If you are a creative independent, idea-driven person, ready to work hard for the lifestyle you deserve, you might be a feisty freelancer.
And today we're talking with Suzanne Bowness, author of the fabulous book, The Feisty Freelancer.
Suzanne has a PhD in English and teaches writing and freelancing at Humber College in Toronto.
And the book captures the lessons she's learned from building a business, trying new things, making mistakes, picking new directions and generally enjoying life as a 20-plus year freelancer.
Suzanne Bowness, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much.
I'm a longtime listener, so it's fun to be a guest.
I'm so excited to have you.
I loved your book.
I thought it was just great.
And the advice that you have would be useful to people anytime.
But I got my start freelancing many years ago when I got laid off from a job.
And in the book, you say you got your start when you got laid off too.
And I see news story after news story these days about people getting laid off.
So I thought this was an especially important topic or helpful topic to have right now.
Yeah, it was actually my first job and my whole magazine folded that I was working at.
I was online editor at a general interest magazine here in Canada.
At 25 years old, I didn't even realize I didn't know layoff was a thing.
It hadn't really clued into me that your job could be on one day and you're working hard and then off the next day.
So it came as a real shock.
I did walk home in tears with my box in my hands kind of things.
But then after that, you know you're always thinking about well, what will be next for me, even when you're just starting out.
And I really thought I'd really like to be writing more.
And I realized that working at a busy magazine you do do a lot of administration and management and that kind of thing.
And even though that was really fun being part of that team environment, I thought I really want to get back to writing.
That's what I want to be doing for my whole career.
Also at the same time, I saw these freelancers swanning in and out of the office having their meetings with our senior editors and I thought oh, that sounds fun.
They get to make their own schedule.
And so I thought I would try that when I got laid off.
Actually, it's not the advice that I would give to somebody who is 25 at this point.
I would say, and to my younger self and I do say to my students today Go and get educated and mentored in your industry for maybe 10 years or so.
And so get that extra unless you're really sure that you want to start your business to try to get as much learning as you can and then go freelance, kind of thing.
So but for me, it just happened at the time and it was something I was really eager about.
And I realized that I had the self-discipline to get myself to my desk at nine o'clock in the morning every day.
And it turns out I really like the lifestyle.
It really works for me.
I like the variety, having different clients and that kind of thing.
And so...
I think you want to decide if you're that kind of person.
I've certainly met along the way freelancers who are like me, really like this lifestyle and have the feistiness maybe, the continuation, the persistence to, to continue after it.
And then some people it doesn't work for them or they really prefer to get lonely in a home office and they really prefer to be working in a team.
And so I include some exercises in the book just to help you figure out which one you are.
And you know you can always try it.
But it helps to sort of know yourself before you move into that freelancing, especially full-time.
Yeah no, I love working for myself and the freedom you know to take off two hours in the middle of the day and go to the grocery store when it's not crowded or go see a matinee or something like that.
I was actually surprised to read that you try to work like nine to five, nine to six.
I'm like, oh, I could never do that.
But that's the wonderful thing about freelancing is like it can be whatever you want it to be for yourself.
You have so much more freedom.
Exactly.
Yeah.
You can plan out your schedule.
I just work nine to five because if I didn't I would be jealous of people at rest when I have to work, kind of thing.
And that's when my editors and clients are around.
So, I tend to do that.
And then my tendency is to slide into workaholism.
So I actually have to make the cap at five and say, when I started out, I used to plan a yoga class once a week, for example, to make sure that I stopped work at five and then revisit.
And even today I still like, even if I have a lot on the go, I'll stop at five, take a walk, do something that makes me realize.
So separation is good.
And is it really important to continue this tonight?
No, it's not.
I can finish it up tomorrow and I'll probably have a fresher head when I'm doing so.
Oh, that's really smart.
Yeah, I find that when I had a dog, it was great because she would like prompt me to go for walks.
That was really helpful.
Yeah, exactly.
So I think when people think about freelancing, I mean what your advice applies to anyone who wants to freelance in any field.
But you are a writer and I'm a writer.
So when people think about freelance writing, I think they often tend to think about magazines and newspaper articles and traditional things like that.
But I always found that corporate work was a really important part of making a successful freelance life where you could support yourself.
And you said the same thing in your book.
So can you talk about sort of the avenues that are available that people might not first think of when they're trying to think about well, how do I become a freelancer and make it work?
Yeah, definitely a major percentage of my work is corporate work.
And you know, when we think about corporate we really think like boring and office and a lot of negatives.
But actually, a lot of my corporate work is like work I would do for magazines.
It just happens to be for a company or an organization.
