Today, we have an interview with Katy Tafoya, a blogging consultant, and the owner and editor of ConstantChatter.

How did you get into freelance writing? Why did you choose freelancing over a full-time jobs?

I didn’t really choose freelance writing, for the most part, it chose me. I’m more of an accidental entrepreneur. I’ve always been a bit of a writer, but typically, it was always just part of my job. About five years ago, I found online journaling which quite naturally progressed to blogging. I realized at some point that I wanted to try my hand at writing for an audience instead of just writing the day to day details of my life. Two years ago this month, we decided to add a blog to my online women’s community, ConstantChatter. From that point on I started getting more and more comfortable with writing. This year I became involved with the Ladies Who Launch organization and out of passion for wanting everyone to understand Social Media, I started writing articles to get the information out there.

I haven’t held a job with a traditional sort of work schedule since I was teaching ten years ago. For the most part, freelancing has kind of chosen me and works very well with my workaholic husband’s schedule. I’ve gotten very used to working from home and having my own schedule, so much so that I don’t believe I could go back to a traditional sort of job. I love knowing that I control my environment (in particular the noise level and accessibility to others). Better still, I love knowing that I can take my work with me wherever I go. Earlier in the year, my father had a stroke and I flew back east to be with him. It was great knowing that I could spend time with him and help him get settled back at home, yet still get work done. And of course, being able to run errands and go shopping during the middle of the day, without the crowds sure is nice.

Why did you choose blog consulting to add to your writing offerings?

I actually started officially freelancing about the same time I starting doing small business visibility consulting. I was teaching workshops about blogging and social networking to women just getting started in business and realized that there was so much confusion surrounding social media. The Ladies Who Launch group has a weekly ezine and I started writing articles for them. I figured that if I took my teaching skills and combined it with my knowledge and experience in blogging and social media, that I could reach a lot more people by breaking things down into simple, easy to understand bites and getting the message out there through one-on-one tutoring and small group workshops.

How does your consulting work compare to your writing? Any major successes or challenges?

I absolutely love doing the consulting work, especially the workshops. I love helping people in anyway, so when I can sit down with someone and teach them something new that will help them and their business, I consider it a major success. Interestingly, I never really thought of myself as freelancer or even a writer. I’m completely comfortable blogging about whatever is on my mind, but I seem to fight myself a lot more when I need to write something that’s not quite so casual and has a real point to get to. It’s all still a work in progress, but for the most part, it’s all been quite successful. I think my biggest challenge is my own fear and my ability to engage in full on procrastination - if procrastination had a kingdom, they’d probably call me their Queen.

How has Constant Chatter allowed you to build on your freelance experience?

In the early days of blogging on Constant Chatter, I wrote all the content myself. In true Web 2.0 fashion, I eventually went to member-created content. That eventually got to be a lot of editorial and organizational work for me, so I recently changed tactics and started to reach out to “experts” that are comfortable writing about their area of expertise. We may have been blogging on Constant Chatter for 2 years now, but we’re still a work in progress.

Since I’m no longer involved in the day to day tasks around the Constant Chatter community itself, it’s freed up a lot of my time that has allowed me to focus on my consulting business, design more workshops and create some new goals of my own. I still do quite a bit of writing on the site, mostly in my blogs, but I rarely publish under my own name these days. My goal over the next couple of months is bite that bullet and take that step to actually start pitching pieces to magazines (yes, under my own name) and to start putting together a proposal for a book idea I’ve been toying with.

How much of a time commitment is Constant Chatter?

As I mentioned previously, I’m no longer involved with the community-side of Constant Chatter. Taking care of the day to day requests of the site became too much for me and didn’t allow me time to focus on other aspects of my business, so I hired someone to help out. This has been great though, as it has allowed me to focus completely on the blog side of Constant Chatter. As the editor of the blog, I mainly focus on looking for contributors, coming up with topics, promotions and giveaways, conducting the author interviews, handling the advertising, etc. I only post twice a week right now (but I also post daily on my blog and twice a week at my business blog), so for the most part, taking care of the blog-side of Constant Chatter takes only a couple of hours a couple days a week.

