The Writers Manifesto Blog

Getting client testimonials is really hard for some freelance writers. Maybe they are too shy to ask, or they feel not confident enough, but if you are in this business or want to be at all you need testimonials. If you have missed my previous posts on how to become a freelance writer, I suggest you take some time and read them in the order they are posted. I have tried to keep it in an organized matter to help you move ahead step by step.

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With plenty of recent agro (aggravation) in the blogosphere and many bloggers locking horns in the process it isn’t always easy to stay calm. We act with emotions and feelings and sometimes they can get the better of us before we can pull back and take a second more objective look at the situation.

I’ve had my own fair share of these hurricane moments when my temperament boiled over and I was talking before thinking. When I’m in those moments I don’t really care much for the other person, but after the situation has passed I sometimes regret what I said and unfortunately I can’t take the words back.

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For those of you who think I’ve gone nuts, Namaste is a traditional and very meaningful term that is derived from the Hindu language of Sanskrit. Translated it means:

Namaste is a combination of the two Sanskrit words: nama, and te. Basically, nama means “to bow” and te means “you.”
Namaste = “bow to you“

As an avid Yoga lover and (infrequent) practitioner of many years, I got to know the word Namaste while attending regular yoga classes for many years. At the end of each session our teacher would bow to us while pressing the palms of your hands together in front of his high heart center.

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Invoicing clients is the fifth installment to my Freelance Writing Guide For New Freelancers. While we work with clients as writers, we also have to find convenient ways to invoice them for our services.

Luckily for most, PayPal is a widely used by online businesses for service transactions, whether you buy products or get paid for services you provide.

While most people know PayPal as a merchant solution, many don’t know that you can also send invoices with PayPal or even setup recurring payment requests for repeat services. Doing this provides your clients with a fuss free way of receiving tax invoices, while you can keep track yourself.

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As I’m writing this I’m sitting in the office of my former employer, borrowing their Internet. After a horrible Thursday this week, having spent 7 hours trying to sort out why I suddenly lost my Internet connection, buying a new modem and still not getting back online I was close to tears out of pure frustration.

So much so that I wanted to throw my laptop against the next wall and just curl up in bed and never wake up again. LOL.

I really had the most crappy day then and the fact that I had deadlines didn’t help.

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This post is inspired by my good friend Brett from 6 weeks and Dave Navarro from Rock Your Day.

The noise of the alarm bell interrupts my dreaming. I’m rudely awakened and can’t believe that John manages to sleep on like a baby (considering the bell is on his bedside table). Yawning I fold back the bed covers and step out into the cold morning air. It is 5.30am and the world is still asleep.

While I perform my morning ritual in the bathroom, my mind wanders to the tasks ahead for the day. As usual my plate is full and I start stressing about balancing the lot.

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Being a published writer is a great achievement and no matter what some people say, to me there is no difference to being published online and offline than perhaps the money you can earn. Published is published, regardless of the time and place.

Many offline writers lift their noses to us online folk. For some reason they consider their writing to be somewhat aloof to ours and while I don’t agree with that for one second, I do accept that some just agree to disagree with me.

Either way, once you are published and paid for your work, you are officially a writer. Congratulations!

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In my last post I touched on the subject of queries to find work as a freelance writer. This post is yet another one in my Freelance Writing Guide For New Freelancers. While queries are more used to apply for jobs that aren’t advertised, we also need to have some guidelines we can follow to propose for a job say from an online job board.

While I mentioned that some attributes of a query apply to proposing for a job, it isn’t quite the same to propose for an advertised job and much less work intensive too. Here is what I do when I propose for a job in answer to an ad.