Feeling nervous about what’s happened to freelancing during COVID-19? If so, you’re not alone.

But you can recession-proof your freelance writing career and continue to earn — if you know what steps to take.

For me, the past few months have given me déjà vu — because I was freelancing in the last recession, around 2008. I had just begun ramping up my writing income when the financial meltdown came on. 

I decided to stick with my plan to grow my income to six figures, despite what was happening. And in 2011, I got there, cracking six figures for the first time. 

What does it take? Let me boil down the key components of earning well in a down economy into four important steps. 

1. Win the mind-body battle 

Understand that writers who thrive in the coming months will take good care of their bodies. Healthy food, regular sleep, exercise. All the basics are absolutely essential right now — they’re the foundation of your freelance-writing success.

I know, it would be so easy to eat giant chocolate bars and order in French fries and be a Netflix binge-watchin’ zombie. But that won’t give you the stamina you need for this. Think of it like you’re training for a big race, and keep yourself in trim! It’ll help both your writing, and your chances of doing well if you end up getting the virus.

Once you’re committed to taking great care of your body, the next step is to work on your head game.

I’m talking about the endless undertow of negative thought-babble going on in our minds. Bad things we see on the news, worries about what could happen, all that. 

Shut. It. Off. There’s nothing good there. Put yourself on a media diet, and focus on what is within your sphere of control. That will help you feel empowered. 

Also, take time to experience joy or be silly each day. Laughter is good for your immune system.

Finally, know that everybody’s productivity is taking a hit. Practice self-forgiveness, and when you have days where not much gets done, don’t beat yourself up. Do better tomorrow. 

2. Get your schedule on 

Once your mind and body are in as good a shape as you can get them, it’s time to come up with a battle plan for how and when the writing gets done. If you’re homeschooling kids, it’s going to take extreme creativity — but it can be done.

Assess who you’ve got on your team, and when they could help. Some families are co-isolating with another family to get a sitter. My cousin has newborn grandkid twins, and they are cleared to come babysit. See where your comfort zone is for looping in family, neighbors or friends.

You probably had a writing routine, and now it may be out of the window. That’s OK. We’re all reinventing how we do our work. My sister has a set of affirmations she’s using to get through this, and one of them is, “Being flexible is an action.” 

Think of it as a science experiment. How much could I get done between 8 p.m. and midnight, after young kids go to bed? (That’s actually the schedule I used to write all my blog posts, for many years.) What if I got up at 5 a.m., before others arise? What if I grab this 20-minute break while everyone else runs an errand, and try to crank out a pitch letter? 

If you stay open-minded about when creativity can happen, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results. Whether you create a new schedule, or ‘unschedule’ and just use whatever opportunities present themselves, commit to getting the writing done, one way or another. 

3. Don’t be scared – be prepared 

I’m hearing from many writers who are wringing their hands as clients ‘pause’ or cancel projects, cut their rates, or flat-out disappear. Payments are late, and you don’t know what to do. You’re worried these clients are going away.

Let me suggest another mindset for this situation: Stop fearing that things are changing, and accept that they are. 

In a downturn, the pace of change accelerates. That’s reality. In 2009, I lost every single client I had, one by one. I also replaced them all with better ones. 

This is a situation where you should ‘act as if.’ Act as if that client who’s starting to pay slower, or send fewer assignments, is going away. What would you do, if that were true? Do that.

Be ready for turnover, and you’ll be calm and in control – because you’ll already be acting on your backup plan to line up new work.

4. Target winners and market massively

When the economy tanks, it’s not all losers out there. There are also winners. Think of Amazon, or Zoom, and all their competitors.

If the niches you’ve been writing in are at a standstill, think about what related areas you could move into that are doing well. (Hint: If you’ve written about one kind of tech, you can write about another.) 

Once you know who you’ll target, it’s time to do mass quantities of marketing. Before this hit, I would routinely tell my coaching students to do 100 pieces of marketing a month. Now, I think it’s 200.

