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Planning for 2017: Professionalism, Service, Writing, and More

January 9, 2017 by Karin Beery Leave a Comment

Welcome to a new day, a new year, my new website location, and – introducing – my new blog! It actually started last week with my new interview series. Today I’m going to explain what’s happening and why.

Like many business owners, I set goals for myself and my business for the year. Then I kept reading all of these posts and articles about “the word.” People were encouraged to pick a word to define/guide them throughout the new year. It didn’t take me long to settle on PLAN.

Last year I started creating digital products to help others create better content. One big lesson I learned during that process – planning ahead makes all the difference! I’ve always been a planner in my personal life, but not so much when it comes to my work. I’ve decided to change that, starting with my blog.

First – Focus. I’m gearing this blog more toward small business owners/entrepreneurs. There will still be a lot about content – that’s my specialty – but it will look at different aspects of entrepreneurship: things I’ve had to learn and want to share.

Second – Themes. Instead of sitting down and coming up with blog topics each week, I’ve come up with several themes that people ask about most frequently. I’ll post about them throughout the year. Every month I’ll write something writing and editing related, but I’ll also post about: Professionalism, Service, Leadership, and Social Media/Marketing.

Third – Plan. I went the distance and have already titled blog posts for each theme for each week throughout the year. I haven’t written everything yet, but when I sit down to do it I’ll have my notes and ideas ready. I just need to organize and write them.

With so many events already scheduled for this year, I need to make sure I can handle everything. Planning ahead is my only option. Sticking to the same topics makes it even more manageable.

Here’s to an educational and smooth-operating 2017. What are you doing to start your year off right?

Filed Under: best practices, blogging, copywriting, entrepreneur, goals

Entrepreneur Interview: Laura Brandenburg

January 2, 2017 by Karin Beery 1 Comment

I’m starting this new year with a new focus – instead of interviewing other editors (which may not be very interesting for most business owners), I’ve decided to interview other professionals: small business owners, entrepreneurs, freelance workers. And instead of asking such editing-centric questions, I’m asking others how they’ve made it work. Some of these professionals are writers and editors, but the monthly interviews are less about my line of work and now about how you can make your business work for you.

I’m kicking of 2017 with my college classmate, sorority sister, and friend Laura Brandenburg, an entrepreneur, wife, and mother who runs two businesses while making time for herself and her family – and she’s helping other moms do the same thing. Here’s Laura:

Welcome to Write Now Editing! Please tell us about your business (include what you do, when you started your own business, and why).
I have two businesses:

  • First, I started Bridging the Gap in 2008. I started this business after I left my corporate job. It was originally a blog that I intended to use to market myself to consulting clients. Over time, I published a book How to Start a Business Analyst Career and evolved the business into a virtual training company helping mid-career professionals start business analyst careers.
  • Second, I started Momstyle Your Business in 2015 to help other mom entrepreneurs experience the financial freedom and flexibility I experienced through my first business, by teaching them how to build passive income with digital products.

What has been your biggest struggle in launching your business/career?
There were so many! I would have to say the biggest one was finding my niche originally. As I mentioned, I started a blog to find consulting clients. But as I published content, I noticed that other business analysis peers were my primary readers. Then I focused on helping business analysts with their careers. Finally, my business really took off when I focused on helping mid-career professionals start business analyst careers.

How did/are you overcoming it?
I don’t think there is a magic bullet to finding your online niche. It’s a messy organic process. For me it involved writing a lot of blog content, sharing it online via my email newsletter and social media, and reading the comments and feedback I was getting. Through the process of seeing what resonated and what I enjoyed, I eventually narrowed my marketing down enough to be able to play in a space I became extremely well-known for.

What’s surprised you the most about working for yourself?
When I started my online business in 2008, my goal was to keep my career going while I had young children, even though at the time I wasn’t even married. I’m a planner that way and I was thinking ahead to being able to enjoy flexibility that a corporate job wouldn’t allow.

What surprised me was that I enjoyed the work more than I ever enjoyed my corporate work. What surprised me even more was that I was able to build a much more substantial income via an online business. Once everything really started clicking in my business, my income quickly eclipsed what I could have reasonably expected to make in corporate, even while I was working 20-30 hours per week.

What’s your favorite part of this kind of work?
The writing and the creating are incredibly fulfilling to me. I love going into my creative cave for a few hours each work day to write content and create products.

But what really matters is that my creative work serves others. I love receiving emails from course participants about how much my work has helped them. And I still do a little happy dance every time I hear about someone finding their first business analyst position or making their first digital product sale. I know that I was part of making a positive difference in someone’s life and that is incredibly rewarding.

