What Should You Consider Before Quitting Your Day Job

If you’ve been freelance writing while still working a day job you might be thinking of quitting. But how do you know if it is the right time? What should you think about before you take the big step?

Some of the things you should do before you put in your resignation are:

• Do some research on the type of job you want to do from home. Is it writing? Affiliate sales? Selling something you make? Interior design? Whatever it is you need to find out how to get your business started, how much money you can make, what tools you might need to purchase, and many other things. Find people online who are successful at what they do and make contact with them. There are literally thousands of people (likely more like hundreds of thousands) who are making a living from home and most of them have an online presence. Contact them through their web page, tell them you are interested in talking with them, and ask them a few questions. Most people are happy to talk with others that are interested in their work and many of them will be flattered you asked.
• Start putting money aside. Yes, this is a must. You can’t walk into a work from home job with no money set aside to cover your behind should you have a few stumbling blocks along the way (because you will).
• How much to set aside? That depends on you and your family’s needs. Figure out a budget. What do you need to get by? And do take into consideration those things that aren’t necessarily “needs” but make your life livable. If you have children and you suddenly tell them that they won’t be able to eat at McDonalds for the next year because mommy or daddy wants to pursue their dream they likely won’t be understanding. So cut down, but don’t eliminate the things that give your family pleasure. Once you have a number that you think is fairly reasonable, multiply that by three or four. You should have at least three to four months expenses set aside.
• Start building a client list. Start with smaller jobs. You may have to work for less than you expected at first but these jobs can be good backup in the future. Although they may not pay as much, if you develop solid working relationships with these clients they will always be there. Don’t neglect them once you move on to bigger clients. Keep them happy.
• Start a web site with your information. You can find some very low-cost hosting programs that are easy to use and will give you what you need. I use HostGator and have been using them for over a year and I’m very happy with them. I have two websites hosted on one account for only $9.99 a month.
• Think about how you are going to get your name out there. If you are internet based, learn about promoting yourself, how and where to do it, what sites bring back good hits, etc. Once agian , talking to someone (or many someones) in your field is invaluable.

This is really only the beginning. But these are all things that you should do before quitting your job. Quitting a job isn’t as easy as some think it might be because we all have different circumstances.

You can use this article for free by going to the Content Source: What Should You Consider Before Quitting Your Day Job – Bukisa.com where you will find the source code to copy and paste into your site.

How to Get Clips at the Beginning of Your Writing Career

So, you’ve decided that writing the career you’d like to pursue and you’ve got your office all set up with all the necessary writing tools and you’re ready to start applying for writing gigs. Wait – they all want writing clips! Now what? How do you show potential employer published clips when you don’t have any?

Blog!

One of the most obvious things you can do is start a blog and write about things you are passionate about and the things you would be interested in writing about for money. Keep in mind – a blog is not a diary (at least not in this case). It has focus and intent. It is clean and professional looking and shows viewers that you are able to portray a thought or an opinion or an experience or facts with your words.

There are an unlimited amount of topics that you can blog about. Do you like to teach people how to do things? Then you might want to consider writing a how-to blog with either a variety of explanatory articles in several fields or explanatory articles that are focused on one topic (example: how to cook Chinese food, how to make scrumptious desserts, how to cook without a recipe – could all be titles for a great cooking blog).

Treat your blog like you are already writing for pay and it will make a great place to send editors when they are interested in your work.

Article Directories

Article directories such as Ezine Articles, Bukisa, Triond, and so on give you exposure and give you the opportunity to earn some casual income at the same time. You can showcase your skills as a writer, make valuable networking relationships, and learn new interesting topics. You can also direct people back to other work you have on the internet.

Write for Free

This is not something I would suggest on a regular basis but writing for free – for a reputable publisher – can be an excellent source of credits. Keep in mind that a non-reputable publisher may not hold very much weight and may hold very little value; however, if you can find a website that has a good reputation in its field that is allows contributions this can give you a more solid background as a writer.

Get Published Online

In order to get paying jobs you’ll need to have some samples. Getting your name under some articles is critical to your start as a freelance writer so use one or more of these tools to forward your career.

I’ve been freelance writing for over two years and although I choose to do it on a part-time basis I still make about 1/3 of my monthly income from writing online. And part of my self-promotion strategy is utilizing all of my options.

You can use this article by going to the Content Source: How to Get Clips at the Beginning of Your Writing Career – Bukisa.com where you will find the source code to copy and paste into your website.

How to Promote Your Website for Free

Perhaps you’re a new writer and you need some publicity or maybe you have a service that you’d like to be aware of. Whatever the case may be you likely have a website and you need to make people aware of it. Unfortunately, you have no advertising budget. Don’t worry – that’s not uncommon and you can promote your website at no cost to you.

Here are a few ways that you can promote your website for free:

• Comment on other blogs and websites in your same/similar field; be careful to make interesting and useful comments though – otherwise you’re just spamming and pissing people off.
• Join social network sites like Facebook and MySpace. These social networking sites have groups for almost any kind of interest. Participate in discussions and when applicable and in good taste plug your site.
• Twitter! You don’t twitter yet? Well, join up and participate in conversation, plug your news, and put a link in your bio.
• Forums are a great source of promotions. You can put your site in your signature, which gets included in every post. Once again, make sure you are making a valuable contribution to discussion. Otherwise, people will get upset and you’ll likely get banned.
• Newsgroups are also a place to find people that are interested. I don’t think I need to say it again but I will – plug your blog/website only when relevant and make valuable contributions.
• Digg, Technorati, Reddit, StumbleUpon – all these are a variety of the social network and can help you get your name out there. They can also help your site get recognition in the search engines.

Those are just a few of the techniques that you can use to get some recognition for your site. A few things that you always need to remember:

• Never spam
• Be subtle
• Content is king – have valuable information on your site and people will come back for more. Fill it with crap and it doesn’t matter how much promotions you do – people will leave and never come back!

You can use this article by going to the Content Source: How to Promote Your Website for Free – Bukisa.com where you can find the source code to copy into your website.