What type of marketing should you do? It depends on your industry, your personality, and what you’re willing and able to do.

Obviously, in-person networking is out right now. But virtual events are booming, LinkedIn is sizzling hot for connecting with new prospects, and pitch emails still find people, even if they’re working from home.

Don’t overthink. Don’t get emotionally attached to any one pitch. This is a numbers game. You want the largest possible number of people to know who your ideal client is, so they can refer you.

Proactively reach out to prospects, and not with generic, “Hi, I’m a writer, do you need a writer?” messaging. Bring them solutions, concrete ideas of how you could help them succeed in this tough environment.

If you’ve never had to find many prospects at once, know that the list you want already exists, and it’s free. It might be data you get from business databases such as Owler, Hoovers or Manta. It might be tracking who’s getting investor money, as reported on CrunchBase. Or grabbing lists of fast-growing or biggest companies in a sector from your local business weekly, or off the Inc. 5000. 

Check out their websites, see where you might contribute, shoot off a pitch.

If you write for publications, be networking like mad. Everything is shifting so fast, it’s helpful to get an inside line to an editor, so you can ask them what sort of story ideas they need right now.

When the economy is slow, you have to shake more trees to make sure you’ve got enough coconuts in your hand. Again, think of it as an experiment, a crazy beat-the-recession game. If you play to win, you’ll be surprised at how well you do. 

This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase through our links, you’re supporting The Write Life — and we thank you for that!

Photo via LightField Studios / Shutterstock 

If you only have time for one social marketing platform, here’s a tip: Make it LinkedIn.

It’s the only social-media platform where you can say, “Hey, do you know anyone who needs a writer?” without getting blocked or banned.

Everyone is on LinkedIn to do business networking, so it’s cool.

Maybe you’re there already, and you’ve set up your profile. Hope so! Especially since Google+ died in 2018, LinkedIn has become the social platform great companies visit to search for freelance help, with nearly 660 million users.

It should only take an hour or so to set up your LinkedIn profile — easy stuff. Once you’ve got your profile up, you may wonder what you should DO to attract prospects and get writing jobs.

Content marketing on LinkedIn can be a terrific way to attract prospects you’d never meet otherwise. If you never update your status, companies and editors won’t reach out to you because you seem like you’re not active.

You need to post something fairly regularly — let’s say, at least once a week. Something interesting.

What sort of content should you post on LinkedIn? You’ll need to be intentional and do this right, to get results. There’s a key first step to decide on, and then you’re ready to impress prospective clients on LinkedIn. Let’s start there.

How to use LinkedIn as a freelance writer

Before you get all excited and start posting a lot of random topics on LinkedIn, remember to stay focused on the goal. We’re doing this to attract and connect with our ideal clients, in order to get hired.

Often, freelance writers like to post and share on LinkedIn about…writing. But that tends to attract other freelance writers, rather than your clients.

The most effective approach to content marketing on LinkedIn is to choose one top industry niche that you most want to promote right now. Then, stick with it.

Envision your target. Maybe they’re the editor of a health publication, or the marketing manager at a tech company. Get a picture of them in your head.

Now, start thinking about their top problems. What keeps them up at night? You want to create  information they would stop scrolling and click on. Must-have knowledge they need.

Say, like this post one of my coaching students created to target organic farmers:

You can see how an organic farmer would want to read that, to make sure they’re following marketing best practices in their space.

Once you’ve got your target firmly in mind, it’s time to go beyond simply tossing up one-line status updates.

Here are my top seven tips for creating LinkedIn content that creates buzz and gets you hired:

1. Talk about your writing life

The key to social media is that people don’t want to be hit over the head with sales messages. They want to socialize!

Status updates are a great place to share happenings in your freelance-writing life. Examples include:

• Finished a big client project
• Changed your head shot, writer website, or logo
• Looking for sources for an article
• Got new home-office gear or co-working spot
• Have marketing or writing-tool questions
• A new piece you wrote just came out

These are all great things to share on LinkedIn. They don’t scream, “Please, please hire me.” They just quietly keep putting what you do in front of your connections. If they hear of someone who needs a freelance writer, you’re likely to be top of mind.

