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How to Raise your Profile and Earn a Living from Writing

with

Andrew Crofts, author of The Freelance Writer’s Handbook

Would you like to know how to:

• write articles that the media – and the public – will be genuinely interested to read?
• establish your expertise as a writer and sell your work many times over into different markets?
• make a steady living from your writing, even if this is alongside other work that you are doing?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you will be fascinated to hear what Andrew Crofts has to say on these subjects with the benefit of his perspective from over 35 years’ writing experience.

According to Writing magazine Andrew Crofts is ‘one of the world’s most successful and versatile freelance writers’. He has worked as a journalist, a travel writer, a ghostwriter, a business writer, a novelist and a non-fiction writer. And with over fifty books to his name, eight of which have been to number one or two in the Sunday Times bestseller lists, he certainly knows a thing or two about raising your profile and earning a living from writing!

Whether you are writing fiction or non-fiction, full length books, short stories or articles, the importance of supporting your writing by engaging in activities that raise your profile is fundamental to your success. And earning more from your writing generally probably wouldn’t go amiss even if you aren’t planning to give up your day job just yet!

But getting started in the right way can be challenging and time consuming unless you have the right information. And this is precisely what we’ll cover in this fascinating interview where we’ll discuss:

1. How to become an expert in many subject areas - in order to become a writer you need first to have something to say that people will be willing to pay to read.

Andrew will talk about how to decide where your areas of expertise should be and how to go about establishing them. He will suggest ways you can find interesting and saleable material. Becoming an expert is not as hard as it sounds, it is just about asking the right questions of the right people and packaging the answers effectively.

2. How to sell your expertise in as many different markets as possible - many writers find it difficult to sell themselves, but with the help of the Internet it is possible to sell your projects and products vigorously while at the same time sparing yourself the blushes of having to make one to one pitches to strangers!

And once you have made the initial sales, how do you develop your new contacts into regular customers? As well as obvious outlets like magazine editors and book publishers, Andrew will suggest other potential markets you can sell your services to like the public relations industry and the Internet, anything to keep you writing and keep you earning as you pursue your dreams.

3. The importance of marketing yourself - you need to market yourself to the right people so that they will come to you to commission articles, scripts and books. An established expert in a subject can also be hired to talk about it as well as write.

Andrew will look at ways in which personal appearances and broadcasting opportunities can help you to sell existing written work such as books, as well as raising your profile for potential commissioners of future work. We will also discuss how to become well-known in your areas of expertise – maybe even a ‘celebrity’!

4. How to Get Started - it is all too easy to be discouraged by rejection, and it is only those who find ways to cope with it who will succeed! The secret is to have as many pieces of work out in the market as possible, so that no one piece carries all your hopes, and so there is always something to be optimistic about.

Andrew will also be happy to answer specific questions on how to survive financially until you’re established if you’re aiming to earn your living from writing as well as how to get started in areas like travel writing, ghostwriting or public relations.

5. How to Make a Steady Living – most people can sell the odd article, or even the occasional book, if they try long and hard enough. But how do you turn those pieces of luck into a full time profession if that is what you’d love to do, bringing in enough money to support you full time?

In this section of the interview, we’ll look at the disciplines required to be a full time freelance writer which can also be applied to any level of writing you are doing to keep your writing at the top of your priority list!

Andrew Crofts has been described by Writing magazine as ‘one of the world’s most successful and versatile freelance writers’. He is also the author of The Freelance Writer’s Handbook (Piatkus Books) – ‘A very useful, totally practical guide’ – The Daily Mail.

Over the last thirty-five years he has worked as a journalist, a travel writer, a ghostwriter, a business writer, a novelist and a non-fiction writer. He has published over fifty books, eight of which have been to number one or two in the Sunday Times bestseller lists.

His handbook Ghostwriting (A&C Black) has been extensively quoted in Robert Harris’s latest bestseller, The Ghost, and he is frequently interviewed on programmes such as Radio 4’s Open Book and Richard and Judy. See www.andrewcrofts.com