Time and Money

Yesterday I was on the phone with a telemarketer who was trying to sell some sort of training program for pay per click advertising, and he asked me one of those questions that’s really supposed to draw people in: would you be willing to work an extra two hours a day to get an extra $1,500 to $3,000 a month?

I paused, as if were even thinking about it, but I knew my answer right away: honestly, no, not right now. I feel like I have plenty on my plate and (for lots of reasons) don’t want to add anything else right now, even if it did manage to make me a good bunch of money.

I can’t envision where I’d get another two hours, though I know it would be possible if I really wanted to. I still remember those days when I worked eight hours for “the man” and then came home and worked a couple of hours a night to get my freelance business off the ground.

I was inspired. I was motivated. I did what I had to do, even when it wasn’t any fun.

How times have changed

These days I’m still plenty motivated and inspired, and I’m constantly at work on new projects (like this website) to stretch myself and, yes, hopefully bring in more money.

But I’m also really picky about what I choose to spend my time doing. I like that visiting health websites is part of my job, even though I spend way more time than I probably should on articles that aren’t amazingly well paying.

I love that I can tell people I’m a professional knitter, and that’s true, even if it’s only part of the story.

Most of all I love that I have a free enough schedule to spend an afternoon on the couch with my cats, knitting up a new project, editing a manuscript or even just reading something for fun. I have the flexibility to attend a speech this afternoon well within normal working hours and to make up for the lost time tomorrow.

No one’s looking over my shoulder, and I get as much work done every day as I can, as I want to or as needs to be done (different goals on different days). And I make a fine living. I’m not one of those millionaire next door success stories (at least not yet), but I love the balance of the amount of time I put into my work and the amount of money I make.

Someday that may change. I might be willing to work more to make more. That’s part of why I went into freelancing, after all, so I was in control of the amount of money I was making.

How Do You Exchange Money for Time?

Every person has a different answer, and different answers at different stages in their careers, to the question of how to balance the exchange of money and time. In the beginning when you’re just trying to get your name out there, you need to give as much time as you can to working and building your career.

But every year it gets a little easier, it seems to me, especially if you have a bunch of regular work gigs like I do. There’s less pressure to find new work (though you should always be on the lookout and should always be marketing yourself), more time to find the kinds of projects you really want to be working on.

And the great thing about freelancing is that you can always work more and earn more whenever you need to or want to. And when you’re happy and comfortable with the amount of money you’re making — like I am right now — you can turn down even the most attractive sounding get rich quick offers.

It’s Tough and Everyone is Worried

These words were part of the introduction to a speech I went to last night given by Philip Bruce, West deputy general manager for National Public Radio, summing up the state of journalism in America today. He and I are alumni of the same school, and he happened to be speaking as part of the school’s annual celebration of all things j-nerdy.

He went on to paint a rosier picture of things, stating that a lot of companies are actually doing well, particularly those that are filling a needed niche and that are able to keep costs down. And one way companies can do that, he said, is to hire people who can do it all, from writing and editing to taking still photos and doing digital video recording.

Of course if you’re reading this website you’re probably not in the market for a staff job, but this information provides a good lesson for anyone looking to be competitive in the current journalism/non-fiction writing marketplace.

You need to be versatile. You need to own a digital camera (and maybe a digital video camera, too) and know how to use it. You must be able to offer photographs should publications want them, and videos if you’re writing for the web.

Having a good working knowledge of editing can’t hurt, either. The cleaner your copy (whether it’s an article for your local newspaper or a press release for a company) when you turn it in, the better off both you and your client or editor will be. When editors know they can count on you to write well without a lot of babysitting, you’re more likely to get assignments you didn’t ask for (and to get your queries followed up on).

If they know they can also rely on you for good, clear pictures of your subject, that’s so much the better.

So, yes, things are tough. But there are bright spots if you know where to look. There are opportunities if you have the skills necessary to get the job done in this age when writers need to be more than writers — they need to be indispensable additions to the team.

What’s Your One Thing?

I really admire Havi Brooks and her Fluent Self blog. It’s all about getting things done, getting unstuck, eliminating procrastination and getting your business and ideas to a bigger level. She recently had a post about doing just one thing that really struck me.

I’ve long been a fan of the concept of doing one thing, which works on a lot of different levels. If you’re feeling stuck on a big project, just do one thing. If your to-do list seems too daunting, pick a thing and do it until it’s done.

But this idea works on a much simpler level, too. When you don’t feel like you can get anything done, when you just want to stay in bed or read a book all afternoon instead of facing that big deadline, or when you’ve got a million things you want to do but don’t know where to start.

