Let’s admit it: freelancing can be scary.

There are so many things to worry about (especially if you’re a worrier to begin with). What if you don’t make enough money this month? What if your client hates your work? What if your quote is too high? What if this whole freelancing thing is a giant mistake? You get the idea.

But it’s impossible to move forward when you’re mired in fear and doubt. So what can you do to get past your fears and build a successful freelance business? Here are a few ideas.

1.  Focus on sales first. As a freelancer, selling your services has to be at the top of your list. You could be the best writer/ designer/ whatever in the world, but if you have no clients, you’re out of business. So the next time you find yourself fretting about where your next paycheck is coming from, focus on marketing and sales.

That probably means getting a little bit out of your comfort zone - selling is uncomfortable for most of us. But you have no choice if you’re going to make it as a freelancer, so you might as well start now. Make some phone calls, set up a few meetings, put together a special package and market it online, just do something to get the ball rolling. This is my favorite strategy and always makes me feel better.

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Last weekend, two days after school let out, my youngest went camping with some older Girl Scouts from her school. My friend is the leader and wanted to teach the girls some basic camping skills and since my daughter is Miss Social Butterfly, she wouldn’t dare miss this opportunity.

While listening to her tales about her two nights away from home, I realized that business owners can learn a lot from the camping experience. Here’s a run down for those of you who wouldn’t be caught dead sleeping in a tent, not showering, or using a not-so-pleasant latrine:

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We are really pleased to welcome Traci Feit Love as the new Freelance Writing Author here at Sparkplugging’s Freelance Parent Blog. Traci is going to bring a fresh voice and a lot of great freelance business advice.  Please make her welcome!

Exactly 3 months ago, on April 1, 2009, I started my freelance writing, editing, and consulting business. It’s hard to believe how much has happened in that very short period of time. I started a blog (The Breadwinner Mom), launched my business website (http://tracifeitlove.com), became a Sparkplugging intern, and began offering a free e-course (”How to Get More High-Paying Clients“).

At the same time, my monthly revenue from freelancing has grown substantially. I’m now earning more from my freelance business than I earned in my first full-time job after college, and next month is looking even better. It’s truly amazing. I’ve always enjoyed writing, and I’ve always wanted to start my own business, so getting to this point is a dream come true.

What I’ve learned through my internship at Sparkplugging is how much I enjoy connecting with, learning from, and helping other freelancers and solopreneurs - which is why I’m so excited to become a part of the Freelance Parent blog.

As a parent, I know how meaningful it is to be able to spend time with your kids while helping to support your family.

The best part of my day is after lunch, when my husband (a stay-at-home dad) brings my daughter upstairs for her nap. She reaches out for me, and I take her into her bedroom to rock her to sleep. There’s absolutely nothing like it, and I treasure those moments.

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I’ve been a “writer” ever since I can remember. When I was a child, my stories would always close with large letters announcing “The End.” It’s now time to type those words here.

So, you may have already seen Tamara’s post letting you all know that we are saying “goodbye” to Freelance Parent. It’s been an incredible two years here at Sparkplugging, and we really do credit this blog with much of our business success. I remember the early days when we had to go out and learn stuff just so we’d have something to write about! Freelance Parent and its readers really kept us motivated to learn and grow as entrepreneurs.

Of course it is hard to let our baby blog go. We’ve found ourselves looking at it as a friend, a support network, a source of talented writers to hire, and—to some degree—as one of the things that most defined us as a team. It is sad to say goodbye to that.

On the other hand, this means good things, too. Tamara and I don’t need a public forum to tell each other how much we appreciate one another, as we can do it quite easily in our office or during one of our business meetings. Heck, sometimes I walk Baby Brewer up to Tamara’s house in the stroller.

It also means that our business has really grown. Where we used to have so much time to research and write the informative posts that got us on the Top Ten Blogs for Writers list (twice!), we now have far less time to take a deep breath, let alone get down to the nitty-gritty. The fact of the matter is that we’re now so busy living our freelance business that we have far less time to talk about it.

We really want to thank those of you who have helped to make this blog a community. You have offered us great advice, wonderful encouragement, and the occasional wake-up call. I am not exaggerating at all when I say that we would not be where we are today without you. So, thanks, and we’ll be working with many of you in the future, I suspect.

I know that Tamara told you about her latest exciting news (and I am SO proud of her), but I also have some fun stuff to share. First of all, I will still be blogging. I was flabbergasted to discover that I beat out more than 500 other applicants for a blogging job on Freelance Writing Jobs. I’ll be starting on the Other Stuff blog later this week, and I plan for it to be a fun place for freelance writers to hang out, get a chuckle, and feel less guilty about wasting their time online. My other big project is still in its early stages, but you’re welcome to check out the skeleton of www.buncobunco.com. Again, it’ll be focusing on the fun!

I can’t believe that two years after we started our little freelance agency, we’re at this point. I hope that the fact that we documented the beginning of our business will be helpful to others who stumble upon these words on the Internet. I imagine we’ll look back on them fondly ourselves. Thanks again to all who have read, subscribed, commented, and emailed. We’re always looking to hire quality writers at the Berry|Brewer Freelance Agency, and we’d sure love to see you hanging around our new online homes!

The End.

