AaronTurpen.com

Let’s say you’ve been offered the opportunity or have
been contacted about writing something for someone on a for-hire basis.  No doubt, you found my information in Finding Writing Work to be highly essential and powerful in your search for writing jobs.

Now that you’ve been offered a job or are looking at a project and thinking about bidding on it.. what next?

The bidding process itself, even if you’re just quoting a price for a client, can be confusing and frustrating.  If you begin blind, you will no doubt spend a lot of time kicking yourself for under- or over-bidding the job.  Over-bidding is fine if you actually win the contract, but in the competitive bidding process, a bid that’s too high is sure to get your proposal round-filed.  Even if the customer does accept your bid and you get the job, they will sooner or later find out that they’ve paid too much.  That breeds resentment.

So how do you go about bidding on writing jobs?  What is the “right price” to make the payment fair to both you and your client?

Those are hard to answer questions, as so many things factor into the bidding process, but here is some basic advice and a look at how I bid projects I’m interested in.

Evaluate the Job To Be Done

This is the part where you figure out all of the aspects of the job that will, figuratively, cost you money.  Anything that will require your time or effort will cost you money, so getting a fairly accurate estimate on what those things are – for the job at hand – is essential.  Usually, for writing, this consists of three things:

1. Research (time, possible costs)
2. Writing (the actual penning of the piece(s) for the client)
3. Editing (including proof reading, revisions, etc.)

Each of those requires time and effort and might also cost you some money up front.  For my own work, most of my costs are associated with the first and third aspects.  Most of the time that I find myself complaining that a job is not going to make me any money, it’s because of revisions.  Almost every one of these three things can be controlled, however, with just a little knowledge and professionalism.

Research Time and/or Costs

Before bidding on a job, make sure you’re completely clear on what the client expects of you.  This will tell you how much research will be required on the given subject matter.  Most writing, especially Web content and copy writing, requires little or no references to be included in the work.  For me, this type of work is a straight money-maker if I’m already familiar with the subject matter as I can do most of it off the top of my head, requiring little or no research at all.

Factual pieces, however, require substantiation of every factoid or supposition made in the piece.  These are a lot more research-intensive and will require much more time for research versus the time spent actually writing the finished product.  Before bidding, I recommend doing a little spot-research on the subject to get an idea of how difficult it will be to get that information.  Ten or fifteen minutes with a Google search can tell you,within the first couple of pages of results, what kind of time will be required to find and assimilate all of the information you’ll need.

Use common sense, but assume that most of your costs here will not be words written, but words read.  On average, in a lightly-researched piece, I assume that 50 words will be read for every word I’ve written, so a 1,000-word piece will require 5,000 word’s reading time.

Writing the Piece

If the piece is to be straight forward without a lot of formatting or rules for you to follow, this can help or hinder the writing time required to create the work.  I find, in general, that the less hindered I am by rules or markup/layout requirements in a piece, the better off I am in terms of time.  Free form, I can write much more quickly and easily than if I must conform to a set of rules.  Other writes have told me that they prefer a strong structure to write within.  If they aren’t given one, they’ll choose one of the standard academic layouts given in most College Writing and Business Writing courses.  Those are readily available online, if you’re interested.

The actual process of writing the piece, once research is done, is much easier for me than any of the other three parts to building a complete project for a client.  Most writers likely agree with this and it’s true of most professions.  The build-up to get the job going and the final cleanup required after the bulk of it is done are the real hard parts to any job, whether it be construction, writing, or driving a truck.

Editing, Revisions, Etc.

The proof reading and editing process is inherent in any type of writing.  For most writers, it’s the least enjoyable part of the job.  I gauge the amount of editing to do by two things: what the job is being written for and how well it was written to begin with.

If I did a good job of writing the thing to begin with, then the proof reading probably won’t require much.  I’m a relatively good self-editor during the actual writing itself, but that is not common.  Most writers prefer what I call the “word hose” method.  This is where the words just flow out and spill onto the page and the writer worries about how they look and read later.  The idea is to get all of the information out first, then structure and clean it up later.  Since I’m not good at doing this without automatically hitting backspace or going back to ad or remove a word as I write, this type of stream-of-consciousness writing is not for me.  I suspect it’s why I’m not very good at writing fiction.

So if the piece appears to be written well as you go through your writing, the editing probably won’t take too long.  Then you’re faced with revisions.

This part is the worst, to me.  In my mind, I’ve written a great piece, it’s grammatically correct and editorially awesome and yet, the client wants changes.  It’s part of the job, but for me, it’s the worst part.  This is why I’ve gravitated towards clients who are more interested in my work as I have produced it than I am towards clients who want me to write as if I were them.

