A few weeks ago, an interesting article was published in one of our favorite newspapers, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The article by Anne Tergesen was titled The case for quitting your job--even if you still love it. Say what?!

As we all know, people are living longer, and working longer, than ever before. That's great news because if you put your brain out to pasture, it quickly gets as soft as a cow patty. But it turns out that staying with a job--whether because you do it well, get paid well for it, love it, or because it's easy--isn't necessarily good for your health or happiness.

In a new book by Peg Streep and Alan Bernstein, Mastering the Art of Quitting: Why It Matters in Life, Love, and Work, the authors discuss how quitting your job could be the best way to remain productive, happy and healthy into old age--even if quitting a perfectly good job doesn't seem to make sense. Now, of course, many of us came to freelancing by quitting a perfectly good job. So you already know what these authors are talking about.

According to one person interviewed for the WSJ article, familiarity breeds complacency, and being in a comfortable spot can keep a person from pushing themselves outside of their comfort zone. After a while, achievements lose some of their thrill and problems become more predictable and less threatening. It's easy to see how boredom and lack of fulfillment can set in.

We think this is an excellent and thought-provoking topic. But the WSJ article, and Streep's and Bernstein's book, both come at it from the standpoint of employees. Employees can become easily separated from the relationship between their productivity on any given day and their ability to pay the mortgage. In a sense, maintaining the "status quo" becomes a reward in itself. Although companies often encourage their employees to "take risks" and "think outside the box", few of them really want that. Most companies really want employees to take risks that have little or no chance of failure, and thinking outside the box usually means thinking inside somebody else's box, usually that of a company that has already taken the risk, so the risk they took is no longer as risky.

So what about us freelances?

Chances are good that you became a freelance because you wanted and needed more than you were getting from your perfectly good job. Perhaps you needed more fulfillment. Perhaps more challenge, or more money. Perhaps you wanted more control over your life and career. Freelancing can deliver on all of these great things and more. But here's the strange thing: it's still possible to get into a rut.

Freelancing is like quitting your job every day. That's because every day you need to be out there looking for work, presenting yourself as the best at what you do, and delivering. But once you get over the fear and realize not only that you can make it, but that you can make it better than you ever imagined, it IS possible to stop taking new chances and pushing the limits of your abilities. It IS possible to get bored. That's where we think this WSJ article and Streep's and Bernstein's book come in.

DOLLARS & SENSE

Consulting: Another Revenue Stream           

We're always looking for new ways to make money. Ways that are in line with our skill set, that leverage our experience and expertise, and, like we wrote about in [Not] Just for Newbies, that keep us challenged and productive. It occurred to us recently that there's a great opportunity for freelance medical writers we've not discussed before. It has less to do with writing and more with filling a different but related need for our clients. That is, the role of consultant.

Several good friends and colleagues of ours have built personally and professionally rewarding careers as consultants. They use their experience and expertise to counsel clients on a variety of medical communications-related issues. Charging for such services, like charging for freelance medical writing, can be done a number of ways: by the hour, by the project, or by the day, week, or month. It can be more challenging (but not impossible) to avoid the hourly rate trap when you're a consultant. So you may want to raise your hourly fee for consulting to compensate for losing the value proposition inherent in project pricing.

We were recently hired to help a client with a new business pitch in a therapeutic area in which we have a great deal of experience. We worked with our client's team on strategy and positioning for the product they were pitching, and provided some writing support for their written and presented proposal. We also participated in the pitch. But we weren't presented to the client as a part of the project's medical writing team. We were presented as consultants to the content development team. This meant that after the pitch, we'll only be called in when our client's content development team needs guidance or support. There may be some writing opportunities, but likely only when our specific level of expertise is required.

Now that we have you thinking about this new potential opportunity to expand your horizons and your freelance business, how can you find these opportunities? Most of the opportunities we've come across began as writing assignments that presented the opportunity to morph into or to add on the consulting component. If you're serious about consulting, then add it to your list of capabilities and market yourself like you do for any other service you provide. Emphasize your expertise, and put yourself in the shoes of the person in need of your consulting services. What are they looking for? What do they need? Then go for it!

We've been busy this year, but there's always room for more!

At the AMWA-DVC (Delaware Valley Chapter) Annual Freelance Workshop, Brian presented on a panel on the topic of Freelancing and Beyond: Panel Discussion With Veteran Writers. He also debuted a roundtable on Illuminating the Impact of the Sunshine Act on Medical Communicators.

Brian and Cyndy jointly presented a company webinar to staff medical writers around the world on Writing a Manuscript from a CSR (Clinical Study Report), which reprised a popular open session they introduced in 2013 at the AMWA 73rd Annual Conference in Columbus, OH.  

At the AMWA 74th Annual Conference earlier this month in Memphis, TN, Brian and Cyndy presented an open session on How to Use a SWOT Analysis to Rejuvenate Your Career and Better Market Your Business, and another open session for freelances on What Should I Charge?. Cyndy presented an excellent roundtable on Novel--and Low Cost--Ways to Market Your Business. 

We would love to present at your next upcoming meeting or event, so invite us!

Add Online Press Releases to Your Marketing Mix  

Regardless of whether you're marketing a product or a service, online press releases can be a valuable addition to your marketing plan. Why? Online press releases are a bread crumb trail that can lead prospective clients to your business. They can drive more traffic to your website or online portfolio, improve your rankings on search engines, and garner attention from journalists looking for experts and thought leaders.

There are 2 kinds of online press release distribution services: free and paid. Free services, which will publish your press release on their sites, usually require you to follow a highly formatted template and often don't allow you to include hyperlinks, photos, or videos. Before publication, your press release goes through a review process, which can delay publication. It's not unusual for press releases to be returned to you because you haven't followed the guidelines exactly. But, hey, what can you expect from a free service?

Here are some free services to consider:

• PRLog.org
• PR.com
• PR-Inside.com
• OnlinePRNews.com
• Pressitt

In contrast, paid services not only will publish your press release on their sites and in their RSS feeds, they will also send your press release to contacts on their press list. Depending on the service you purchase, you get additional benefits such as tagging and editing of meta data. Some paid sites will even announce your press release through social sharing.

What's tagging? Tags simply are keywords that categorize and describe the content of your press release. The tags help lead readers to your news release. All of the major search engines, RSS feeds, and bookmarking sites depend on tags to find relevant content for their readers.

These paid services have received good reviews, but understand that some of the plans get quite pricey:

• 24-7 Press Release Newswire
• PR Underground
• PRWeb
• PR Newswire

By now you're wondering, "What in the world can I write about?" You can probably find lots of things to write about. A few topics might be:

• Completing an AMWA certificate
• Coauthoring a manuscript
• Presenting at a conference or webinar
• Being elected to a leadership position of a professional organization
• Releasing a white paper or other professional resource
• Publishing a book
• Earning the BELS certificate

So quit dragging your feet and start writing. But don't just submit your press release and forget about it. Add it to your website. Send out emails to clients, colleagues, and marketing contacts that include a link to the news release. And announce your press release via Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms.

And speaking of getting the attention of journalists (see paragraph #1), we use Help a Reporter Out (HARO). After you sign up to be a source and subscribe to one of the HARO lists (we're subscribed to the Master list), queries from journalists who need experts will appear in your inbox several times a day. HARO is a great resource for building media contacts.