Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Waiting stinks...


Okay, so I've got this groovy new software for tracking my money and divvying it up for bills and savings and emergency funds. But I've got to wait for the money to come in before I can do anything with it.

And I've got this exciting new career as a freelance proofreader to help augment my day job income. Except, it seems as if I do a lot of waiting for the jobs to show up...

Luckily I haven't had to wait (much) for payments once the jobs are done. But, man, I badly want out of debt and some savings built up!! I know these things take time. I do. But ugh... Okay, enough whining. I shouldn't have gotten into so much debt in the first place, right? Right!

I think I scared off one gal the other morning. We emailed back and forth a couple of times and then she asked about cost. Actual cost was almost double what she estimated. Haven't heard back from her, and it's been almost two days... I also had a guy e-mail me and when I told him how much, I never heard back. You know, a simple, "I can't afford that right now." would have been polite and courteous. And I would have understood. I'm not the most expensive proofreader on the planet, but services aren't cheap either.

I've thought about adjusting rates again. I mean, several jobs at a slightly less expensive rate are better than no jobs at any rate, right?  I'll see how it goes. I've only advertised one place and the rest have been word of mouth jobs from my critique partners. That was before I raised my rates. One job (still waiting for it to arrive) since I upped them.

On the other hand, I've been reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I've gleaned that faith is a core component of achieving your goal. The other thing is, I'm a good proofreader. I'm worth what I'm charging, which is not the cheapest, but not the most expensive deal in town either. Tough call, though. In addition, I've been listening to some marketing webinars. Mostly for DH and targeted at the IT industry, but some things cross industries. And now I've got a few marketing ideas. I have to be careful still since I'm only one person and still working that day job.

In the meantime, I'm trying to expand my range of services, which will, of course, increase (hopefully) the inflow of cash.

What services would be helpful to writers, freeing up their time to actually write??

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

4 comments:

Regina Richards said...

Think and Grow Rich has been recommended to me by a lot of people. It's on my Kindle waiting for a read, but I haven't gotten to it yet.

The Art of War is a good book along similar lines. And Marie Forleo on YouTube has some short inspirational stuff on business and she's fun to watch just to see what she's wearing.

Regina Richards said...

Ooops...I meant The War of Art.

Unknown said...

Proof reading, line edits, and formatting manuscripts for digital release on different platforms should be a big draw. Hang in there--once you get more recommendations from your current clients, I'm sure you'll have more business coming your way. Have you thought about sending follow-up emails to the 2 who never got back to you?

Char Newcomb said...

Ditto what Lara says. And I don't think you're in the right price range for your services based on what I've seen, so hang in there!