Become a Six-Figure Writer - August issue

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Become a Six-Figure Writer

Tips and Techniques to Build
a Six-Figure Writing Business

August 2007
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As the summer winds down and the school year starts anew, you have the opportunity to make a fresh start in your writing business. What have you been meaning to do that you haven’t yet begun? Is there a magazine you’ve been planning to pitch? An idea for a book you’ve considered proposing to an agent?

Labor Day signals the start of a new school year, the start of fall, and your chance to wipe the slate clean and jumpstart (or create) your marketing plan for the remainder of the year. What are your big plans?

Happy reading,
Marcia

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Create a Marketing Plan

A marketing plan is a useful tool for defining your writing goals and formulating the steps you need to take to achieve them. You’ll find that reaching your financial goals is much easier when you think through what you really want your writing business to look like. While having a marketing plan document to refer to can be a very helpful tool, the process of preparing it is even more useful.

Your plan need not be lengthy or complex, but the more thought and detail you put into it, the more it will help you. Here are the basic sections you’ll want to have in your marketing plan:
A description of your writing business – your specialty or niche, types of writing projects you enjoy most.
An assessment of the current situation you are facing in the market – competition, opportunities, reprint opportunities, technology demands, etc.
An overview of your target market(s) – magazine markets, corporate projects, teaching, book publishing and/or editing.
An evaluation of your competition – what types of writers are you generally competing with for various assignments.
A summary of your pricing strategy – what is your minimum per-word and hourly rate.
Your goals for growth during the next one year and five-year periods – number of clients, number of projects, and income are the three biggies.
Details of your promotional methods and budget.
In trying to reach your most promising prospects, whether they are acquisition editors at major publishing houses, corporate marketing managers, or magazine editors, to name a few, consider using some of the following marketing methods to reach them:
Advertising. Promote your writing abilities through classified ads in professional organization newsletters, online pay-per-click sites, and writing websites, for example.
Direct mail. Consider sending postcards announcing your latest book, articles or information to your prospects, as well as birthday and holiday cards to clients.
Giveaways. To keep your name in front of people, give away calendars, pens and pencils, or writing-related mementos imprinted with your company's logo.
Public relations. Secure free media exposure by issuing press releases, writing articles, creating your own newsletter, making presentations or doing public speaking.
Conferences. Make contact with editors and fellow writers at writing industry events, where you can come away with assignments and new prospects.
By putting your marketing objectives down on paper, along with strategies for how you will use the marketing tools available to you, you'll be much farther along in reaching your goal of a six-figure income.
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AUTHOR RESOURCE

As I’ve said before, to make more money as a writer, you need to be more productive. To do that, you need to be more efficient. You can win the most coveted, highest paying projects, but if they take you all year to finish, your annual earnings will be abysmal.

However, most writers have no idea how long typical projects truly take them to complete – many underestimate how much time they invest in each assignment. Over time, a few minutes here and there can add up to several hours (I know this because I was shocked to discover how much time I was not accounting for on my own projects).

One of the best tools for tracking your time is TraxTime, which you can download at http://www.spudcity.com/traxtime/traxtime.htm, and which allows you to clock in and clock out on-screen every time you begin or stop work on a particular task. For $39, you can set up projects and then clock in and out every time you devote time to something billable. You can also track unbillable activities, too, such as marketing, accounting, and administrative tasks.

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SAVVY PRICING

Many writers pay close attention to the per-word rates that magazines and corporate clients pay, using that as the one and only metric for deciding whether to accept an assignment or not. However, this is rarely the best approach if you want to maximize your income. A better gauge is your hourly rate.

The most successful writers I know keep close track of how long various types of projects take them, so they can quickly and easily calculate the hourly rate they would earn for each assignment offered. Surprisingly, per-word rates have little to do with how profitable and assignment really is.

For example, national women’s magazines look great on the résumé and sometimes pay as much as $2 and $3 a word. But they are also time-intensive, so much so that in some cases, the per-hour rate writers earn approaches minimum wage. On the other hand, trade magazines paying less than $1/word are frequently very lucrative, especially for speedy writers.

It can be a real eye-opening exercise to keep close track of how long your articles, books, and corporate projects really take you, then divide the total amount you earned by the number of hours it took you to complete to determine your hourly rate. Once you know how much you’re earning each hour you work, you can shift the types of projects you pursue and accept, so you make more money!