The Well-Fed Writer: Financial Self-Sufficiency As a Freelance Writer in Six Months or Less
Author(s):
Peter Bowerman
Label: Fanove Publishing
Publisher(s):
Fanove Publishing
Studio: Fanove Publishing
Manufacturer: Fanove Publishing
Binding: Paperback
List Price: $19.95
Our Price: $13.57
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Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Booklist
In this era of entrepreneurialism, Atlanta freelancer Peter Bowerman shows those timid (but talented) souls how almost anyone can forge ahead as an independent writer. His advice is good, couched in brassy prose that is easy to read. He anticipates every conceivable question and issue, including typical charges, marketing oneself, types of available work, and dealing with deadbeats. There are great common-sense tips, too, in the psychology of handling clients who think they?re writers, those with limited budgets, and others demanding creativity. Personal anecdotes make the life of the freelancer real; the author includes samples of cold-calling scripts, thank-you notes, and a story or three about starting a writers? group and partnering with other professionals.
Book Description
Dream of being a well-paid freelance writer? Long to carve out an enviable lifestyle with plenty of freedom, flexibility AND healthy income? But wait a minute?aren?t the words "starving" and "writer" forever joined at the hip? Not anymore.
How about a writing direction with plenty of work, strong and growing demand for good writers, hourly rates of $50-100+ ($60-75 average) and where all time is billed? No flat fees with vast, open-ended commitments of time. Translation? Less time working to pay bills and more time pursuing your writing passions.
We?re talking about freelance commercial writing ? writing for business entities, large and small ? the subject of The Well-Fed Writer, and quite possibly the answer for all aspiring writers who want to turn their love of writing into their living. The book was a triple-book-club-selection (Book-of-the-Month, Quality Paperback Book and Writer?s Digest) and earned several prestigious awards in 2001:
1) Second place in the ForeWord magazine Book of the Year Awards (Career Category)
2) Honorable Mention in the Writer?s Digest magazine National Self-Published Book Awards
3) Finalist in the Publisher?s Marketing Association Ben Franklin Awards (Best First Book).
Why commercial writing? In the past decade, two huge trends have sculpted the corporate American landscape: downsizing and outsourcing. Corporations are doing more with less: fewer people, less resources and smaller budgets. The workload is growing ? especially with the exploding Internet ? and many organizations rely heavily on freelancers to help them handle it.
Why do corporations hire freelancers? For good solid economic and creative reasons. With a freelancer, corporations don?t have to pay salary, benefits, and vacation time. But they will pay a freelancer $60-80 (average) for their time. In addition, they pay only what they need when they need it. And with a network of freelancers, they get a broad spectrum of fresh talent (hard to get with in-house staff writers used to writing about the same topics day after day) which they can form-fit to their specific writing needs.
What?s "commercial writing"? Marketing brochures, ad copy, newsletters, direct mail campaigns, video/CD-ROM scripting, speeches, sales sheets, proposals, web content, and so much more.
Veteran commercial freelancer Bob Bly, known as the freelance writing "guru" for his 35+ writing titles, says of commercial freelancing: "I know of no other arena of writing so lucrative yet so easy to get started in."
The Well-Fed Writer will take you step-by-detailed-step through, indeed, everything you need to know to quickly get your share of this exciting and highly lucrative arena of freelancing.
Customer Reviews
a good humored author makes this book a good one
This is an excellent book and if you want to make money
writing non-fiction copy you will enjoy this nuts-and-bolts
guide to starting a home based business. It's so good in
fact that I recommend Bowerman's pithy wisdom for anyone
who wants to run a business from a home office - his
advice applies to most any type of business where you have
to hustle and promote to get work.
Bowerman's good sense of humor carries this book. The
writing is energetic and accessible. His treatment of
networking and cold-calling are realistic and pragmatic -
lots of "artists" won't want to do these things... and
that's why they never have any money and bask in dreams
of being discovered.
If you want to write and make money this is a good
book to read attentively because it's written to help
you do just that.
How To Get Started As A Freelance Writer
In this book, Peter Bowerman lays out a blueprint that, IF YOU USE IT, can definitely lead to a full-time career as a freelance copywriter. The key is "if you use it". Despite the book's title, Bowerman doesn't talk much about the actual process of writing, so if you want to know how to write effective advertising copy, you should check out Bob Bly's "The Copywriter's Handbook", which is pretty much the Bible on the subject.
However, what Bowerman DOES do, is show you how to market yourself as a freelance writer. This is key, because even a talented copywriter needs to know how to find and build relationships with clients if he wants to make a living.
Related to this is Bowerman's emphasis on creating "simple repeatable systems" so that you can implement your marketing activities effectively every day, making them into habits. Again, this is another key to success, because "sometimes" marketing will only get you "sometimes" work, if that. So having systems in place that make your marketing as easy as possible leaves you with no excuses for getting your copywriting services in front of potential clients.
In all, I can personally attest that I've used the information contained in this book to get copywriting clients. Apply the strategies Peter Bowerman is sharing here, and you will too.
Idea Generator
This book is packed full of great ideas on how to get started as a freelance writer. If you don't have time to read it, the subheadings are a wonderful way to get started because they are quite descriptive and provide a good road map in helping you to decide what to write, marketing tips, and how to get started.
I believe the information contained in this book enhanced my ideas on the types of services I can provide. I believe there is something helpful that can be gained from anything you read. You just have to find it and take what you need and move on.
My motto is: you may not be able to exactly replicate what someone else is doing but their ideas can certainly help sharpen your thoughts. Therefore, I am able to achieve excellent results in my own way.
Good book, but don't quit your day job just yet
I agree with many of the other reviewers-- engaging read, pretty thorough. However, make sure that if you seriously want to do this, you purchase "Back for Seconds" along with TWFW, as it fills in TWFW's gaps and updates the content. Also, keep in mind that "six months or less" of the title is somewhat misleading. It DOES NOT INCLUDE time spent building a decent portfolio and setting up a good website, which are absolutely essential to this business and require a substantial amount of time, energy, effort and monetary investment. Read the books, yes, but know what you're getting into before you quit your regular job.
Essential reading
Easy to read. A wealth of useful and applicable ideas. It filled my head with dreams of self-employment that I'm now inspired to make happen.
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