Your lois, your letters of introduction and your pitches, which I always say 50 to 75 a month.
Um, but if you can do more than that, You wanna be targeting clients that have at least, um, for regular traditional companies, at least, um, your, um, five to 50 million in revenue, depending on the niche. And then if it's a startup, at least three to 10 million, somewhere in there, depending on the niche. But your minimal amount of marketing is, is about like actually doing the marketing, like doing the 50 to 75 Lois a month and making sure you're going after clients who.
Creating content and have more money and are actually like moving forward. Um, if I, like, by the time I started doing more posts and by the time I, oh, hello. You scared me. By the time I started doing more posts. Go back to your ha hole. You just bark and be sassy over here. Go back to your hava hole. Nope.
Um, by the time I started doing free stuff, it was way past when I had already done active marketing. Hold on.
Do I make home-cooked meals for Bo and Scar and Char Charlotte? No, I don't. They get scoops of Kibbles and I, we make, um, we make, um, Bo is, so, Bo is on his weight as being 16 and a half. Okay. I don't know how he's lived so long. I really. So he's on his way. He's only a couple months, like less than two months away from being 16 and a half.
So we make, uh, I make bone broth for him, like chicken bone broth because it, that helps him eat his food and it kind of softens it up and stuff. But other than that, like it's homemade bone broth, but everything else is like kibbles. Go back to your ha hole. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Well, you can sit here but you can't bark at me.
Go back to your hava hole. . But yeah, for, in terms of like stuff for Bo and Charlotte, they get like, you know, like the treats that are good for them, you know. But I don't home make anything. I know some pets like have a ton of allergies and they home make food or like a lot of people make homemade food for their dogs. But uh, these guys really like the kis. So we go with the kibbles. Um hmm. Hi Getty. Welcome. . Yeah. So Vicky, so let me pop back on.
Freelance writer outbound marketing (LOIs and Pitches) FTW
Vicky says, yeah, outbound for the win. Yeah. You have to actually do the marketing. Like, that's the thing is like, you have to do that. The only way to get clients, especially when you're unknown, and especially when you're go back to your ha hole, you're just like, go back to your hole.
She's just like, I wanna be a sass today. Um, you have to actually reach out to clients like you need to take the action to reach out to them. They don't know who you. . Right? And you don't know who, which clients need help. But there are tons of times, and I actually, um, shared this last week on the livestream where I have a student that says like, this is why we follow up and do marketing is like we are, we're rescuing people from drowning in content and drowning and marketing and drowning in all this stuff.
Like this was a really important thing that we talked about in the community. It's not about annoying people or marketing to people who don't need it. It's finding the people who really need help. We, our marketing is to go to a hundred people and say, are any of you drowning in content? Do you need help?
And there's usually three to five people in there being like, yes, please. Thank, thank God you're here. So that's really important. Okay, let's go to number two cuz we didn't, we gotta hop along here. So let's go to number two. Oops. I gotta get my. So let's go to number two. Boo boo boo. All right, so
2) The second phase of how to become a writer
let's talk about this when we're talking about our second phase.
So our second phase is like we're setting up our schedule. We're wearing different hats, um, and we are kind of making sure that we're not juggling too many plates at once. Your job as a freelance writer is to make sure that you are doing the things that move your business forward every single day. , that means marketing.
That means adding clips to your website. That means fixing your website or LinkedIn. That means anything. Most of it is marketing or completing assignments or getting, you know, hitting your deadlines. But we need to make sure that even though we have to wear the hats of like admin and invoicer, right? And, or like accounts payable, um, and writer and marketer and, um, email, like, you know, email, inbox manager, all this stuff, right?
Even though we have to wear all those. We still need to make sure that every single day we're doing the needle moving activities, right? So when I was starting out, I didn't understand this and it was really hard for me to get clients. Like I didn't get it. Um, I restarted my business a couple times just because I didn't get it.
