Writing a Business Plan

Freelancers often just throw themselves out there, using their words as bait, hoping for a big fish.

In Jennifer Mattern’s Web Writer’s Guide, she details how to draft a business plan for yourself as a freelance writer.

Included in the list of things your plan should cover:

• Your goal
• Your mission
• Your target market
• Budget
• Income projections

I will admit that before reading all this I hadn’t thought much about a plan for my business. I just kind of went with the flow. But by doing that, I wasn’t paying attention to how much I had to be making at a minimum to survive, and I sure as heck wasn’t charging what I should have been based on that information. Not only that, but I didn’t plan for downtime like Christmas and other non-working days.

Her guide provides a basic business plan outline to work towards, along with many other templates to help you set up your freelance writing business. For $37 it was one of the best purchases I made. Maybe even better than the business cards!