Freelance Parent has been an incredible experience for the Berry-Brewer Freelance Agency. Lorna and I started out knowing the bare minimum of what it would take to become successful freelancers, and we were so excited to share our ups and downs as we learned how to navigate the trade. Our goal was to offer a realistic look at becoming a freelancer, and I happen to think we did that pretty well.

But all good things must come to an end, and we’ve made the decision to hand over Freelance Parent to the incredible Sparkplugging team.

It was a difficult decision for us to make. After all, Freelance Parent is kind of our baby (our award-winning and oftentimes self-serving baby), and it’s hard to say goodbye to all our readers. You guys have contributed to our success by being supportive, offering advice, and even slapping us in the face every now and then. We can only hope we’ve contributed to your success in the same way.

The good news is, we aren’t disappearing for good. The Berry-Brewer Freelance Agency is still going strong, and you’ll find us all over the web, spreading our writing net and wreaking word-savvy havoc. In fact, we both have some exciting new projects you’re invited to share.

I’ll let Lorna tell you all about hers, but from here on out, you can find me at www.TamaraMorgan.com. (My apologies: The website isn’t up just yet, but I invite you to pop every now and then to see how things are coming along.)

But what’s that you say? Tamara Morgan isn’t my name?

Oh, but it is. World, meet Tamara Morgan, Tamara Berry’s alter ego and romance novelist extraordinaire.

For those of you that remember, I threw freelancing work to the wind last November and put to paper the romance novel I’ve always wanted to write. I attempted a blog to track my progress, but life got in the way. TamaraMorgan.com will pick up where that blog left off.

It should be an exciting ride – I recently signed with an agent, and will be pursuing that ever-elusive publication deal with her in the next few months. I’m also continuing to work on my freelance writing in addition to my second novel.

So please, please feel free to visit me there or to send an email to berrybreweradmin (at) gmail (dot) com any time you have questions about freelancing (or just to pop in and say hello). We will miss everyone and hope you’ll continue to follow the new writers at Freelance Parent!

Today is the first day of summer break for us and at nearly 7am both kids are still sound asleep (miraculous for our house!). We don’t have a single thing scheduled on the calendar today and what a joy it is not having to get out the door to catch the 7:10 am middle school bus.

However, that doesn’t mean that my client calendar is empty and as I remember well from last summer, this 11 week break is tough when it comes to balancing work and family. That’s why I’ve decided to try out some new time management tips to keep both my clients and my kids happy.

Let me just say that time management is not easy for me. While both girls were at school I had 7 full hours of uninterrupted time to work but do you think I actually billed 7 hours a day? No way. As any WAHM will tell you the distractions of working from home are many. Add to that the appeal of social media (Twitter is my fave!) and you’ve got a multitude of things all vying for your attention.
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We are pleased to welcome a new Freelance Parent to the blog this week.  Christina Lemmey has been freelancing as a home based Virtual Assistant for a couple of years now and will bring us a look into life as a internet based VA.

I’ve often been asked, “How did you decide to start your own business?” and for me it was a fairly easy decision. After being a stay at home mom for 10 years and cringing at the idea of having to go on interviews again, commuting, and putting my girls in after school care, I just knew that working from home would be the best solution.

The bigger question for me was, “What kind of business should I start?”

My husband and I had always talked about my going back to work when my youngest was in school full time. On the one hand I thought maybe this would be the perfect opportunity to start a career I really wanted rather than one dictated by my college degree but for someone who puts family high above career, I just couldn’t see myself devoting 8+ hours a day to work and missing bringing my kids to their activities.

Despite the cost of gas, I really like being the mom taxi and seeing how much they enjoy their various after school classes. (more…)

Have you searched the jobs on Elance and other bidding sites and started wondering whether there’s any good work to be found? Are you tired of scanning job boards and watching other freelancers play the “how low can you go” game? Are you unwilling to write 50 articles for $50?

The good news is that there are clients out there with interesting projects and substantial budgets, and they are looking for freelancers. The bad news, of course, is that there are a lot of freelancers who want these jobs. To get high-paying work, you’re going to have to learn how to compete more effectively.

Here are the top 5 things you can do to attract more high-paying clients to your business:

1. Improve your skills. It turns out that there are no shortcuts to excellence. If you want to get high-paying work, you have to be worthy of it. But that doesn’t mean you’re stuck if you’re not currently the best writer on the block. Take a class. Participate in a workshop. Practice. Get feedback from a mentor if you can. Read about writing. Practice some more. Most importantly, you have to keep pushing yourself to get better. Don’t feel like it? Maybe this high-paying clients thing isn’t for you (I tried to warn you there are no shortcuts). (more…)

Welcome to Spark an Idea Thursday’.  Each week we’ll be sharing some great ideas for a topic of interest to our readers.  We invite you to grab our image and carry the tradition through to your own blog!  If you do, please link back to this post so we know where you were inspired!

Tamara and I have written about goal setting  several times on this blog. We’ve even talked about making (and not making) various goals that we’ve set for ourselves. While neither of us is necessarily a “law of attraction” type, we’ve both realized the power of truly stating our goals. Tamara once told me that she felt like all we had to do was say something out loud, and it would happen.

While things haven’t truly been that simple, I think they have been made easier by the mere fact that we do set goals.  For us, they’re important so that we can recognize our own progress. If we’ve set a goal for making a certain amount of money or acquiring a certain number of new clients, then when we get to the end of the month, it’s pretty easy to see if we’ve succeeded or not.

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