This is a heads up to all clients and potential clients, not-so-cleverly disguised as an informative blog post. I am raising my rates at the beginning of April by about 10%. This is both a cost-of-living raise and reflects my improving skill-set and specializations. If you are a current client – don’t fret, I’m not going to raise the price halfway through a project. Rates for future projects may be slightly higher, or not, depending on several factors. 

If you are a new potential client and would like to lock in a project at the current rates, then contact me now – I’ll be quoting based on current rates till the end of the month.

The rates charged for different freelance services vary drastically between individuals. What I charge $50 for, another writer might do for $10 and another for $120. While there are definitely market bands in freelancing, they are often more fluid than you realise, and it’s impossible to get a “standard rate” by which you can benchmark yourself.

That’s why it’s important for freelancers to consider raising their rates every year. You need to take a look at your business and figure out if you’re earning what you’re worth, whether your rate needs to go up, and by how much. The same goes from anyone in a non-freelance business – year-end time is coming up fast and it’s a good chance to assess your pricing and whether it’s time for a change.

Read On…

It’s a lazy, sunny Sunday here in New Zealand. My husband and I have just purchased a 4 acre lifestyle block – eeee! – and it is sucking away every moment of free time we have right now. It’s wonderful to be spending so much time outside, doing physical labour, feeling the satisfaction of dirt under your nails and a sun on your arms. I haven’t had such restful sleep in years! We have a lot of work ahead of us before we can even begin to build our dream home, but we’re excited about building our future in this place.

Since it’s a lazy Sunday, and you might be spending the day thinking about your business and catching up on your Internet reading, I thought I’d link you up to some of my most recent articles for writers and small businesses around the web:

Read On…

This week I accompanied 26 other sassy ladies in a post on Karen May Dy’s blog called 27 Hot Tips for Getting Your Digital Program Started. My tip is about asking questions and listening to the questions being asked by your audience, but I reckon you should hop over and check out the whole article, because there’s a ton of good tips in there.

Are you thinking of creating a digital training product like an ebook, ecourse, video, podcast or email course? That’s great! For many small businesses who operate on a blog-based website (like mine) these types of training programs can be a great way of creating royalty-based income alongside more. As a freelancer, you’re constantly trading hours worked for money earned, which means that you quickly reach an upper cap on the amount of money you’re able to make.

Creating training products enables you to add an additional income stream that you can sell long after you’ve finished the initial creation stage. I already have two products on Grymm & Epic – the Grymm & Epic Guide to Blogging and the Small & Awesome Guide to Freelance Writing – and I will soon be launching another – the Grymm & Epic Freelance Writing Course for People who Don’t Write Good (name change likely). I also sell a wedding planning ebook through my other site that does quite well indeed

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Ghost-blogging (or staff blogging, outsourcing or freelance blogging) has been a huge part of my income for at least three years now, ever since my other blogs have gained enough traction that I’m able to show people I have what it takes to produce viral/high traffic posts. Personally, I like the term ghost blogging, because I’m a horror movie nut, but you don’t have to call it that. Since I often get asked by other writers and business owners about the opportunities for ghost blogging, I thought I’d do a little guide for anyone who wanted to either hire a ghost blogger or find this kind of work for themselves.

What Is Ghost Blogging?

Basically, a ghost blogger writes blogs for a company or individual other than themselves. Usually this is because the client wants a blog but is either not a writer themselves, or has no time or energy left to maintain a blog. The ghost blogger takes some of the pressure off by writing and uploading articles, and in many cases managing the content of the blog itself.

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For years I’ve been an advocate of a regular posting schedule for your blog. I reckon if you set a goal to write a post every day, or every week, and you work hard to stick with it, you become a better blogger. Because you’re forcing yourself to practice everyday – in the same way a guitarist noodles away every night no matter how shite his day at work was or how much he’d rather finish that George R. R. Martin book – you’re going to get better. Right?

Not necessarily. Sometimes you just get pissed off.

Sometimes you don’t have anything to write about. Sometimes you’re terrified of facing that blank page again. Sometimes you think, “Goddammit, if I have to write ANOTHER word about death metal/weddings/cat pictures/personal finances/zombies/tofu recipes/chicken coops today, I am going to stick that chicken coop so far up the universe’s backside it will be raining chickens in Russia.”

How many blogs do you actually read? I mean, really read? Not just add to your reader, skim the titles and think “oh, that sounds mildly interesting, I’ll come back to that”, and never do. How many writers are so awesome they create something new every day or every week that you have to devour, word by glorious word? How many?

Read On…