5 secrets to kick-starting your successful freelance writing business

Two weeks ago, we shared five free PowerPoint templates you can use to create your own eye-popping infographics. (Note: That number has now doubled to 10.)

Today I want to share with you the first fruit to come of that discovery and tell you the story of how it all played out.

Back in December, I received an email from Early to Rise containing a blog post on entrepreneurship from copywriting legend Mark Ford (aka Michael Masterson), ETR’s now-retired founder. (Note: ETR sends some of the best direct-response sales letters from copywriters like Ford and Bob Bly. It’s a great email list to be on for inspiration and ideas if you’re into that kind of thing.)

In the post, Mark laid out his 5 Secrets to Startup Riches, and two things grabbed me:

1.  I was pleased to discover Stuff Writers Like is more-less following his advice, and …

2.  I knew immediately that I wanted to share his valuable tips with you, because …

   A) they apply perfectly to writers wanting to start (or kick-start) their freelance writing businesses, and …

   B) they would make an excellent infographic.

Only problem was, when do I have the time to learn how to create an infographic from scratch? Sure, I could hire a designer or subscribe to a web-based tool like Piktochart, but that would break our razor-thin budget (which we’ve reserved for some exciting new features coming soon to StuffWritersLike.com). I was stuck.

So I copied, pasted and saved Mark’s text into a Word doc, printed it, scribbled “make infographic” across the top and haphazardly filed it away in a “worth more consideration” stack on my desk. Months went by, and I occasionally reorganized the stack and trimmed its contents. Mark’s blog post always remained; it was still a good idea, but still no time and no budget.

Then, two weeks ago, I stumble upon HubSpot’s five infographic templates. Mark’s secrets immediately came to mind, so I dug them up and started pulling them into one of HubSpot’s templates. After about an hour of figuring out the templates (a one-time-only task) and another hour of placing the text and graphics and making tweaks, below is what I came up with.

Hope we did Mark’s tips justice. If you have any thoughts on Mark’s advice or the infographic itself, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

 

So what are you waiting for? Save the excuses, save the planning; the time to kick-start your freelance writing business is now.

One bonus takeaway: When you source content from others to create something new for your readers, be sure to publicly credit your sources and shoot them an email about what you did. More often than not, they will be thrilled you shared their insights and be happy to share, tweet, etc. your take on it with their networks, too. It’s a win-win.

Embed This Image On Your Site (copy code below):
<a href=”https://stuffwriterslike.com/5-secrets-starting-successful-freelance-writing-business/”><img class=”aligncenter” title=”5 secrets start your successful freelance business [infographic]” src=”https://stuffwriterslike.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/5-secrets-start-your-successful-freelance-business-768×2304.png” alt=”5 secrets start your successful freelance business [infographic]”/></a>