The Well-Fed Writer: Back For Seconds A Second Helping Of "How-To" For Any Writer Dreaming of Great Bucks and Exceptional Quality of Life
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
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Editorial Reviews
Product Description
The Well-Fed Writer: Back For Seconds (Fanove, October 2004)
In 2000, Atlanta-based freelance commercial writer Peter Bowerman released "The Well-Fed Writer: Financial Self-Sufficiency As a Freelance Writer in Six Months or Less," a detailed how-to for starting, building and managing a lucrative commercial freelancing business: writing for corporations and creative entities and for $50-125+ an hour. The book became an award-winning, triple-book-club selection (Book-of-the-Month, Quality Paperback Book, Writers Digest).
As Corporate America has downsized, it has outsourced much of their creative needs, making this particular writing direction more viable and profitable than ever before. Here?s a writing direction with plenty of work, strong demand for good writers, hourly rates of $50-125+ ($60-80 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.
Perhaps you?re a writer ? seasoned or aspiring. Or maybe a home-based business-seeker or at-home Mom ? looking to leverage past business experience into a lucrative, flexible income. Regardless, if you?re looking to turn your love of writing into your living ? a GOOD living ? this might be the direction for you.
With 95% new content, "TWFW: Back For Seconds" is a companion volume (the other 5% is a 12-page encapsulation of the TWFW) that builds on TWFW with dramatically expanded sections on sales and marketing ? demystifying subjects that often terrify creative types. Marketing by phone, fax, e-mail, direct mail, Web sites and networking are all covered.
Drawing from the author?s own experiences and dozens of firsthand accounts from commercial writers around the world, the book discusses building the business in small towns or rural areas, on a part-time basis, in unusual niches, along with effective networking strategies and much more.
What?s "commercial writing"? Marketing brochures, ad copy, newsletters, direct mail campaigns, speeches, sales sheets, proposals, web content, video/CD-ROM scripting, annual reports, case studies, and so much more.
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.
Veteran commercial freelancer Bob Bly, known as the freelance writing "guru" for his 50+ writing titles (including the classic, "Secrets of a Freelance Writer" and "The Copywriter's Handbook") says of commercial freelancing: "I know of no other arena of writing so lucrative yet so easy to get started in."
His take on the "The Well-Fed Writer": "This book is the best information on how to make more money with corporate clients I have ever read. It answers everything you want to know. Highly recommended."
His feedback on "Back For Seconds": "When I wrote 'Secrets of a Freelance Writer,' it was the first and only book on making six figures as a commercial freelancer. Of the dozen-plus books written on the subject since then, this book is by far the most comprehensive, useful and valuable."
Customer Reviews
murky followup to The Well-fed Writer
The market demanded this book so Bowerman put it out.
It's okay. It's mostly more of the same - it doesn't
much represent a leap from the first book so much as
it's like a 284 page appendix... useful material but much
of it would have been edited out or folded into the
first book if they were published as one volume.
Not particularly flawed - but like many business books
it's padded out with 3rd-party stories - enthusiastic
and informative vignettes from succeeding freelancers
who liked the first book and wrote in to Bowerman to
share their stories.
Major points - cold calling isn't so bad, marketing
isn't so bad if you think about it in a nice way,
professionalism matters, consistency pays off.
Fairly toothless, but inspirational. If you read the
first book and need a little more encouragement to
jump into the marketplace and do the business this
might be the push you need.
Worth reading but if you are already hustling work as
a freelancer you may find it redundant.
I love Bowerman...question the premise
Peter Bowerman makes it seem like there`s FLCW (freelance corporate writing) work in abundance for everyone who could possibly seek to get into the game (and has a modicum of talent and is willing to work hard etc.) I love his style. I think he has some good tips. However, he skips the reality that content buyers are developing a Wal-Mart mentality and trying to get 50 articles for $2 each -- no attention to quality as long as certain keywords appear and it meets some sort of hi/lo age group. I know corporate writing is not like poetry or even essay writing. I accept that. As a struggling writer however I see the reality and that is that corporate buyers -- of writing or widgets or any commodity -- are trying to go as cheap as possible no matter what the sacrifice in quality. That`s why many website and brochures, annual reports and white papers you see today have frequent and horrifying grammatical and syntactical errors.
So good I had to stop reading...
Ok, before I explain the title of this review, let me make an embarrassing admission. I originally picked this book up at a library instead of purchasing it. I did this because I have wasted the rough equivallent of 2 wheelbarrels full of cash on copywriting courses that turned out to be complete and utter wastes of my time, money, and remaining hair waiting to be pulled out...
If you have invested any of your own precious time searching for great advice and material on how to make a great living as a copywriter, then I'm sure you understand exaclty what I mean.
As I cracked open The Well Fed Writer: Back For Seconds, I skimmed through the book as I always do when sizing up new material, searching for relevant chapters. I must say that it took only 1 chapter of reading for me to set the book aside, whip out my notebook and furiously scratch down good advice, valuable resources to check out on the web and even 2 clever quips that I wanted to use the next time I host a teleseminar. (The comparison of common marketing practices to camoflauge was a stroke of genius)
I realize that I may be dangerously close to sounding like a gushing teenager asking for his favorite celecrities autograph, but I cannot emphasize enough how 'right on the money' this book is. Perhaps the best way to illustrate how valuable the Well Fed Writer is to your success as a freelance writer would be to show you what 3 qualities I look for in a 'good' book:
1 - Straight forward - The author must not pull any punches. Tell it like it is. Don't paint overly rosey pictures or candy coat your advice. If there are landmines to my career that must be avoided, then by all means point them out! Thankfully Peter goes above and beyond by acknowledging traits that are common to most humans that could kill your progress before you even get started. Peter seems to have a talent for painting visual pictures and images that will stick with you. I hope he doesn't mind if I use a few of his analogies with my clients!
2 - Realistic - I don't know about you, but I'm tired of having my ears tickled. Don't tell me what you think I want to hear, tell me the truth! There's enough hyped up pie in the sky books, websites and emails floating around in cyberspace... I don't need to spend money on a book that will add to it! I found this book to be a refreshing change of pace as you are constantly reminded of the fact that we live and work in the real world, so results can and will vary.
However, Peter also takes the time to show you alternative paths to success should you find that your current conditions are less than ideal. Much appreciated!
3 - Easy to read - Ok, call me petty for listing such a seemingly unimportant feature in my #3 spot, but I couldn't resist. Regardless of how good the information is, if I feel as if I am plodding my way through a college biology text book, then chances are I'm more likely to use the book as a paper-weight.
I found this book to be entertaining to read as well as informative. Please do yourself a favor and purchase this book now. I returned my copy to the library and snagged my own personal copy, because this is a book that you will want to highlight and bookmark for continous future reference. You can thank me for the strong recommendation later!
A Voice that Resonates in the Trenches
All in all .. Peter Bowerman has one of the few "voices" that bears a ring of truth rather than hype to me. My aversion to hype is one of the reasons I struggle with even trying copywriting for real. Your books resonate with me because he is doing it everyday.
This is as opposed to those who have done it for a thousand years and might not have to work as hard as the rest of us in this day and age. That's not to negate their success or status but getting advice from someone who has already made their fortune and can sell on name recognizability alone is very different than having someone who's risen from the trenches in the same era that new aspiring creatives are coming from.
I say creative btw because much of what Bowerman advises should (will?) work for my design aspirations as well as writing.
Second-best $20 I ever spent (first-best was his first book!)
Like Peter Bowerman's first book, this book is well worth the $20. He expands on concepts from the first book, goes into more specific detail and gives more examples. I found it very useful.
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