And I'm a specialist in long form content, meaning I write a lot of articles and blog posts and I interview a lot of people.
And so I write journalistic style articles that just happen to be for my corporate clients, which currently are People in colleges and universities.
I write a lot for their websites, their blogs, that kind of thing just highlighting a lot of the exciting and interesting research that's going on at universities and colleges and then other markets that are interested in in that kind of long-form storytelling are interesting to me because that's what I like to do.
So I would say that there's a lot of industries out there, and the way to find them is just to see –
How much content are they producing?
Are they producing the kind of content that you like to write?
And if they are, that might be the niche or the industry for you.
So the economics of writing is challenging, just like any business.
It's tough to make a living by generating something from nothing kind of thing, and then even for us writers it's like we're in a glamour industry.
People do this on the side, after their work, and we're trying to do it as a full-time work, and so it means that there you have to hustle a little bit.
Sometimes there's a little bit of competition, because what we actually get to do is really quite fun.
You talked about finding those lucrative niches.
You were talking about your work for universities.
Then I started thinking about it.
You're right.
I do get three different alumni magazines or newsletters from the colleges I went to.
And they have a lot of articles.
They're profiling people all the time.
When I was working, I wrote a lot of the content for the Stanford University Cancer Center website.
And every page about every disease needed content.
And then we interviewed the doctors and talked about their philosophies and the groundbreaking treatments.
And there's just so much, like just a university alone publishes.
What are some other sort of high value industries that are good targets for people?
So I think high value.
If you think about the classic industry where you think oh, people in that industry must make a lot of money.
For example, banks make a lot of money and healthcare makes a lot of money.
Those are industries that need to both connect with their readers, connect with their audience and people, and that kind of thing.
And then they would tend to put out a lot of money publications and need to have a presence on social media.
If you're wanting to look at industries that pay well, look for the industries that are traditionally known for having a richer budget.
And then also look for how many kinds of publications.
So any place that puts out content is really an industry for you.
More, sure, like financial, health, business, that kind of thing.
But you could also do it like location-based.
You could become the writer in your town kind of thing, right?
And service all of the small businesses in your local area if that's the way to start.
Or you could become like a real expert in a particular niche and say you know, i've been, i encouraged.
Say, five years ago, when esports and gaming really came out, i was like hey, new writers, this is a niche, right?
Um, if you got really good, it's not a it's not a huge niche yet because it's still like evolving, but But if you got really good at this, this might be a way for the right person who has the enthusiasm for it already, to develop that niche.
So in terms of finding the niche, I would say like...
You want to explore the niche by and this is an assignment I do with my students to have them look into the industry and find out what do they publish.
Are there magazines in that area?
Are there enough clients in the area?
Say, for example, healthcare.
What are the kinds of clients you could write for?
Sometimes you want to expand your definition of the niche.
So you could say oh, I could write for everything from big hospitals that have large fundraising departments, or I could write for yoga studios, right?
So the definition of health can be very...
Big or small, depending on how you focus the niche.
And then to see if there are there enough clients in my area.
Maybe my area is in my entire country kind of thing.
Maybe my area is my town or my state or province.
And so that can be a way to find out.
And then finding out how people get work in that niche.
That can be helpful too.
One of the other assignments i have my students do is like connect with somebody who's already either writing in that niche or who's already working in that nation.
Find out a little bit more about them, and the more research you can do is quite helpful.
Then to say that you can expand your niche is also accurate, because I started my niche in 2002, when I started my writing business.
I started writing about technology because at the time it was at the end of the tech boom.
I identified it as a niche like I would love to write book reviews all day long, but that niche doesn't particularly pay.
So I'm like what is a niche that I can deal with and feel enthusiasm enough for in order to be excited to write in there?
And then also that will have enough clients.
For me.
I identified technology early on, and then I got a little bit tired of doing only tech stories.
So then I thought, well, what's another adjacent niche, right?
So I started writing some business and entrepreneurship kind of stories, right?
So I just kind of moved along in niches that interested me.
And I came to my current niche in education after I finished my PhD and thought you know, now I'm kind of an expert because I know this area.
I know how the university works.
I know there's a ton of really interesting research out there.
And so I can describe myself as somebody who's really interested and knowledgeable about that world.
And so that's when I started to reach out, also because I figured they have a bunch of the kind of work that I like to do telling long form stories.
In the beginning you talked about trying to get a little bit of work experience under your belt before you freelance, if you can.
And knowing people, like knowing people in different industries is a huge leg up.
When I first started writing, I was writing almost exclusively for people I knew from the jobs that I had had before.
Then you start thinking about like okay, who do I know?
