What Are You Putting Off and Why?

Back to school season always puts me in mind of new beginnings, sort of like a second New Year’s. In part that’s because my birthday is at the end of August, so I always seem to be doing a bit of looking back and looking ahead at this time of year.

What’s Gotten Done?

It’s important to start any assessment of this sort by looking at the positive; things you’ve gotten done over the past year (or half year) that you are happy with and proud of. For me, that’s this website, which came to life earlier this year.

Another big plus is that I’m about to have my first child; that’s a pretty major accomplishment in any year.

I’ve done some priority shifting because of that and feel like I have a little more flexibility while still being able to make a somewhat comfortable living while taking care of my little one (that’s the plan, anyway — made easier by the fact that all of the grandparents also live in town).

What Hasn’t Gotten Done?

There are several big things still on the to do list that I wish had gotten done already. I wanted to send out a book proposal or two before the little one got here, because I’m not sure I’ll take the time to do it right away after she’s born.

And I have this ebook for you guys that should have been done a long time ago that’s still percolating in notebooks and on my computer. I’m making more progress on it lately than I have for a long time, but I know it should by all rights be done already and out there in the world helping people.

Of course there’s an endless list of things I mean to get done before the baby arrives that haven’t yet been accomplished, but that’s for another website, I think.

What’s Holding You Back?

Now we get to the heart of the matter, why you are putting off the things that you are putting off. What’s holding you back? Why are you feeling resistance in getting these things done?

Maybe your things are smaller than my things. Maybe you’re resisting sending a query or returning an e-mail you know you should be doing. Or maybe your big things feel just as big if not bigger than my big things. Either way, there’s something that’s keeping you from doing them.

My major form of resistance is always a fear of failure. That’s why no book proposals have gone out and why that ebook sits mostly finished but still not done. I’m afraid to spend all the time it takes on such a thing and then have it not find the right audience.

(Yes, I’m a professional. I’ve had to face a lot of rejection, and I know it’s not the end of the world. I have a lot of confidence in my work in a lot of ways, but I still have problems to work through like everyone else.)

Understanding that fear doesn’t make it much easier to overcome, or I’d have done it already. Whatever it is that’s making you procrastinate, being able to give it a name won’t instantly make it go away.

Try Some Forward Motion

What are your goals for the rest of the year? What’s been holding you back? Do you know how you might make your way past that resistance?

For me, a great way to move on those things I’ve been putting off is to take some sort of small step. You might want to write a resistance list and try to knock one small thing off every day.

I might want to open that ebook document and read what I have, or spend some time working on another essay, or researching competing titles for one of the books I’m thinking about.

One little thing every day turns into a big thing done in a lot less time than you think, maybe even in less time than you spent thinking and worrying about it.

Action Step: Getting Your Brand Going

As I’ve been talking about all week, building your online brand or name recognition is an ongoing process with many different steps that you can focus on. But if you’re new to the freelancing world on online writing community, there are a few things you should probably think about doing first.

1. Buy a domain name with your name in it in some way. If your actual name isn’t available, try a reasonable variation (like mine) or, if you have an actual brand name you want to be known as (like the Freelance Coach) go for a domain with that in it.
2. Put up some kind of website. In the beginning, a basic blog will be fine. Some people have quite detailed websites that are basically built on blogging software. Or you can have a site built, either based on a blog (which is really easy to update) or not.
3. Start writing. If your site is a blog, you’ll need to update with new content regularly. If your site is just a place for a resume and clips, which is fine, you’ll still want to be able to drive traffic to the site, which can be accomplished through using the web address in your bio when you’re published and through writing articles you submit to article sites and using your address in the resource box (we’ll talk more about all that soon).
4. Become an online presence. It may not seem like you have time to read other people’s blogs and message boards, but if you could take a little time each day to post thoughtful responses in a couple of places where people who you want to visit your site hang out, over time you’ll get more people looking at your site.
5. Be patient. These things take a lot of time. If you build it they will come is not a mantra to keep in mind when building a website audience. It takes persistent work and effort to get people to your site, looking around and contacting you. I’ll have a lot more advice on this in the future, but for now, the important thing is to take action if you haven’t already done so. And if you do already have a website, take on action today that might encourage someone new to come visit.

More Tips on Building a Brand

After writing the post earlier this week about the need for journalists (and freelance writers alike) to build their personal brand, I came across this article with more tips on building a personal brand you might want to keep in mind if you’re new to this idea.

It mentions that you know you’ve built a brand successfully when someone can Google you and get to your website easily and when people in your field know who you are (both of these take time and work beyond just building a website, of course).

