Touring the Blogosphere, Jennifer Greenleaf takes a few moments to share her success secrets with Writer’s Round-About. This weekend she’s doing a special promotion.

How can you take part? “Each book has its own custom bookplate designed and signed by Jennifer Greenleaf. All customers have to do is forward their receipt to Jennifer once the purchase has been made, and then they will receive their signed bookplate. The email you need to use in order to receive your custom bookplate is jgbooksigning@aol.com“. So get yourself the book or books of your choice and get in touch with Jennifer. Meanwhile, enjoy a few words from Jennifer about making success happen.

Even though I’ve been writing professionally since 1999, I still feel I’m very wet behind the ears when it comes to career building. When I first started out, I felt I needed to depend on others in order to find success and make things happen. Here are a couple of areas where I went wrong:

• I thought if my target market approached me for work, I was successful. WRONG.
• I thought if I got my name “out there,” that would be all I had to do to obtain writing gigs and clients. WRONG.

Not only was I depending on people to contact me, but I was also depending on other people (like the places where I was published, for example) to get my name out there. Despite being a motivated self-starter, I wasn’t “making it happen.” It took me about three years to realize these mistakes, and I’ve been working on “in your face” type promotions for my freelance writing and books.

There are a number of ways YOU can make it happen. Here are a few:

1. Query often: querying has to be part of your regular routine if you want your freelance writing career to really work. This is, of course, unless you have already created a good stable of steady work. For those who are novice in the field, it’s essential to make this a fixture in your work schedule.
2. Blog regularly: Google is a tool your prospective gigs, clients, and editors will use to find out more about you. This is true even if you’ve already landed the job. If you’re blogging regularly about a topic your passionate about or your career, they’re able to see a consistent stream of writing samples regularly. They’ll also learn a bit about your style, maybe learn about some of your goals, and probably figure out what your favorite kind of ice cream is…wait…never mind….
3. Be reliable: if for some reason you’re unable to make a deadline, be known for good communication. Don’t be unreliable; otherwise you’ll quickly earn yourself a bad reputation. You’d be surprised who knows whom in which circles and, before you know it, you’ve earned yourself a bad name. I learned a trick when I was first starting out to write “dummy” deadlines on my calendar that was a few days prior to the real one. That way, I’m always early or right on time!

This is a New Year and good opportunity to dream big, and make your career exactly what you envision it to be. Follow other writers who are making it happen, learn the ropes of the business from writing websites (like this one, for example), and be realistic about what you can accomplish and when. You can make it happen!

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