10 habits of highly successful writers.
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8th hub of the 30/30 challenge. Do you have what it takes to be a full-time writer? If so, Are you making the most of it?
Being a freelance writer has many benefits. One of the many is knowing that you can make your own schedule. This can be remarkably easy if writers know how to set up a schedule and most importantly FOLLOW IT. Not one freelance writer will ever get rich or make a descent living only investing an hour of their time writing a day, while playing around in the computer.
10 Habits of successful writers, and how to achieve them.
- They set a schedule and follow it: Do you know what you do all day? If you say you write "all day long" check your work, and check how much you are earning a DAY. Do the numbers match? If the answer is NO, then your best bet is to make a schedule so you can treat this job like a regular job, so you can start seeing progress along the way. It may be a bit hard to set up a schedule, and be able to follow it from home, but this is the best way to start taking this work seriously.
- They make writing goals, and achieve them. How much do you write? Do you make it a point to write at least one article a day on your Blog, website, or even here on Hubpages? If so, do you achieve your goal? If you cannot answer these questions promptly, then you need to set at least one writing goal a day. This is a great way to make sure that you start building up your freelance career, if that's what you want. Or like many other freelance writers, make sure that you earn money like the pros.
- They write about what they know. You can write about any topic you please. Just make sure that you know your topic inside and out. One thing that successful writers do know how to do is RESEARCH THEIR TOPICS left, and right. They make sure that they gather any all and information about the article topic that they have in mind. WHY? They want to get loyal readers. When you know a topic, your readers will notice, and they will keep coming back. This is how you attract the attention that you want online. If the article is good enough online, you won't need to market it as much!
- They make time for themselves. It can be pretty easy to get lost in the world of writing. There have been many instances when I have been so caught up with my work or deadlines that I forget about the simplest things such as eating, or sleeping. This can happen, but it does not mean that you have to let it happen. The best writes will take the time to sleep, eat, take a shower, and so on.. If you get sick, you will not be able to get work done, and then you will really be losing out on money. Make sure that the most important client (that being YOU) is happy!
- They know what their time is worth. We all need money. This is a fact. There is no denying it or getting around it. So, do you know what your time is worth? If you are anything like me, you are constantly wondering if you are getting paid enough, or if you need to hike the prices on your work. In any case, you may need to. The best, and most successful freelancers will know exactly what their time is worth. Meaning, they will know how much, and How to charge their clients. This in turn, will leave freelancers making a profit in a week.
- They don't put all their eggs in one basket. This is a good thing to remember when you either start your freelance career, or you are thinking about taking your career to the next level. When you start to write, you have to remember that there are MANY things that you can focus on. Many freelancers start their blogs, research the best ways to get freelance jobs, and stay there. This can be a problem. What happens when they can no longer get a job online, or when their blogs aren't making enough money? Writers have to learn all of the venues of making money online besides blogging, and content mills. This way, when one source of income is down, they can always count on the other one to help them out with their bills.
- They are constantly marking their brand (their name). When you say: "I'm working online" What are you doing? Are you writing? Are you going on social bookmarking sites, and talking to other writers hoping to get more traffic to your websites or blogs? The one thing that all successful writer have in common, is that when they are not writing, they are actively talking to other writers trying to find the right connection for themselves. Too many writers think that by simply posting a link on Twitter, or any other social bookmarking site, they can easily get the traffic that they need. In reality, it takes a bit of socializing from writers, and a lot of patience after that.
- They have constant leads. The most successful writers, didn't make money because they had one great writing gig when they started to write. They are successful because they were constantly applying for jobs. They researched, asked, and even sign up to any and all job board where they could check out the jobs that were available. To date, there are well over 20 job boards for freelancers. Many of which are constantly being updated. From problogger, freelancejobs.com to Ifreelance.com. All of these are useful for freelancers who are looking to get a job TODAY. If writers constantly apply online to more than one job ad, their chances of making money are greater.