It also emphasizes your credibility in the way you talk about your work. For instance, don’t be vague about dates or suggest that you were a reporter when you were just an intern or that you had a staff job when you were working as a stringer.

Of course your website should include links to your most impressive work, and you should have a resume or summary of your work information that ideally is in PDF and HTML forms and can be read on portable devices like iPhones.

You should have a presence online, too, not just on your own website or blog but as a commenter or guest blogger on other influential sites. This helps get your name out and establishes you as an expert in your field, especially if you’re providing good advice to other people.

Finally, and this is really important and something that a lot of people miss on their websites, it’s vital that if you’re looking for work, it should be easy for a potential employer or editor to find contact information on your website. It can be as simple as having a contact page or it can be included on every page of the site.

I’ve heard from online marketing experts that this is something a lot of us do wrong: we don’t make our information easy enough to find and we don’t provide enough ways for people to get in touch. If you feel comfortable including your phone number, links to Twitter or Facebook, or your instant messaging handles on your website, that makes it that much easier for people to get into contact with you in the way they are most comfortable.

Getting name recognition is one of the most important things you can do as a freelancer because eventually people will start coming to you with opportunities instead of the other way around. There’s also something a little cool about being “known,” even if it’s just in a tiny circle.

Why Writers Need to Build a Brand

I came across an interesting article the other day encouraging students in journalism school to work on building their personal brand, even if they plan a conventional career of working at a newspaper or television station throughout their career.

These days few people have those conventional, offline careers, and it makes good sense to think about building your brand online and establishing yourself as an expert in whatever topic you think you’ll be writing about long before you actually hit the job market.

The Benefits of Branding

Of course branding is even more important for freelance writers and others with a less traditional, old-school media career path in mind. Setting yourself up as an expert and getting your name out there shows editors you’re serious about a particular topic, whether you’re applying for a staff job or querying an article.

These days people follow the career paths and read the articles written by people they like regardless of where they are found; they’re a lot less loyal to the publication and more loyal to the author. That’s great news for those of us who work in multiple niches across different media, as long as we make it easy for people to find us wherever we are.

Having a personal website (including or in addition to a blog) is a great way to connect all of your different interests and places where you are published, as well as beginning to make a name for yourself.

How to start brand building

The article suggests buying the domain name of your name, if it is available (part of the reason I write under the name Sarah E. White is because that domain was open) and that you should endeavor to get your website at the top of the search engines when people search your name (two of my sites are at the top on Google; alas, not this one yet).

Blogging regularly about topics of interest to you is not only great practice, but it shows a potential editor your style and what working with you might be like. Of course you need to remember that this is a professional blog; it’s not for vacation photos and talk about your kids unless you want to write travel or parenting articles.

And while it’s probably a warning better suited to the j-school kids, it bears repeating that everything on your blog or website should be honest and authentic. These days it’s pretty easy to find falsehoods and fabrications when people bother to look, so don’t ruin your reputation even by stretching the truth of your background.

Building a name for yourself online isn’t about selling out (though it is about selling yourself). It’s just another way for readers and potential employers to get to know you before you’ve worked together, and, when you get famous, a way for your fans to find you and connect with your work, wherever it may be published.

Action Step: Exploring Your Niche

I hope by now you have some good ideas about the niche or niches you migth want to work in. If you need some more help, brainstorm a bit about:

• things you enjoy doing
• things you’ve gotten paid to do
• life experiences other people might be interested in
• things you’re passionate about
• things you’d like to learn more about
• things you like to talk about
• things you’ve taught other people in the past

These should get you thinking about areas where you might have some expertise and you can choose from among them which ones you’d like to write about more deeply.

Choosing the right niche or niches is all about finding the intersection of a topic you’re passionate about and something that you can write about profitably. It’s not going to help much if your niche is so specialized there’s only one paying publication you can find devoted to it.

So this week’s action step is to do a little exploring in your niche. Type the word or some keyword phrases that identify your niche into your favorite search engine. Explore some sites, even if they aren’t paying markets. This will give you a good idea of what kind of information is out there.

Search for publications and paying markets in this area. You might also look at books that have been recently published, again to see the quality of information that’s out there and what might be a trend in the niche (also, sometimes book reviews are a good way to break into a publication).

You might also want to brainstorm some articles that you’d like to write, based on this searching or just your understanding of the subject area. Being able to generate a big stack of ideas is a good sign that you’ve picked a niche you can work in for a long time.

