Note from Jennifer: Today we are going to hear from one of my favorite fellow writers, Leslie Lang. She had a fantastic year in 2016 and I asked her to share what she learned this year. Leslie is a fantastic marketer, even bringing Macadamia nuts from Hawaii (where she lives) to pass out to everyone she met at Content Marketing World to help stand out from the crowd. If you had your best year ever in 2016 and would like to share how you did it with other writers, drop me an email (JenniferGregory@nc.rr.com) and I’d love to have you write a guest post (I pay $50 for guest posts). 

Today is your last chance to enter the January Goal Setting Challenge. Check out my post from Monday and post your goals in the comments. Every writer who posts goals by tonight (Friday, January 6, 2017) at 9 p.m. ET will be entered to win a $25 Amazon gift card. 

By Leslie Lang

When I mentioned to Jennifer that 2016 was my best year yet, she said a lot of writers are saying the same thing. I was interested to hear it’s not just me and I’m glad the trend seems to be up!

She asked me why I thought I earned more last year, so I sat down, looked at a couple FreshBooks accounting reports on my year and thought about what I did differently in 2016. Here’s what I came up with.

I concentrated solely on content marketing writing

The biggest reason my income shot up this year is that I consciously moved from doing a mix of kinds of writing to focusing solely on content marketing writing.

Content marketing writing is where the money has gone in freelance writing. It’s the single biggest reason I had a better year – I am concentrating on a type of writing that pays well right now.

I learned everything I could about it last year. I read widely, and studied this blog. I took Mridu Khullar Relph’s online course Content Marketing for Journalists and joined an online Special Interest Group on content marketing writing at American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA). In October, I went to the Content Marketing World conference in Cleveland.

I focused on my areas of specialization – my writing “niches”

I carefully selected the writing “niches” I wanted to concentrate on and then fine-tuned them two or three times during the year. I made sure my areas of writing specialization were clearly noted on my website, in my Contently and Skyword profiles and my letters of introduction (LOIs). I’m sure this helped editors feel more confident about hiring me.

When I sat down and added up last year’s income by niche, I was surprised to see I only earned 33 percent of my income from writing about Hawaii travel and tourism. I thought that was my biggest niche.

But it turns out 46 percent of my income came from writing about nonprofits. Because the work varied so much and came from diverse types of clients (such as marketing agencies, cultural organizations and a “thought leader”), I hadn’t categorized all that work together under one label before.

That was an eye-opener! I’m glad to have realized that – now I can either capitalize upon that, change it, or both.

I introduced myself to lots of editors and agencies

A quick email search suggests I sent around 212 electronic LOIs last year. My strategy is to write a short, carefully focused LOI for a particular industry, cut and paste it into an email, send and repeat. I do batches at a time, and I always follow up (sometimes two or three times over weeks, or even more).

I also introduced myself to editors and agencies through Freelance Success (FLX), ASJA and other venues. I belong to several freelance writers groups on Facebook and saw a lot of opportunities for work there during this past year.

Where the work came from

Following Jennifer’s advice in a previous blog post, I looked back over my accounts for last year. I saw that I worked for 19 clients, nine of which gave me regular work. Eleven of them were new to me in 2016.

Here’s how I got those 11 new jobs:

3 – By referral (from another writer; someone I’d written for at an agency who referred me to another organization; and a current editor)

3 – From my profiles at Skyword, Contently, and NewsCred (one each)

2 – By replying to an editor who posted about a job on a Facebook group

1 – By meeting the company’s representative at Content Marketing World

1 – By answering an online ad

1 – Someone I interviewed for a trade magazine saw my email signature and asked me about writing and editing for her business. I ascertained that the trade magazine (which I write for regularly) didn’t mind, and now I have a retainership situation with her company.

I marketed my writing business hard this past year.

I was surprised, though, to realize that none of my new jobs came as a result of LOIs! Especially because I got quite a few positive responses to my letters, which indicates that work may yet come from some of them (I will follow up). In general, I do get work from LOIs and I will definitely continue to send them. In fact, I have a lucrative, recurring job starting in January that came about from an LOI sent in 2016.

About 2017

This is the first time I can say this: I’m starting the year with as much money as I earned in 2016 already on the books for 2017. That’s a great feeling, and sure beats always having to beat the bushes for next month’s income.

Other work will come along too, of course – some of it is already in discussion – so if everything goes as planned, I should exceed last year’s income.

What I’ll do differently: In retrospect, I took on too many clients that I only wrote for once and didn’t earn enough from. I’m going to stop doing that. By printing out FreshBooks’ “Revenue By Client” report for 2016 and sorting it high to low for income, I can easily see which of my decisions regarding accepting jobs were better than others.

I will continue to concentrate on finding recurring jobs in my niches. In 2017, I’d like to make more from fewer clients.

If your business isn’t where you want it to be, I highly recommend learning everything you can about content marketing writing and leaping in. It’s not for everybody, but if it’s right for you, you’ll find lots of opportunities.

Then you can write the “This Was My Best Income Year Ever” blog post next year.

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