Note from Jennifer: Today is the last day of my blog’s 5^th birthday celebration and your last chance to get the Kindle version of my new book The Freelance Content Marketing Writer: Find Great Clients, Make Tons of Money and Build a Business You Love for $5. The sale ends tonight at 10 pm EST, or when I go to bed – whichever comes first.

I want to give each of you a huge thank you for your support – buying the book, sharing on Twitter, posting on social media, and leaving reviews. I have been overwhelmed by the love and support I’ve received. The Kindle version has stayed as the #1 New Release in the Small Business category on Amazon all week, which has been beyond any expectation that I had when I published it.

And a huge favor – if you have bought the book or plan to buy the book, it would be awesome if you could leave a review when you are done. With more reviews, I can help more writers grow a successful business.

One of my favorite quotes is from Steve Furtick: “The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.”

I’d actually go a step further and many of us compare our outtakes – you know, the screw-ups shown at the end of a movie – to everyone else’s highlight reel.

I think it’s even more true with freelance writers. We only see other writers’ successes – the big bylines, the awards, the book sales. In an office setting, you see the more human side of your co-workers and know that they make mistakes. But with freelancing, you typically only see what people share, which is usually the good stuff.

Most writers don’t share that they got fired from a client, made a huge error in an article or went without paying work for a month last year. But it happens – to every single writer, usually more than once. And any writer who tells you that it hasn’t is lying, big time.

So as the final post of my blog birthday party, I’m going to share you the biggest screw ups I’ve made in the last 5 years to hopefully make you feel better about your own and keep you from maybe making the same ones that I have.

1. Writing outside my areas of expertise and style

I have decided I am never going to fully learn this lesson. And I am doomed to keep repeating it. Until the end of time. I shared my fish and firepit story a few years ago. Last year, I tried to write about wine and it was a disaster. And then earlier this year, I did it again. I took a copywriting job for a furniture company – and guess what – I sucked at it. The topic is outside my wheelhouse, the tone is about as far as you can get from my natural writing style and I’m terrible at writing short copy, which is pretty much a necessity for printed brochures. So I’ve spent a gazillion hours on the project. It’s now what I call a McDonald’s project, meaning that I could earn a higher rate serving fries at a drive-thru – and the client isn’t thrilled.

Maybe one day it will finally sink into my thick head that when I focus on topics that I am comfortable with (and stay the heck away from lifestyle) then I earn more money, am less stressed and have happier clients. But knowing me, I doubt it.

2. Attributing an entire article to the wrong person

So I am really nervous about sharing this, but decided to do it any way since I know that all writers have screwed up pretty badly at some point. Last year, my son had a sledding accident that turned into a dramatic firefighter rescue, an ambulance ride (with the lights going) and a really bad concussion with short term memory loss (he’s totally fine now). But as a freelancer, I couldn’t just take time off, so I finished up a story while I was exhausted, stressed and still a bit scared.

A few days later I saw the article online and realized that I had made a huge mistake in my daze – I had attributed all of the quotes to a source from a different article for a different client. I was horrified. I emailed my client on a Sunday and she was able to correct it without the sources or clients ever being the wiser. I was sure she was going to kick me off the project. But she didn’t. In fact she told me how much she appreciated me letting her know ASAP, owning the mistake and apologizing. And since that time, I’ve earned at least $35K from that client, despite her knowing about my horrible mistake. I was reminded that everyone makes mistakes and good clients know that. And that how you handle it is more important than anything else.

3. Not stepping off projects that weren’t a good fit

So I’ve had an amazing start to 2018 and am on track to have my best year financially ever. I’ve landed three brand new clients that are thrilled with me work and use words like “great job” and “amazing” in their emails after I submit drafts. But I’ve gotten fired from two projects in the past 4 months. And honestly that’s okay. It doesn’t mean I”m a bad writer. Or that the client’s don’t know what they are talking about. They were 100 percent right that my work wasn’t what the project needed. Every project is not a fit for every writer. The trick as a freelancer is finding the clients where your strengths matches the client’s needs and the project.

Both times this year, I knew that I was the wrong writer for the project pretty quickly and considered asking be taking off the project (after I got to an appropriate stopping point, of course), but I didn’t. My ego got in the way and I figured that I was smart enough to figure out a way to be good at the project. Instead I spent a gazillion hours trying to deliver what they wanted, stressed myself to the point of throwing up, and yelled at my kids. Spoiler alert: both clients removed me from the project because I wasn’t able to deliver what they needed.

Ouch. It stung. But I reminded myself that I have a crap ton (I promise that this obsession with words crap ton will be over soon) of really happy clients. But I have to focus on finding the clients who are looking for my strengths and skills. And as soon as I know that I’m not the best writer for a project, I need to tell the client and get off the project. It’s not fair to myself, the client or the ultimate reader of the content for me to stay on a project that’s not a good match.

While writing this section, I realized that a current client falls into this category. And I just sent off an email asking to be taken off the project. Maybe I’m learning. Just maybe.

4. Typos, typos and more typos

Dropped words. Grammatical errors. Misspelled names. Even sending LOIs to clients with their competitor’s names. I believe I have made every typo mistake known to man, probably this year alone.

I think if I could change one thing about myself professionally it would be the fact that I am the typo queen. Sure, I can get a little better at it and slow down. But I will never be able to fully fix it to the level that is acceptable for a freelance writer. And that’s actually a good thing. Because the reason I make so many typos is because my brain works fast and that’s why I have so many good ideas – at least in my own mind. So I remind myself that the typos are just the flip side of one of my biggest strengths.

I used to try to fix all my typos myself or just not make them. But that’s just not possible. So instead I have built my business around mitigating (I know, jargon alert) this weakness. I hire a proofreader for all of my client work. I try to stay away from clients who are looking for a detail-oriented writer. And I am even up front about my typo queen status to new clients and don’t take clients that hedge when I share this.

And it works, until I get cocky and decide that I can just read the article an extra time and not use my proofreader because I’m late on a project. But every single time I do that, it bites me in the rear. Badly. The trick isn’t not having weaknesses; the trick is figuring out how to get around them. And then sticking to your plan, no matter what.

5. Not continually marketing

Earlier this year I had two weeks with almost no paying work. The reason: I had been swamped and I stopped marketing. No matter how busy I am, I must keep marketing. I am pretty sure that this is another mistake I will keep on making for the rest of my career. (Here are 76+ ways to market your writing services.)

On a related tangent, I also realized in January that when you realize you are in a dry spell, the first thing you should do is reach out to your writer friends. Ask for leads. Ask for referrals. And if you’ve been generous with helping them in the past, then they will pretty much do anything to help you. Every single writer hits a slow patch and we do ourselves and other writers a huge disservice by not sharing.

 

So, that was hard. But hopefully it helps you and at the very least makes you feel better about your mistakes. And helps more writers share more of their own outtakes instead of the Facebook version of our life.

 

What mistakes have you made recently? How do you get around your weaknesses?