Freelancer, author: How to land your next big-name client

By Maggie Zahm

Say "freelance writing" and most people think "writing for magazines." Yet, sadly, many magazine writers struggle financially. A lesser-known field of freelancing, but one with far more promising financial potential is "commercial writing" - writing for businesses, large and small and for hourly rates of $50-125+. To find out how to break into this lucrative field, Sologig Freelance put Peter Bowerman, commercial freelancer and author of The Well-Fed Writer series and The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living, on the stand to pick his brain.

With clients like Coca-Cola, UPS, The Discovery Channel and Mercedes-Benz under his belt, Bowerman puts working with top businesses into perspective. “People tend to place [the people who work at] big corporations up on pedestals, but the fact is, they’re people just like everyone else. They’re hard working and are usually over worked and over exerted, and they don’t want to hunt around a long time to find what they need,” Bowerman explains. “What it comes down to is being out there and getting your name out there.”

In order to land more gigs with these types of clients, Bowerman suggests forging alliances with other freelancers. “If you craft a good relationship with graphic designers based on mutual trust, confidence, and benefit, they will find work for you as they find work for themselves.”

Bowerman explains that he found a couple graphic designers that liked his work and were essentially the ones that helped to get his foot in the door of his most well-known clients because of the referrals they gave. “It’s not like businesses go through a process where they interview 27 writers for a job. They want to efficiently find the right person, and more often than not, they’ll give somebody a chance if they just happened to show up right in front of them.”

Bowerman also makes it clear that working smart never involves worrying about the competition. “I really don’t concern myself with what else is out there. I know I don’t have to convince the world; I only have to convince a few people.”

Carrying this idea over to how successful—or not successful—the economy is at this time is yet another idea of Bowerman’s. “It’s the same thing as reading the newspaper and saying, ‘Oh, the economy is really bad, maybe this isn’t a good time to start my business,’ when in reality, the economy actually has very little to do with one person’s quest for financial self-sufficiency in whatever their chosen field is.” Bowerman goes on to explain that when the economy is down, it often means more business for freelancers because companies are forced to let full-time employees go. He believes that in this situation, freelancers make more economic sense than traditional employees.

Bowerman attests that the key strategy to success in the field, and especially when forming relationships with graphic designers, is to above all else, “be reliable and be easy to work with.” The rest will come with hard work.

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Peter Bowerman is an award winning author, freelance commercial writer, speaker, columnist, and professional coach. He was awarded the Georgia Author of the Year title, and his books have received numerous honors including the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award and the Ben Franklin Award from the Publisher’s Marketing Association. His websites, http://www.wellfedwriter.com and http://www.wellfedsp.com offer opportunities to purchase his books and learn more about his work.

Enter to Win!
Share your Sologig.com success story and be entered to win a set of Peter Bowerman’s books.

Contest rules:

E-mail us a short story about how Sologig.com has helped you and your business. Feel free to include how you discovered Sologig.com, how it has positively affected your work, how we helped expand your network or anything else you’d like to share! Contestants should send a 200-word or less entry to Maggie at Maggie.Zahm@Sologig.com. The subject line of the email should read, “Bowerman contest.” Entries are due by 1pm CST on Sunday, June 22, 2008.

Prizes:

Two winners will be announced on Monday, June 23, 2008 to win a set of Bowerman’s books. First place will receive the Well-Fed Writer series, and second place will receive the Well-Fed Self Publisher book and the Well-Fed SP Biz-in-a-Box Marketing Kit (on CD). Both sets of books will be personally signed to the winner by the author.

Note:

Applicants of this contest give full consent to allow their entries to be published (in full, partial, or edited form) by Sologig.com to be used for marketing or promotional material.