Like I kept doing all the wrong stuff. So as you're kind of going along, you have to make sure, and this is what I say, like 50 to 75 l a month, l o y, it's a month or an effort goal every single day of one hour of marketing. That for me, worked really well. . Um, if I didn't hit 75 Lois, or if I hit 49 Lois in a month, right, then I would beat myself up.
So if I spent an hour every single day working on my marketing, sending things, right, sending Lois, building my list of potential clients, researching potential clients, looking at the type of content that they're doing. Um, understanding more about my niche. If I'm doing all of that stuff at least an hour every day, I'm going to make progress.
So regardless of if I hit 50 to 75 OHS a month, I'm making progress. And you have to do that every single day. You need to do some kind of needle moving activity in your business every single day. And not, not the weekends, let's not burn out, but Monday through Friday, that needs to be part of your schedule.
So as we're kind of going through this, we're wearing different hats, right? But we're making sure we're not juggling too many. We're making sure that we're spending our attention and time on the things that are needle movers. Not everything, just the needle movers and the important things like delivering for your clients.
Woo. Go back to your hub hole. Woo. You're like scratching my leg. You're being, I'm gonna pick you up. I'm gonna pick you up and I'm gonna put you on this live stream. I'm gonna put you on this live stream. You ready? Come. Oh, I know you're just gonna make like a sad noise cuz you're gonna be like, no, I just want treats.
No, don't pick me up. Just give me the snacks. . Okay, so we have to do the needle moving, um, activities every day. That's how you don't juggle plates. Cuz if you, or too, if you have too many plates, you know, too many balls in. The deal is that if you are spending your time and effort on the things that move the needle, you don't have time to go and play with all the other, you know, plates that are in the air.
You just don't. Your time is spent on the things that move your business forward. Your focus is on the things that move your business forward. And then when you have like five extra minutes, yeah, you can go play on social media if. , but this is something that I think is a big mistake, is like freelance writers wanna do all the stuff, right?
They come to me and they're like, how do you do everything? And it's like, I've been doing this for 10 years. So the stuff that you're doing, at the point when I was doing that, that took a hundred percent of my time, right? Just marketing and just getting my client work done took a hundred percent of my time.
Now, 10 years later, it takes, I don't know, 40 to 50% of my time. So now I have 40 to 50 per or uh, 60 to 50% of my time, right? Is that right? Yeah. Um, for, you know, my course students or my one-on-one coaching students or for building freebies or for building free boot camps, which I'm in the process of. Um, and I have extra time to do that because now the time has shrunk.
I, it's, Um, I know more about the process, so it doesn't take as long and I know how to. , you know, do the needle movers in an hour instead of, you know, like an hour total instead of an hour every single day. So this is an important thing. We're not trying to juggle everything. Don't get on social media and post every day because you're like, that will help me get clients.
It won't. You have to do active marketing. And I get it. I know there are writers out there who are like, I built my whole brand on social. Great. Good job. I think that works for you. But there's most of us, that's the majority of us, like 80% of us need to do our active marketing. Posting on social media is your second phase of your business.
After you've already automated basically your marketing and got it under control and you can do it and you have enough work in clients, then you can go play with posting on social media because posting on social media, Is inbound. You're hoping people find you or you build a brand, right? So that people come and seek you out, right?
We have to go out and find people in order to make money. You can't wait for your brand to take off to make money. That's not how it works. So as we're kind of going through this, remember that you, you are going to juggle different things. You're gonna juggle. You're gonna juggle the marketing, and it's not marketing like regular sleazy marketing.
It's like, do you need help? Great. I'm here to help. I'm qualified. That's literally all you're saying. So you do have to do that. You have to handle invoicing, you have to handle your calendar, you have to handle getting your appointments scheduled, all these things, right? But every single day. And this helps you cut down on the amount of garbage that freelance writers get stuck in with shiny, you know, shiny plate syndrome brand or like squirrel.
Like they , they move their business forward every day. You have to focus on the needle movers, okay? The things that move your business forward, the things that get your clients, the things that pay your bills. Cuz if you can't pay your bills, then you're not gonna be a writer for very long. This is the thing, it's like writers come to me, I've gotten these things a bunch.