- They make sure they lead by example. One more than one occasion, one or more writers have come to me asking for advice on freelancing. Most of the time, I write about the topics that I find useful or helpful. However, there are many other topics out there that can also help writers, and these are the topics that writers should also focus on. Basically, write about the things that Newbies want to know about TODAY. Yes, there are topics that are years old, but still make money. However, remember that we do not just write about the things that people wanted to know a while back, but about the things that are as of right now! Lead by example. Keep you content up to date, and ready to be searched for!
- They create chains to help people find them. If you are findable, then the chances of people searching for you online, and finding your work is greater. When you create chains online, it means that regardless of what page, website or social bookmarking site you are on, readers will be able to find more than one link to your work. If this is done, then traffic to your work will increase by nearly 90 percent. So, if you are used to getting 100 views a day on your blog, Website or Hubpages account, then that number will double or even triple almost overnight. Think about that! Sometimes leaving more than one link can make all the difference in your freelance business.
These are just some of the habits that come to mind when it comes to being successful in the freelance business. I'm sure that there are many more. If you think of more, or have other habits of your own that you would like to share, please do!
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I agree with all these points -- I've cultivated many of these habits but have a ways to go with some others. Voting this Up and Useful.
Thahks so much for the info and the uplift. It's gonna be a GREAT day! God bless you. Sincerely, W.R. Shinn
Great advice Jessie, thanks for taking your time to share this with us, up and useful, cheers!
Ruby H Rose: Thank you for your comment! I'm truly glad this Hub was able to help you! definitely try the 30/30 challenge! It will change you!
Alocsin: Thank you for reading! These are just some of the things that many great writers possess. I am in the process of trying out my advice, and it is working for me!
W.R. Shinn: Thank you for reading! I'm glad you found this Hub Helpful!
Injured Lamb: I'm glad I can help out readers!
I agree, leaving links on social media sites is not enough. You should also learn how to socialize and mingle with people online. Thank you for sharing this Jessi10. I really learn a lot :)
Thanks again. I need to work on #10. Sandra Busby
thank u very much for sharing such a nice info..voting up
Great article. You make some really good and helpful points.
John
Rob_Allen: Thank you for your comment! You're right, simply signing up to social media sites is NOT enough anymore, people want to know that they are talking to a REAL person, and NOT a machine! LOL
Sandrabusby: Thank you for reading my Hub!
Winbo: Thank you for your VOTE!
John Sarkis: Thank you for stopping by! I'm glad you liked this HUB!
We don't have to put all eggs in one basket ..we have to try new things always..Thanks for these nice tips
htodd: Thank you so much for reading! We don't have to put all of our eggs in one basket, especially when it comes to freelancing. In this business, writers can have several sources of income with no problem!
Great tips, very useful and interesting - thanks! :)
MelChi: Thank you very much for your warm comment! I'll be looking forward to reading some of your work!
loued51: Sometimes we need to do more research to find out what can help us make money online, and what doesnt. I'm glad my Hub was able to help you! Thank you for reading!
good stuff - I'll be back
I'll like your practical and easy to understand writing style. Good information!
Thank you for reading! I am so glad that you liked my work!
Your work is totally awesome! You have lit my pants on fire from this article and then some. Following your lead I am learning so much and trying to do the work....
You rock, keep writing this great stuff, I will keep reading and sharing it all over the place. Whew!
Thank you Jessi10, I found your sight very interesting, and I learned a few things from it. Bonita...........
Great hub, thanks for the motivation!
Wow! This is really interesting and informative Hub. You have provided some great instructions. Thanks for sharing and voted up :)
hey Jessi,
this is great. I think must follow some of these tips.
Great list! I worked for a year last 2010 as a writer then stopped for 2011. Now, I cannot seem to remember how I did it but this hub was helpful in getting me back on track with writing. Thanks Jessi10
Thank you very much for sharing this information.voted up.
