Over the many years that I have been in business working both for myself and others, I have had to develop policies.

I think this makes perfect sense because, after all, and as I just said, I am in business. I work with lots of different people in lots of different types of situations, and naturally, when things don’t go well (meaning in a way that is win-win-win for everyone involved), the onus is on me to develop a policy so things will go better next time.

Policies of mine have arisen from the following types of questions:

Do I work with friends and family? (I have a policy for that.)

Do I want to supply the labor for your four-hour work week? (I have a policy for that.)

Do I offer refunds for my classes if a students poops out part-way through? (I have a policy for that.)

We have a conflict of interest, will I work with you/for you? (I have a policy for that.)

Most of my policies are internal policies. Which is to say that they exist in the back of the house, where I work. I don’t broadcast them in the front of the house, where I am visible. Policies are developed and brought into play on an as-needed basis.

I have found that because I have policies, I rarely need to use them.

Something important I’ve learned in the past ten years is that people have starkly differing views on how business should be conducted. In fact, I think I’ve seen the whole spectrum at this point, from those I respect and trust and want to partner with all the way to those who are presumptuous and have decided in advance what I am going to do for them and how they are going to benefit from my efforts without treating me with any kind of respect.

The hype of how the Internet has changed everything and now we are just one great big happy family has worn thin and given way to clearer and more healthy boundaries, for me and my business.

These clearer and more healthy boundaries have helped me create a clearer and more effective business. My students definitely benefit from my clearer focus. My writing also benefits. The amount of projects I can bring to completion have gone up.

I still can’t keep up with my inbox, however. And that’s even after changing my address.

Perhaps I need a policy there. Or at least a better system.

Friends respect your policies. People who don’t respect policies have words for people (particularly women) who have them. I won’t use that word here.

Some might feel that the new laws of “transparency” dictate that I reveal all of my business policies and every detail about the way I run my business in the front of the house. But that’s ridiculous.

In fact, one of my newest policies relates to preventing seemingly nice people who are “my biggest fans” from robbing me blind.

And I can tell you how to do it.

By having policies.

~ Photo By Terry Balin

Some people think that freelance writing is over but it isn’t. Far from it. Most of the people I know who were making money as freelancers are still making money. But the people who panicked and freaked out when the economy started to tank are not making as much money as they once did. And I have heard that some folks who were once making very nice money are not making such nice money any longer.

In the meantime, down here in the land of I-just-need-to-make-a-reasonable-income, things are just fine. I don’t work with folks who need to make six figures, like yesterday. What I teach is what I have always taught: sane, satisfying, sustainable strategies for writers to start getting published and grow a nonfiction writing career over time.

People think that it’s really, really hard to break into freelance writing. I think the people who teach blogging for dollars love to perpetuate this myth. Speaking as someone who teaches mom writers how to break in as writers, I can tell you that it’s not nearly as hard to break in as it is to move up the ranks right now. It is harder to move up right now because there are a lot more experienced freelancers in the stream to compete with. But at the breaking-in place, there are tons of opportunities just as there have always been a ton of opportunities.

The question that remains is: do you have the chops to get published? These skills can be taught and they are what I teach. Then I watch my students’ results and they consistently demonstrate that the skills I teach work.

Most writers don’t have time-management issues, they have determination issues. In my experience, writing for publication has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with focus and consistency. I see busy writer mamas learning and applying what they’ve learned to create steadily-building writing success year after year all the time.

Here’s my take on the ten most typical questions people ask about freelance writing:

1. What if I’ve never been published? No problem. There is no need to have been published before to get started.
2. What comes first, the article or the query? The way I teach beginners, the article comes first. We tackle queries at the intermediate level because articles are so much easier to write than queries. Many of my students turn right around and get their practice articles published, so why not start with the easier form?
3. Should I write for free? Not in the long run. But if you are a person who just can’t get any momentum going with your writing, I’d rather see you write for free for an editor than not write at all. (Notice I said “for an editor” and then see my answer to #7.)
4. Should I blog? If you are a busy mom, I’d rather see you write articles for publication for at least six months to a year before you start blogging. I’ve taught bloggers article writing with success but I always treat the two as separate and different because they are.
5. Will people steal my ideas? At any one time hundreds if not thousands of people are having a similar idea. The person who ultimately wins is the one who writes it down and submits it. You can’t protect every little idea and move forward in your career at the same time. And copyright law is always there if you absolutely need it.
6. What if I have a great idea for a book? If you have a great idea for a book and you are not yet an established professional writer with a solid platform on that book topic, I’d sit on that idea for a bit. I’d work on writing articles for publication and building a platform. You’d be amazed what you can accomplish in a year. You are so much likelier to get that book deal on the first attempt to pitch it when you are actually ready and can demonstrate that readiness.
7. Should I write for content mills? Nope, never. (See my response to #10 for more.)
8. How much money can I make as a freelancer? Well, how well can you write? How fast can you come up with appropriate ideas? How smoothly can you sell your words? All of these things come into play when we are talking about how much you can earn as a writer. Most writers find out how much they can make through actual experience, not promises from other people. Besides people who are promising you a certain amount of money are most likely trying to sell you something.
9. How long will it take to make any decent kind of money? Again, this comes down to your answers to some questions: How much time do you have to work each day? How consistent will you be? And are you writing to beat some kind of ticking clock? Because if you are writing for money is a really bad idea. Consistently I notice that the moms who make the best money are the most grounded and the least desperate.
10. What is the best thing I can do to break in? The  best thing you can do is three-fold: learn how to write well enough to compete, find an established writer who can work with you and mentor you over time, put what you learn from each teacher/mentor into immediate action. Then watch yourself progress.