Um, is like, they're like, how do I build a brand or have more clients come to me? It's like, well, what are you doing? Otherwise, they're like nothing. Like, no, you have to do the marketing. You have to get the clips. You have to become a qualified, you know, entity before people are like, we love you, we want you to work with us.
Like, those things all are in the same ecosystem. Um, Okay, so that's all I'm gonna say about that. That was really important. And then we're gonna do a quick P update cuz I've got a sass bean over here who's driving me crazy. Come here, bean. You have to go back to your hava hole and then you have to stay in your ha hole.
All right. Here go. Barry, you're doing great today. Your eyeball looks a little weird. So this is just part of him being old. He has, like, we already had a lump removed on his eyeball, but he has a new lump and it leaks and he needs eyedrops twice a day. Um, because he has like dry eye, which is, you know, you see his James Bond eye on the left or my left or whatever.
It kind of looks blue. He's had a, like, he's recovering from a corneal ulcer for the past. Uh, gosh, like seven or eight months now. It's been a long time and it's cause his eyes are dry and he sleeps with his eyes open all the time. , that's what he is done. Um, but he is, I mean, he is 16 and a half, so like he is doing pretty well for being almost 16 and a half All.
3) How to create opportunities for a successful, sustainable freelance writing business
Let's talk about three. Let's talk about three here. Where's my little three button? Boo, boo boo There. It's all right. Let's talk about three. So what we're gonna do here is talk about the different projects, and then we're gonna give ourselves an opportunity to actually build a sustainable business. . So when we're becoming a writer, right?
When we're thinking about how do we actually become a writer, how to be a writer today, how to actually put all the functional pieces together, you also have to decide on what services you're gonna offer, okay? That means are you gonna do content marketing writing, which could be blog posts, or reported articles, or case studies, or white papers or email drip campaigns.
Are you gonna work on content strategy, which is the plan for content, right? You're gonna do all the things to set the strategy. Before you get to blog posts, case studies, white papers, whatever, are you gonna do brand messaging? Are you gonna do messaging and positioning? Um, are you gonna do book ghost writing?
There's so many different things that we can choose to do, and the best way that I like to do this is go look at other freelance writers. Who do they work for? What types of companies, what types of niches are they in? What does their portfolio look like? Is that what you wanna do? ? This is the easiest thing.
Google them in your area. Just Google, like Austin freelance writer, right? Or Google, you know, um, what's like Sonoma Freelance writer or a Raleigh freelance writer? Or like, just Google a whole bunch of places, right? Google 'em in your area. Just look for free, like pick a niche. Freelance real estate writer.
Go look at their stuff. Just use that as a template of like, what, who could I work for? What types of companies or what types of publications? What types of clips am I gonna get? Am I gonna be doing a lot of case studies? Cause I noticed that this person works a lot in B2B SaaS and they're doing a lot of case studies and white papers, right?
You need to start picking up a framework for how these different businesses are. Because my business as someone who works in a ton of different niches, right, like PropTech and hospitality tech and food and travel and insurance and, um, health and like all of these things that don't necessarily, or like real estate or like all this stuff that doesn't necessarily always go together, right?
As someone who works in all those different types of niches, you have to kind of look at all the different things other people are doing. So there's a lot of things that I might do in my business that, um, other people won't do. Like they, they don't have to do that cuz that's not what their client needs.
So you need to go off and look at all these writers and see like, what are they actually doing? What's their client list like, are those and. When we look at their clients, we're not stealing their clients. Okay? We're not like, oh, let's just send an LOI to all their clients. You're looking at types of clients.
Are they series B startups or are they Fortune 500 companies? Are they trade magazines that have a small circulation, or are they working for big newsstand magazines? Do they work for local papers or do they spend a lot of their time, uh, working for very specific type of online publications or. , like you're looking for categories.
You're not looking for like this specific hospital like John's Hopkins, right? You're like looking for categories that you can then use to move forward in your business. So this is how you actually give yourself an opportunity to succeed and build a sustainable business. You're using other examples out there.