Who could give me that first leg in, that first break to get some work under your belt?
And then so then when you identify like the places that you want to – target as writing.
You know, I actually I think I highlighted the entire chapter of your book about pitching.
You know, I had my highlighter and I'm like, oh, this is a good part.
Oh, this is a good part, too.
And the whole thing was just great.
And I think a lot of people struggle with how to do that, how to pitch, how to reach out, especially cold pitching.
When you're getting started, you're asking people you know, but you also probably need to ask some people you don't know.
Once someone has identified some prospective clients, how do you tell your students to proceed when they're just getting started?
To be honest, I still do a lot of cold pitching myself.
I do it a couple of times a year.
I reach out to identify potential new clients, and so, um it's.
The success rate is not great like it's.
Uh, it's true to say the success rate is about five percent.
So if you send out a hundred emails, you're going to hear back from five and maybe two will turn into clients.
But that's two clients that you didn't have before and that could turn into those valuable long term relationships.
So I think that the effort is still worth doing it.
And plus, I think it's really and I talk about a lot in the book because I think it's really actionable for a new freelancer who doesn't have a network yet.
Right.
I'm always like roll my eyes at freelancers.
Peer freelancers who might have been doing it for a long time, and they say well, just get a network.
And I'm like, that's not actionable for a young person or somebody who's new to the industry.
And so they need to...
Find something that with the right energy and attention, they can make something happen.
So when I want to start outreach, I list all the communications directors and managers across Canada in that niche.
I often will start with just my own country.
Or if it's a little overwhelming, I'll start with just my own province or city.
And then I send them a letter of introduction, which I include a couple of examples of in the book.
And if I'm starting into a new niche, I try to maybe get on a Zoom call with somebody who's in that industry and see if I can get any intelligence on more about it kind of thing that can be useful.
But I just send out maybe my hundred letters and then see which five come back and see which ones that I can turn into clients right.
And then I keep in touch.
And so I will often email my contacts, maybe twice a year friendly polite, telling them what I'm up to or what latest things I've published, reminding them that I'm out here still, because sometimes people with freelancers they think it's very temporary.
Right. for some people, right?
It's what you do between jobs and then you get your regular job and you're no longer a freelancer.
But for somebody like me, like a career freelancer, which it's turned into a career and that's fun.
But it means that sometimes people think you've gone away and I'm still here.
I remind people.
I'm still here, still ready to work and that kind of thing.
So I reach out and I still get good response.
And sometimes it turns into a client and a long term relationship.
And that's awesome.
So those are ways that I use my cold outreach.
How do you find the right people to contact?
Often I will look on the website.
So, for example, for if I'm looking up say, for a university client, I'll look under sometimes for a small university that might have a centralized one communications director.
And so I might reach out to that person.
Job titles I identify are often communications director or communications manager.
You like to talk or reach out to the supervisor, because they're the ones who would have the power to make an assignment, to say yes or no kind of thing.
And often I'll be passed along to somebody else and I'll hear the response back will be from somebody else.
And I'll say, oh, great.
You know the system is working and that the communications director sent my information to the person who actually does the assignments.
But those are the job titles I look for.
Sometimes I will look on LinkedIn if I haven't found it on their website, and I'll just search for communications director at whatever location institution that I'm looking for and see if I can find them there.
That can be another place to send a note to them and gauge their interest kind of thing.
I try to keep my own LinkedIn presence fairly active, such that I'm, you know, Clearly looking like somebody who's engaged and interested in writing.
I post about writing all the time.
Try to do it once a week and make sure that I look like the kind of person you'd like to hire.
Do you think that having an active social media presence is essential these days?
Or do you think that, you know, some people don't want to do it?
Can you be a successful freelancer without it?
I think it's pretty essential.
I know there's different viewpoints on that.
I have always had a writer website because when I started my business, one of my sidelines was creating websites for other writers.
So I had a good website myself.
And I use that for all my projects as kind of like the central place to keep all my portfolios and that kind of thing.
I think it's really useful.
And then I usually choose one or two social platforms at a time to really try to be active on.
And it's whatever one seems to be the hot topic these days.
I came onto Instagram a little late kind of thing.
And it was because I was like, come on, Sue, you've got to get onto Instagram.
For your business.
And because that's where everybody is.
Right.
So it's like you identify sort of the essential platforms.
I don't think it's essential.
But yeah, I do think it's essential because it's you do get a lot more work.
You look active.
And I think like.
If I'm looking for a service provider, who's the person I'm going to hire?
Am I going to hire the person who is engaged and has a social presence when I go to their website?
Is it easy for me to figure out what they do if they're the person for me?
That's who I'm going to hire.
So that's the person I want to be.
And so I find having a good website, good LinkedIn presence because that's now essential.
And then being on a couple of social platforms is really, if not essential, it's very important.
So, when you identify the people you're pitching, do you find them on LinkedIn and follow them and start engaging with them.
You're saying you're contacting maybe 100 people.
That seems like a lot to try to interact with.
Yeah, so actually, I tend to engage more with the people who've responded to me.
And so, for example, if you know I mentioned that like maybe five you'll hear back from it's a little bit more.
It's sometimes, you know, like 10 or 15 you'll hear back from and they'll say we don't need anybody right now.
But your information is on file.
And I'm like, great, follow, follow, follow and see like what's up with you.
And you know, like they've been nice enough to see me as a professional and reach out.
I want to be in their professional circles.
So I will follow them on LinkedIn and see what kind of thing that they're putting out.
I'll definitely have more interest in what they're doing as an organization.
And maybe for my next outreach I'll be able to even be more targeted and talk about what they're doing and identify places for people me to get in there.
And so I definitely follow all of the organizations that I reach out to.
And then in terms of like, whether I engage with them as much.
Certainly, if they followed me back, then yes, I'm engaging with them and And try to just find any way to be friendly and helpful.
And that's what I'm doing with my emails.
And that's what I try to do on social as well.
Yeah, it sounds like you put a lot of care into your pitches and your research.
And you know, I thought it was really good advice to talk about like, give a different kind of pitch for a different kind of work or a different kind of company that you're approaching.
Yeah, definitely to identify the kind of niche that you're reaching out to and likely it's that you're interested in that niche, right?
So show that interest in terms of like showing.
You know if you're reaching out in the arts niche like show your artiness.
If you're reaching out...
In the accounting niche, like show that you're smart in that area or you know you might cure social presence and link website and that kind of thing kind of fit into that area that you're interested in.
Yeah, and then keeping track of all the people you're pitching.
When I first started freelancing, I was surprised by how many things I had to keep track of, including Who hadn't paid me when they were supposed to.
I assumed everyone would just pay me like they were supposed to, but they don't.
And you have to keep track of all that.
And you talk about tracking things too in the book.
How do you keep track of all those people you're pitching?
Because it sounds like there's a lot.
Do you just use a spreadsheet or do you have like a full contact management system?
I actually started it with just a fancy spreadsheet.
And now I use a tool that I add onto my email that shows you when your email is being opened just by somebody who you sent it to.
That helps to know whether I'm sending my outreach to a dead email address.
Maybe if it's never being open, never being looked at, then maybe something's wrong with my outreach.
Maybe it's gone directly to spam kind of thing.
So that can be useful.
And then I still use a spreadsheet to list everyone that I've reached out to as a way of tracking their reactions.
So I have little codes for myself.
NR is no response.
And Then a comment, you know, if somebody said, we'll keep on file, but we'll keep on file.
And then I know like at least they got back to me and they might be interested and I'm on their file.
So they might be a good one for a follow up reminder in six months kind of thing.
So I keep I use a spreadsheet for that.
And then in terms of my projects, because there are a lot of projects to work on.
I use just a project management tool for myself and my virtual assistant to stay organized.
So I just have like a list of stories I'm working on and then I have, you know, draft one, draft two in approvals.
And so that way I'm able to keep on track of whatever you know eight to 10 projects I'm working on at a time.
Yeah.
Do you struggle to find a reason to follow up with people, or do you just say you know, just a general following up, or do you try to have some reason to send the follow up email?
I think if I had, if somebody is a more current client, like if this is a past client, because often you'll have a client that you'll work for for two years and then they just don't need you anymore.
They lapse or something like that forever.
Those clients, I am interested in finding out, seeing what they're doing and that kind of thing.
So I'll reach out to them and I'll mention either work that we've done before in the past or I say oh, I see you launched a new edition of the magazine and I'll do that.
For new clients that I'm just cold outreach, I don't do personalizing as much.
I certainly... find their name and talk about the kinds of things.
If I'll say I noticed you published an annual report, I'll definitely confirm that they published an annual report before I put that into my email.
But for each of them, I kind of take a template and I polish it and tailor it as much as I can.
And then I send those out and then sort of see what comes back kind of thing.
Because I'm surprised sometimes that people that you don't expect to hear about it's not always the institution you expect.
That will get back to you right.
So I feel like I want to put, I want as many people in my niche to know that I am available to them.
And I'm trying to position myself as a helper.
You know somebody that might take work off their desk.
Maybe they're totally stressed out, right?