The successful writers I know are all humble and hardworking. If you are thinking you are going to be the exception, you might want to try a different field. If you think there is some magic law of attraction at work or some lucky vs. unlucky game at play, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Success in this field is simply about getting the job done as well as you can again and again and again.

The professional world can always use more good writers. I’ve seen women grow leaps and bounds in self-esteem by flexing their writing muscles, myself included. In fact, I feel there has never been a better time to be a writer. I’ll have more to say on this topic soon.

In the meantime, write on!

These are the basic tools authors today need to be able to acquire and use to succeed in today’s marketplace. Please note: I am indicating that the author should foot the bill for these minor expenses, as the author should always maintain 100% ownership of his or her platform without interference or pressure from a publisher to do otherwise.

Firefox Browser: US users can download it here.

URLs for Author’s name, book’s name, tagline/topic: Forward the book’s name and the tagline/topic to the author’s name URL, which can be used as the home base site, saving the author time and money of managing too many sites. Author should purchase his own name URL for 5-10 years at a time. Publisher should never own author’s URLs. I recommend GoDaddy.com or BlueHost.com.

Wordpress.org blog: Widely considered the easiest and cheapest way to own, build, and manage your own website yourself. With minimal tech knowledge and hosting from your URL provider (like those I’ve just mentioned above), a person with modest DIY ambition can create, launch, and manage his or her own site at Wordpress.org. Others can hire the set up out but should still learn how to keep up and back up their sites on an ongoing basis. (Not to be confused with Wordpress.com, which is a good, free way for aspiring authors to practice blogging but allows no storefront capacities, not even Amazon recommendations.)

Thesis Theme: I use Thesis and I’ve been very happy with it thus far. I am also a Thesis Affiliate—I partner only with exceptionally good products for writers—so if you decide to give it a test-drive, please click on the Thesis badge.

Facebook Account: Authors need to have and use a Facebook account because Facebook is the non-social-networker’s social networking site. In other words, the folks on Facebook aren’t thinking about social networking. They are just hanging out. So, authors should hang out there too. Besides, it’s the best place to connect with fellow authors in my opinion. Fan page or no fan page, I don’t think is as important as just be there. Here’s my Facebook page. Why not friend me?

Twitter Account: Once you get the hang of it, Twitter is pretty fun. Of course, you don’t want to be there all day or you will become a person who speaks in sound bytes. I think we’re already subjected to enough of that to take Twitter in moderation. Twitter is kind of like wind surfing. It looks easy, then impossible, then you try it and you are sure that everyone doing it is crazy…but if you come often and stay briefly, you eventually get the hang of it. Feel free to “follow” me.

LinkedIn: I’m not as big a fan of LinkedIn at this point, but I haven’t written it off completely. What this means is that I swing by a lot less often. I see LI as more of a job hunter’s network but I think it can also be useful for networking your way to gigs, repeat or fresh. Until they make the interface more user-friendly, I won’t be able to afford to spend as much time there. Even so, “connect” with me once in a blue moon there. I like connecting with folks I know anywhere.

ShareThis Button: Love this tool, which has cut my social networking time in half! I put the ShareThis button in my Firefox browser so I can quickly share anything with my friends, followers, and connections. And voila! Whatever I notice and like is shared in a few clicks. Add ShareThis to your browser here.

“Outposts” (term comes from the book TRUST AGENTS by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith): Create account pages on all the mob sites that are open to public browsing (for example: Red Room, WeRead, GoodReads, FiledBy, Ning sites, etc.) Don’t be overly concerned with gated communities because they may not come up in Google or, if they do, will require a password, which will be a deal-breaker for most Internet browsers. Choose the sites that your audience will frequent and make sure you are there.

Constant Contact: I’ve been using Constant Contact for years to produce professional quality e-zines. Fortunately, for us, the service has gotten better over time (you probably won’t lose your content now). Also CC is offering some cool services like event management and polling that can make any content producer’s life easier. I’m an affiliate of CC, too, so feel free to use my link when/if you sign up.

