Free e-Class! How to Be A Paid Writer: Lesson 2

The words on your webpage should paint a crystal clear picture about you, your craft, your abilities, and services.  Your page should capture and keep the attention of your visitors long enough to inspire action and sales.  To do this, identify your target audience as well as their desires and goals. create a USP (Unique Selling Position).  A USP distinguishes you from your competitor.  Illustrate exactly how you can solve a problem for them. You can rotate or even completely replace your USP over time.  One USP that has been used by FedEx is: "When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight." 


II. How to Write Articles that Get Sold  

One of a writer's biggest goals is to have their articles published in offline print publications. Once published, you will automatically command the attention of hundreds of thousands of prospects and clients.  In the lessons to come, you will receive several dozens of writing markets which will pay you $125.00 to more than $25,000 and more.  To earn the highest fee, you will have to be recognize as an expert.  To be recognized as an "expert," your name must appear as the author in several informative articles on the same topic.  When this happens, be prepared to accept paid invitations to speak as well. Also, keep an eye out for opportunities to speak. 

For example, when I see an corporation, trade newsletter, or similar publication that has reprinted my article, I contact the editor and introduce myself.  The purpose is to inform them of my availability to speak to their group.  Then, we set up a lucrative paid speaking engagement.

As a very-well paid writer, I can tell you that a 6-figure income (up to $100,000 a year) is a realistic goal for almost anyone. If you want to break "six figures," all that is necessary is to work a little longer. Identify your targeted daily income and be willing to commit to writing everyday to meet this target. Write your goal (your targeted daily income) in your notebook. Next, date and sign it.  To earn $100,000 a year, you need to bill or, be paid $2,000 a week for 50 weeks. That breaks down to $400 a day for a 5-day work week.  This is very doable.  Writers just like you quietly do it all the time.

Now, at this point, you may be asking "What type of writing will pay me $400 a day, or $9,000 a month?"  Well, travel articles, restaurant reviews, annual reports, fundraising letters, speeches, press releases, ad campaigns and copywriting, just to name a few.  Don't expect to earn $400.00 everyday because you won't.  There will be times when you spend your days prospecting, doing self-promotion, or writing pitch letters.  These days you will earn very little -- or even nothing at all if you do not have any passive income hooked up.  An example of "passive income" is overnight and during-the-day orders for a pdf. file e-book. 

Conversely, you can expect days when you earn $3,000 or more for writing a corporate report. Or, signing a 30-day contract and being paid $1,750 after you sign.  Focus on your average daily revenue and stay encouraged.  You can also create and sell your own information products.  For example, books, manuals, e-books, press releases, and special reports. Many individuals quietly earn upwards of $200,000 a year just by selling their own information products.

I provide a plethora of online, print publications, agencies, and more where you can submit your articles for payment in the next lessons.  I also give you the template for the letter I use to sell my articles every single day, and show you how you can easily do the same.

III.  Specific Strategies For Selling

The higher your assignment fee, the easier it can be to meet your $400 a day goal. Shelly M. specializes in writing investigative reports, with an average price tag of $8,000 per project. Several of these jobs can put her well ahead of her target daily revenue.  Here are more powerful strategies for selling your articles.

a. Increase your productivity. Excluding royalties and sales, writers are compensated for their time, only. Therefore, the more efficient and productive you are and the faster you write, the more money you earn.  Do what it takes to get more done in less time.  Start work earlier than you do now. Make your first hours, your most productive hours.

b. Target high-paying markets.  In the lessons to come, you will be introduced to high-paying markets and assignments such as midsize businesses, large-circulation magazines and Fortune 500 corporations. Target these industries as they pay the most.  Higher-paying assignments will expedite your path to your $99,000 a year goal. It’s easier to meet your goal of $400 a day when you get $1,500 per project instead of a $300 per project, or three, $200.00 assignments.  

 c. Consider calculating your earnings per hour rather than per project or per word.  If it requires 5, eight-hour days to do a $2,000 feature story for a glossy magazine, you make $50 an hour. 

d. Create a demand for what you are selling through specialization.  For example, percussion instruments, micro-management, interpersonal life skills, health and aging. Specialists earn more than generalists.  The less popular your specialty is, the greater your value to clients, editors and other writers, and the greater your competitive edge.  It just takes one of your articles in a major newspaper or periodical to transform your life forever.


