How to Make the Most of a Slow Writing Month
Many writers notice a slump during the month of January.
After all the excitement of the holidays, it can take some time to get the gears up and running again, so to speak. Clients can be slow to hand out new assignments, and people are thinking about new goals, but haven’t started implementing them yet.
“I’ve noticed something about my freelance work and writing income,” says writer Carol Tice, founder of Make a Living Writing. “It often goes to crap in January….My theory: Income sucks in January because marketing tends to slack off in December. After all, it’s the holidays! Everyone’s on vacation. Editors are out. You’re busy with family. The next thing you know, it’s January 3. And there you are in the office, looking at an empty assignment calendar.”
Freelance writer Laura Pennington agrees: “It is very difficult to book business in December and January,” she writes.
If you find yourself in a similar place at the start of the year, below are seven things you can do to get things rolling again as quickly as possible.
1. Don’t Panic
When you come back from the holidays and realize that your work queue is nearly empty, it can be easy to feel nervous. Understand that in the writing life, there are always ups and downs, and it’s very common for work to slow during the holidays and in the weeks shortly after.
Stay calm and continue to show up at your desk during your regular work hours, and you’ll be fine.
2. Consider Adding New Income Streams
When things are slow, use that time to think about other ways you might be able to put your skills to work to earn money. Maybe you’ve been thinking about adding social media management to your list of services—try putting together a package, complete with rates, and offer it to some of your current clients.
This is just one example. There are many ways you can expand your services. If you’re not editing already, maybe you’d like to add some editing projects to your list. Perhaps you could create a course, write a short non-fiction book to sell, or create longer works for your clients (many are offering ebooks on their sites now).
Think about what your clients need but don’t yet have—or perhaps what they have requested in the past that you didn’t have time to do—and offer to do it now.
In addition to offering services to your current clients, advertise those services on your social media sites and website to let potential new clients know what you can do to help them.
3. Educate Yourself to Expand Your Skill Set
Think about other services you’d like to offer but don’t yet feel qualified to offer. SEO writing, for example, has become a hot commodity in the business world. Learning more about it can help you appear more attractive to clients.
Formatting ebooks is another possibility, or even offering your voice for audiobooks, which are becoming more popular every year. Take a course to further educate yourself about whatever skill you’d like to develop, then let your clients and potential clients know you’re now open for additional projects.
4. Ask for Referrals
It never hurts to ask your current clients for referrals. This can help in two ways:
• It lets your clients know you are open to new work, which may inspire them to send you some.
• It may lead you to a new client.
Statistics show that writers/editors get most of their work from word of mouth, so don’t be afraid to check with both your current and past (as long as you parted on good terms) clients.
5. Hit the Job Listings
Internet job listings for writers have a reputation for offering low-paying projects, but if you’re in a slow month, something is better than nothing. Plus, you never know where those initial projects may lead. If you deliver high-quality work for a client, they may be willing to give you more work or agree to higher rates in the future.
Some of my favorites sites for job listings include Freelance Writing Jobs and the ProBlogger Job Board. These also have some higher-earning jobs available from time to time.
6. Offer a Discount
If your desk is spotless and your files cleaned out and you still don’t have the work you need, take to your social media and offer a discount on your services. Let people know that you’re running a New Year special—X percent off of editing or writing services. Get 5 blog posts for only $X! Be sure to use your LinkedIn network for this, too. (If you’re not on LinkedIn, now is the time to open an account.)
Note—it’s probably best not to offer this discount to your current clients, as then they will expect you to continue to do the work for the same lower rate. Make it a “new client only” special. If you’d like to do new services for your current clients, though, a discount can work well.
Let them know that you’ll do the new tasks for the first month at a discount so they can see how it works for them, after which the rate would go up. This can be a good way to get more work with your existing clients.
7. Update Your Platform
When was the last time you updated your website? Are your skills still adequately represented? Do you have testimonials clearly visible? Is it clear what your achievements are? How about your portfolio—should you be adding more projects to it?
Busy writers often let their websites languish because they don’t have the time to update them. Use the slow days of January to improve your online image. Update anything that needs updating so you’re putting your best foot forward when clients come looking.
Consider writing a few more blogs, too, as the more content you have out there, the better your chances of catching someone’s eye. Guest blogs can be a particularly effective marketing strategy.
Don’t forget your social media sites. Make sure your photo, background image, and bio are all working to bring you new clients.
8. Eliminate Extraneous Expenses
There are two ways to make it through a slow period—make more money, and cut back on expenses. We’ve talked about all the ways you may be able to increase your income, so it makes sense that our last step should cover reducing expenses.
Use the time you have to go over all the expenses you have. Make sure each one is contributing to your business. Are there some monthly fees you no longer need to pay? What about the professional groups you belong to? Are you benefitting from all of them, or could you let some lapse without noticing a difference?
Think about supplies, as well. I recently discovered a website that sells cheap ink cartridges. I came upon them out of desperation—when most stores stopped carrying the type of ink my printer required. I was afraid I’d have to buy a new printer, which I wasn’t ready to do yet.
Comp and Save sells discount ink supplies. I worried at first that something may be wrong with them, but the discounts were so substantial that it was worth the risk to try them. I’m midway through my first one and so far, so good. (I have no affiliate relationship with the company—just passing on my experience.)
Where might you be able to cut corners to increase the gap between income and expenses? Use this time to find out and you could make it easier on yourself for the rest of the year.
How do you get through a slow month?