Feedburner: Use Feedburner so your blog posts will get delivered directly to your readers’ e-mail inboxes. They will appreciate the service. Nuf said.

Google Reader: You can’t be a thought leader if you don’t participate in the most current conversations on your topic. No, you don’t need to relinquish sleep to keep up with the blogging Jones’ but you want to skim the posts you carefully curate and organize in your blog reader at least once a week. This will give you plenty of food for thought and likely have you gnashing your teeth on more than one occasion. (I repeat: Bloggers like to provoke. Consider yourself warned.) Remember, the choice of who to read and who to banish from your view is completely yours. Choose wisely. Choose Google.

Amazon: I don’t care how much badgering I receive: I use Amazon and I think every author should, if for no other reason than because some of your readers will use it. Even if they don’t use it to make a purchase, readers most certainly use it to share their opinions and influence book store shoppers. Authors are in the business of getting along with everyone, so I don’t think we should follow the badgering or the righteous lead. Where authors or booksellers shop for books is not going to be an accurate reflection of where readers shop for books, because readers shop for books everywhere. Authors need to get out of the business of telling readers how to buy and get back in the business of writing books worth buying. (Apparently I have strong feelings on this topic…I’ve been badgered about this for quite some time. Clearly it’s not doing me much good.) Authors can set up their author pages on Amazon, become a reviewer of relevant books, and retort back when people who clearly didn’t read their books post absurd critiques. Authors, I think you should proceed on Amazon as you see fit.

This ought to be a good short list to keep any author busy, as they get used to using these tools. Have fun!

~Photo by Emily Barney

I’m just back from Digital Book World and rather than offer a play by play on Twitter (I didn’t), a long blog post synopsis (I am sure others will do it), or a bunch of cheeky comments about how nobody in publishing knows anything (after all TOC is coming—oops, that was cheeky!), I’m going to offer up several constructive responses this week that I hope will unite publishers, editors, agents, authors, sales people, and book sellers and remind us that we’re all on the same team.

Whenever a publisher seeks, receives, underwrites, and curates a promising manuscript, the potential for a team is formed. That possible team is composed of the people I just mentioned. It would be terrific if the pod of people supporting the release of each book would actually form a team around and support each book, instead of just giving lip service to the prospect or going through the motions.

Every team needs a leader. For an A-list book, the leadership for steering that book team to success typically comes from inside the publishing house from the beginning and all the way through until the end of the publishing process. For books not on the A-list, authors are often left completely in the dark about the perception of their book from within the publishing house. And because of this void of communication, often no one steps up to lead the team, because the author is busy writing or fretting about a lack of attention to the book.

At this point, the A-list cat is out of the book-publishing bag, folks. Authors talk. We are all connected to each other. And we all know which publishers are team builders and which publishers are not. If you say that you give all authors/books the same consideration, when it’s common knowledge that this is not true, consider using the future tense and start doing it.

Let’s not kid ourselves, folks, authors pretty much know that not all books are created equal as far as publicity is concerned. (And if they don’t know, they can read these books and find out.) Therefore publishers, who don’t plan to invest in marketing and publicity for every book launch, need to “tap” authors to steer their own book-marketing ships.

What is desperately needed here is better communication, education, and just the tiniest bit of ongoing support. Nothing any editor or publisher shouldn’t be able to handle even with diminished editorial staffs. (And P.S., transparency and honesty in difficult publishing times is always appreciated more than you will ever know.)

The way to make this kind of non-A-list author support plan successful is to systematize the communication between the publishing house and the author as much as possible. Perhaps you think that systematized communication would disappoint or upset the author. If you think this, you have not been talking to authors who have been left completely in the dark about the fate of their books, who are crave any kind of communication from their publisher beyond deadline management.

Systematized communication looks something like this. Feel free to customize these suggestions to your own needs:

