You have a great idea for an article. Now what?

In freelance writing, a successful query letter starts with a great idea. Fortunately, if you followed the advice of my last article, you’ve got a list of potential article ideas to choose from. So what do you do with that list?

To start, look over the list and choose one idea to develop. I suggest going with the one that pulls at you the most, or that gets you the most excited.

Next, open up your favorite search engine and do a search on your idea. See if it’s already…

They’re closer than you think.

Why have I gone so far out of my way in my writing career to avoid pitching and querying?

It’s not the inevitable rejections. Those aren’t fun, but they make the acceptances all that much sweeter.

It’s not the amount of time and effort that goes into researching and crafting a good pitch, time and effort I may potentially never get paid for — that’s not great either, but often enough the payoff makes it worthwhile.

It’s not even the part where I have to ask strangers to consider me and my work, which as…

Pitching is not my favorite. I don’t know any writers who love the pitching process. Pitching is a lot of work — in fact, researching, crafting and sending out an effective pitch can take more time and effort than actually writing the article you’re trying to sell. Pitching also takes confidence, which is something a lot of new writers lack. Heck, many writers have to fight that battle at every stage of their career.

Nevertheless, pitching is a necessary skill for freelance writers, and it’s the fastest and most effective way to land paying work and fill your portfolio with…

If you want to make a living writing, there are basically two business models you can follow:

1. Get paid to write (services)
2. Get people to buy things you’ve written (products)

Let’s break these down.

1. Get paid to write — this includes work-for-hire and contracting services like ghost writing, professional blogging, copywriting, content marketing, business writing, technical writing, writing for licensed properties (e.g., getting paid to write Star Wars or Doctor Who novels), etc. You can get paid quite well for these types of writing, and you should, because once you’ve turned in a work-for-hire piece, you no longer own the…

There’s no one right way to become a full-time writer, and many different ways you can get there.

But there are definitely wrong ways, which is the path I took.

“But Jean,” you might be asking, “how could it be wrong if it got you where you are?”

Because it took longer than it should have to get here, and I had to endure a lot of pain and misery along the way that could have been avoided if I’d been more intentional and had a plan from the start.

My freelancing career was thrust upon me suddenly when I…

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A modified version of this article first appeared in The Working Writer, a weekly newsletter for helping writers forge their own paths to sustainable and profitable writing careers.

We can all recall the frustrating conundrum we faced when we first attempted to enter the workforce. Job postings would often specify workers with experience. How do you get work if you don’t have work experience, and how do you get work experience if you can’t get work?

If you’re just starting out as a freelance writer, you might feel like you’re faced with a…

With a new year upon us, the conventional wisdom of our day is that it’s time to get to work getting after our goals. It’s easier than ever to get swept up in self-help and hustle culture, putting our noses to the grindstone and striving to become bigger, better, thinner, richer, more successful versions of ourselves.

Even if you’re not the type to make resolutions based on self-improvement, chances are you’ve set some goals to improve your work performance, whether your work is your home, your kids, your business or a regular job outside the home.

This time of year…

It’s a great time to be an Indie Author, but it’s also sometimes a confusing time to be an Indie Author. Conflicting advice abounds.

I was going to write today about the merits of keeping your day job, but then I saw this post from Dean Wesley Smith making the rounds on Twitter. In it, he quotes Joe Landsdale as saying, “Write like everyone you know is dead.”

In other words, write for yourself. Forget about the market, forget about the reader, forget about what sells, and write what you love.

This is actually great advice, if you’re planning to…