business founding
Sep. 23rd, 2003 12:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Got my first copywriting gig today (had arranged it earlier, but actually got the assignment today). RedZone Global is an SEO company that lacks a writer. I'm a writer that lacks jobs. The two have met, and I have my first assignment. It looks pretty straightforward, and pretty simple, and so I'm going to do it tonight while Dave trims his toenails and downloads porn.
Mike from RZG said he was probably going to have a lot more copy writing in the future, as his company was switching from using mirror sites and crosslinking to using on-page factors like copy. So, a lot of existing copy will need to be revised.
Fortunately, I'm *very* good at that, as I discovered over in the Website Hospital of Cre8asiteForums. :D So, I'll have a lot of that to do in future.
I told him I'd be devoting more time to the copywriting stuff in near future, and so I'd be looking for more to do. I also said I'd be wanting to relocate, and if I manage to do so, I could keep my prices low because I'll be living in an inexpensive area.
I have to work out my pricing scheme. I'm looking a lot at cost-of-living stuff. I'm going to have to look into independent health insurance as well, because if I work for myself, I can't have company insurance.
So, I've got to work that out. (The easiest way to get insurance is to marry someone who has it. Hmm... Think Dave would mind if I married some foreigner to get him his visa and me his health insurance? :lol: The alternative is probably going to be painfully expensive. Sigh. I'm going to have to research that as well.)
I have a lot of writing to do-- I want to extensively blog the process of starting my business, both because I want feedback as I do it, and because I think I could work it out into an article on the website that would be a pretty engaging read, I think.
I started today on writing a copywriting e-book-- "So You Can't Afford A Copywriter"-- basically, it'll be a concise explanation of how I do what I do, that makes it possible for some cheap bastard to do the work himself while also making it abundantly clear that copywriting is hard, and he'd be better off hiring me.
Which is true, and isn't just a plea for more business.
I did have an interesting thought-- if I managed to get enough business that I was having trouble managing it all, I could subcontract. I know quite a wide array of underpaid, hungry students who are competent writers. Of course I'd have to review it, so of course I'd take a cut of the pay, but that could be a very efficient and mutually-satisfying arrangement.
I have a couple more questions to research, and I really have a lot to find out before I can make a timeline (how many clients do I need to have by Christmas if I want to quit my job by March? How much income do I have to have before I can be reasonably confident I can afford to live without my paychecks?). I also need to find out several other things. Do I need to incorporate? Do I need a company name? I probably need a website. What domain name should I get? Should I get a special email address just for the business? Should I get a special phone number just for it? Do I need business cards, since I'm doing this all over the Internet?
Etc.
But, having my first job, I'm feeling pretty good. There's a lot of work ahead of me but it's enjoyable work that I'm looking forward to doing.
Now I just need to get my personal website going, to start this off.....
Mike from RZG said he was probably going to have a lot more copy writing in the future, as his company was switching from using mirror sites and crosslinking to using on-page factors like copy. So, a lot of existing copy will need to be revised.
Fortunately, I'm *very* good at that, as I discovered over in the Website Hospital of Cre8asiteForums. :D So, I'll have a lot of that to do in future.
I told him I'd be devoting more time to the copywriting stuff in near future, and so I'd be looking for more to do. I also said I'd be wanting to relocate, and if I manage to do so, I could keep my prices low because I'll be living in an inexpensive area.
I have to work out my pricing scheme. I'm looking a lot at cost-of-living stuff. I'm going to have to look into independent health insurance as well, because if I work for myself, I can't have company insurance.
So, I've got to work that out. (The easiest way to get insurance is to marry someone who has it. Hmm... Think Dave would mind if I married some foreigner to get him his visa and me his health insurance? :lol: The alternative is probably going to be painfully expensive. Sigh. I'm going to have to research that as well.)
I have a lot of writing to do-- I want to extensively blog the process of starting my business, both because I want feedback as I do it, and because I think I could work it out into an article on the website that would be a pretty engaging read, I think.
I started today on writing a copywriting e-book-- "So You Can't Afford A Copywriter"-- basically, it'll be a concise explanation of how I do what I do, that makes it possible for some cheap bastard to do the work himself while also making it abundantly clear that copywriting is hard, and he'd be better off hiring me.
Which is true, and isn't just a plea for more business.
I did have an interesting thought-- if I managed to get enough business that I was having trouble managing it all, I could subcontract. I know quite a wide array of underpaid, hungry students who are competent writers. Of course I'd have to review it, so of course I'd take a cut of the pay, but that could be a very efficient and mutually-satisfying arrangement.
I have a couple more questions to research, and I really have a lot to find out before I can make a timeline (how many clients do I need to have by Christmas if I want to quit my job by March? How much income do I have to have before I can be reasonably confident I can afford to live without my paychecks?). I also need to find out several other things. Do I need to incorporate? Do I need a company name? I probably need a website. What domain name should I get? Should I get a special email address just for the business? Should I get a special phone number just for it? Do I need business cards, since I'm doing this all over the Internet?
