The Business Of Writing

Numbers are starting to roll in on how freelancers have adapted during the pandemic, and the data is more promising than expected. According to the U.S.-based Freelance Forward 2020 report commissioned by freelancer platform Upwork, 59 million Americans freelanced last year, 75% of freelancers say they earn more than they did at their 9-to-5, and 58% of non-freelancers who are new to remote work due to the pandemic are now considering freelancing in the future.

It’s an exciting time to dive in to BYOB life (That’s “being your own boss”, obvs). And whether you’re new to freelancing or just ready to kick things up a notch, one of the trickiest details to establish is your rates. …

Personal Growth

For myself and millions of others, stories — and shows in particular — have helped to cope with the emotional rollercoaster that is pandemic living. From pastel-dipped cooking game shows to over-the-top slasher flicks, I was more than willing these last several months to flip on a television and be whisked away to, well, anywhere but here.

Stories capture our imagination, inspire our next big life decisions, and pull emotions out of us that can feel like a therapeutic release. All this programming proved to be a great escape.

But along the way, I had crawled back up into double digits for daily screen time. Apparently I’m not alone: A Nielsen report from last year found Americans spent over 12 hours every day consuming media. I still wanted stories and a way to escape, but needed a quality alternative that didn’t always demand my eyesight. …

The Business Of Writing

When it’s time to sit down and write, do you find that your output is hit and miss? Would it be helpful to have clear expectations for each writing session before you move mountains to clear a few hours in your schedule? In this article, I’ll share a few eccentric best practices that have worked for me and may work for you as well.

We write to get our ideas out into the world and practice our craft. But for many of us, juggling this progress alongside work and family responsibilities can be a challenge. …

Entrepreneurship

I’m calling it right now: Post-pandemic entrepreneurship will surge. Our twisted mix of sheltering at home for months combined with more downtime than we’re used to has us all waxing contemplative. Sprinkle in a dash of stoicism as daily death count headlines force us to think about our own demise, and more than ever professionals are laying groundwork now to live life on their terms in the years to come.

Paid newsletters. Side hustles. Career changes. Coaches. Courses. Coaches coaching coaches. Agonizing defeats. Thrilling victories. It’s already begun, really. …

I scooped up the iPhone 12 Mini — my first upgrade in more than four years — mainly because it was time for an intervention. Working for yourself certainly has its perks, but quarantine has only accelerated my bad habits: checking work apps while sitting on the couch, peeking at metrics between social media scrolls, and pulling up marketing reports out of sheer boredom. Sometimes a needle has moved, and in my app-checking compulsion, I’ve dug myself into my own special variable rewards hole. Upgrading presented a good opportunity for a hard reset.

I didn’t know if my solution was the most optimal solution. What I did know was that I wanted a visceral change, one that I could literally feel in the palm of my hand and then put away in a drawer when it was time to call it a day. So, rather than writing the definitive, be-all-end-all tutorial on work-life separation, allow me to present how I reorganized my personal tech setup and what steps to take so you can do the same. …

Personality

If you’ve ever lived with a narcissist or worked with one, you know the way they operate can be draining at best and catastrophic at worst. A recent Psychology Today article summed it up nicely: Narcissists disrespect experts and boundaries, live for drama, and will throw others under the bus at a moment’s notice to further their own agenda.

My most recent experience interacting with narcissists was in a professional engagement that I’m still recuperating from. I’m in consulting, and at one point my main client was a startup media agency owned and operated by narcissists. …

The Business Of Writing

“2020 is MY year! New decade, new me!” A version of these words was uttered by millions of freelancers around this time last January.

Then, about 70 days later, everything came to a screeching halt. I don’t know about you, but about three weeks into quarantine I threw out my roadmap for how 2020 was going to go. Many writers’ careers and/or businesses changed completely over the course of just a few weeks. …

The Business Of Writing

Would you like to be able to name-drop “as seen in” and the names of some fancy media outlets in your author bio? Would it be easier to get clients or press if people already knew you were the real deal? To land media placements for yourself, you have to pitch for them — and that means knowing how to write a pitch.

I was lukewarm about PR and media for years, and looking back… it’s because I was jealous. I would pitch myself often and rarely see results, while other consultants seemed to be getting featured everywhere. …