Is there any one event/moment that helped you move from starting your own business to making a living with your own business?
Yes. In early 2012, shortly after my first daughter was born, I hired a coach. I has been in business for  3 ½ years and felt like I was sitting on a huge untapped well of abundance. I was making a decent income, but not enough to justify the time away from my daughter.

I hired a coach and he was able to help me tweak my offers. He also helped me see that I needed to repeat some of my more profitable offers again and again to meet my revenue goals. I came close to doubling my income the year after my daughter was born. And then doubled it again the following year. And this was after cutting my work week down from about 50 hours / week to about 25 hours / week.

If you could give a new freelance worker/entrepreneur one piece of advice, what would it be?
Give yourself permission to focus on the revenue. We can create all kinds of stories about what we should be doing and what we need to be doing. The most important question to ask yourself, especially in the beginning, is what do I need to do to actually make money from this? Because if you don’t find the answer to that question, your time as a freelancer or entrepreneur will get cut short.

Focusing on the money is not going to make you a greedy, selfish person. It’s going to make you the owner of a profitable business, and give you the freedom and flexibility to show up in new ways. For me, owning a profitable business with a lot of passive income freed up time and energy for me to help mom entrepreneurs. I could never have done this work if I didn’t first focus on the money.

If you could do one thing differently in your career, what would it be?
I would have hired a coach sooner to help me find those revenue-generating activities sooner, so I could have experienced a truly profitable business sooner.

What’s your favorite kind of work? Why?
Writing. I love putting words on paper. And I love the timelessness of writing. Once you write and publish, your words have a life of their own. They help others now and in the future. It’s my way of leaving a legacy and making my impact on the world.

What does your work space/office look like?

Like this, except those windows are typically open. I have a garden-level office and we live in the foothills. It’s not uncommon for me to see deer right outside those windows.

What does your work day look like?
With each new school year, my work week and days have shifted. My current schedule allows me to work full days on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. On those days I do creative work in the mornings. Then I go for a run mid-morning. I often will return to my desk and do a quick piece of writing. Then shower and prepare lunch.

In the afternoon I schedule calls and plan in tasks that don’t require as much creative energy, like reviewing copy, researching tools, responding to emails, etc.

What’s your go-to snack when you need one?
Apple and peanut butter

Is there anything else you’d like to add?
If you’d like to learn more about creating a financially-freeing online business, I offer a complimentary guide: 10 Steps to Building Passive Income with Digital Products.

(I also strongly caution against believing some of the hype around digital products. This model is not easy. I do not give you a 90 day plan to 10K months. Building consistent passive income takes a lot of work and strategy and patience. But the results are worth it.)

Thank you so much for appearing on my blog. Have a blessed day!

Filed Under: entrepreneur, freelance, interview Tagged With: Laura Brandenburg

Website Issues: Let Me Be Your Cautionary Tale

December 12, 2016 by Karin Beery 1 Comment

banner-1165975_1920When you hire someone to do work for you – when that person owns a business and presents herself as a professional – you expect professionalism and results. Unfortunately that doesn’t always happen, as is the case with this website and blog. I’ll give you the short version of the story, then tell you what I’ve learned.

In 2014 I met a web designer. She seemed nice enough. Being a local business owner, I wanted to support her local business, so I met with her to discuss what I needed: to expand my original website (karinbeery.com) into two websites (karinbeery.com and writenow-editing.com). Having run my original site for several years, I wanted her to create this site for me: register the domain, design the graphics, and set up the pages I needed.

Several weeks later, she had minimally designed a live page that said Write Now Editing and Copy-writing Services (yes, a typo on an editor’s website). The page also didn’t look anything like what I’d asked her to design. I emailed several times and never heard back from her. Having no idea what was going on – I had not seen any designs, had no idea what work was done, and didn’t know when she’d be finished – I fired her.

Though I’d already paid half of her fee, I refused to pay for anything else, as I didn’t even know what/if she was working on anything. I hired a new designer and moved on.

Then my website went down. She’d put my domain in her name. I had no access to it. I asked her to transfer it to me so I could pay the registration, but she refused. Instead, she paid the fee and kept ownership of my site. Life got busy and I forgot about things until my site went down again. This time she didn’t pay the hosting, so my site again disappeared. I contacted her again requesting that she transfer the domain to me. She still owns it.