Etc.
But, having my first job, I'm feeling pretty good. There's a lot of work ahead of me but it's enjoyable work that I'm looking forward to doing.
Now I just need to get my personal website going, to start this off.....
no subject
Date: 2003-09-23 08:19 pm (UTC)If you need help setting up the business. From a legal standpoint (which is important) let me know.
Daniel Defino
Hey!
Date: 2003-09-23 08:31 pm (UTC)So, i was right and Dave was wrong and all is right with the world.
Thank you, that's very sweet of you, and I may need to take you up on it. At the moment i'm working on a really boring assignment, but it's an assignment, which is more than I had before. I am now officially a pro. :D Well, a freelance pro. Which is a little different.
I'm going to do some research (I say that a lot) and figure out what kind of steps I need to take yadda yadda. (Ya think Tom'll help me out with my taxes? Think there are any incentives if I start my business in Buffalo, which is a depressed area?)
On a related note, Dave called his mom tonight and she says horrible things are happening to Buffalo's budget. Unaccountably, I'm feeling a bit defensive of Albany-- we hate it more than anyone, being so close to it (my father spent 30 years getting shit dumped on him by the ny State office of general services, so he was more bitter than many) -- but for some odd reason I feel obligated to say well, it's not that Albany's been greedy and stingy so much as it is that Buffalo's busily mismanaged what little they had. But it's really hard to hear the Board of Education threatening to cut all afterschool programs and kindergarten programs. I'm sorry, foiks; I understand there just isn't the money, and I'll help out by loyally paying my taxes, but I'm afraid Bush is just going to spend them on sending my sister to more Godforsaken places to get shot at, so there's precious little I can do.
Now, why haven't any of the Democratic candidates painted any banners saying "IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID!" ???? That's all I'm going to end my political rant with.
Re: Hey!
Date: 2003-09-24 06:31 am (UTC)But whatever help you need, Ill be there
Re: Hey!
Date: 2003-09-24 08:37 am (UTC)You do corporate work, hm? What's "litigation" anyway?
Well, then, that's excellent. Consider me a client! At some point. When I have some clienting to do. :,
this is from kat
Date: 2003-09-23 09:04 pm (UTC)On the issue of health care, there's some cool NY programs for self-employed people so that they can afford health care.
Re: this is from kat
Date: 2003-09-24 04:11 am (UTC)Someone from one of the forums I post at personal-messaged me and said "hey, you talk about writing and seem to be a good writer. Our writer just left to go back to school. You want a gig?"
So, that's not going to happen a whole bunch of times. But, he did say he's got a whole lot of work coming up, so if I want to do it and can do it, I've got a lot of work. I told him the more the better.
Paychecks only happen once a month regardless of how much work there is, though, so I don't get to verify that this guy's totally legit until the 20th. Still, we'll see. Either way, I'll learn a lot this month, and I'll've had my first client. :D
Re: this is from kat
Date: 2003-09-24 10:29 am (UTC)So are you just editing copy, or writing copy too? I thought it was just editing, but in your most recent post you said you're writing about cars, so now I'm confused.
Re: this is from kat
Date: 2003-09-24 03:07 pm (UTC)I can do either, and actually think I'm a better editor of this sort of thing, but I'm not fussy.
I haven't actually heard back from them yet about whether they liked what I wrote, so we'll have to see.
Re: this is from kat
Date: 2003-09-24 03:16 pm (UTC)At this point in my business process, I just want to develop a reputation as an expert and as a good writer. I think the forums can help me a lot, especially since I'm the moderator of one.
And if someone says "hey, you did the front page so well, how much would it cost for me to have you do the ten internal pages like that?" I'll have a cheerful, ready, reasonable answer.
The hardest thing i'm doing now is figuring out how much i have to charge. :/ I'm not good at that. I know I'm undercharging my first people. but they don't need art; they need filler, basically. So once I get the hang of it, I can churn that stuff out in mass quantities and make some decent dough.
My business even has a noble thing. I hate bad writing; it hurts me. I want to improve the quality of writing on the Internet. A Quixotic endeavor, perhaps, but a rewarding one. My work will never be done. Perhaps in the meantime i can be compensated for some of it. Y'see where I'm going with this? The best way to improve the writing on the Internet is to do most of it myself. :D
I'm also going to write a bunch of articles on how to write better copy, which I'll distribute for free-- first off I'm thinking of adapting the famous Turkey City Lexicon (google that and hit I'm feeling lucky) for general web writing, but that'll come after a bunch of site critiques.
Anyhow. I'm feeling oogy, so it's naptime. Later..