Are You Ready for OR Resisting the Freelancer’s Summer Slowdown?

By Dana Prince

School is OUT for summer! Does summer slow down for your freelance writing career? For some writers, this is welcome. Some of us have kids at home, some of us like to get out more. But some of us dread the dip in income and the scrambling. Summer is here so here are some things you could do if your volume is slipping and you’re not so happy about it:

• Contact your existing customers and say Hello to ones you haven’t heard from in a while. Many of them may be on holidays so not ordering as much automatically but a bit of gentle prodding or a summer sale could get their attention. An approach I tried last year worked out well for me in a post I wrote for my customer blog that suggested that summer time was a great time for them to up their content publishing efforts. (Feel free to give it a read at: Summer Time, a Great Time for You to Make More Money Online)

• Do some marketing. Raise your writing profile, use social marketing, do some article marketing, and you could get some new queries.

• Content companies. Many writers don’t like dealing with content companies and the pay could be lower than you’re accustomed to but if you’re not against it (or are in a pinch), many of them offer an all-you-can-write buffet, which could be the ticket to filling in some summer schedule gaps. (Options could include: Break Studios, Demand Studios, TextBroker, Internet Brands)

• Start bidding on a job site like Elance. You could grab some one-off gigs or find new long-term customers.

If you’d rather take advantage of your lighter workload, you could also do the following:

• Finally work on that novel you’ve been meaning to tackle. Or, write and market an e-book for additional residual income that could help you through NEXT summer.

• Start some niche blogs or other content sites to generate passive income and more writing samples.

• Read. Read about writing, read about marketing your business, or read a few great novels that you’ve been meaning to get to.

Care to share any of your summer strategies?

Have a safe and happy summer.