Building a Freelance Portfolio

Building a portfolio is a slow and agonizing process.  There are rarely any shortcuts and you'll be competing with tens of thousands of other people.  Half of those likely suck.  One-quarter are okay but they will never make a huge splash.  It is that last quarter - people with skills and creativity equal and/or greater than yours - that you need to worry about.  

I've been doing content work for years but do not own the rights to the work I've done.  Redacting what you can to at least show the style/flow of your work is one possibility; you have to tread very carefully here.

Your first freelance jobs should be in fields you feel comfortable in.  Do not randomly bid on any and all work.  Make sure you're going to be able to do the job well and meet the deadline.  Nothing will get you tossed over faster than taking too damn long to get a client their work.  

I worked in the education service industry for several years.  When I began my content business my first articles were for another education service company.  I worked on content I was familiar with and used the time to learn more about web marketing, SEO keywords, and limiting words for blogs.  I must have done 30-40 articles for that company and each one taught me something.  

My next freelance work was in motivational self-help.  As the go-to person for every person in a 100-mile radius (at least it feels that way some days), I used personal experience to come up with the content and professional experience to smooth it out.  It was well-received and I ended up doing many articles for the same site.

Then a chance came along for me to do an e-book about spicing up your relationship sexually.  As an erotica author and blogger, this was something I easily sank my teeth into.  Thrilling, fun, and it paid the bills.  Those jobs are the very best.

One of my last gigs was in the health field.  I had zero experience in health writing and soon found it was a much harder project than any other I'd done.  I floundered for several weeks (ready to kill someone) before I took a step back and said, "Okay, I'm out of my element but I can learn."  

That's exactly what I did.  Over the course of this e-book, I must have read over 1,000 articles.  Some of them bored me to tears but you know what?  If I were to take a college nutrition course right now...I know I could pass it.

The point is, if you want to be successful, you start inside your comfort zone and prepare yourself to step out of it.  Try your hand at assignments you would have never considered in order to grow.    I did it and you can to.  Don't give up.

One day, you'll be doing more than just covering your bills.

Take the Long Way

Everyone wants a shortcut.  A way to get rich quick, lose weight overnight, or snag fifteen minutes of fame.  

Where is "long haul" thinking?  Digging into a project or a direction and committing to the work required to get there?  Success requires investment.  Whether that investment is physical, financial, or emotional is dependent on the goal but there is no avoiding the need.  

Nothing truly worth having is going to come easily.  Show how much you want it.  What it will mean to you to have it.  

I believe in SWEAT EQUITY.  Something I learned from my grandfather.  If you sweat to make a dream come true, once you have it you will never let it go.  You will fight to defend it because you know how much of YOU is in it.  

Make a plan.  Break a sweat.  Forget the shortcut.

It Should Go Without Saying!

I find it sad that employers looking for contract work have to specify writers use ORIGINAL content.  Honestly, shouldn’t that be obvious?

I recently completed an e-book regarding health and nutrition.  My clients initially believed this to be a short and sweet assignment like so many I’d done for them in the past.  The two prior e-books I’d ghost written had taken a few weeks from beginning to final edit. 

We completely underestimated this project and it ended up taking almost four months.  I wasn’t the first writer they hired since I was already working on a separate assignment when they put this one in process.  I was given the original writer’s work because it wasn’t even close to what they’d envisioned.  My directive was to “clean up” what she’d done, taking the 18,000 words she’d accumulated and make it make sense. 

Within pages, I realized she’d fully copy/pasted articles from the web and after a two-hour conference call, it was decided that I needed to start from scratch. 

I’m intelligent enough to know that if you don’t fully grasp a topic, you have to research and learn until you do.  Needless to say, I spent weeks educating myself about antioxidants, the human body, and how they interact regarding your overall health.  When all was said and done…50,000 words consisting of an introduction, twenty chapters, a conclusion, and a glossary of terms I could gloat about for hours. 

I quoted 171 references to sites like the Mayo Clinic and the US Library of Medicine but I actually read close to 1,000 articles and research papers to understand my total topic.  If I came across a medical term I didn’t know, I drilled deeper until I understood not only the term but how it related to what I was writing.  I questioned everything.  The final product was the result of weeks of reading and learning. 

