1.When did you start writing?
I’ve been writing since high school. I was a sports reporter for my high school newspaper and then followed that to my township newspaper.
2. How did you break into freelancing? When did you know you were ready to start your own business?
In 1996, I had a heart attack at the age of 34. Realizing that I had only one life to live, I decided during my three months of disability I would “begin” a writing career. My first job was as a book reviewer for a national poetry journal, and then I started to write op-eds for our local newspaper.
I had always wanted to have my own writing business, whether part-time or, preferably, full-time, but I talked more about it than doing it. I got a job for a local monthly newspaper doing features, and then got my first freelance assignment for regional magazine. Then I said to myself, “Rather than talk about it, now I’m going to make the move.” With that I started querying magazines more, studying markets, and developed my website, www.SGSWrite.com.
3. What did you find to be the most difficult aspect of starting your own freelance business and acquiring clients?
Believing in myself. Volume 1 Issue 4 of my SGS Writes! Ezine focuses on this aspect. If you don’t believe in yourself, you’ll feel it when you attempt to contact prospective clients, and they’ll see it if you eventually meet them face-to-face (if you get that far).
If you’re going to make this venture, you have to believe in yourself, first and foremost.
4. Please give us an idea on how you find clients, determine the price, secure the project, and deliver it for final copy.
I have various ways of going about this, but one main one. First of all, I determine the arena of possible clients I wish to approach. For example, let’s take Public Relations firms. My wife and partner in SGSWrite, Lucille, may make a cold call to a firm and I will follow up with an email. I also occasionally utilize the direct mail method, but I’ve found cold calling is very effective. At first it seems like the calls are for naught. However, you never know what goes on behind the scenes.
As for determining the price, I have a set fee I charge per hour, and I utilize this to come up with an estimate based upon the hours the projects should take. We “secure the project” by being professional from initial cold call and email, providing portfolio samples and directing people to our website to prove we can do the job, and being courteous and 100% professional. Then it’s a matter of doing the job, doing it right – time and time again – and delivering the finished project before deadline.
Here’s another key: We keep in constant contact with the client and keep them abreast of our progress.
5. What advice can you offer to writers who may feel nervous about starting their own freelance business? What if they don’t have many clips to show a potential client?
First of all, be nervous. It’s a normal feeling. Then fight through every challenge, fear and obstacle by being proactive. If you’re a good writer and believe you can be a success in this business, no one can tell you otherwise. Keep this key thought in mind: “If others can do it, so can I.” You are the only person who can stop you.
Regarding clips, you may have them and not even recognize it. Have you ever done a project for school or written for a school newspaper? Ever written any sort of persuasive letter? These are all samples. If you don’t have any, look for someone to write something for and build a starter portfolio and keep adding to it.
Success – which, by the way, is relative to the individual – does not come overnight. The things I’m mentioning here are” starting block stuff,” but you have to begin. As you continue to take those small steps, after a while you notice you’ve done quite a bit and your confidence raises. Not only that, you can look back and “where you were” and be proud.
6. In your opinion, and with your experience, what areas of freelancing would you suggest for the writer who is just starting out? What can they do to build their reputation as a professional writer?
It depends on what avenue you wish to travel down. Want to be a magazine and newspaper journalist? Pitch a column to your local newspaper or small press magazine. Want to write ads? Reach out to local periodicals as well. Brochures? Approach someone you know who owns a business and offer to write one. Press releases? Same thing, or hit a fundraising company. Also, read a lot in the arena you wish to attack.
When starting out, it’s always good to do just that – start. And be prepared to make mistakes. It’s a sign of growth and lack of perfection, because no one is blemish free in this or any business, or even in life for that matter.
7. You do a lot of pieces on dining and traveling throughout your home state. How do you find these projects? Do you submit proposals to magazines and/or contact the editor of a newspaper? What type of deadlines do you face with these types of articles?
When it comes to my assignments within New Jersey ’s boundaries, most of the assignments now come by way of my editor. The fact that I’m a loyalist of the state and travel it often helps. I actually received a regular gig with magazine because I know so much about New Jersey .
Deadlines for these assignments vary. Some may be rush jobs, while some give me time to plan my travel. Normally, I try to have my drafts in long before they’re due; this way if a rewrite is needed, it will done by deadline.
8. Your list of clients and publishing credits are impressive and continue to expand. Do editors now come to you with writing projects?
A little bit of both. If it’s a new market, I’ll touch base with an editor and tell them I’d enjoy doing something for them and they’ll come back to me with an idea, or I’ll just send them an idea. As for publications I’ve worked with before, they pretty much approach me with the topics or ask me for suggestions.
9. What projects are you working on now? What are your favorite topics to write about? Have you, or do you plan on working on a novel? If so, what genre do you enjoy the most?
I’ve recently been hired by a local glossy magazine to write features, and I’m also preparing to do a magazine article about a young singer and the club she manages at the Tropicana Resort in Atlantic City . I love writing about dining and travel, but I also enjoy meeting business owners and seeing how their passion drives them, and then writing about or for them.
I have worked on two novels in the past which I really just wrote for the heck of it, and romantic stories occasionally light me up a bit.
What I’d really like to do is author a book of reflections regarding day trips I’ve taken in New Jersey .
10. Lastly, what advice do you have for writers to stay in their write minds without giving up hope that they’ll one day see their work and byline in print?
That would be my advice: keep moving on “without giving up hope.” I firmly believe that if you want anything bad enough, you will get it, and this applies to any endeavor.
If it’s magazine writing that you want to be your forte, visit bookstores and study the markets you want to write for, and query, query, query. If you seek to copywriter, never ever stop marketing and study copywriting.
Steve Sears, co-owner of SGSWrite in Bloomfield, New Jersey, is a freelance copywriter for businesses and magazines. Dependable writing for your business is his motto. He and his partner, Lucille, have been married for 18 years, and they have a 14 year old daughter (and fellow writer) named Stefanie. Visit the SGSWrite website at www.SGSWrite.com.
