Readers!
It’s now May, so time to tally up what I did in my April marketing sprint, and the results so far. I don’t expect the marketing to turn into work overnight. That’s generally not how it happens, but so far, the results are promising.
As a reminder: I freelance during the Great Recession, and refuse to freeze like I did last time. An April marketing month is part of being pro-active, instead of the opposite.
Let’s start with logistics. April turned out to be a fairly busy month for me, but I wasn’t going to assume everything is back to normal, especially since economic signs are not great. I broke a few of my usual rules: I worked on some nights and weekends, and I did calls with west coast clients after 5 p.m. my time. I set up those boundaries years ago to protect my space and sanity, but these are unusual times. Breaking them on a few occasions are fine, and I probably will this month too, but I don’t want it to become a regular pattern. I also stopped any non immediate-income generating work, including working on my novel and Italian language studies. I will pick those back up, but a pause helped me re-focus my attention on this.
I also didn’t keep track of how many former clients I reached out to during this stretch (i.e. “hey hope you’re doing well, if you know anyone who needs a writer like me, let me know!”) I don’t have a column for that in my spreadsheet, so we’ll have to live without that as being part of the data. I also didn’t include any work I got from repeat clients. This is new-to-me stuff only.
And one more plug: I do deeper dives into past marketing sprints and marketing tactics, including where to find lists of places to send letters of introduction (LOIs), in my ebooks How I Made $135,000 in One Year of Freelance Writing and Where to Find New Freelance Writing Clients and Turbocharge Your Writing Career. They’re $10 each.
OK, on with it.
Pitches: 6
Assignments: 2
I don’t pitch a lot, but I figured if I was going to market for April, I might as well get back into it. One of these pitches (and sales) was to a publication I stopped writing for because of a dreadful editor. He’s gone, so I’m back, and I hope to turn them into a regular client again. I may not have tried it if not for this challenge, so I’m glad for myself that I did it.
LOIs: 150
Responses: 15, including 10 that will keep me on file, of which 4 said that they would also pass my information to their colleagues. I sent LinkedIn invites to every person who had a response like this, which lead me to connect to one more person whose boss said they should know me as well. One respondent told me that they cut their freelance budget due to economic uncertainty. Sigh. I get it, and expect it, hence the marketing sprint. I got to 150 by sending out five LOIs every workday (and then some more because I knew I’d be writing about this — hey it worked!)
Introductory Meetings: 3. These were people who got my LOI and wanted to have “get to know you” chats to see if we’d work well together. I haven’t heard from one of them since the meeting, despite following up; another said they’d let me know in a few weeks; and the third hired me for a sizeable contract that’ll roll through the summer, possibly longer.
Assignments: 1, the sizeable contract mentioned above. Overall, this may not seem like a great hit rate, but this included LOIs I sent less than a week ago. It can take time for these to work, which is OK for me — I’ve gotten work anywhere from a few hours to two years after sending an LOI. I’ve said it many times before but: sending LOIs is like planting seeds without knowing when they’ll grow.
Active Referrals: 2. This is where I ask someone I know if they like working for what I think would be a good market for me, and then ask if they would be OK if I reached out to their editor. Both said yes.
Assignments: 0 so far, but 1 very nice email back and forth with a promise of work later this summer.
Passive Referrals: 2
Assignments: 1 series of articles, with a second referral job possibly starting later this year.
Despite all of this active marketing, the best connections still come through passive referrals. I didn’t do anything directly to bring these in other than keep letting people know I’m open to new work, including keeping my Linkedin profile active with links to my work and to this newsletter. Is it part of my April sprint? I’m going to count it since it is new-to-me work with new-to-me clients.
TOTAL: About $7,500 worth of new work over the next four months (with $3,000 more that seems likely but I don’t count it until it’s officially assigned).
In combination with severely cutting back my spending, I feel in a much better position today than I did in January.
I will keep marketing in May, though maybe not at the same clip because. I’m attending the ASBPE conference at the end of the month (which is entirely virtual) and I’m ready to market my [redacted] off during and after.
Marketing should be a constant part of any freelancer’s business. I’m guilty of letting it slack sometimes too, but hopefully my work in April will make up for it.
Recent Bylines
“AI can enable fake job applicants. How do recruiters protect themselves?” for HR Dive
What I’m Reading
- If This Isn’t Nice, What Is? by Kurt Vonnegut. This is a complication of speeches Vonnegut gave, mostly at college commencement ceremonies. There’s a lot of great advice! But some of it is dated, and they repeat a bit. This edition is expanded, and perhaps it worked better in is original (shorter) length. One choice quote, from speech given in 1994: “…let’s stop giving corporations and newfangled contractions what they need, and give back to human beings what we need.” Seems highly relevant to a technology being shoved down our throats today. Hat tip to Brian Grubb for this one.
- Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen, read by the author. I came across this audiobook while browsing my library’s Libby app. I went into it blind, and I’m glad I did. If you want to as well, just skip the end of this bit: in this novel, famous people from world history come back to life. Cleopatra becomes an influencer, which of course tracks. Harriet Tubman and other members of the Underground Railroad decide to put on a hip hop show, helped by our protagonist Darnell, a music producer whose star has faded. It’s WILD and wonderful, and if you listen to the audiobook, it ends with two songs from the show. I loved this. Highly recommended.
What I’m Watching
- The Disappearance of Crystal Rogers. This is a very sad story that could have been told in two episodes instead of six. I could feel stuff being jammed into the series to stretch it out, which is a shame, because these poor people have been through so much already. Related: I heard Paul Holes talk on a podcast recently about how doing a show for Oxygen meant that sometimes priorities for TV were placed over solving a case. This series was on the same channel, so I’m not terribly surprised. There’s been major developments since the series ended, if you already watched this but didn’t follow up.
- Red Joan. This is a fictional take on the real story of Melita Norwood, a British scientist who worked on the atomic bomb during WW II and became a spy for the Russian government. She was caught well into her 80s. The story starts and ends with Joan, as she’s called here, who is played in old age by Judi Dench. It was completely engrossing, and another gem I found via a library streaming service (Kanopy).
- The Texas Cheerleader Murder Plot. I know I watch too much true crime, but it does mean that I can tell the difference between sensationalized stuff, and decent documentary. This falls in the latter category. It takes another look at the case of a woman who hired a hit man to kill her daughter’s cheer-leading rival. You’ve probably heard that story, right? But I didn’t know it, which is why I watched. It goes way deeper (including into how media depicted women in that time) and worth the hour and a half run time.
- Thunderbolts* I had high hopes for this one to pull Marvel back into my good graces, and it succeeded. And for once, a two+ hour movie didn’t feel too long. Fantastic performances across the board (especially Lewis Pullman who yes does look exactly like his father), and no goofy “everybody beats each other up” third act. It wasn’t perfect, but it has me hopeful that The Fantastic Four: First Steps will continue the trend.
Nail Polish of the Week
Blinded by the Ring Light by OPI One of my favorites: a pale yellow but one that really pops when I have a bit of a tan.
Until next time!
Jen A. Miller (she/her)
Notes from a Hired Pen ebook series
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