What does it mean to hire a writer? What does a writer do? What types of projects do they tackle? The term “writer” is quite broad, but you may be happy to find out that writers can help you with tasks you may be avoiding.
Do any of these sound like they fit your situation?
- You Hate Writing – Did you dread writing papers in school? Do you avoid any writing task or leave it to the very last second? One of the best pieces of business advice I have received is to play to your strengths and recognize where you could use a little extra help. Plug in the right people to make you look good. A writer should do that easily.
- You Don’t Have Time – Think about it from an efficiency perspective: if you aren’t looking forward to writing a blog post and you aren’t motivated to do it, it could take you twice as long to write it than it would a professional writer. Save your time.
- You Don’t Have the Staff to Write – either there’s no one in the office but you, or your team is too busy to take these writing tasks off your plate. Either way, you don’t have the bandwidth to handle the projects you want to get done. Give it to someone who actually enjoys this type of thing. It will add to your good mood and make the whole situation lighter. Easy.
- You Don’t Want to Worry About the Details – Writers have the ability to see how things work that other people either dread, or find invisible. Writers focus on story structure, sentence structure, grammar, and calls to action. They write your project, edit it, and wrap it up in a neat little bow before handing it over to you.
- You Can’t Step Outside Your Business – Writers know that it is hard to write for yourself. Sometimes getting an outside perspective helps freshen everything up.
Do you know what a writer will write? Anything. Web copy for your shiny new website, ghostwriting email/letter copy and blog posts, wedding vows, dating profiles, resumes, marketing materials, articles, tag lines, ghostwriting quotations for your news release, news releases, memos, grants – you name it, writers write it. This opens a whole new world to you…and might even afford you some free time!
Tip: Interview writers like you interview a potential employee, don’t just pick the first one you find. Ask for writing samples similar to the project you want them to help you with. A writer’s voice and experience should fit what you are trying to accomplish. Many writers have a focus and areas where they feel comfortable. If you ask them to write something they aren’t as familiar with, they usually have a colleague to refer.
Writers will bid a project or give you an estimate based upon the information you give them about what you need. Payment per word is reserved for publications. If you need someone to write a blog post, get a flat rate.