Turn Your Writing Gig Into Much More!!
June 29th 2009 14:36
Maybe I'm just lucky but since last summer, I've turned two small writing gigs into two permanent sources of monthly income.
One of these jobs was a simple grammar check of an e-book. I had no idea who the guy was but the e-book was on "How to make money online" and was about 60 pages long. I don't know if he wrote it himself or not but it was almost good to go. I touched things up a bit, got paid, then was asked if I wanted to help him out with some customer support.
The term "customer support" scared me. I don't want to call anyone and don't want anyone calling me because I have 4 kids in a fairly small place. I can't even watch a movie unless I have headphones and at least 2 kids aren't home.
Anyway, he offered me $100 every two weeks to provide download links to people who lost them and stuff like that. I was happy. This was about 15 minutes worth of work each day. After about a month, he kicked that up to $250. I'm still doing this and get $500/month plus I have all his 20 money making e-books for free. I should implement that stuff some day.....it's REALLY good.
Another one was this Czech guy. I barely knew what he was talking about. He wanted me to do rewrites and I typically don't like to do those. It takes me less time to create an original article so I actually charge MORE for rewrites many times. He kept asking and asking. I stalled and stalled. Finally, I said fine. I'll do it for $600. I figured he'd go away. To my surprise, they sent me $600. Crap, I was stuck now! I got the work done and they kept very accurate counts of my words and sent me an extra $600 when I was done. Now, I do the same type of customer support for them for $250/week.
Yep, I'm making $1500/month now doing a whole lot of nothing.
You will be asking, what does this mean for me?
Well, when you do a writing job for a client, make sure to add a friendly closing e-mail. This not only gets you repeat business but other offers as well. A typical closing e-mail is something like:
"Thanks for using my writing services! You were a great client, paid on time, and I left you positive feedback on website X. If you're interested, I also offer various other services such as proofreading websites, web page formatting, link checking, blog creation, SEO backlinking, and virtual assistant/customer support services.
Thanks and if you ever need anything in the future, let me know and we can probably work out a "repeat business" discount!"
Those couple paragraphs make a huge impact on a client. You never know who the client is. Is it some kid in a basement or the marketing director of a Fortune 500 company?
Always assume it's a professional unless they are sending you breast jokes and using IM speak throughout your contract. Always declare where you have been born and raised. When working online, this is a major factor. People in the US and Europe who want quality web content won't hire Sanjay Pagalamesh from India because they really need a writer who can deliver in English. No offense to my Indian friends, they definitely have a place in this market and many are better than US based writers I know.
Just by saying "US based" or "Australia based" in your ads on forums will automatically discourage those guys who want to pay a penny per word and will attract more professional clients because they've been around the block and know you have too. New writers will just put "English writer" but that could mean anything.
Good Luck out there!
One of these jobs was a simple grammar check of an e-book. I had no idea who the guy was but the e-book was on "How to make money online" and was about 60 pages long. I don't know if he wrote it himself or not but it was almost good to go. I touched things up a bit, got paid, then was asked if I wanted to help him out with some customer support.
The term "customer support" scared me. I don't want to call anyone and don't want anyone calling me because I have 4 kids in a fairly small place. I can't even watch a movie unless I have headphones and at least 2 kids aren't home.
Anyway, he offered me $100 every two weeks to provide download links to people who lost them and stuff like that. I was happy. This was about 15 minutes worth of work each day. After about a month, he kicked that up to $250. I'm still doing this and get $500/month plus I have all his 20 money making e-books for free. I should implement that stuff some day.....it's REALLY good.
Another one was this Czech guy. I barely knew what he was talking about. He wanted me to do rewrites and I typically don't like to do those. It takes me less time to create an original article so I actually charge MORE for rewrites many times. He kept asking and asking. I stalled and stalled. Finally, I said fine. I'll do it for $600. I figured he'd go away. To my surprise, they sent me $600. Crap, I was stuck now! I got the work done and they kept very accurate counts of my words and sent me an extra $600 when I was done. Now, I do the same type of customer support for them for $250/week.
Yep, I'm making $1500/month now doing a whole lot of nothing.
You will be asking, what does this mean for me?
Well, when you do a writing job for a client, make sure to add a friendly closing e-mail. This not only gets you repeat business but other offers as well. A typical closing e-mail is something like:
"Thanks for using my writing services! You were a great client, paid on time, and I left you positive feedback on website X. If you're interested, I also offer various other services such as proofreading websites, web page formatting, link checking, blog creation, SEO backlinking, and virtual assistant/customer support services.
Thanks and if you ever need anything in the future, let me know and we can probably work out a "repeat business" discount!"
Those couple paragraphs make a huge impact on a client. You never know who the client is. Is it some kid in a basement or the marketing director of a Fortune 500 company?
Always assume it's a professional unless they are sending you breast jokes and using IM speak throughout your contract. Always declare where you have been born and raised. When working online, this is a major factor. People in the US and Europe who want quality web content won't hire Sanjay Pagalamesh from India because they really need a writer who can deliver in English. No offense to my Indian friends, they definitely have a place in this market and many are better than US based writers I know.
Just by saying "US based" or "Australia based" in your ads on forums will automatically discourage those guys who want to pay a penny per word and will attract more professional clients because they've been around the block and know you have too. New writers will just put "English writer" but that could mean anything.
Good Luck out there!
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Comment by Carla Michelle
This was just the kick in the pants that I needed. I have a finished project that I am sending out to a client today, so I will begin today.
Thanks!