Remember, every time you post, connections can see your tagline (which hopefully says exactly what type of freelance writer you are). It’s low-key, free advertising that you are looking for healthcare copywriting clients, or whatever type of writing jobs you indicate.

For instance, The Renegade Writer co-author Linda Formichelli puts up notices when she lands a new client:

These slice-of-writing-life anecdotes are quick and easy to put together, and keep educating LinkedIn visitors about what you do. To take your LinkedIn marketing to the next level, consider using Pulse.

2. Get on Pulse

Did you know that LinkedIn has its own blog? It’s known as Pulse, and it’s wide-open for (unpaid) contributions.

I know, writers writing for free — it’s not ideal. But in the case of Pulse, it can be worth the occasional post, due to the platform’s large audience.

It used to be hard to figure out how to get on Pulse, but now it’s easy — just look for the ‘Write an article’ link:

Here’s the magic of Pulse: Posts you publish there get featured on your profile.

LinkedIn is in the business of promoting its own blog, yo! You can see on the left of this profile shot how the platform lays out Divya’s Pulse post with a nice fat graphic, where status updates get less space:

Even better, your most recent Pulse post gets displayed forever on your profile page. Until you write a new one. You can write one Pulse post a year, and it’ll keep making your profile look sexy, and keep getting readers and comments.

I’ve seen writers get in the neighborhood of 6,000-10,000 views on enticing Pulse posts. That’s a lot of possible clients, reading your work.

3. Get visual

Know what stops the scrolling and makes people pay attention to your content on busy social media sites? Interesting images. It’s worth taking a few minutes to hop to your favorite free-image site and locate something eye-catching.

For instance, automotive writer Neil Pope recently got a lot of readers to one of his stories by using this traffic-stopping photo:

Unusual, hm? Think about how you could stand out from the pack with your image, not just with the content you post.

4. Sharing (and commenting) is caring

One of the cool things about getting exposure on LinkedIn is that you can do it even if you’re super-busy. If you don’t have time to write content for LinkedIn, just curate the week’s most interesting posts for your target client, spin that into a quick post, and you’re done.

You’ll be surprised how much people appreciate you pulling those resources together for them. You can also get your name in front of top prospects by sharing or commenting on their work, as you see content marketer Tracey Stepanchuk doing here, with a useful piece from Forbes:

Even though you didn’t write it, your shares and comments show prospects you follow their industry, know best practices, and are on top of trends.

5. Be original

While curating and sharing others’ content can help present you as an expert writer, creating your own unique content lends even more authority.

Since all our writing clients are looking for us to deliver something that will set their publication or business apart, create highly original, must-read content on LinkedIn, to show you could deliver that for the client, too.

For instance, check out this ‘key questions’ post sustainability writer Julie Johnson put together (she gets bonus points for creating a visual version of her content).

6. Start spreading the news

If you’re annoyed that you have no easy way to capture email leads from the content you post on LinkedIn, there’s a solution.

Start up a weekly or monthly newsletter. Then, create a link that brings readers to your own writer website to subscribe and get the full edition. Presto! You’ve got contacts.

For instance, automotive writer Neil Pope just started spinning all his best LinkedIn content of the week into a newsletter:

Want to learn more? LinkedIn has newsletter tips.

7. Discover hashtags — and get trending

Twitter may have invented the hashtag — but LinkedIn has stolen it, big-time. LinkedIn now auto-suggests possible hashtags for all your content. Use them! Hashtags create easily sortable channels to help readers find what they’re interested in.

Once you start using hashtags, you can potentially take advantage of a fun new LinkedIn feature — trending in hashtagged channels. LinkedIn editors have started notifying writers whose posts trend in a particular hashtagged category. Like this:

It’s always an ego boost to hear you’re trending — and better yet, trending means it’s more likely a wider audience will find your post, not just your connections.