You're learning more about the field, you're learning more about freelance writing by example. These other freelance writers who are ahead of you or, or have worked with more clients, right? They ha are giving you a roadmap. They're giving you examples to follow, right? Saying like, Hey, here's the clients that I worked for.
Here's the things that, um, I'm creating. And you're like, okay, does that work for me? Do I wanna do that? Does this make sense? What types of things? It's giving you a lot of really good examples to follow. And I feel like a lot of freelance writers fit miss that step. They're just like, either they end up spraying and praying, they just like send Lois at random.
Or they end up not marketing and being like, I can't be a writer, . Or they end up trying to just go after like, very hard to reach publications. Um, or what ends up happening is they, they don't give themselves an opportunity to succeed because. , they're trying to overload everything at once instead of taking strategic steps, right?
They're not actually, and this is something that I put in my course for a reason, like in Freelance Writer Wealth Lab, I specifically put these B Printy style steps of like week one we're doing this. Week two we're doing this. Week three we're doing this because this helps you get the flow of like how the business works.
It's like very strategic information provided at the right. And this is how we wanna do this in our business. We don't wanna just like do everything at once and burn out and be like, writing isn't for me, . I can't become a writer. No, you have to be strategic about where you spend your time and energy. You have to be str strategic about the opportunities and the information that you're consuming and the research that you're doing on how to actually build this business.
Right. and then you actually make it sustainable. Like, like I said, if the 50 to 75 Lois a month is too much, or you feel defeated if you get 74 instead of 75 like I did, just make it an hour every day. Make it effort goals, right? Effort goals are really helpful for a lot of writers who end up tending, like to beat themselves up or feel a lot of imposter syndrome or feel like I can't.
Just make the effort goal. If you can spend time every day and complete that, that's really important. The time every single day. Hi, woo. I hear you wooing over there. I hear you wooing, I hear you. If you can spend time every day doing specific tasks that move your business forward, understanding how the business is run, working on things that actually matter, you will ha be a writer and you will have a writing business like guaranteed.
You also wanna make sure that you give yourself time off. So your sustainable business also includes like giving yourself time off. You may not get a lot when you're first starting your business for the first six months to a year or maybe even more. You may not get a ton of time off, but you need to have some kind of time off so that you can make sure that you're actually fresh.
You need to make sure you're fresh for your clients and you're writing the right stuff, and you're paying attention, and you're not just like burning out, trying to do everything at once. Yes. Woo. Would you like to say so? No. Yes, Mamie . You're just like, I would just like more snacks. You guys have had a lot of snacks today.
You guys have already had a ton of snacks. A lot of snacks. All right. Um, let me make sure I say the same thing, or, I mean, I, I cover all my stuff. So when you're kind of in this thing, so you're giving your business an opportunity to succeed also by doing the same thing I mentioned at the very beginning.
You have to make that mindset. That becoming a writer or being a writer means you're taking action, right? So you're giving yourself an opportunity to succeed because you have already started making the mindset shift of becoming a writer by doing actual things, by marketing or by pitching, or by actually writing things for clients or doing the things that make you be a writer.
You can. Imagine that it would be cool. Like it's not the Carrie Bradshaw life. Like, I don't know how many times I have to say that. Um, but it's not the Carrie Bradshaw life. You're not gonna be like buying expensive shoes and writing one article a week and being like, everything's great and living in like the, one of the most expensive cities in the world.
It's not gonna happen. It's not a thing . So, um, when you're kind of doing this stuff, it's all a phase. Like you're in different phases of your business, but you have to actually give yourself a chance. , don't beat yourself up so much. Yes. Imposter syndrome still happens to all of us. It still happens to me.
Okay. All the time when I try new stuff or when I'm doing something really hard or like even this week, like, here's a good example. This week I was doing, uh, something that I've done a million times. I've done this a million times, and I still had a breakdown about it because I was tired and hungry and I just, like, I couldn't get it.
