Words to the Wise

According to my birth certificate and the posts on my Facebook wall, I had a birthday recently. If you didn’t wish me a happy birthday, please don’t feel one iota of guilt. If it was my birthday and we were in the same room, I still wouldn’t tell you. I don’t like to impose.

Call it counterintuitive, call it the freelancer’s curse, call it whatever - but I work on my birthday. Ever since I was old enough to work, I’ve worked on my birthday.

It’s a part of me.

I do it because I feel like I owe that day to myself to work extra hard and have something to show for it. And what better way to spend it than doing something that will further my entrepreneurial mind (or at least get some bills paid).

It’s my gift to me.

People give strange looks when I explain the sheer empowerment that I feel by working on my birthday, and the joy I get at the end of that day when I sit down and eat my cake. Because, when I look back, it’s harder to see the last 3X years of my life than it is it to see the present day and the things I’ve accomplished in the previous 8, 10, 12 or 14 hours.

Of course, I try to look back on every day this way, but it takes on a special meaning during my birthday. I am fortunate to come from a family of entrepreneurs and workaholics. Fortunately those genes didn’t skip this generation.

So, happy belated workday to me.

A web designer/friend of mine called this week to talk about the economy and his job. He mentioned that in these current economic times, he believes it’s often ‘creatives like us’ who are the first to lose our jobs.

Now, I’m no economist, but I am a big fan of exact language, so I had to correct him before he got too much farther into the conversation.

“You mean creatives like you,” was my interjection.

I’m paraphrasing here, but his response involved a blanket statement placing both of us in the same realm of creative ‘employment’ whose inhabitants are at increased risk of losing their jobs in tough economic times due to decreased marketing budgets, blah, blah, blah.

“Maybe,” I said. “But I’ll never lose my job. Even if I have no clients and no income, it will ultimately be my decision to give up. Nobody can fire me, nobody can cut my salary and nobody can pass me on the corporate ladder.”

I think he grasped the concept, but he strikes me as a serial careerist, so I’m not so sure. The last eight years of my life have been a balance between freelancing, full-time employment, part-time employment, self-employment and (I’m being realistic here) plain old collecting unemployment.

But that was a long time ago. It took me a little while to catch on and say ‘hey, I’m in charge here’ and put my all into freelancing. I now count myself among the lucky ones to be working for myself. Yes there are added stresses, but, to me anyway, stress is just a code word for fear of which I apparently have little.

Look at all the things I have to be thankful for as a freelancer:

• I work from my home office via the Internet and buy gas one or two times a month
• My clients are located around the world - I estimate I’ve met 5% of them face-to-face
• Even if the economy sucks, I can find new income streams via the Internet without worry about the boss firing me for surfing the web
• My online network exceeds my offline network by a ratio of 75:1 - I am officially connected
• Nobody tells me to stay late - I decide when to do the extra effort
• There are no egos to protect, no gossip and no HR departments to hassle you with lame policies

I can certainly see my friend’s point about how tough economic times can affect creatives, and by no means do I consider myself impervious to the current markets. But, when my friend’s company cuts jobs, it means someone becomes unemployed. When I cut back, it usually means peanut butter and jelly for lunch - if I eat lunch.

Jason Pedley is a freelance copywriter in Clayton, North Carolina. He’s been hired, fired, laid off, yelled at, called ‘F#$^ing stupid’ and sent cease and desist letters by former employers. Now, he laughs at all (and thanks some) of his former employers while he writes marketing copy for his clients around the world.

Some days, it seems like all I get in my inbox are questions. I find myself answering questions about copywriting, questions about marketing, questions about search engines.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind the questions. In fact, I welcome them…although sometimes I get people who just pick my brain with no intention of hiring me. I weed these people out with some carefully worded follow-up questions.

Regardless, I figured my blog would be a great place to talk about some of these questions and share my knowledge and experience with you. Some of the questions are technical, some are personal, and some you’ll just have to figure out for yourself.

1. What did you study in college to become a freelance copywriter? Good question. In my final year of high school, I had to decide what I would study in college. Since I truly had no idea what I wanted to be, I decided that PR would give me a foundation and skillset that I could leverage the most. But even though I studied PR, my most important lessons have been learned in life. There’s no class that teaches you how to navigate your way through the freelance world. I truly do learn something new every day.

2. Have you ever thought about leaving the world of freelance copywriting and getting a full-time job working for someone else? Yes! If any freelancer tells you otherwise, I’ll bet money their lying to impress you. While there are certainly times I think about leaving my freelance copywriting gig, these times are usually short-lived thanks to some good friends and colleagues. I’m very independent and can only work for certain types of bosses…the ones who are the most like me. Go figure.

3. What’s your methodology for reviewing websites? Good question. One of the first things I do when I review a website is to look at the message it sends. Your website either says you’re professional or you’re not. After looking at the overall message, I look at the content you have - its navigation, usefulness, purpose and length. Then I get into technical aspects, like keyword choice, title tags, descriptions, etc. If you’ve had your website reviewed and want a second opinion, let me know.

4. Do you use any special software to write copy? Not really. I use Word for 90% of the work I do. I also use a program called CopyWrite for some projects that have multiple elements, chapters etc. Some days, I just close my computer, pick up and number 2 pencil and write.

5. Why are you such a critic of podcasting? Let’s clarify here. I never said I dislike or don’t see any value in podcasting. I DO however say that there are some really BAD podcasts out there. Most podcasts are recorded by PR agencies who don’t have the time, manpower or experience to truly grasp podcasting for the opportunity that it is. Podcasts aren’t ‘off the cuff’ conversations. If they are, then chances are they’re worthless. You can view some of my other blog posts to get more of my opinion on this topic.

I’m in the process of three freelance copywriting projects and a number of projects for my websites jasonpedley.com and relocateclayton-nc.com. When I think about the projects for my websites, they seem daunting. My goal is to write 520 posts per year to my relocation blog and 100 posts per year to this blog. Broken down, that’s two posts per day for the Clayton site and two posts per week for this blog. Break it down even further, and I figure I can write one post every half hour making the time about an hour a day or on the days I write for both sites, 1.5 hours.

I can find an hour a day - by getting up a half hour earlier, staying up a half hour later, or by cutting out a few hobbies that consume my time such as TV.

Either way, when broken into smaller parts, projects take on a manageable form. For my relocation site, I’ve even made a list of ideas for posts, so I spend less time thinking and more time writing.

Who me? I’m still here. My blog had been in limbo as I made the transition from WordPress hosting to housing my blog at jasonpedley.com.

As you can see, my blog and I are back. If you’re signed up to receive updates, you’ll still get them. If you haven’t signed up for updates, look to your right, enter your email and you’ll get updates every week or two.

Thanks.

Jason