Any advice for writers interested in more entrepreneurial projects?

This is a tough one for me to answer. As an accidental entrepreneur, I basically fell into both of my most recent projects. For Constant Chatter, I was basically in the right place at the right time. I never actually set out to create a community or a blog, I just went with the flow. With my business consulting work, I was actually planning to get back into life coaching, but wound up doing a lot of work around basic web stuff including blogging, SEO and social media. Next thing I know, I was teaching workshops. Again, for me, it’s all about going with the flow.

My suggestions:

• Don’t be afraid to admit your mistakes (and there will be many). Just brush yourself off and move on. There’s a lesson in there when you can finally look back.
• Don’t be afraid to go with the flow, even if you don’t know exactly where it’s taking you. At some point though, stop and allow yourself some time to create some goals and expectations around your new “accidental” project.
• Take the risk. The worse thing that can happen is that you might fail and learn something. The best thing that could happen…you succeed and learn something.
• Share what you know. You’d be surprised how much you know about something having experienced it. You’d also be surprised how much more you learn when you share what you know with others.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help. When you’re first starting out or working as a solopreneur, it’s easy to get caught up in the I can do it all attitude. Trust me, you may think you can do it all, but in the end, you just can’t. Ask for help. Know your strengths and your weaknesses.
• Don’t forget to spend time on yourself and with others. It’s easy to get single-minded and to spend all of your time focused on your project. Thing is, it’s not healthy - for you or your business.
• Find a group of female entrepreneurs that you can relate to. Plan time together over lunch or coffee and chat about your day, your business, your successes and your failures. Again, you never know what might come your way (as well as their way - it’s all about the give and take) from a casual chat over coffee; new ideas, new information, new employees, new tools, new manufactures, new suppliers, new connections, you never know.

If you walk in to the average small business, there will be a stack of brochures on the counter. If you meet a small business owner at a networking event, she’s probably handing out brochures, business cards and maybe those pens with her business name printed on the side.

Why don’t most freelancers have their own marketing materials?

Plenty of us do our work on the side or otherwise consider our writing a secondary pursuit. It’s kind of like a hobby that we somehow profit from. But if you’re working on switching to writing full-time or want to grow your business, a little marketing is a must.

A website isn’t quite enough, even in this electronic day and age. Despite how many great job opportunities you can find online, there are even more opportunities at the businesses just down the street from your home. And those people are more likely to hire someone they know — like you! — than someone they find online. If you make it clear that you’re open for business, they may even recommend you to other people in the area.

How do I start?

Want to pick up some of those in-person opportunities? You’re going to need some sort of marketing material: while you can get a business owner excited about a new website and the awesome copy you’ll be writing for it, you’ll want something that you can leave behind to make sure that business owner remembers that you were there.

A business card can do the trick, if you’re sure that your new contact is internet-savvy and will check out your website. Unfortunately, that’s not an assumption you can make all the time, so it’s worth investing in a few brochures for your company.

Printing up a brochure doesn’t have to be hard, though. Go to a custom printing site — most have templates to get you started on your brochure (and even some other marketing materials). Add in some fabulously-written copy about your work: rates, testimonials and the like. Then print!

Let me walk you through creating a brochure with PsPrint, an online printing outfit who just happens to be offering 15% off on printing their brochures right now. All you have to do to set up a brochure for printing is go to their brochure printing page, make choices on paper, color and folding and upload your brochure file. PsPrints will mail your brochures directly to your door — you don’t even have to change out of your pajamas until it’s time to start handing them out.

You’ll Have to Make Your Brochures Work

Even with a great brochure, there’s one secret you’ll need to remember if you want to get a good response to your marketing efforts: you actually have to hand out your brochures!