Like I, I, when I was looking at it, I overcomplicated it. I was like, I shouldn't be doing. And I went way too far in the hole. Like I got stuck in the weeds. This happens to all of us. It happens to all of us. It's not as regular, right? But this happens to all of us. It's just a matter of like bouncing back.
Okay? So I don't get stuck in that, right? It didn't last more than that day. But it's something that like, we have to give ourself a chance to actually succeed. Like these things are going to happen. We have to accept that they're gonna happen. Like, you're gonna have a bad day, you're gonna feel like an imposter.
You're gonna feel like you're not a good writer. You're gonna feel all these things, but it doesn't mean that they're true. It's just like a temporary thing. Okay. So that was our third thing. Um, one bonus thing I'm gonna throw in here that I didn't put in my notes, but this is something that, um, I think is really important.
Will, would you like to. , you seem very antsy in the pan today. Would you like to leave? I don't have any more snacks. That was the la I mean, I, I we're out of snacks. That was my last little bit, you know, we're, that was my last little option. I don't have any more snacks up here. Sorry. So I will, so this is the last thing that I'm gonna say in this.
So when you're thinking about, okay, how to be a writer today, right? And today include, Chat, G B T ai, 3000 Billions. SEO Tools, right? This is something that I talked about in working Wednesday. I'm working Wednesday every single week with my students where we pop on and co-work together, and we had this long discussion about this.
Chat, G p t and a AI tools and all of this stuff, they are just tools. They are not here to have, they're, I've gotten a bunch of emails recently about people being like, well, what's gonna happen? Like, it's gonna drive down rates and clients aren't gonna wanna pay as much. And, um, the, they're just gonna go to this other content.
No, they're not. The good clients want quality content. And if you go see the content that's being created by AI tools are being created by. Basically robots or when the content is like too SEO heavy, it's garbage. No one wants to read it. No one wants to become part of your audience, right? Like it, those things don't make sense.
People, people are still peeing, right? So that means that even if statistically right, the AI content is technically statistically better, which it isn't, but if it was statistically better, humans don't wanna interact with it. They're not interested in that. They're interested. Uh, , they're interested in you're stuff.
They're interested in content that's actually created, like people by people like them or who have opinions or who can explain things. A robot can just tell you information, so don't worry, especially in today's world about things changing. Okay, let me remind you, writing is one of the, is like the second oldest Hiu.
I don't have anything we're outta. We're outta snacks. Even if I got more snacks we're, that was it. We're outta snacks up here. Um, Eve writing is the second oldest profession. All right, Minnie, I'm gonna let you out. Come on man. Come on me please. Why don't you go pop along. Have a great day. Good boy bud.
4) Writing is one of the oldest jobs for a reason - ChatGPT and AI writing
So writing is the second oldest profession after the first oldest profession, which is prostitution, which we all, we all know why that's the oldest profession. So writing is like the, it is one of the oldest professions out there. After all the tech and all the changes and all the things that have happened in the bajillion of years, however long we've been writing cave drawings, I guess you can count as writing.
Um, cause they tell. the, we're still here. We still need writers. And if anything, people need writers more than ever. Why do you think they're going after AI tools? Why do you think they're trying to get a robot to do it? They don't know how to do it. Well, they need someone to help them, which is why these tools are created because people don't know how to create content.
They wanna create good content that works for their audience, so they're seeking out a tool to. , right? Writers are way better than those tools. They will always be better than those tools because humans are creating the tools, right? They're also, there's a whole bunch of things, right? Those tools are also pulling from things that are already created, which is like copyright infringement and plagiarism and like the whole thing.
I'm pretty sure that's gonna be a thing, like I will, I'm pretty sure that's, there's already. Um, that are suing, like AI art tools, uh, and I'm pretty sure this is gonna be the same because what they're doing is pulling things that are all like, it's the anti writing, like pulling, , pulling all the things that are already created and then just being like, here you go.