Thank you for your good tips. These tips are really good and will make us more successful writers. Keep up your good work.
Once again great advice Jess. It is important to diversify and explore more than one subject, although having a specialist subject could also be beneficial.
Good advice, I do like the tips, but how does one think of an article a day to write about? That is my main problem, thinking of something to write that isn't boring. How do I go about this?
Thanks for sharing your experience.What i often missed is schedule.voted up!
Nice advice for anyone that wishes to succeed in writing.
great!
Great hub. I'm not so good at daily goals but I'm always making goals to reach per week or month and I've found that doing this has given me much more drive to write more often and put myself out there. Thanks for sharing! Very helpful information I know I will be using.
I will never make a good writer because I am so NOT organized. It is a bad habit I have never overcome. Voted you up!
This is excellent info and motivation. I've got the scheduling stuff down pat, now I just have to work on the marketing aspect. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much for everyones comments! I cant tell you just how much reading them means to me! If I had enough time, I would respond to every single one!
Thank you for stopping by again!
Thank you so very much for this. I'm just beginning and this is very helpful to me. I appreciate your work.
Super Jessi, like Alocsin, I do many of these things. I also have a trick - two work stations. One for two hours of work (blogs, translations) then I shift to my "fun" station (Hubs and Gmail). It keeps me focused. the fun station is with my family, the other is in a room where I close the door and concentrate. Best of luck to you in all your endeavors, Ecal
Great Hub, very useful for writers. Thanks for sharing.
This hub was very helpful for me as I am just a beginner. It was good to read this! Good luck with your 30/30 challenge! Voting this up Useful and Shared!
Absolutely interesting! Voted up!
Thank you for sharing this hub enhancing our knowledge on writing, making it effective and prolific.
That's a good hub, for sure.
I remember reading in a book about writing, a story the author told about a writers' club he attended. Week after week, this group of writers would meet for hours on end to discuss...how difficult it was to find enough time to write! The author experienced a sudden epiphany, got up without a word, went home and began to write. He never went back to the club. He's now published a considerable body of work and makes a full-time living at it.
There's only one reasonable definition of a writer: a person who writes. Actually writes. Words and lots of them.
I have my screen saver set up to kick in after five minutes of inactivity. If that time elapses a shockingly pink and yellow text, writ large, flashes repeatedly on the screen. It says, simply "Write Now!"
Thanks for your hub. I'd love to stay longer but I've got to get back on with...well, you can guess.
I've given this a vote up, a useful and an interesting.
PS: I only say this because I know you will care, but 'descent' in the first paragraph should be 'decent' - a sneaky little typo, I reckon. Can happen to the best of us - as you have just shown. :)
Wonderful, wonderful advice. Thank you for taking the time to write and share this.
Thank you for the information you shared with us. I need all the tips I can get. I love to write. It's just sad more people don't take time to read like they did years ago. It makes it that much harder for an author looking for an audience.
Great job on pointing out tips on how to make your name and/or image a brand. There is an inkling (some good, bad, anger, etc.) we get ever time we see an image or a name.. That is branding. Great job on explaining how to do it!
This post is bookmarked for further reference as I re-write my goals. It's a great eye opener. Keep it up.
Useful tips and advice! noted down! Thank you!
Good one! nice tips and I will to implement in my life. Thanks for sharing. cheers!
Inspiring and a wake-up call for those who wants to write good articles for publication in their own blog or guest blogging.
I totally agree with #3(They write about what they know). My personal experience is that, it's really easy to write something that I know already. It's just like sharing something to the world.
Writing something you don't know, can turn into something not useful. That's why we see a lot of websites today which are spam sites(as Google call it), because these people are simply writing for the search engines and not for the readers, hence, they fail to fulfill the real goal of a good and successful writer.
I like this post since it reminds all writers on Hub and new writers of the qualities they must have to be better writers than they already are. The tip of finding chains so others can find them has already worked for me as I am now since yesterday a writer with Mentor status...I am excited about Hub and am telling my friends online and off that this is the place to go.
