By Lauren Bailey

As freelancers, we sometimes encounter periods of inactivity between projects. Of course, it’s always good to have multiple projects on the agenda; however, in the rare case that you don’t have work, you’ll want to consider some ideas for dealing with that slumping feeling of not having anything to do. Sure, you might not be able to write necessarily, but there’s always something you can do to get rid of that post-project slump feeling. Basically, as a freelancer, you’ll want to help grow your business, and this means doing more than simply writing. Anyhow, here are a few tips to keep yourself busy as you look for a new project. Please feel free to add more if you can think of them.

1. Go Over Your Finances
   One important part of running your freelance business is to constantly understand your financial situation. You can use the down time between projects to go over your finances. Look at your invoices and track down any outstanding invoices. Examine your budget. Look at your billing system and whether or not you need to adjust your rates. You can use this extra time to come up with a long term financial plan, with goals, for the next few years regarding your freelancing and what you expect from it financially.
2. Seek New Opportunities
   Another thing you can do as a freelancer without a current project is to look for new projects. Spend your time tracking down promising leads. Contact old clients to ask them if they have any work, or, if you’re comfortable, propose new work to them that piggybacks off of a previous project you did for them. Ask them if they could recommend you to their friends. Search out possible projects to bid on various freelance market blogs and sites.
3. Review Your Last Project
   Next, review your latest project. It’s sometimes a good idea to reflect on the work you’ve done in order to figure out how you could further improve it. Look at how you communicated with your client. Look at the ways you revised the project and tried to conform to your client’s expectations. By reflecting on your most recent project, it might inspire you to make changes in how you do business in the future. You can always improve as a writer, and you can always improve as a freelancing business person.
4. Write for Yourself!
   What better way to use your free time than to write for yourself. If you don’t have any freelance projects going, it can’t hurt to do a bit of personal writing. This not only keeps your writing muscles in use, but it also allows you to do something for you, which is very important to keeping a healthy attitude towards writing. Every now and then we writers need a break, so take advantage of it. Work on that project you’ve long hoped to accomplish, be it a novel or an in-depth piece of journalism to send to a major market. Good luck!

Lauren Bailey is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about online colleges. She especially loves hearing back from her readers. Questions or comments can be sent to: blauren99 AT gmail DOT com.

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Flickr photo courtesy of fortinbras

By Tracy Marchini

One of the most common pieces of advice to freelance writers is to try and resell your previously published articles in order to increase your income with a smaller time investment. But before you try to reuse, reduce, or recycle, a writer has to make sure they actually have the rights to do so.

It was difficult to pick just five terms from Pub Speak: A Writer’s Dictionary of Publishing Terms, but here are five that every freelance writer should know when they’re considering reselling work:

1. Canceled contract.
   An agreement between two parties which has been deemed no longer in effect according to the termination clause. In publishing, this generally means that a termination letter has been signed by both parties and the rights have returned to the original owner.
2. Exclusive rights.
   Rights that are granted to one party alone. If an author grants exclusive audio rights to one audio publisher, they cannot sell the audio rights to that work to another publisher until the first contract is terminated.
3. Length of term.
   The amount of time a contract or agreement remains in effect.
4. Reversion request.
   A letter or other written communication that asks for the cancellation of a contract and the return of previously granted rights to the author.
   
5. Work-for-hire.
   Work that is made according to a publisher or other contractor’s specifications. The author generally does not retain the copyright to the material they produced and may or may not receive royalties.

Why are these terms important?

If you have granted exclusive print rights to a magazine, you will have to either wait until the length of term expires, or write a reversion request in order to cancel the contract before you would be able to sell the same article to another print magazine. If you have written the article as work-for-hire, the copyright will not be transferred to you and you will not be able to resell the article at all as all the rights belong to the contractor or publisher.

In the digital age, you may even have to check your contract to ensure you have the right to reuse the article on your own blog or website. If you have granted exclusive electronic rights to a publisher, then you do not have the right to post the full-length article on your blog and would be in breach of contract if you did so. Some contracts do outline an amount that the author is allowed to use in electronic or other formats for marketing and publicity. If you’re in doubt, it is always better to ask the publisher than to be in breach. (To be in breach of contract means that one has broken one or several of the terms outlined in the contract and could be subject to paying damages to the other party.)

Another important thing to note is that if the length of term is the length of the copyright, then the term length is for the length of the author’s life plus seventy years. (This is according to current copyright law, which is subject to change.) This is something to seriously consider before signing the contract if you have not already agreed to doing the work as a work-for-hire.
One final note — remember to read each contract carefully before you sign. They’re your rights, use them well!

Tracy Marchini is a freelance writer and editorial consultant. Before launching her own editorial service, she worked for Curtis Brown, Ltd. for four years. Her experience also includes work as a newspaper correspondent, a book reviewer for BookPage, and a freelance copywriter for Scholastic. Tracy’s latest project is Pub Speak: A Writer’s Dictionary of Publishing Terms, an ebook that defines over 400 industry terms.

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