Ask yourself: what’s the one thing I want to do right now? Then do that thing. Ask again: what now? Do it. And so on.

Doing one thing got the recliner in my office cleared out. It got me to put some books back on the bookshelf and some supplies in the storage box where they belong.

Maybe that’s not earth-shattering stuff. But now I have a place to sit in my office that isn’t the uncomfortable desk chair or the floor, and I’m thinking hard about other ways I can make my space better. That will ultimately mean a better, more productive and creative work environment for me, all of which are vitally important.

How about you? What’s one thing you can do today? it doesn’t have to be about cleaning or organizing just because mine were. it could be going for a walk or starting a new book, e-mailing a client or working on a craft project. What do you really want to do?

Go. Do it.

On The To-Do List: Your Must Dos

My second job out of college was working as an editor and designer for my state’s biggest newspaper. I loved the work but ended up leaving because the work had to be done at night, and I missed my husband.

But I learned a great time management technique there that I still use to this day. There it was a space management technique, but it works for organizing time just as well as it organizes space.

For those of you not from the newspaper business, I’ll explain that newspapers often have what’s called a budget that describes the different stories that are going to be in the paper the next day. The editors and at least some of the designers and photographers have what’s called a budget meeting to decide the order and importance of the different articles so the designer can then put together the front page and other pages the way the editors want them presented.

But there are, of course, more stories available than can fit on the front page, and often more stories than can fit in the newspaper at all on any given day, so we had a ranking system that served as a way for the designers to know the priority of stories.

Setting Your Priorities

The basic rundown consisted of must run, should run and can hold. The musts were essentials, things we had to figure out a way to shoehorn in no matter what.

Should runs were stories that an editor liked or that had something to do with another story but that weren’t essential. We’d get them in if space allowed and not worry about them otherwise. Can holds, as they sound, were stories we could use if we had extra space but could ignore completely if things were tight.

Just describing the system you can probably see how you can use these priority rankings to make your to-do list a little more manageable.

If your list seems never-ending, always including everything you’d like to get done even though you know there aren’t enough hours in the day, this system can give you a bit of peace.

Just look down your list and quickly assign each project a priority: must, should or can wait. Tackle your must-do tasks first, then move on to the shoulds if you have time and save those items that can wait for last.

If you hate the word should, by the way, you can also just rank them with numbers by priority or A, B and C if you prefer.

This way even if you don’t get everything on the list done, you’ll at least be comforted by the fact that you got the most important and necessary things done and didn’t spend time on the things that could wait.

Why Not Going to J-School May be a Good Thing

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my time in journalism school and what it would be like if I were there now. I think I’d be pretty darn scared about my prospects for getting a job.

When I graduated back in 2000, things were pretty easy for new j-school grads who had actually picked up a skill in school. I completed a somewhat high-profile internship after graduation, came home, sent an inquiry letter to a paper I’d interned with before, they just happened to have an opening on the design desk and I was on my way.

These days I’m sure it would be a lot more difficult to find a decent job, let alone a job that just happened to be in my hometown at a paper that knew me.

J-Schools Still Seeing Jumps in Applications

You’d think the current state of the newspaper business would scare people away from the industry, but there are reports all over the place of rising applications for journalism schools.

If I were about to go to college right now, I don’t know that I’d make the same choices I did back then. Originally I was going to be a history teacher — at least education is a business that always seems to be growing. But I’ve gotten so much out of my journalism education (and there’s no good way to work for yourself as a teacher) I don’t know if I’d be willing to pass that up.

I don’t know what kids today are getting out of their time in j-school, but I’d guess the classes aren’t geared toward working in the new journalism environment any more than they were when I was in school. I keep wondering if the students are learning about blogging, social media, freelancing, ways to make a living even if they can’t get a job with a big-time (or even small-town) newspaper or television station.

Is J-school Even Worth It?

Then there are the people who argue that a journalism education was never necessary for being a success in the business. I agree with that; that’s why I’m out here supporting people who want to be freelancers, regardless of their background.

If you can write well, it doesn’t matter if you went to college or what you studied while you were there. You have to have a passion for your subject and a drive to succeed, creativity to try different markets and media that you might not have considered when you were thinking about becoming a freelancer and the tenacity to keep trying even when things look awful.

Unfortunately, they don’t teach any of that in journalism school.

5 Reasons to Say No to Work

In these economic times, especially if you’re new to freelancing, it may be difficult to envision a time when you’d want to say no to an assignment. I completely understand that: when I first started out I had what I called “the year of yes,” where I accepted almost every assignment and opportunity that came my way.