Even if you’re just handing your brochures out to managers and business owners you encounter during your errands, you’re still doing better than those freelancers who don’t hand out any marketing materials at all.

Lauren won the giveaway for Genuine Men. Congratulations!

We’ve got a couple of great reads for you today in the 32nd edition of the Business of Freelance Writing Carnival. If you’d like to submit a post or two for the 33rd edition, you can do so at Blog Carnival.

Fiona Veitch Smith presents Non-fiction - how to write a proposal at The Crafty Writer posted at The Crafty Writer.

Spencer Spellman presents Freelance Writing Links and Resources posted at Spencer Spellman - Writing Tips.

Linsey B. Knerl presents Afflilate Job Scams Make Me Crabby posted at Yeah, I Freelance…..

otherdeb (Deb Wunder) presents If I Ran the Zoo?(Just how important are proper spelling and grammar, anyway?) posted at The Dangling Conversation.

I have a review copy of Genuine Men: Journeys in Stories and Stills by Nancy Bruno. This book is the end result of a combination of Nancy’s passions: black-and-white photography and telling the stories of everyday heroes.

To win this book, I want to hear how you combine your passions — leave me a comment telling me who you do it. I’ll randomly select a winner on Monday morning, so get your comments in!

As usual, the contest is open to any entrants — but I’ll only pay shipping within the U.S. If you live elsewhere and want the book, you’ll have to help me out with shipping.

I am pretty fond of the home office tax deduction: because I work from home, I get to write off a percentage of my rent and utilities. But there is no question that there are some hoops you have to jump through if you want the deduction.

The SBA has come to the conclusion that small businesses — the category most freelancers fall into — have an unfair burden during tax season. The Office of Advocacy (an independent agency within the SBA) is offering support for S.3371, a bill currently under consideration in the Senate. It’s the Home Office Deduction Simplification and Improvement Act of 2008.

While I am not a tax expert, I think a standard home office deduction would make our taxes easier. If you agree, it’s worth reminding your Senator that he or she represents small businesses and freelancers, as well as bigger businesses. Take a minute and send in an email in support of S.3371.

When it comes to writing for money, it’s important to remember that experts always get paid more. If you can list off credentials, editors are more likely to bump you up to the higher end of their pay scale. If you can prove you know what you’re talking about, clients are happy to pay higher fees.

Make Yourself An Expert

Credentials can be a bit nebulous, when it comes to writing. Personally, I think actual results often prove your abilities better than any other credentials, but the folks hiring you will use their own metrics.

But think about it. If you want an expert at creating SEO copy, are you going to chose a writer with a degree in creative writing, or are you going to chose a writer who can tell you that she got X more visitors for a site after rewriting its text?

The fastest way to turn yourself into a topic is to start writing about it. Start a blog on your particular topic or write for low-paying markets. Take on non-profit topics. Pretty soon you’ll have a big stack of examples of your work in a given niche. Relevant samples are the most important factor in getting a job, although there are a few other ways to boost your chances.

Think about why you want to write in a particular niche. Maybe you want to write articles about fishing, because you’ve been fishing ever since you were 12. It just so happens that your life-long fishing experience is a credential.

If you’re a complete beginner when it comes to fishing, though, you’re not out of luck. You should probably start fishing, of course, but there are various organizations you can get involved in that will help you learn about fishing — and your membership is also a credential.

The Benefit of Beginning

Starting from scratch in creating your expertise can actually be a benefit, at least in certain fields. You have an inside lead on what information beginners are looking for — a topic that can easily provide ten angles if you’re looking for story ideas.

It is a little harder to find a starting point if you’re focusing on any sort of copy writing — but it’s also easier to find projects. Non-profits are an example of an opportunity waiting to happen. Many non-profits don’t have the budget to cover all of their projects. They’re a little more willing to take on a relatively inexperienced writer (and write them a glowing testimonial afterward) if only to bring their project in on budget.