IV. Building a Contact List

Building a contact list of clients can be challenging, but doable.  The easiest way is simply to add your website to your e-mail signature lines. You should also consider writing a newsletter.  Using your email signature line you can invite people to your website.  Once there, they can sign up for the complimentary newsletter.  A valuable newsletter which is rich in content will be passed around thereby adding to your database.  A semi-monthly newsletter fosters loyal relationships with your readers.  Loyal relationships generate revenue for you.
 

 a. Let The World Know
Contact the media and invite them to do a press release on you featuring your site.  Or, write a blurb, or news alerts of your own and submit it to media resources both on and offline.


V. Tools for the Trade:

a. The Press Kit
A great online press kit includes an author bio including personal information such as date and place of birth, residence, educational background, family structure, book titles and awards.
It is also advisable to have a few professional, high-resolution, digital photographs scanned at 300 dots-per-inch, minimum.  If you have any feature excerpts of your work, make sure they are included in your online press kit.  Your press kit should also include contact information for your postal mail, e-mail, and telephone number.  For additional information on exactly how to create the best press kit for you, go to: How to Create a Press Kit  This is an excellent source.

 b. Editing Resource

•  Book-editing.com Editing services from story development through final copyedit
  
  
   
  VI. How To Write So You Connect With Your Readers
  
   
   
  Your primary aim is to be an effective writer.  Statistics show that the average reader reads at the seventh grade level. So as a writer, it only makes sense if you write at this level.  Now, this does not mean that you insult anyone's intelligence. It just means that you write comprehensibly.  A great way to accomplish this is to write like you speak.  That is, in conversational style. Think, "fireside chat." 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

  To be a successful writer, you must master the art of speaking directly to your reader so you actually connect with them. 
  
  

  Don't, and you won't.
   
  When writing, always take note of what segment your reader represents. For example, if your reader is a sports fan, you're probably going to use a different “voice” than you would if you were writing a piece for Newsweek.
  
  The intelligent writer thoroughly researches their target market prior to submitting anything to any publication.
  
  This, is how you do that.  Study the archive issues of the publication. Read their advertisements.  Know the voice they use when speaking to their own readers and then emulate that voice.
  
  Finally, another strategy is to write so you paint a vivid picture in your reader's mind.  Human beings are teleological.  This means that by nature, we think in pictures -- not words -- when we read and hear.  Write in your active, illustrative and colorful voice to keep your reader fully engaged. 
  
  For example, instead of: "It bothers me when I am criticized."
  
  Write: "The thought of being criticized always irks me to no end."
  
  Get the picture?
  
   
  Well, that's it for Lesson 2 of this 7-lesson program.  Lesson 3 will be in your inbox in 3 days.  It includes: "10 Things to Do Right Now to Improve Your Sales!"  "How to successfully promote your writing, and The #1 place to promote, sell and distribute your writing."  
  
             
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  You've just received a few strategies and resources from my free e-Class, How to Be A Paid Writer  
  The entire How to Be A Paid Writer e-Course is jam-packed with ideas, strategies and resources for being a published and very-well paid writer.  You'll  learn the steps to getting your book published, how to get paid and published in magazines and newspapers such as the New York Times, TIME, Entrepreneur, Parents, and many other premier publications.  As a matter of fact, it teaches you the same marketing strategies that I've used and enhanced since 2004 to promote my writing and operate a very lucrative business on my own terms. I have generated as much as $7,500 in one month from several writing markets.
  
  Here's more of what you will learn: