Every freelancer experiences the feast and famine syndrome. One minute you’re swamped with work and not sure how to cope. The next, you have no idea where the next project is coming from – or how to pay your monthly bills.

You can’t avoid the feast and famine experience, but here are a few tips on how to mitigate the effect:

1. Find ongoing projects – rather than one-offs. So, as a writer, for me that means targeting clients who need a monthly newsletter or a series of case studies/press releases. Even annual reports are ongoing, as they come round once a year.

2. Secure a retainer. When I did PR, I was on a monthly retainer with all my clients, so I always had a regular amount coming in each month.

If you already have freelance experience, and are struggling with finding work, this article will show you how to succeed in the booming freelance market and win new freelance business.

1. Beginners
If you can string a few sentences together, but don’t have writing experience, or the journalistic drive to get to the bottom of the things that matter, you need to gain some experience first. If you are just starting – write as much as you can, for free. Get a blog and start writing about something that you are passionate about, that drives you to want to delve in and give people the most beneficial information they can find on your site.

2. Sites for beginners
There are sites such as Suite 101 and Demand Studios that will sometimes allow you to post your ideas, essays and articles for free, and Demand Studios will give you some training and a little cash. Other places, such as Hub Pages help you get started earning a reputation for your quality work, and will help you get published, and eventually earn money. These are great sites to gain experience.

Following on from my post last week on why freelancers should blog, here is a guest post from Timothy Ng who explains how bloggers can enjoy living the dotcom lifestyle.

If you blog and want to earn an income from your blogging activities, you are probably searching for a lifestyle that will give you

• More time
• More money
• The ability to be located anywhere in the world

Here are five tips on how bloggers can achieve this Dotcom Lifestyle.

Tip 1 – Work Smarter Not Harder

It all boils down to improving your blogging efficiency. Time is the motivating factor and you can become more efficient by implementing the following two points:

• 80/20 Rule
• Short Deadlines
Read more »

Everyone I speak to seems to have a blog these days. And there’s a very good reason for this. Well, I can actually think of at least ten good reasons. Here are my thoughts on why a blog can help your freelance business.

1. The content in your posts will position you as an expert. You will be seen as the ‘go to’ person (assuming you write valuable content, of course).

2. If you link your blog to your website, it will help drive more traffic to your site.

3. Your blog can be a source of income. You can sign up to affiliate deals and run adverts (eg: Google Adsense). They’re free to sign up to and every time someone clicks on an advert or buys an item through your affiliate link, you earn money. You can also sell your own products on your blog, such as ebooks, online courses, apps etc.