You may find after doing this research that the niche you picked isn’t a great one, either because it’s too small or maybe you just don’t think you can add anything to what’s already being said. That’s OK. The odds are good you’ve got a longer list of potential niches than you’d ever be able to fill, so keep hunting and you’re sure to find the best niche or niches for you.

How Can I Find My Niche?

If you’re new to freelance writing or just new to the idea of having a particular niche all your own, you might be having some trouble coming up with what your niche should be.

A niche isn’t absolutely necessary in the beginning; as I’ve said, I did writing that was all over the map for the first part of my career. It’s only in the past year or so that I’ve managed to scale down to where I’m pretty much only writing in what I would consider my niches: crafts, health and writing about writing.

Trial and Error

Through the years I’d thought about the niches I wanted to be involved in and even tried out some other niches from time to time. I thought I wanted to write about yoga (and I still do, but I don’t have the expertise to write about it regularly) and gardening (ditto, but I don’t have a very unique perspective on the subject) and though I’ve written some about both, I can’t see either become a major part of my income.

But the road to finding the right niche for you begins in the same way I started: by thinking about things you enjoy that you might also enjoy writing about. For me that also includes things like food, green living, cats, small business issues, freelancing and books.

Other than cats, I think I’ve written something in all of these areas at one time or another. While some of them are fun, I know I don’t have the number of ideas necessary to sustain them as full-time niches.

You might find that, too, that you just don’t have enough ideas to keep writing about a subject for years. (As an aside, that’s one thing we say makes a good Guide at About.com, is the ability and willingness to write about the same subject for years with passion, intelligence and without burning out.)

Or you might find that after writing a couple of articles on that topic, you don’t enjoy it as much as you thought you would. That’s a good thing to know.

What Do You Know?

It’s easiest to start looking for niches in areas where you already have some expertise, such as

• your job area
• your hobbies
• other interests
• whether you are a parent or an animal owner
• interesting or unusual aspects of your life (met your spouse online, fluent in a foreign language, collect something unusual, etc.)

Not all of these areas will necessarily develop into a niche for you, and some of them, such as parenting, are probably too broad to be considered niches, they can give you a starting point for niches you might want to explore.

What Would You Like to Know?

On the other hand you might also find a niche in an area where you don’t yet consider yourself an expert but that you are really interested in. That’s part of how I got started writing about health issues. I’m in no way an expert, but it’s something that interests me and I was able to find a job where I could use what I know to write and learn more.

This path is particularly helpful if you’re fond of research (I think my journalism background helps here, but it’s certainly not necessary). Enthusiasm and the willingness to learn still count for a lot, and if you can get someone interested in your point of view and approach to stories, you can build a niche out of something you don’t yet consider yourself an expert on.

Do you have a niche or an idea for a niche? What is it and how did you come up with it? I’d love to hear your thoughts on finding and developing a niche.

A Few Good Reasons to Find a Niche

When I was starting out as a freelance writer, I took on a lot of projects that didn’t really suit me. I was doing keyword rich articles (ugh) on a bunch of subjects that I might not have known anything about and didn’t really care to know anything about, and while I think I did a fine job (particularly for the tiny pay i was getting), I certainly would never go back to such work and I don’t heartily recommend it to anyone who’s serious about building a name as a freelancer.

If you really want to be successful as a freelance writer, I think you have to have a niche.

What the heck is a niche?

A niche, basically, is just a topic (or two) that you write about regularly. Your niche might be health care, or it might be motorcycles. Mine are knitting (and crafts more generally), freelance writing and health and diet issues.

It’s fine to have more than one niche, as I do, but it’s probably best to keep it at two or three at a maximum. More niches mean less focus, less time to devote to learning about issues in that field and a more diluted name that may keep you from developing expert status in any of your niches.

Why would I want a niche?

There are several good reasons for developing a niche or two in your writing career:

• They give you a means to focus on particular story ideas and markets.
• They help you build relevant clips quickly if you’re just writing on one or two subject.
• They allow you to get to know the right sources and keep in touch with them regularly — great for getting story ideas.
• They help you establish yourself as an expert in a field, which is great if you want to write a book or ebook on the subject.
• They allow you to immerse yourself more fully in a subject than you could if you were writing on more topics — the background information already in your head can be useful over and over.

How Do I Pick a Niche?

You may already know the niche or niches you want to write about, or the articles you’ve already written may be leading you to a particular niche.

If you aren’t sure what your niche should be or don’t want to limit yourself to writing about just a topic or two, stay tuned. Later this week we’ll talk more about how to pick the right niche for your situation.