When ghost-writing, if the client has a “voice” they’ve established through written work they’ve already produced, be prepared to spend a lot of time learning to copy that before ghost-writing for them.  On the other hand, I have one client I’ve created a voice for (he had never written anything of merit before hiring me) and others who are only interested in looking smart, which I can provide as a ghost-writer.  These are my preferred clients.

Clients to Avoid

I’m about to say something that will sound sexist, but it’s not meant to be so: avoid writing for “girlie” clients.

By this, I don’t mean to avoid women, I mean to avoid those clients who appear to have too-clear a vision of how they want things to be and who have too-obvious tastes when you review their website, project descriptions, etc.  These clients will never be happy with anything you’ve produced and will nit-pick everything, killing your bottom line on the project.  I’ve literally told clients to keep their money and go somewhere else after the 8000th revision on something I expected to take two hours of my time.  It can be hard on you and you’ll think it will destroy your reputation, but sometimes letting someone go is easier and better for you than staying on and taking the loss.  Trust me.

The other type of client to avoid are the over-communicative ones.  These are the clients who will call you daily (or more), send you masses of emails or “spot research” information to “help” you along, and so forth.  Every time you communicate with your client, it costs you money.  This is because not only are you spending your time answering their communique, but you’re probably revising the project in the process.  Once the bid is in, you should be left free to do your thing.

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, as some projects require a lot of client interaction, but most of the time, it’s not.  So avoid it.  One trick is to leave their emails until the end of the day and then answer them all at once.  If they’re really annoying, just tell them that you need space to concentrate and get the job done right and they’ll probably understand.

Final Conclusions

The bidding process is not the easiest thing in the world, but it’s something that all professionals have to learn.   Most of it is common sense and experience.  As a writer, expect to lose your shirt on the first few projects you bid on and then be happily surprised if you don’t.

You will invariably make mistakes in the beginning, but it’s part of the learning process.  Note what you did right and wrong, then repeat and avoid as necessary in the future.  It doesn’t take long to get to the point where you can bid on most jobs in a few minutes and wait for the winning results.  After a while, you’ll learn to judge your prospective clients quickly and to know how to bid their job (or when not to bid at all) with confidence.

For most, including myself, the bidding process was the hardest thing to learn and the most confusing aspect of professional writing.  It’s fundamental to the business of writing, however, so it must be learned.

In our last segment, we talked about starting out and networking as a writer.  This time, we’ll talk about finding work when your network is either non-existent or is not paying off for you right now.  There are other resources for finding work, of course.  Let’s look at those.

Local Work

Where you live may be a bonus to finding work.  Small, local newspapers and other publications are often looking for good material, especially from local writers.  In many areas, weekly or bi-weekly newspapers are willing to pay a few dollars to have you act as a freelancer, covering local events or submitting commentary.  Other annual publications, such as coupon books or local business directories are often looking for “filler” writers to produce material to fill in the margins, extra pages, and other space in their publication.

Often, just walking in the door with a few samples of what you’ve already written is enough to get you in front of the editor and into a trial position.  A local paper in this area, which publishes weekly, pays freelancers with gift cards to the local grocery store, for instance.  Another local coupon book printer pays $0.02/word for filler material, which is mostly commentary on local cuisine, unusual facts, and the like.

Online Job Directories

I actually got my start with online job search directories.  This is not uncommon in today’s market and is, in fact, a great way to create steady job sources.  Of course, these directories come with a price, but so do most business requirements.

Elance – I’ve been with this site almost since they first started.  Most of my current clients either met me on Elance or met me through someone that I met there.  My profile there is one of the oldest on the site.  While I rarely bid on projects any more, I maintain my profile there and do often find little jobs to fill in the gaps when needed.

Freelancer – This site is also very well-known amongst the online job sourcing sites.  While I haven’t used it much, I know many who have and have had good success and positive results.  It is a well-respected job sourcing site for freelancers and independents, though it appears to cater towards programmers and developers more than to writers.

VOIS – Relatively new to the game, this site is half social/business networking and half job-hunting.  I have completed a job or two there and am a freelance contractor with the owners of the site on other, unrelated projects.  Though small and less active than the others, VOIS has the potential to build longer-lasting relationships amongst professionals.

There are several other sites good for this kind of job sourcing too, though I have little experience with them.  The point is that there are many, many ways to find work in today’s connected age.

The days of writing, mailing to magazines for submission, rejection letters, and months between paychecks are nearly gone.  Most magazine editors, in fact, prefer email or even provide online submission forms for writers to send in their stories or ideas.