It got me a lot of experience and a decent boost in income from the year before, but the next year became my “year of no” because I had spent so much time and energy on projects that weren’t right for me.

Here are some reasons you might consider saying no to a project or assignment.

Low Pay or No Pay

This is, of course, a controversial topic among freelancers, but if your goal is to make money from your writing — whether a little bit or enough to live on — you don’t want to accept projects that are only going to pay you a couple of bucks a piece.

I did some work like this when I got stated — I think it was 500 word articles for $2 or $3 each — and even though I could belt out several an hour it just wasn’t worth it when I could make $15 or $20 or more for a piece of the same length elsewhere.

Low Pay Per Hour

Going hand in hand with low pay in general is the problem of low pay when you consider how long it will take you to complete a project. My first book review for a big national review publication that I still write for was for a more than 800 page book. I got paid $20 for the review. If I made a buck an hour for my time, I’d be impressed.

But it was a book I wanted to read and a market I wanted to crack, so I took the job. I don’t know if I would today, given that I’m so much busier.

Assignments You’ll Hate

If it had been an 800-page book I didn’t think I would like, I probably would have turned it down, even if it paid a lot more. There’s no use in wasting your time on subjects you don’t want to write about, ideas that don’t really interest you or clients you don’t like to work with.

I want to say life’s too short to not enjoy what you’re doing, but people don’t listen to cliches, even when they’re true. Instead let me say you’ll be even more enthusiastic about your chosen career if you are only doing work you really enjoy.

Work You Can’t Finish

Sometimes a job that would otherwise be great is just too big or has a deadline that’s too tight for you to reasonably be able to finish. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. You’ll just annoy people and build yourself a bad reputation.

Instead, be honest with the client or editor. Say “I’d really love to do this for you, but my schedule is already pretty tight for this month. Could you take it a week later?” Of course be honest with this new projected deadline as well, and make sure you meet it, with time to spare if you can.

When It Doesn’t Feel Right

Sometimes you’ll just get a bad feeling about a project. Maybe you don’t hear from someone who contacted you about work for months and suddenly they have a project that has to be done right now and that makes you suspicious. Maybe they want you to do a huge project with no payment in advance. Maybe they make big promises that seem too good to be true.

Whatever it is, trust your instincts when a client sets off your alarm bells. Do your research so you can avoid scams uncovered by other freelancers, and be willing to walk away form a situation that doesn’t make you feel comfortable. You’ll probably be glad you did.

Do you have any reasons of your own that you have said no or would say no to work? I’d love to hear them.

If I Knew Then: On Blogging as a New Freelancer

Not too long ago I came across a blogger writing a series of “If I knew then what I knew now…” posts dealing with starting out as a researcher trying to get published. There are probably enough if I knew then stories in my head to fill a book (maybe I’ll get to that one someday) but one of the biggest ones is that if I were starting over again today I’d start a blog, probably on the first day I was thinking about starting my career as a freelancer.

When I started freelancing back in 2003, I didn’t even consider starting a blog. I’m sure people had them, or something like them, but it wasn’t something I really thought about as being useful to me as a new writer. People just starting out these days are often told to get a blog, but I don’t know if they always know why they’re being given that advice.

Why You Need a Professional Blog

First off, it’s worth noting that I don’t mean you need a blog where you post pictures of your kids and tell stories about your cats. You need what you might think of as a professional blog, where you write about topics that you might like to get paid to write about.

My first blog, since abandoned, was about books and publishing because I wanted to get paid for writing book reviews. I wrote some reviews on the site and kept up with book news (as well as occasionally throwing in stories about my cats). I don’t know if it really helped me get more book review business, but it did give me a place I could direct potential clients and editors who wanted to see what my writing was like.

What a Blog Does for You

If you’re completely new to freelance writing, having a blog like this gives you practice writing about the topics you want to write about and gives you something to show editors when you don’t have clips (once you do have clips, of course you’ll add links to your blog).

When editors ask for clips they aren’t always that interested in where you’ve been published before, but they do want to know that you can write correctly and coherently and make a logical argument. Showing them well written blog posts does that.

What a Blog Doesn’t Do

Of course editors are also interested in knowing that you can work with an editor, meet a deadline and hopefully take editorial direction. That’s what clips from other publications show them. So once you have published clips you definitely want those to shine in a prominent location on your blog and in your contact with editors, but in the meantime having a decent blog, especially if you have good traffic and people who comment regularly, will go a long way toward convincing an editor to take a chance on you.