1. After signing: A letter from the CEO or President welcoming the author to the imprint, which describes why the publisher is proud of their long, successful history.  If the imprint is new or recently moved, describe to the author why this is good news to them.
2. Shortly thereafter: A letter from the acquisitions editor, also welcoming the author to the imprint, and then outlining what to expect from the editorial process with a copy of the imprint’s specific editorial guidelines.
3. An editorial phone conversation with the author about the book production schedule: And if you possibly can spare five minutes to answer the author’s questions or just make small talk, that would bring a level of human connection to the process, which is sorely needed. Update this conversation with an e-mail if/when it changes.
4. A fresh correspondence each time you hand your author off to someone new in the production chain: Another letter, this time of introduction from the new person welcoming the author again to the imprint and saying that the new person is excited to work with them and is interested in the best possible outcome for the book.
5. Paced phone outreach: Each new person in the production chain should be required to reach out to the author on at least one Friday afternoon during the book process to chat and answer questions for five/ten minutes at the appropriate junctures in the book production process. Fridays are a good, more relaxed day for these chats. Perhaps right before the employee leaves for the weekend, so there is a cut-off time. These conversations can lead to bonding between publishing insiders and authors, which can inspire authors to write better, network more, and market the book better because they feel connected to something bigger than themselves.
6. A minimum of one phone meeting with the in-house publicist, the author, the agent, and the editor. One meeting is better than none. Time it about six-three months prior to launch. It’s really up to the author and agent to get as much out of this meeting as possible. So authors and agents, be prepared and have your questions ready.
7. Publisher-endorsed book marketing techniques: Get your folks who are working with the A-list into a conference room or call and jot down all the book-marketing techniques that seem to be working from an in-house point of view. Add a caution to the author at the end of this list, which contains warnings about the types of “exposure opportunities” that can eat up the bulk of an authors book promotion time (see my post on the topic for examples) with scant, poor or negative results. Ask your authors what is working and stealing their time away from better quality marketing opportunities. Compile this info into a PDF and update it quarterly. (See agent Rita Rosenkranz’s free e-book as an example and feel free to send your authors over to download a copy or share it with them yourself.)

Wouldn’t these bare bones types of team-building strategies create more positive outcomes for the non-A-list author, than him or her sitting alone in his or her workroom, wondering what the heck is going on with his or her book?

An intern could certainly assist an editor with managing and streamlining this process. The systematized communications alone, even without the more personal support calls, could double your future book sales if an author feels included and valued by the imprint rather than captured, indentured, and then forgotten.

Now that authors are as connected as we are and are as connected to our own audiences as we are, and publishers are lowering advance sizes, the publishers who are the most sophisticated and successful team builders are going to ultimately attract the best writers and sell the most books.

Because success in today’s economy means leveraging all of you assets, including the publisher/author relationship. Authors likely know and are going to continue to know going forward which publishers team-build best (take my publisher, for one example).

What have I forgotten here?

Any authors who have been through the process care to chime in?

~ Photo by oooh.oooh

The future of publishing is frictionless. And whoever gets this wins.

Whoever doesn’t get this will simply melt into primordial ooze and be forgotten.

Because this is they way evolution rolls.

I wasn’t always a believer. A couple of years ago I was very resistant to the idea of eReading. Because let’s be honest, nobody likes change, not me and not anyone I can think of. Except maybe techies—they breathe the stuff as though it were air or something.

Meanwhile the rest of us take longer to convince. About halfway through embracing something new, we look at each other and say, “Hey, this isn’t so bad after all.” Then we grin maniacally for days and tell everyone we know they should try it. Whatever the change was.

But be honest, the last time somebody came up to you and announced, “Time for a change!” You squirmed. And then you tried to figure out a way around it. And I don’t blame you one bit.

But we’re past this point in publishing now. At this point, there are so many folks grinning maniacally and telling us to try things that if we are not trying them, we should probably get our head’s examined.

Or maybe retire.

I’m not ready to retire. In fact, I’m just getting started. Fortunately, I had a number of mind-opening moments in 2009. Here’s a quick recap. See what you think:

• I was driving with my editor Jane Friedman (now publisher at Writer’s Digest) and she mentioned that she was reading Alice In Wonderland out loud as a bedtime story to her boyfriend’s daughter from her iPhone. (“From her iPhone?” I thought.)
• Michael Hyatt posted this glimpse of the future technology, a video from Microsoft, in his blog. (Now THIS is exciting,” I thought.)
• I interviewed Cory Doctorow for Writer’s Digest Magazine. (“Not a bad example to follow,” I thought.)
• I attended several conferences that did justice to advances in the publishing industry: Tools of Change by O’Reilly Media, The Writer’s Digest/BEA Conference, and The Writer’s Digest Conference. (“Where have I been?” is what I was thinking. )
• I read this post by thriller author J.A. Konrath in The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing blog on E-volution. (Sound of my brain exploding.)

At the beginning of the year, I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to have my latest book on the Kindle.

Today, I’m like, “Why isn’t my latest book on the Kindle?”

This is how change is. We resist. We resist. We resist. And then one day, we’re like, “What took me so long?”

Keeping up with the advances in technology in publishing presents three truths we all need to embrace now:

1. Change in publishing is inevitable, now and forever.
2. We’d all better deal with it and get used to it.
3. The future will be frictionless whether we participate or not. Somebody’s going to figure it out.

The future is practically here. Let’s hope the frictionless part is following close behind.

This is part one of a series of posts, which will be continued.

Christina Katz is the author of Get Known Before the Book Deal and Writer Mama from Writer’s Digest Books

Photo by Marxchivist