My Success Diary

The first step in my new freelance writing business strategy is to think about how to get my writing business organized. I used to have a system, but I sort of stopped using it. This was a natural by-produce of primarily using online sites to make money. However, regardless of how I make money writing it is still a good idea to keep track. The same goes for my affiliate marketing business as well but I’ll address that in a later post.

I was reading Six Figure Freelancing by Kelley James-Enger the other day and I particularly like her organizational strategy. So, I’m adopting it. I looked everywhere for a software program to keep track of my writing business but I could find one. In the end, I decided to just use spreadsheets. If I ever find a good program, I’ll pass it along.

Here’s what I am doing:

• Earnings Tracker – This is a spreadsheet that keeps track of earnings. I track the date of payment, where the payment came from, how much it was for, whether they paid by check, cash, or paypal, etc.

• Expenses Tracker – Another speadsheet that pretty much has the same categories as above.

• Submissions, Queries, and Pitches – I’ll have one spreadsheet for each. What the pitch was, where it was sent, the date, the response, etc are the categories.

• Current Work Tracker – This is probably going to be a word document listing my work in progress, work completed and waiting for approval, and work approved and waiting for payment (once it’s approved I’ll list it in earnings)

Note that I set a lofty goal to always have $2000 worth of work in each category. Well it seems lofty now!

• Contacts – This is something I’ve never done. I’ll keep track of my contacts (writer friends, editors, etc) using a database.

• Billing and Invoices – This will be a folder where I’ll keep my invoice template and any completed invoices.

• Mileage – I have to log it somewhere!

In addition,  I’ll keep all my expense receipts and invoices and maintain a good filing system. I got the idea from Six Figure Freelancing to start a project folder for each assignment and put a hard copy of my first draft and final copy, my notes, and printouts of any research material.

I’m curious – what kind of system do you use for your freelance writing business? Is it working for you?

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