It’s been almost two years now. I’ve consulted another web designer, done my own research, consulted an attorney, and called Go Daddy several times. The consensus is clear: she’s either completely incompetent (at this point even I know how to transfer a domain) or she’s vengeful, refusing to give me ownership of my website because I fired her/upset her/annoyed her – I’m not really sure.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

  1. Put it in writing. No matter how much you like someone – no matter how much you know someone – put everything in writing. Because we met in person and didn’t work out a contract, I have nothing to prove that the original agreement was for her to buy the domain for me, not keep it forever. Put everything in writing.
  2. When it comes to websites, register the domain and hosting yourself. It’s incredibly difficult (without a written agreement) to prove ownership of a website. If your designer turns out to be untrustworthy, as in this case, you may be forced to essentially shut down your business and start over.

Save yourself some headaches (and sleepless nights). Let my struggle be your cautionary tale.

Filed Under: entrepreneur, freelance

Editor Interview: Heidi Walker

December 6, 2016 by Karin Beery Leave a Comment

heidi-walkerLike many freelance editors, Heidi Walker fell into her work. She started as a writer, and today she writes, edits, and even publishes books. How does she do it? Here’s how:

When did you start writing/editing professionally?

I’ve been writing and editing since I graduated from the University of Michigan with B.S. Psychology in 1988. Yes, that was intentionally tongue in cheek. Sometimes our college degrees directly relate to our lifetime careers, and sometimes they don’t!

Why did you want to be a freelance writer/editor?

I needed to pay the bills. I’d been working as the editor of a B2B magazine and left the company for personal reasons. I had built up tremendous contacts in the industry for which I wrote, and once word got around that I was available for freelance work, I started getting jobs. It was enough to support me financially, so I stuck with it.

Over time, I moved from being a journalist, which required tremendous time and effort doing interviews and background research, to being an analyst, in which I could write on my own authority. That freed up enough time to do other things.

In the late 1990s, I had a book ready to publish, but without a well-known name, I got lots of interest but no contracts. A well-known author writing on the same subject matter endorsed the book and encouraged me to publish it myself. That is how Strong Tower Publishing was born. In addition to the B2B work, I now do book development, book editing, and some limited publishing.

What’s your specialty/focus? Why/how did you pick this?

On the B2B side, I write for the commercial printing and marketing verticals. On the Christian publishing side, I do nonfiction and theology. I fell into both circumstantially, but I stayed in them because they lined up with my own background and, consequently, were areas I understood, I enjoyed, and in which I could bring additional value beyond just the mechanics.

What’s your favorite part of this kind of work?

I love the intellectual challenge and the freedom that it gives me in terms of schedule and parenting. It is a job that I can work around the rest of my life. I have the freedom to work at 5 AM, until midnight, and in the car and on vacation. For a Type A personality, this job is also a good fit because it plays to my strengths and allows me to hide my weaknesses, which involve my distinct inability to play politics and work in a structured environment.

What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome during your career?

The need to constantly evolve and adapt to a constantly changing content development environment. When I started, there was tremendous need for high-quality content, and on the B2B side, I was writing articles for $1 per word. As the amount of content available online ballooned, and as the free available online content was increasingly high quality, I had to adapt to different types of clients, different writing styles, and the need to write shorter pieces (and more of them) to meet the demands of the digital marketing world.

Now instead of doing primarily market research studies (which large companies are producing in-house and distributing for free) and magazine articles, I am writing private newsletters, tons of blog posts, and white papers for online download. On the Christian publishing side, the explosion in new authors without budgets has meant that I rely more heavily on long-term clients that I can charge by the hour. Writing full-time and raising a family means I cannot afford to take low-paying editing jobs that eat up a ton of time without the financial reward. So if the editing job doesn’t pay sufficiently, it’s actually more profitable for me to buy a set of chairs at Goodwill, repaint, distress, and wax them, and then sell them on consignment, than to edit a book.

Those are the kinds of decisions that you start making after 25+ years in this business. What will make me the most money in the least amount of time?

What’s surprised you the most during your career?

How God has provided for me at every turn. I have always sought to run my business according to Colossians 3:23, and God has honored my efforts. When I lose a client, I gain one shortly thereafter. When the business environment changes, God has been faithful to guide me in retooling and redirecting to keep the income flowing. It’s not easy, and it requires me to be open, listening, and responsive, and for a Type A who doesn’t like to listen or change, that’s hard for me. But the benefits have been watching God bless our family in more ways than I can count.

swallows-nest-1875847_1280If you could give a new freelance writer/editor one piece of advice, what would it be?

Diversify. Writing and editing is a fickle business. Don’t rely on any one type of work (book editing) to pay the bills. Do B2C work, but also B2B work. Find local companies that need marketing, web development services, or press releases. Market yourself to local corporations for PR work. Do side jobs for the local newspaper. Find side work unrelated to editing to fill in when things get slow.  This way, when one area of your business dips, there is something else there to fill in the gap.