Develop a LinkedIn marketing habit

Once you get going with updates and posts on LinkedIn, keep it up! Make a commitment to post at lease once or twice a week, to keep your name in front of your prospects.

What else can you do to build your audience on LinkedIn? Keep sending and accepting more connections.

Once you top 500 connections, many writers have reported, LinkedIn starts showing their posts to more visitors, and they see an uptick in inbound connection invites, too.

Try posting some useful information on LinkedIn that your ideal client would want to read — and see what happens.

Photo via Unsplash

This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase through our links, you’re supporting The Write Life — and we thank you for that!

It’s a common problem. Often, the problem has to do with your headline.

And, if you’re sending pitches that don’t mention a proposed headline, this might be your first problem — editors tend to skim through queries, looking for the headline. If they see none, they might assume your idea hasn’t quite gelled yet, and move on.

Now that you know you need to include a headline in your pitch, how can you make it one your editor will love? 

I’ve pitched both popular blogs and national magazines with success, and run a guest-post program for my own blog, so I’ve been on both sides of the fence here. Over the years, I’ve learned there are some basic things to do to build a fascinating headline that gets you hired.

What are they? Here are five simple steps to make your headline irresistible to editors.

1. Bring the style

Your starting point for creating a great headline is always to study the headline style of your target publication. Study, study, study.

How long are their headlines? Are they businesslike, snide, sassy or hip? 

Skim until you have a sense of their headline conventions and tone. Then, emulate their style in your headline.

Research is key because headline conventions vary a lot. With blog post headlines, you’re usually looking for a snappy, 8-10 word headline. For instance, here’s one I did for my Forbes blog that ended up pulling huge traffic:

“Meet the 8 Hottest Publicly Traded Marijuana Companies”

By contrast, magazine article headline style can be a very short headline, followed by what editors call a ‘dek,’ a longer line that fleshes out the idea. For instance, here’s the headline of a piece for Delta Airlines’ in-flight magazine, Delta Sky:

“The Do’s and Don’ts of Franchising: What potential franchisees need to consider about timing, industry choice, finances and more before they decide to take the plunge”

Know and use the style of your target publication, and your editor will be able to envision your article appearing in their pages. 

That’s the first step to getting a ‘yes.’

2. Include keywords

You might think search engine optimization (SEO) would only matter for online blogs and publications — but you’d be wrong. Increasingly, print magazines are also posting their content online. 

That means they care about using phrases their audience might search for the topics they cover. They’re looking to have each headline help them attract more readers.

When I wrote pieces for Forbes magazine that they also posted online, my editor had me write a different headline for the online version — one with better keywords. If you know your magazine swings both ways, suggesting two headline styles can be a pro move.

There are plenty of free keyword search tools online – AnswerthePublic and Neil Patel’s UberSuggest are two popular ones I like. Pick your favorite tool, think like a reader and take a stab at using relevant keywords.

3. Hook ‘em

If you want your headline to really get your editor excited, it’ll need to have a news hook.

What’s a news hook? It’s something new that makes your idea need to be published now. It signals you have fresh information that we haven’t already seen 100 times online. 

The news hook gets your editor thinking, “This must run in the next issue!” instead of “Well, maybe this could work sometime.”

To interest an editor, you’ve got to move beyond generic headlines like: “5 Reasons Eating Vegan Will Improve Your Health.” We’ve read that story already. A lot.

Find a fresh spin. Is there a new study about vegans’ health? A new celebrity going vegan? Gotta give that editor a new angle on this popular topic. 

A news hook might be one new fact that’s emerged in an ongoing story — the coroner’s report was released, or a new candidate has entered the race. It could be an anniversary of a major event. A year (or a decade) after the big earthquake, fire or flood. As I write this, there are lots of “Amazon turns 25” stories, for instance.

Getting a news hook into your headline is an easy way to get your editor excited.

4. Narrow the focus

Another quick way to show you ‘get’ the publication is to narrow your topic by weaving the audience into the headline. 

