I’m Grateful…
November 24, 2010
As we’re getting ready to celebrate this Thanskgiving holiday, I wanted to share a few things I’m professionally grateful for this season, and all year round:
-I’m grateful to live in a country where we can exercise our freedom
-I’m grateful to my wonderful clients for giving me such interesting projects to work on and letting me live my dream of being a nerdy writer
-I’m grateful for friends and colleagues who encouraged me to start my own copywriting business and gave me the push I needed to start
-I’m grateful for being able to work in a business I am 100% passionate about
-I’m grateful that my dog keeps me company in my home office during the day
-I’m grateful for those who have paved the way before me
-I’m grateful to the wonderful authors and writers who give their knowledge and wonderful expertise so that I can better myself
-I’m grateful to my laptop computer that allows me to work wherever I am – at coffee shops, on the road, on the airplane, in my home office and in client offices
-I’m grateful to my Keurig single cup coffee maker, Pandora for playing my favorite music while I work and WordPress for allowing me to have an awesome website and blog
Happy Thanksgiving and may your holiday be filled with love, laughter, and things to be grateful for.
Strategic Self-Publishing Seminar
November 8, 2010
Last week I spoke at the Strategic Self-Publishing Seminar in Atlanta. The event was a huge success - I learned a lot from the other presenters, the attendees were very engaged and I had a great time speaking on my favorite topic: book marketing and promotions.
Here are a few pictures from the event:
Everything needed for a day at a seminar: netbook, coffee, camera, BlackBerry and workbook
Fellow presenter Erik Wolf, organizer Marna Friedman and me
Me wrapping up my talk
Turning Down Work
November 1, 2010
I have been wanting to write a blog post on this topic for awhile. But I’ve deleted every draft that I’ve started until this one. It just seemed that no matter what I would write, it would come off as being too self-pitying and all “woe is me that I am soooooooo busy and important I have to turn down work all the time.” That’s just not the truth. Like most freelancers, I live on the roller coaster of being too busy during certain time frames and then as soon as I complete a few projects I’m scrambling for more work.
The truth is, if a freelancer works a full 40-hour week, it’s common knowledge that he or she can only perform about 20 hours of billable work. The other 20 hours are spent on business-building activities such as networking (coffee meetings and professional organizations), business development (cold calling), SEO enhancement/tweaking (one of my primary methods for getting clients), marketing (blogging and social media updates), education (a very important element), financials (book balancing and invoicing), and other time-consuming activities like putting together proposals, responding to emails and following up with my network.
So, back to my point. Turning down work sucks. I absolutely hate it. I’ve worked so hard that when a prospective client does reach out to me I immediately want to do everything I can to make that person happy (that means quoting a reasonable rate and starting work immediately). And turning down work because I currently have too many projects on my plate does not make anyone jump for joy.
So what is my point exactly? That I’ve had to turn down more work than I like lately due to the busy fall season and the upcoming pre-holiday rush. Unfortunately, my measly little 20 hours of true (billable) client work doesn’t always cut it.
So now that I’ve scared off all prospective clients forever from ever contacting me (I hope not!), please reach out and let me know – what do you do when you’re in this situation? I’d love to hear back.
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