If I had to take a college nutrition course right now, I believe I could pass it.

I’ve never put my work through plagiarism programs because I write from the hip after I learn the subject I’m writing about.  Any writer who doesn’t work that way should be ashamed.  Isn’t that the entire point of hiring a writer?  To get something fresh and new on a topic that 100 other people have already written about?  To bring a spin no one else has to your project? 

I offer accuracy, creativity, and a unique voice to every word I write.  Don’t settle for rehash.

The Rise of Mainstream Erotica

As an erotica author (in my spare time), I keep an eye out for projects that can utilize these specialized skills.  Ten years ago, women from 20-50 years old – who are the primary demographic – hid erotica and barely confessed to reading romance novels.  Today, published erotica by authors like Emma Holly, Lora Leigh, and Shelly Laurenston sit on the shelf beside traditional romance authors like Beatrice Small, Stephanie Laurens, and Nora Roberts. 

Excellent.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term erotica, allow me to assure you it is not porn.  Romance is all character/plot development with an emphasis on a building relationship but never going beyond ‘purple prose’.  Sex scenes are carefully written to exclude possibly offensive language – even if the scenario itself is edgy.  It is at the vanilla end of adult fiction.

Porn is at the opposite end with no true plot or character development.  The entire story is about the sex and you have no connection or loyalty to anyone involved in the “story” – a word I use loosely and with great reluctance. 

Erotica sits in the middle.  The people and the story are integral, just as with romance novels, but the sex scenes are steamy and explicit.  When I was a teenager, I wrote romance and I was very good at it.  As an adult, I found myself slipping into erotica writing before I even understood what it was or how it differed.

I posted examples of a very short romance (the length of a blog entry), a short romance of 2,500 words, and a slightly longer short story in the erotica genre.  I could write like this all day long and maybe one day I’ll have that option (when paying bills and raising children don’t take quite so much of my time).  In the meantime, I’ll continue to add to my dozens of short stories and novellas.  Maybe I’ll be able to carve out time to get one of my five full-length novels an agent. 

All writing is an art form because words can be so beautiful.  I use mine to make money…but using them to entertain is even better.

Stop Brain Damage

For the love of all that is holy...please read a book. You can even use your Nook or your Kindle. Pop open a pdf if that's the only option you have.

Thankfully, my children will read books I suggest. My daughters are 15, my son is almost 17. I got them hooked on classics by renting BBC-made movies. Pride & Prejudice, Mansfield Park, David Copperfield, and Jane Eyre are just a few.

My son loves the contrast in class and gender in comparison to modern times (he's brilliant) and my daughters love the way men of that era were forced to be gentlemen by Society.

What does Jersey Shore teach? Exactly.

Souvenirs of Life Experience

As you proceed through your life, you should pick up souvenirs. No, I'm not talking about that ugly orange t-shirt with a Key West rooster on it or that regrettable tattoo you don't exactly remember acquiring.

I turned 40 this year. Despite my terror at the effect gravity has had on my outer shell, I realize I have more tolerance for the world at large and less tolerance for stupidity. In the past twenty years I've learned more about the world than I ever knew existed. I'm amazed daily. Humbled by the enormity of our planet and what exists beyond it.

The Internet has opened our daily lives to other nations, religions, and cultures. Yet too many human beings remain insulated from anything "other". They have no interest in discovering that not all people from Arab nations are terrorists. They refuse to even consider that gay men and women do not choose their sexual orientation. They are more concerned with what their neighbors are doing than what is going on in their own homes. Shows like "Jersey Shore", "Sixteen & Pregnant", and "The Bachelor" get more attention than they should. I hope the next generation doesn't believe those are worthy role models. I hope they don't think there will be a box called "Rap Millionaire" on career day.

Blanket statements adhering to stereotypes based in ignorance. We have to learn from what has gone before in order to keep from making the same mistakes over and over again.

Life Experience Has Given Me:

Helping Up - Not Handing Out

Tolerance

Listening

Withholding Judgment

We'll have to wait a while longer to see what souvenirs our children end up with. Let's hope drug addiction, teen pregnancy, and gang violence aren't in the top ten.