So it’s not “5 Reasons Eating Vegan Will Improve Your Health”, but “3 New Studies on Vegan Diets That Parents Need to See.”

Now, we’ve zeroed in on who this publication’s readers are. Showing that in your headline lets the editor know you really get their audience — and makes them more likely to assign you a story.

5. Be fresh

The final step in creating a headline that gets editors interested is to get creative, especially if you want to cover a popular topic. What can you add that makes the headline fascinating to readers? How can you signal, right in the headline, that you have information not found elsewhere? 

For instance, after Fiverr bought rival freelance intermediary platform ClearVoice, there were loads of stories about it. I wanted to cover it on my own blog, but how to be different? The answer was to interview their CEO. 

Then, I built a headline that spotlighted my unique coverage of this business news: 

“Fiverr Buys ClearVoice: Their CEO on the Future of Online Writing”

Conducting interviews for your article is something magazine editors will expect – so start thinking about sources. Practice with a friend, if you have interview jitters! 

Writing great headlines takes practice. Allow time to experiment with your headline and perfect it, and it’ll pay off with more assignments.

This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase through our links, you’re supporting The Write Life — and we thank you for that!

Photo via Pressmaster/ Shutterstock 

(I should clarify that I mean without working twice as hard.)

Who wouldn’t, right?

I’ve been helping freelance writers double their income for many years now, and here’s what I’ve learned: Earning a lot more may be easier than you think.

There are a few basic changes to how you run your writing business that reliably boost writers’ income.

What small steps make a big difference? Here are my top five tips for quickly doubling what you earn from writing:

1. Stop and analyze

Many freelance writers are caught in a gerbil-wheel trap. You spend every minute frantically doing current client work and checking online job boards trying to land more gigs. You’re barely earning enough to pay bills, so there’s little free time.

There are zero minutes spent reflecting on the big picture. Where is your writing biz headed? Who would you really love to write for, and how can you position yourself to get there?

In the world of entrepreneurship, this is called working in your business instead of on your business. You’ll need to stop the busy-busy and take stock of your direction to make course corrections. If you’ve got even a single hour, you could reflect on what’s happening and potentially chart a new course.

Question: When was the last time you made a list of all your clients, how much you make from them on an hourly basis — and where they came from?

Do you see any patterns in your marketing of where better-rate clients came from? Worse ones? That may show you it’s time to stop checking online job boards, and time to do more proactive marketing, or to double down on LinkedIn networking. Or perhaps one industry niche is paying better than your others, and you should troll for more work in that area.

Stopping to do a client analysis can help you see where you’re wasting time, which clients should be dropped, and which asked for a raise.

2. Drop the biggest loser

Once you know who your worst client is, lay plans to get rid of them.

Writers often stay trapped at a low income level because they fear change. “I love writing for client X!” writers tell me, even though the gig works out to under $20 an hour. Bulletin: That client isn’t loving you back.

Somewhere in your client list, there’s probably a client that should be cut loose, to free up marketing time to find better prospects.

Use the time you save to find a better client. Once you do, drop the next-biggest loser. And so on. This simple process of swapping out lower-paid clients for better ones is the main technique I used to build my own business to six figures — right in the middle of the last big economic downturn.

3. Create (or strengthen) your inbound funnel

Are great clients finding you online? Whether it’s from a LinkedIn profile or your own writer website, a thriving writing business gets inbound clients who see your work and contact you. You should wake up in the morning and find emails, InMails, or Messenger notes from good prospects.

If that isn’t happening for you, it’s time to build or improve your online presence. I’m currently teaching a bootcamp for new freelance writers, and I’m blown away by how many have fewer than 100 LinkedIn connections. Give the Internet a chance to help you find clients on autopilot!

Consider making network-building and site improvement a weekly goal – it can pay off in less active marketing you have to do. And we all want that, right?