On Competition and a Lack Mentality

It seems like I’ve been reading a lot lately on blogs I follow in various genres about competition and how we shouldn’t be worried about other people going for the same jobs or opportunities as we are.

That makes perfect sense; after all, if we’re the best person for the job or have the best article idea for the publication, we should get the job or assignment, regardless of how many other people apply. The problem here is fear and a lack of confidence. We don’t believe in ourselves or our ideas enough to actually believe that they are the best and to portray ourselves to others as if we are the best.

Part of this problem is also thinking about the world as a place with limited resources, where if someone else gets a job that means there’s not one available for me. Of course that’s literally true when it comes down to a specific job or opportunity, but in the broader view there are always plenty of opportunities to go around.

If you think about the world as a place of abundance and goodness, that’s probably what you’re going to see and get from the world. I know that sounds really hokey, but you know how when one bad thing happens in the morning and it sets you off on a spiral of having a bad day? The opposite can also be true.

Of course believing in the universe as a welcoming and good place where people are receptive to your ideas also requires the confidence to put yourself out there, to present your ideas to as many people as it takes to get one to say yes, and the belief that there is a right person to hear your ideas and a right place to offer them.

When you feel that way about yourself, your ideas and your world it’s a lot harder to give up.

Action Step: A Schedule that Works for You

I’ve talked a lot about my schedule and how lately I’ve managed to free up a couple of good chunks of time to focus on projects I want to work on rather than the day to day work of my business.

This is an ideal that it took me almost two years of working at home full time to achieve. I know not everyone is there yet (at home or in a place where they can take time off regularly), so I want to emphasize that it’s really important to come up with a schedule that works for you and allows you to get the work done that needs to be done while hopefully also working in some time for enjoyable pursuits.

Because my work is creative, a lot of it can feel like play, and a lot of it doesn’t really look like work to other people. Sitting on the couch all afternoon watching a movie and knitting is work for me if I publish the pattern later.

But if you’re in the phase of your career where you’re really busy and working on things you don’t always enjoy, it’s essential to try to work in a little play time. It might not be a whole afternoon yet (especially if you have a day job) but even just a couple of hours can make a huge difference in keeping you sane while you’re working so hard.

This is a big “if I knew then what I know now” moment for me because I just worked and worked with just about every waking moment I had for a couple of years. That helped get me to where I am now, but it wasn’t a lot of fun for me or my husband.

Building your career at the expense of your life is not the way to go. So while you’re planning your schedule, no matter how jam-packed it already seems, see if you can build in just a little bit of time for something fun, too.

You and your family will be glad you did.

Setting a Freelancing Schedule

One of the benefits of being a freelancer, as I’ve mentioned before, is the ability to have a more flexible schedule than people who work a day job. When I was working both as a freelancer and a full-timer, I was able to do freelance work when I had extra time at the day job, as well as in the evenings and on weekends.

I still do some work on Sundays, but I try not to work as much in the evenings anymore and I only work on Saturdays if I have a deadline or a project that somehow hasn’t gotten done during the week. I’m much closer to having normal business hours than I’ve even been before, and I think that’s a good thing.

Benefits of Having a Schedule

Having set (or at least somewhat regular) “office hours” is helpful both for you and your clients. I don’t regularly talk to my clients by phone, or really even by e-mail, but if I ever did have a client who required such contact, odds would be good I would be in the office when he or she needed to call (barring time zone differences, of course).

But I think setting and sticking to regular hours is even more important for you as a freelancer. It adds structure to your days, which can be helpful if you’re having trouble getting things done or staying on task. It may seem like sitting at the computer for hours on end at regular times each day makes your work more like a boring old job, and maybe it does, but it also makes you more focused on getting things done and not just whiling away the hours with nothing to show for it by the end of the day.

If you’re freelancing on top of another job, setting hours for yourself is really important for time management. If you know you have five hours to get all your work done, you’ll know much better how to divide your time and likely will find yourself being more efficient than if you just took time to work whenever you felt like you had time.

Setting regular hours doesn’t mean you have to be in the office form 9 to 5 every day. I tend to take off most Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons, but that time away makes me more enthusiastic about the time I am in the office and I actually get a lot done even on days when I’m not working a full day.

You may have a class you want to take, an afternoon at the park with the kids, or even just a long trip to the coffeeshop that you want to work into your schedule. And you can still have the flexibility of not always doing these activities on the same day every week if you want.

But if you know that you’ll be in the office at regular times and for a regular amount of time through the week, you’ll feel a lot better about taking that time off and understanding that you still have plenty of time to get your work done even with some fun built in.

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