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The clients are “not there” for all freelancers, until we go out and proactively market and find them. Take responsibility for your business success and realize it’s up to you to get out there and look for new clients (or new projects from current clients).

Don’t have a writer website? It’s time to get one. You really can’t present yourself professionally these days without a site.

Tweaking your site copy is something you can do 10 minutes a day on, and it’s well worth it to up your odds of drawing prospects to you.

First, the more money a potential client has, the more they’ll be willing to pay you. Bloggers and content creators don’t typically earn much money from advertising. That’s why revenue sharing sites, which share advertising revenue with writers in exchange for content, often pay a relatively low rate. Magazine editors and book publishers are somewhere in the middle. They pay reasonably well, but they’re looking for extremely high quality, so you’ve got to be real good to get their attention. Business owners who have a steady income usually pay the most generous fees to writers. Businesses have a budget for marketing, so they’ve got cash to splash.

Website owners should use hyperlinks carefully, such as by checking they are not linking to subscription-only content and that the terms of the site linked to permit such an action.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle

Not only did his book confirm for me that the best way to create a positive change is through small acts repeated daily, but the book was exceptionally well written and researched — impressive in that the author is not a professional writer — and so applicable to the many writers I meet who struggle with getting query letters out the door or writing big projects like books and novels.

There are two kinds of motivation. The first type is having a reason for doing something. My motivation for exercise is to look and feel healthy. My motivation for doing this interview is that you asked me to do it and I want to spread the word about mini habits. Unlike the next definition of motivation, your reason for doing things is generally very stable and changes very little over time. There’s also emotional motivation, which is rooted in enthusiasm and determines your willingness to take action in the moment (“This year I’m going to get in shape so I’m off to the gym!”). Most goal systems rely on this type of motivation; they’ll tell you that you need to find this motivation to succeed. The problem is that emotional motivation isn’t reliable or habit friendly.