I’ve just reviewed my freelance business for 2025 and 2026. I’ve reached a milestone. Every dollar I made came from prior relationships. None of it came from outbound marketing or cold leads. Here’s where my clients came from. I do no outbound email marketing and no advertising. I do effectively no public speaking. I buy…
It always pays to look back at your work for the year and see what you’ve learned, how you’ve grown, and what you like doing most. As a freelancer who carefully tracks my business, I’m in an ideal position to do a retrospective. I hope you can learn a bit from my own reflections on…
Most of you reading this have a job. You have a steady paycheck and health benefits. Good for you. A job is great if you don’t want to think too hard about what you’re going to do every day — your bosses mostly figure that out for you. But even if you have a job,…
For many decades, I worked for companies. I defined my work by those organizations and their goals. That’s was always a tradeoff. For the last ten years, I’ve worked for myself, ostensibly independent. I found my own clients, set my own hours, generated my own revenue, and made my own choices. It’s a great way…
My company WOBS continues successfully in 2025, ten years after I started it. Many things about what I do have changed, but others have remained constant. I thought it might be instructive to describe my journey as a freelance writer, editor, and ghostwriter. Fundamental principles When I started, I had a clear idea of what…
A friend of mine once confided in me that she was having trouble getting paid for her freelance work. After a little conversation, we figured out that she wasn’t sending invoices because she was embarrassed to talk about money with the client. No bill, no pay. It is embarrassing to talk about money. We’d all…
I may or may not have struck out on my current ghostwriting project. We’re in the early stages, and it’s not yet committed. And so far, the client has suggested some very challenging objectives for the writing, and rejected significant elements of the tone I’ve been using. When problems arise in any freelance project, it’s…
I’m going to let somebody down this week. I have to choose one of the following options: Something’s gotta give My simple philosophy on working with clients is: start strong, continue strong, finish strong. My objective is that at any given time, anyone who contacts the client about me will hear, “Yes, he’s excellent to…
I’ve bought a lot of things in my life. Computers, cars, houses, smartphones, snowblowers, refrigerators, socks. I’ve got 50+ years of experience in buying things. The most important question is not the price. It’s not the features. It’s not the reviews. The things you purchase look great when they’re nice and shiny in the store,…