Like, that's plagiarism and copyright frit. So, so don't worry about that at, when you're thinking about all this stuff that comes up today, like there's a lot of things that. When, um, like with, with how to be a writer, like there's a lot of things that happen, um, and there are lots of tools like this. And for example, here's a good example.
So there have been many exam, like many times that this has happened over the course of history. Okay? We're just kind of like stuck in this one moment. We're stuck in chat. G P T, everyone's talking about ai. , but don't you for like, don't re forget that people went from typewriters to computers and they're like, how is that gonna change it?
Or that people went from a twice daily newspaper to a once daily newspaper, then they went from a newspaper to online. Like there have been a bajillion changes, and if anything, we're creating more content than ever before. Writers are really needed good writers. This is something that I said I'm working Wednesday.
With my students is like, if you need 85 tools to do your job, you don't know how to do your job. So if I have a client that's using 85 tools to get the writing done, they don't know how to do it. They actually need someone, a real writer, who does good work to actually do it. Okay. And that doesn't mean your rights get your, your rates go lower.
That would be crazy. They want a specialized. There is no tool that can repeat it. And all that tool can do is conglomerate. Right? Like mush together. The content that's already existed, they're only taking stuff that already existed because it's humans making an AI tool. Right? It's just like I even if, right.
Let me give you an example. So even if an AI tool was better than, human writing is still written by a robot and people connect with people like this is why back in the day people would only read reviews from. Um, New York Times food reviewers. This is why people trust the opinions of certain, like, uh, people who review tech gadgets, right?
Like there's a robot that can go in and review a tech gadget in an AI capacity, right? Like they can write this article about it, but it's the way different than a human using it. So my opinion will always be that there's gonna be a marker, just like with sponsored content, just like all the other stuff that happened with SEO and when people were keyword stuffing and all that garbage.
There's gonna be a thing where they're gonna be like, this thing was written by ai. There's gonna be a tag, just like sponsored content that says this was written by a robot. And I just don't think that's, people are gonna be interested in it. It's just mush from other stuff. It's not actually original useful information, , it's just like, here's a general bullet point list of like regular stuff that's happening.
And I've read several of these articles that said they're, they're written totally by ai. It's the most generic stuff. And even if it wasn't, even if this AI gets way better, it's still the human connection and the human experience. A robot cannot tell you about the time they lost. A $2 million real estate deal.
A robot cannot tell you about the crushing defeat of, um, you know, thinking that their story was gonna be really great and it ended up being a diarrhea soup. They have no personal experience to tell you about. That's what makes these articles special. When we do a reported article or when we do a case study, it's a personal experience that a robot can't recreate.
They can't do it. They cannot tell you a personal story. Like, um, like the story I'm working on now. Right. Um, I'm working on a reported article and they can't tell you about a failure when they tried a new system, right, and it just didn't work out. They're just like, you should do this thing. Like, robots can just say like, statistically do this, right?
They can't tell personal stories and people will always and forever and have always in forever connected with personal stories. They connect with the actual advice of humans who go through the trial and the error and like the great stuff and the shitty. and that's not . You can't translate that into AI content.
Are there places where AI content makes sense? Sure. Social media posts or like short form little things. Um, or giving you an outline, which those outlines are still terrible, but it's a possibility. Um, they can help you, but it's just another little tool. It's not taking your job. And if anything, the fact that these tools are existing, that means they need writers more than ever, and it shouldn't drive down your rates.
It should drive them up because you're now a hot commodity, right? I really hope that you think about that. I really hope that you think about all these things that go into like being a writer now, like being a writer today or when things are changing. And one more example, when I first started hearing about seo, right?
SEO was very much like, Hey, did you hear like Google's doing search engine optimization, seo? And I was like, okay. So that turned into keyword stuffing, right? Everyone's like, please the go Google Robots, please the Google robots by putting in all these keywords and now. , I don't know, 10 to 15 ish, like 12 ish years later or maybe a little bit more.
Um, we're not doing that anymore. And the, we're still creating content and those things change all the time, right? The way that we work with the robot change and Google, even now, there was something that Google put out, um, last year that said they were prioritizing human written content. Like human first stories, human first.