If you’ve got a writer website but it’s never gotten you a client, it’s time to optimize it. Have you given SEO any thought, and are you getting found for the keyword phrase you’re targeting? It can be worth investing a little time to make sure you come off professional, and it’s clear what type of clients you want.

Remember, most clients are searching for someone who knows their thing. They’re Googling for an Atlanta healthcare writer, or a freelance cryptocurrency writer. Something like that. Be sure to think like a client and communicate your expertise.

4. Identify ideal clients

If your marketing is all over the place, it’s time to focus. One of the best ways to do that is with an ideal-client exercise. Here’s how:

Close your eyes and imagine your ideal freelance writing life. Who are you writing for? Is it Vanity Fair? IBM? Think big and make a list of at least 10 dream clients.

Next, ask yourself this: What clips would impress those clients? Who would be a good stepping stone down the yellow brick road to that Emerald City?

For instance, if you want to write for Forbes, you might pitch a piece to your city’s business magazine or weekly business journal, to start. Aligning current prospects with ideal clients helps you quickly assemble a portfolio that’ll impress the right people.

Stop taking any and all gigs that come your way, and writing about everything under the sun. Instead, build a path that leads directly to your best writing jobs.

Sometimes, this exercise will even lead you to realize you should pitch dream clients right away! I’ve seen writers pitch and get hired immediately by dream clients, once they did the ideal-client exercise and realized they had the portfolio to go for it.

5. Raise your rates

There’s a bottom line that if you want to earn more, you have to charge more.

Start figuring out how you’ll do it. Hint: You’ll need to target clients that have real money and understand our value — bigger-circulation magazines, larger business and websites. Generally, these gigs aren’t sitting around an online job board.

Make sure you know what you’re earning on an hourly basis (even if you charge project rates, like you should)…and keep inching that figure up.

If you don’t have the stomach to ask existing clients for a raise, be sure to bring in new ones at higher rates. If you’re not raising rates, you’re not keeping up with the rising cost of living.

I speak as someone who’s paying $7,000 for braces on kid #2 right now, that cost $5,000 with kid #1, about 5 years ago. The price of everything else is going up, and raising rates shows you’re professional and value your worth.

Once you’ve done the client-analysis process and realigned your actions to suit your goals, make a date with yourself to repeat it every six months- one year. Your client base will change, as will your best actions to grow your income.

We don’t tend to hit new earning levels without a goal. Set yours high and even if you fall short, you’ll be earning way more than you did before.

This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase through our links, you’re supporting The Write Life — and we thank you for that!

Photo via Monster Ztudio / Shutterstock 

Getting mentioned or featured by a popular blogger, with a link back to your blog.

When you have an expert link to you on their blog and say, “Hey, look at this valuable info,” you are golden. No hours of sweating a topic and writing a draft necessary!

Essentially, a guest post is you promoting yourself on someone else’s platform.

By contrast, a mention from a top blogger is a recommendation from someone with thousands of loyal followers.

Which would you rather have? I thought so.

But there’s a catch: How can you — as a blogger who’s starting out, or has just a small audience — do something noteworthy enough to earn these valuable mentions and links?

Quick answer: Study what others do in your niche, think about what your readers need most — and then find a way to stand out. Bust a major move.

You can do it! I know, because I started as a total blogging newbie, and didn’t know any big bloggers. But I managed to get mentioned on many of the top sites in my niche.

Here are four things I did that helped me get those prized backlinks:

1. Enter contests

Whenever you see contests for bloggers, enter.

In fact, start writing posts with the express purpose of winning contests you know are coming up! Contests are a terrific way to gain a ton of exposure to new readers quickly.

My blog’s audience skyrocketed at the end of 2010, when I entered the Top 10 Blogs for Writers contest on Write to Done. Readers nominate you, which creates backlinks on Write to Done, even for those who don’t eventually win!

When I won, that created another backlink and drove more traffic.

In all, the contest created a major traffic surge for my blog. You can see in the chart below that my blog had only modest traffic before the contest win — 200-300 views a day (I didn’t have Google analytics until November 2010, so the figures start there).