And so I think when you're thinking of it that way, rather than like asking for work, then it flips the script on that.
And I'm able to, both for myself and my own mindset, I'm able to think of that in a positive way.
And then I honestly believe for them that I'm trying to help make their work life better.
Yeah.
I think and there's such, I think it's really important because there is a lot of rejection and you know you talk about just the luck of it.
And I found that too.
Like you.
Just you approach people at the time when they desperately need someone and they'll hire you.
And if, if they don't need someone right then they won't.
It's, it's, Often not about you, but more about the situation in which your pitch finds someone.
Yeah, totally.
You know, I got a recent client that I had been following up with for two years.
And two years ago, they didn't need me.
And today they need me kind of thing, right?
So it's like...
If you get, if you get like five acceptances, it means that you got 95 rejections really.
So it's always a drag.
It always feels a little, you know, But when you make outreach, feel like a production, like I'm like okay, twice a year, this is what I do.
Part of my business, it hurts less because it feels less personal, right?
And so, and then I also, so that's one way I deal with it just to make it part of the routine.
And then another way is just to think about my editor's job and how busy they are and realize like it truly is not me.
You know, I think there's lots of editors who are overworked out there.
I know a lot of them kind of thing and they have busy jobs and When I ask them oh, didn't you get my email or something, they'll be like you know what?
Honestly, I've been so swamped.
And I believe them.
It's true.
I think the only time when I'm annoyed is when somebody doesn't get back to me serially.
I feel like that's rude just to not say, oh, thanks for your, we'll keep your notes on file.
That's why I love the keep your notes on file piece, because they at least get back to me and I know okay great, I'm on file, kind of thing.
Like there's at least a communications there and that can be really helpful.
Definitely.
And we've been talking a lot about people who are just getting started as freelancers.
But you know, your book has a lot of interesting information for established freelancers too.
What would you say are the one or two best pieces of advice you have for people who've been freelancing for a while?
I would say that remember, this is your business.
And it's been a while.
If it's been a while since you've taken a long weekend of a vacation, remember that you don't have to ask anybody and that you can make that happen.
And so do it.
And so start a podcast or write, Write a book or do something you know, whatever you want to do in your business.
And I like to experiment in my business.
I'll try something out if that's working right.
Great.
You know, if I'll try something and if it's not working, I drop it.
Right.
And so it's like I always, when I find myself getting a little bit like bored or frustrated, I'm like This is your business, Sue.
You can do what you want.
And like, yeah, I do things in careful, planned ways, but I take action if I'm feeling dissatisfied.
So I guess that's the first one piece of advice.
And then I also tell people to use your downtime well.
So I use mine to batch blog posts and learn new tools specifically.
And so in the summertime again, that flips my attitude on it, because in the summertime, instead of getting worried about, you know, having a quieter July.
And I'll think like oh, this is the time that I will be able to maximize my time such that, in the fall when I'm really busy, I won't be worried about writing blog posts, because I'll have written them now.
This summer, I used some of my quiet time in July to...
Finally, download and learn some AI tools and see, figure out how to incorporate them into my business or how to use them if a client says that they're using them.
That kind of thing.
It's something I've been meaning to do all year.
Did I have time before July?
I did not.
When I'm able to look forward to my downtime and making the most of it.
I think that that can be useful and really take the stress out of the slow times.
Yeah, and it does help.
You get it after you've done it for a while, you realize these are just slow times.
So planning for it is so smart.
The book is filled with just this kind of practical information that we've been talking about.
There's so much more there.
The book, again, is The Feisty Freelancer by Suzanne Bonas.
Suzanne, where can people find you online?
So I do like to make websites.
I made one for the book.
It's called feistyfreelancer.com.
So just feisty freelancer.
And just because I've written a book doesn't mean I'm too famous to be hired for long form content.
So my business website is codewordcommunications and that's codewordcacom with, because I'm in Canada and we have ca as our extension.
Nice, codeword.ca.
Yes.
And thank you so much.
And if you enjoyed this episode.
Share it with a friend who might be thinking about freelancing.
Tell them about Suzanne and her book.
And don't forget to follow or subscribe wherever you're listening.
If you are a Grammarpalooza supporter.
In the bonus episode we're going to talk to Sue about how AI is affecting life as a freelancer.
And we'll also get her book recommendations, which I always love.
So look for that in your feed or in your text messages.
And if you'd like to become a Grammarpalusian and help support the show.
Every subscription really does make a difference.
And you can find more information at at quickanddirtytips.com slash bonus.
Suzanne Bonas, thank you so much for being here.
Awesome.
Thanks so much.
You bet.
And everyone else, that's all.
Thanks for listening.