Google is controlling all the search results. So if Google is saying we want human stuff, then the AI stuff isn't gonna do very well to begin with. Hi Bob. So I hope that you're taking this away. When you're thinking about this. There's still lots of opportunities for writers, there's still lots of opportunities to get paid well, there's still lots of opportunities for writers.
To work with great clients who want quality content. There are always going to be new tools invented. Of course, that's just part of it. Uh, but writing still survives. And if anything writing gets better. Like we have to work to make better quality content. Right? Cuz um, you know, like people aren't reading like 5,000 word, um, features anymore.
Like it's, you know, they could, sometimes it depends on the feature. . I think that we would just wanna remember that the quality, like things exist, right? They're trying to make it better, right? Like there's a big difference between someone inventing like a wrench that does a hundred different things and hiring a plumber that like comes in for five seconds and is like, oh, there's your problem, right?
And fixes it, right? That that's the difference is like, yeah, I could go get this wrench that does a thousand different tasks, but now I still have to fix it myself and I don't, you know, diagnosing the problem is, , that's our job. We come in, we diagnose the problem, we make things better, we create better content.
We put things together for our clients and take things off their plate. Right? It's really important to remember. Okay, if you found this helpful so far, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you wanna learn more about building, uh, a freelance writing business, you adore, subscribe, or a six-figure business.
Subscribe. Let's see. Um, I think that was all my points. So these are really thi really important things that I think we all need to kind of remember. going forward, being writers, it's, it's always about quality. Like, it's not like people gave up writing books because of all the tech that happened, , like there, there's this, this gap that people forget.
Like they're just like living in like, write this second, oh my God. And they panic and they go into fear mode. Oh no, the tech gremlins are coming for me when they forget like thousands of years of history and they forget how many change. Even if we go back to like maybe the seventies ish, if you go back to the seventies to now and how much journalism and writing and creating, writing and working with computers and content and online versus like print and all of these things have changed, yet we're still creating content and we're creating more content than ever.
Okay. That's really important to remember. All right. Um, I think those are all the things I wanted to cover, but when you're thinking about. Really you have to believe like the number one thing I'm hoping you walk away with today is like you have to believe that your writing is worth it and that it's quality and that you believe that you're a writer.
Like you have to believe so that you can take action if you don't believe you're not gonna take action. It's not about like, just feeling magically ready and it's not about like just, I'm a writer now. You have to do stuff to make yourself a writer, right? Pitch ideas, do your marketing right? Send your lois and your pitches.
Read things if you have to, like, you know, go start your blog. Get your writing chops done. If you have to, uh, if you wanna post stuff for free on certain sites, feel free, but you don't have to. That's not a requirement. Um, but I just feel. You really have to get over that hump first. You really have to get over like the mindset thing and then take action on it.
And you're a writer. You're a writer. If you write things right, you're a writer. If you write things, you have to write things. Okay, so I hope this was helpful and we're here every Friday. And, um, one last thing is if you feel like you wanna kind of fix your pricing, or you're coming into this as a brand new writer, or you've been at the helm of your right freelance writing business and you're not sure what to charge, Grab my free pricing guide.
So you go to mandy ellis.com/pricing guide. That will give you my free pricing guide and it'll sign you up for my weekly tips and tricks emails. Um, so I have this live stream plus I have tips and tricks emails that go out every Monday, and we're here on the live stream every Friday at noon central time, we do a different topic.
Every single week. If you ever have a topic or a question that you want me to answer, you can go to mandy ellis.com/question and put it in there. You could be an anonymous person if you want asking your question, but I hope that this was helpful and I hope it was something that you feel like will help you take the next step or what the difference is being a writer now versus decades ago or even now when these new tools are coming.
Um, and I'm sure that there'll be a video that I do in like five or 10 years that's like, Hey, remember chat g p t or remember all these things, like this is how it turned out. Right? I'm sure I'll do a video on that, but I hope this was helpful. I hope you have a good Friday and I will see you next Friday.
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