Soon, I began seeing many days above 1,000 views:

With new readers arriving who’d seen the contest link, a couple of blog posts in January and February created similar spikes. Years later, when I analyze my biggest sources of blog traffic, I can still see a steady stream of new readers from my contest wins.

Writer’s Market has a whole section on contests, and you can Google “blogging contests” to find many online.

Note: I’m NOT talking about the scammy types of contests where you pay a stiff fee to enter. There are plenty of free or very-low-cost contests, so concentrate on those.

2. Do something different

One of the first things I did on my blog was start a petition writers could sign vowing they wouldn’t write a blog post for $15 or less. It was sort of a crazy idea, but it got readers taking action — or talking about why they wouldn’t sign.

It was something different, and it got some mentions on other blogs.

I got a taste of what standing out could do for me, and looked to take it a step further.

In late 2010, I made a decision that if my blog was all about fair pay for writers, I needed to put my money where my mouth was. At the time, few blogs paid.

So I started paying guest bloggers $50 a post (now $75). More importantly, I began advocating for websites to pay their contributors.

My pay policy gets my blog mentions and links in many, many roundup posts about paying writing markets on popular blogs. Being a paying market continues to be a point of difference for me — and I consider the money I spend paying writers for guest posts my marketing budget. It’s money well spent.

3. Provide high-value posts

We all have days when we crank out a quick idea for our blog because we’re rushed or short of time.

But if you want top bloggers to take note of you, it requires some serious thinking about your content. Analyze your most popular posts and the most popular posts of big blogs in your niche.

What are the hot topics that get a spike of readers? That’s what you need to write about.

I was pretty slow to figure this out. But if my blog is addressing the primal need of helping freelance writers earn more, it would help if I showed them exactly where they can get a better-paying gig! Duh.

Once I figured it out, it wasn’t even hard to do. When I began paying for guest posts, I started hearing from other paying blogs. In short order, I had a short list.

When I started publishing big roundup posts of paying markets, these were widely linked to by other blogs. I’ve made these market lists into a regular feature, because they continue to be big traffic drivers.

Here you can see how my most recent, biggest-ever list post created a huge traffic spike that led to a new, higher baseline for post traffic:

This comprehensive list of paying markets created a major traffic surge.

It’s the sort of event that’s a game-changer for the size of your blog audience.

4. Be their case study

Have you used a top blogger’s tip, and it helped you be healthier, wealthier, or happier? Let them know, and offer to serve as a case study.

Give them a testimonial, do a Skype recording with them, come on their podcast — and they’ll pop you on their sales page and mention your blog for months or possibly years to come.

I’m a case study inside of several different top bloggers’ courses or communities, and constantly hear from new readers who found me that way.

Think creatively

There are plenty of other ways to promote a blog: Press releases, in-person networking, and public speaking spring to mind. Some folks are techy enough to create an awesome tool to get them mentions.

You know your market, your capabilities, and what the top bloggers in your industry might respond to.

It’s worth the time to figure out how to stand out and get noticed.

Of course, unless you’d like to spend hours and hours writing guest posts, when a quick mention from a top blogger can often get you even more visitors back to your blog.

What strategies have you used to grow your blog’s audience?

It’s so easy to do.

But if you’re going to earn well as a freelancer — and not end up clocking 100-hour weeks — it’s important that you use your time productively and wisely.

You’ve got to learn to say “no” to the activities that don’t really move your writing career forward. (Click to tweet this idea!)

You need to spend the bulk of your time on the stuff that matters. Writing. Marketing. Building your network of friends and colleagues who might know somebody who needs a writer.

How can you cut through the distractions and concentrate on what’s important?

Here are the five biggest time-wasters writers complain to me about, and tips for getting rid of each:

1. Social media

You could spend all day on Facebook or YouTube or whatever you frequent, watching funny videos and supporting your friend’s charitable campaigns… but you need to climb out of this time sinkhole to get some writing done.