Great idea to have a schedule for daily writing. Just waiting for inspiration doesn't cut it. I need to implement this in my writing life. Also, great point about whether or not you are actually writing when online. At one time I had a Facebook account with the maximum number of friends, 5000. I did it by playing one of the online games they offered and networking to the other game players. The problem was, I was spending all my time playing the game and almost no time writing. Plus, very little of my writing was about gaming and the only interest that network had was that one specific game. Links to my other writing on that account were ineffective. In the end, I had to quit the online game and delete the account so that I could focus on my real goal of writing. Thanks for a great hub!
You should write a full length book about this. I think it would be a good thing for you since this was very well organized!
Nice post with plenty of good advice
I like this post. It has opened my eyes. I will now take action.
Some great reminders and calls to action for me! Thanks. :)
All great habits to live by, thanks for sharing your expertise. Great hub voted up and useful :)
This is something I REALLY need to do. My life is a little too loose at the moment. I write everyday, but I often take days off just for fun. (You know, they're "thinking" days!) Maybe I should try to work in a coffee shop or library for a while just to see if that would incite me to work...
You've given me a lot to think about! Thanks! :)
Thankyou for giving us such great tips.I am new here and this helped me so much!:)
So you mean to earn hubber scores, one needs to write a lot consistently following a particular schedule? Well, I really don't think that is going to work as I can see my hubber score going down severely despite writing original content.
Crazzykylex, I don't think the consistency with which you write really influences your hubber score very more. Frequent updates and new content freshen up your account and probably improve your score, but writing regularly is a habit of a highly successful writer. It is a way to fine-tune and best use your own resources while working as a writer.
What kind of "frequent updates"? Will you please elaborate, rmcleve?
Thank you so much to everyone that has taken the time to comment on this Hub! These are just some of the habits that many writers obtain when they start working as freelancers full-time.
When you are your own boss, you have to make sure you are on top of everything so that you make the money that you want every month!
Thank you all for your comments again!
Great advice! I'm new to all of this and I appreciate your insight and experience.
Voted up and awesome, also printing in order to study and scrutinize more closely, this is my first Hub read and first comment. I am a newbie.
Thank you for showing me how unorganized I am. Good Hub. Can't wait to put it to use.
Hi,
A good article for newbies and even for experienced. Though I am not a full time freelance writer, I use some of these techniques. I am getting good traffic to my hubs and blogs. I am able to make my brand and fan base.
Thanks, rated up and useful.
Thank you for this group of tips...I am working this as if I were going to the office everyday and enjoy it alot. I can use these tips...thanks!!!
Thank you for the tips. I am new and just starting out and all the research i do on here is helpful.
Very interesting article. I'm new to freelance writing and can use all the advice I can get. One thing I'd add is to make sure you proofread your writing before you publish:) Thanks so much for your advice and inspiration.
Great hub! Thank you for the reminders and hints. I will definitely be revisiting this hub.
Great post, and as someone who would like to do more writing it makes a lot of sense. I tend to have an unstructured approach and I've often felt my writing is not as productive as it could be. I'll definitely be implementing these tips from now on. Thanks
Very interesting article. I will use this information carefully.
Great hub. Writing about what you know is definitely a great quality of a good writer.
Really, I am trying to find a new topic or revise some of my work I have done here on HUB and all these comments are helping me get a new perspective....Thanks and I like this more than FB,
This is a great addition to your 30/30 challenge, and I respect the fact that you were truly honest in this Hub. I've noticed this a lot recently, that people will write articles only giving half the story so that they can sell you some bogus product that will then give you the full story.
Voted up and useful!
Thanks for this. Another useful article for those of us that are new to this. I especially need to do some thinking about putting all my eggs in one basket!
Ethan
Wonderful hub! voted up and useful! and... it seems like am the only dummy around here but can someone please tell me how i can chain or share links?