If you could do one thing differently in your career, what would it be?

I had a client many years ago for whom I wrote market research studies. He asked me to learn Excel so that I could start doing the charting and layout work in addition to the writing. At the time, writing jobs were flowing and paying well, so I politely declined. He took his work to another writer who could do both, and not only did I lose the job, but I never developed proficiency in charting and graphing. I always wondered how that line of work might have developed if I had gone through that door.

What’s your favorite kind of work? Why?

I love long-term book development because it brings together all of the skills into one. I love working with great authors who write multiple books so that I get to know them personally and their goals and audiences really well. At a certain point, we really become a team, and in the end, we grow together and come up with a great product.

What does your work space/office look like?

My couch. Usually, there is a cat sitting on me and shedding hair into the keyboard.

What is your go-to snack when working?

Coffee, and when I get sick of that, various types of tea.

Excluding the CMOS (that’s a given) what one editing resource would you recommend? Why?

I still rely on an old business editing book that changed the way I think about editing. It talked about how, while grammar rules are important, there is one rule that trumps grammar—clarity. It’s like Jesus talking about the law vs. love. When the donkey is in the pit on a Sunday, the law of love says pull him out. Likewise with editing. Sometimes the law of clarity and reasonableness trumps official rules of grammar, and as long as you can justify it and defend it, that’s okay. Good writing and editing has an element of subjectivity and judgment to it, but that’s something you only become comfortable with over time.

If you could only recommend one writing resource, what would it be? Why?

Chicago Manual of Style

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Over the years, I’ve continued to encourage new authors to make the distinction between editing and polishing. Editing is a mechanical process of punctuation, usage, grammar, and style. It’s not rewriting. Yet too many authors find themselves rewriting books and polishing documents at a copy editing price. These are different services and need to be charged differently. If you contract to do editing but find yourself rewriting and polishing, either force yourself back into editing mode or renegotiate with the author for the more complex service. You won’t be able to pay the bills getting paid for renovating a house when you’re only being paid to paint it.

Thank you so much for appearing on my blog! Have a blessed day!

Filed Under: editing, entrepreneur, freelance Tagged With: Heidi Walker

Holiday Madness: How to Keep Your Cool and Keep Working

November 28, 2016 by Karin Beery Leave a Comment

christmasIf your life’s anything like mine, the holidays are a wonderful time spent with family and friends, over several nights spread out over several weeks that encroach upon your normal work/family balance. If you’re a freelance worker (like me), it can be even worse – so many people don’t understand what that means. They just know that you don’t have set hours or a “real” office, so you’re probably available all-day, every-day to help out.

Regardless of your employment status, finding balance during the holidays can be tough. Before you start to freak out, consider a few of these sanity-saving tips:

  1. Mark your calendars. Find out when all of your events are, and put them on your calendars (all of them). Note the busiest times so you can mentally prepare yourself for the chaos.
  2. Prep ahead. Don’t wait until the day before to wrap presents, buy groceries, or cook your side dishes. Find an open day in your calendar to do all of the prep work – not only can you chop veggies and meat ahead of time, you can actually make and freeze a lot of dishes, so you won’t have to rush on the morning of.
  3. Freelancers – plan to work. If you regularly keep working hours, then stick to them. If you work whenever you can, it’ll be easy to lose your work time to cooking, cleaning, and shopping. Instead, schedule some work hours on your calendar so you know exactly when you are and aren’t available.
  4. Say no. If you can normally take on three new clients a month, consider only taking one or two. If you can’t survive without one free day a week, don’t schedule events on every day. It’s okay to say no.
  5. Get help. Don’t be afraid to ask friends, family, and colleagues for help. It can be as simple as a friend helping you clean your house, or as in-depth as asking a coworker to take over an account.
  6. Extend grace. You’re not the only busy person during the holidays. If others can’t help or show up late, remember that they’re probably as busy as you are. You can’t control the situation, but you can control your reaction – why not choose grace instead of anger?

Your schedule might be tight, but if you prepare yourself – mentally and physically – you can have a productive season without losing your marbles.

Have a safe and blessed Christmas!

Filed Under: best practices, entrepreneur, freelance

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ABOUT ME

Editor. Teacher. Novelist.
A passionate lover of fiction, Karin doesn't just write novels, she helps others write their best stories! A certified substantive editor with the Christian Editor Connection, her goal is to help authors to put her out of business by equipping them with the tools they need to become better writers.

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