Finding work is a lot easier with the Internet, but that comes with a caveat: it doesn’t generally pay as well.  It used to be that an 800-word piece written for print would pay $150 or more.  Now?  Well, most print publications do pay that well, but online publications do not.  On the other hand, writing for blogs, well-known websites, and other places can build your name and eventually lead to print publication and more.

Regardless of your goals as a writer, be aware that there is a market and a place to find work for every style of writing and in every conceivable subject area.

You just have to go find it.

Disclosure Note: The links provided to the mentioned websites are not affiliate or other business-relation links.  This writer does have a business relationship with VOIS.com and its owners, but did not receive compensation for the mention or link in this article.  Material is the opinion of the writer.

Once you’ve committed yourself to becoming a freelance writer and have set up your business practices (a plan and your financial bookkeeping), you’ll need to find work so you can begin to generate an income.  Your primary source of new clients and jobs will depend on the type of writing you’re focused on and whether you’re brand new to the business or have already established some connections.

The Newcomer to Writing

I’ll start with the newcomer.  All of us started at this point sometime and most of us made a lot of mistakes as we stumbled through the process of building a writing career.  Just remember that as a writer, you have two assets: your name and your reputation.

The more well known you are in your chosen field of writing, the higher your rates can be and the easier it will be to find new work.  The better your reputation is, the more likely you are to find people seeking you out directly as opposed to having to find new work yourself.

The best advice I can give the new writer is to always remember that your name and reputation are paramount, so always proceed accordingly. Finish the job and do the best work you can every time, no matter what.  Whether the job pays $10,000, $100, or is being done gratis, do your best work.

Here is what you’ll learn as a new writer: this business requires a lot of work.  I mean a lot of it.  Expect to make $1-$5 an hour on average while you’re establishing yourself.  That could take a month or a year or several years, depending on your chosen genre and abilities.  Once you’ve begun to establish yourself, expect the hours to stay grueling, but the money to begin to increase.

There are several avenues for the beginning writer to find publication, but many of them will pay little or nothing at all.  These jobs will usually establish your name and reputation, however, and are a good way to build a portfolio.  To find these jobs, first set up your online profile.

Head to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other places on the Web and build your profile there.  Start your own blog, if you have a specific area of interest you’d like to write in.  For instance, to help establish myself as a writer on environmental and eco-technology subjects, I started a blog on Blogger.com (for free) and eventually built a website with its own domain and hosting as the blog became popular and I became more well-known.  You can view Aaron’s EnvironMental Corner to see what I’ve done, if you’d like.  Blogging puts you out there regularly and allows you to flex some creative muscles that you might not get to do with paid projects for other people.

To find places to get published and begin building your name, start with blogs, non-profit groups in your area of expertise, and your local newspaper.  There are thousands of publications out there that are struggling to get established or are on a very low budget who will be more than happy to use your writing if it doesn’t cost them much.  These usually “pay” by giving you a link-back in a small author’s bio.  To utilize that, make sure you have a website, a LinkedIn or Facebook profile, etc.  Twitter is best used to promote your writing once it’s published.

On of my early biographies to appear on articles I wrote for small publications looked like this:

Aaron Turpen is a freelance writer living in Wyoming, USA. He writes on several subjects including the environment, alternative-fuel vehicles, and politics. You can find him on his website at www.AaronTurpen.com.

Note that while the bio is simple, it contains enough information to tell people who I am and what I write about without appearing to be a sales pitch.  Shorter biographical blurbs are more likely to be used by editors than are long, wordy ones.

Once you’ve begun building a portfolio, you should begin looking for paying jobs.  We’ll get to that next.

The Established Writer

If you’ve already established connections in the writing/publishing business, you can probably leverage those towards more work.  Most of my work, for instance, is by referral and from repeat clients.  Even those of us who’ve been doing this long enough to have connections, however, will need to sometimes find new business.

As an established writer, you should have already done the things I’ve outlined in the above section for new writers.  If you don’t have any networking set up online, you should start right now.  It’s amazing how often otherwise unrelated links between one or another of your social networking profiles can end up panning out.

Not long ago, I was working for a guy in California and had a hole in my schedule to fill and make some extra money.  I mentioned this to the client, who put it on his Facebook Wall.  Someone in his network saw it and clicked over to my Facebook profile.  She sent me a private message and asked if I would be interested in writing a short series of articles on a particular subject.  I took the job.

Without social networking, I would never have linked up with this woman and gotten that job.  Since then, I’ve had people approach me through both Facebook and Twitter and, in fact, one of my steadiest sources of traffic to my personal and professional blogs is from Twitter.

Next week, we’ll look at how to find work when your network and connections aren’t paying off or if you’re new to the game and haven’t established a robust network of contacts and colleagues.