The fix: Consider writing on your desktop instead of in the cloud on a dashboard — I use MarsEdit for blog posts, for instance — and then turning the browsers off. If you don’t have the discipline to do that on your own, use a tool such as Freedom to make them shut off for a period of time. If need be, lock your computer in a safe and write first drafts on a pad of paper and use the telephone to call prospects.

2. Overthinking

Many new writers end up frozen and not moving forward because of two super-unproductive head trips: worry and overthinking.

You’re worried you’ll make a misstep and then your career will be ruined. Or that you’ll waste time going in the wrong direction. Or that you’ll come off as a noob to that editor. So you do nothing.

You keep reading and reading about freelancing until your head is spinning and you can’t decide on anything. There are so many options! Paralysis sets in.

I often hear from new writers:

“I’m still figuring out my niche. Once I do, I’ll start marketing my writing.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The fix: Realize that everything you write builds your career, because it gives you experience writing and dealing with clients. I’m hard-pressed to look back and think of a gig I did that proved to be a total waste of time. Also, as you gain writing experience, you’ll learn where your best-paying opportunities are. The marketplace will point the way — some types of writing gigs will pay better than others, and you’ll go in that direction.

So pick a path that interests you, get out there and start writing, even if it’s on your own blog to start. You can improve and course-correct as you go. The only mistake you can make is not writing and marketing.

3. Waiting

Writers love to wait for things to happen. Wish I had a dime for every time a writer told me:

“I sent a query letter, and it said to allow 6-8 weeks for a response, so I’m waiting to see what happens.”

OR

“I have a conference coming up I plan to do some marketing at, so I’m waiting for that to come. Then maybe I’ll be able to get some gigs.”

The fix: Be a writer, not a waiter. Don’t wait-and-see about anything, ever. It is just a waste of your precious time.

Instead, move forward immediately, as if that thing you’re waiting on is never going to happen. Send that same query letter to three more places right now — yes, even though it said not to do simultaneous queries. Or write the next query letter.

Do some quick online or local in-person marketing while you wait for that big conference date to arrive. Your career will move forward faster, guaranteed.

4. Battered-wife syndrome

It’s easy to get all excited about new-prospect nibbles and spend lots of time on them. Then, when they drop the bomb that they’d like to pay $5 an article, it’s too late to turn back. You want to take the gig just to justify the time investment.

It’s all too common for freelancers to latch onto the first client who comes their way, and then never let go. Even if they’re obnoxious, or it isn’t the type of writing you really want to do, or they don’t pay well.

It’s easier to take the abuse from the devil you know than face the scary-scary unknown of finding that next client. Meanwhile, precious time is being wasted that could be spent finding better clients and making more money.

The fix: Realize that there are lots of users out there, and that it’s up to you to set healthy boundaries. Qualify prospects carefully when you first meet, so you don’t waste time and end up feeling you ‘have’ to work for a client you know won’t be a good fit.

If you’ve got a loser client, start laying your escape plan. Start with the low-hanging fruit of marketing — tell your existing network you’d appreciate client referrals (LinkedIn’s InMails are great for this), ask former and current clients for referrals, or go to live events to broaden your circle. As soon as you can replace them, give notice and say goodbye.

5. Ignorance

While I’m a strong proponent of just putting it out there, sometimes you really don’t have the knowledge you need to pursue some aspect of freelance writing.

Maybe you want to be a direct response copywriter, or do technical writing for software companies. But you have no samples, need to up your writing skills for that particular writing type, or don’t know how to find clients.

The fix: You can take forever trying to figure out these kind of things on your own — or you can take a shortcut and get some help. Find a book, a Webinar, or a mentor you trust and learn what you need to know. It’ll really pay off in the long run.

If you’re frittering the days away and can’t figure out where all the time goes, consider logging your activities for a week. Get some hard data on how you spend your time. That will give you a starting point for identifying and eliminating your biggest time-wasters.

What do you waste time on? Leave a comment and share your top time-waster — bet you’re not alone!