We’re still going strong: we’ve got soem great posts here for you to take a look at. If you’d like to submit a post or two for the 32nd edition, you can do so at Blog Carnival.

debergerac78 presents Pay to Play: Job Sites and Paid Memberships posted at oDesk Insider.

Cheryl Hines presents Article Writing For Dummies! posted at Internet Marketing With The Hines’.

Kimberly Spann presents It Starts. posted at A Writer’s Journey.

Fiona Veitch Smith presents Do you write ‘publishable’ English? at The Crafty Writer posted at The Crafty Writer.

Allena Tapia, the talented freelancer behind GardenWall Publications, answered a few questions for us about her work. Allena is also About.com’s Guide to Freelance Writing.

How did you get into freelance writing? Why did you choose freelancing over a full-time job?

I had always freelanced “on the side” for local magazines and websites, so every time I did one of those projects, I thought about the possibility of doing it full time. I worked as an editor and as a marketing writer for two local colleges, but I really didn’t “like” going to work and writing the same things day after day. At this very same time, I felt like I was missing a lot of volunteer opportunities in my community and especially at my daughter’s school, which really annoyed me. I didn’t like giving away the bulk of my life just for material goods, while I was missing all kinds of other things. I am blessed to have a spouse who supported me in making the transition to pursuing freelance writing full time, but he is a numbers person, so I had to show him the job postings and writer’s markets available.

What services do you offer through your company, Garden Wall Publications? Do you have any plans to expand in the future?

I’ve really focused on editing more than writing through GWP. I guess that’s just the way it worked out, the kind of clients I got. However, I do have some pretty regular clients who need web copy and SEO, and I will always serve my loyal clients as needed. As for the future, I think I am going to try to go 50/50 between magazine submissions and editorial services. Since editing and copywriting pay the bills, they tend to take time away from querying print magazines, which is where I want to go. I also have a novel in progress (who doesn’t?) and will begin submitting poetry before the end of the year. I kind of follow my whim with writing, as long as the bills are paid, and that’s one advantage of freelancing — you can go where your interests take you.

How do you measure your successes as a freelancer? Have you had any major struggles in freelancing?

I know that some writers don’t agree with me, but what says success to me is being able to pay my bills and not have to go back to a day job (unless I absolutely want to). Writing is my career, and I view a career as the work that allows you to live outside of work. That’s not to say that I don’t get personal satisfaction from writing- I do- but my personal projects are my novel and my poetry, and my business projects are to support my life outside of work. So, if I can contribute to my household, I am successful.

I have had struggles in freelancing. For example, I’ve let my mouth and my attitude get away from me at times, but I’ve regrouped and moved on. Another struggle I have is work-life balance and keeping boundaries. Summers really do me in, as my children are home, and we travel a lot, so all of my time management skills are stretched.

As the About.com guide to freelance writing, you provide information for lots of beginning freelancers. If you had to narrow it down to just one piece of advice, though, what would you tell a beginning freelancer?

Everyone wants to know HOW to start or the BEST WAY to start freelance writing. Should I get a website first, or start getting clips first? Should I set up my fee structure or make a resume? Instead, I want to tell them, the first thing you have to do is START WRITING. Sit down and write something that’s been in your head. Get it out on paper, walk away, come back, polish it. Writing will only make you a better writer, so start with one piece that you love. You can then start selling it (or use it to sell yourself).

Occasionally, I feel like a broken record, encouraging writers and other freelancers to concentrate on building a business. I encourage all of you to build income beyond just straight writing, and not just because you can significantly increase your income that way.

It’s also a matter of security. There are times when freelance work just seems to dry up. The end of August, for instance, always seems a little quiet. I think half the world goes on vacation right now, if only to get in one last bit of fun before their kids have to be back in school. If you’re dependent on purely freelance income streams, though, any vacations your clients or editors take can cause you some financial difficulties.

Having even one other source of ongoing income smooths out the valleys and mountains in your income, making your financial situation a little more secure. You can make it through rough spots if you have something to fall back on.