It is crazy making fun. I have tried following some of this steps too. They are starting to work some interesting stuff in the process. You have made this SEO process something we can truly understand. And implement. I write stuff on a couple of other sites now too, cause they help me learn things in an easy way, like this. STILL a super hub!
Thanks for giving this great information. I think backlinking has really helped improve my viewership. I will check out freelancing job sites. Voted up! Take care, Kelley
I think one of the toughest habits to get in is writing on a schedule and not a whim. However, I have learned that coming up with a great idea to write about and the actual writing are two different process. Don't sit down and try to come up with the idea and write in the same session.
I do agree with you TheMMAZone. I usually come up with ideas and jot them down. Do some research and start writing the most inspiring one. It is not easy to conceptualise and bring the idea to fruition in the same session. The advice here is good as a guide, but ultimately one has to establish a routine that works for them. At least writing something everyday (alternating with revisions) is a must.
Wow!!! For fresh writers it gives insight. Natural and nice writing skill is needed for it.
It gives me a new way of looking at things to write about when reading this....Thanks its great!
Thank you for the hub, I am in the process of establishing myself as a writer. I need all the help I can get.
Wow! What a wonderful piece of writing there. I felt that one needs to be more or less like a principled person, disciplined and accountable before writing. I find your article very helpful. Keep writing! Voted up
Very helpful! Thank you for sharing.
Voted up and posted on my Twitter. Facebook and Pinterest pages. Well done, keep up the good work..
I found your hub to be useful and interesting. Voted it up!
I want to be a best writer but firt i have to improve my vocabulary , You hub is very helpful to me
I was encouraged by this page. When I find the mark, I'll cover it because a good writer is, as you say . . . Good.
An article full of habits I can learn. So great!
But managing many websites and blogs is tough to me
Very Nice Hub..
I really found the information very good and useful. I will try to put this approach in my work.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks a lot! Great hub and tons of savvy advice. Will apply some immediately.
Great hub! Can read over and over again as it gives so much info in relation to becoming a great online writer. Thanks and voted up!
Great hub. I like the balanced approach you have illustrated i.e. the inclusion of point 4. Health is very important to success. Really enjoyable hub to read with good tips. Well done.
Writing for a living is not the same as writing to please an audience. Successful freelancers work when their fingers and eyes are begging to rest, why? They work as per their schedules and timeline because they know, the flipping point is never certain. If you know what it takes to make a dollar, you can keep on doing the same thing over. When you make a dollar, you use it to feed the goose so that it lays more dollars. Great freelancers understand the power of focus and persistence. They do not indulge in feel good breaks. Lastly, as a great freelancer, you have to operate on the edge, at the place where work feels both incredible and fearful. When you make it, you make it big.
Nice description of professional writing!
Freelance writing is a lot like a regular job. You're expected to show up and work regular hours, set goals and achieve them, network with other and more. Sounds exactly like what you've described here. Why writers think they can be success otherwise I don't understand. Your hub does an excellent job of spelling this out. Voted up, useful and interesting!
This is a helpful hub to me as a new freelance writer. I really love writing and am spending every bit of my free from house works hours in here. Thank you very much and God Bless You.
It is really informative and descriptive. Also helpful for the writer who are very new like me. Thanks for sharing this with us.
Great advice! It takes a great deal of self-control to work from a home office as many freelance writers do and you offer some best practices in this hub. Thank you.
I am learning new things every day about writing even though I have done a lot of it in the last 10 years. I love writing and am so glad to be on HubPages and am celebrating the 2nd week!! Yippee
Great hub! I'm a newbie, and I could use all the tips that you've given. Thanks!
Prakash
Great advice! It took me years to learn these points.
Thank you Jessi10, You have touched on a great subject and it has helped me to understand it better.
Ruby H Rose Level 5 Commenter 3 months ago
True, true and very true. Thank you. Great Hub. Oh yes, the 30/30 I must try it.