Like many freelance writers, I’m extremely busy working on client projects which leaves little time for me to update my own blog. And I see I haven’t posted anything of value since February. I’m not surprised as I’ve doubled my business so far this year.
New prospects often look at my website before calling, and since I generally wait six months or more to post new samples of my work, I find it easier to create blog posts from time to time outlining what I’ve been doing to give them an idea of the types of work I do.
This list also serves as a reminder for me to grab links and copies of my work after an appropriate time has passed as much of what I do has a certain shelf life and value to clients whether it be lead generation, website traffic generation or marketing awareness, for examples.
What follow is a list of what I’ve been doing since February of this year.
I’m looking for new business for late October through the rest of the year, so if you are looking for a writer, give me a shout.
B2B Case Study Work
After years of writing business stories for newspapers and magazines, I find I still love writing business stories, only for most clients that entails writing case studies. I write case studies for companies in many different industries.
So far this year:
- I wrote a case study on how fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) technology is saving a school district thousands of dollars and reducing their energy needs
- I wrote five case studies for Cloud-based ERP Sofware as a Service Provider about how companies are streamlining their accounting and financial systems
- I wrote a case study for a Healthcare Software & Hardware Provider, which makes it easier for healthcare firms to use technology
B2B White Papers and Thought Leadership
Many companies continue to use white papers and thought leadership articles to establish their expertise, educate customers and as lead generation pieces for their marketing automation campaigns.
This year, I’ve:
- Reworked four white papers and two infographics for large software company on sales and worker productivity
- Wrote a white paper for the same software firm on debunking cloud myths
- Wrote a 17-page Sales Coaching whitepaper
- Wrote an 8-page whitepaper on self-service BI (Business Intelligence) and business analytics on how they are going beyond spreadsheets
- I’m currently working on a research-intensive enterprise white paper comparing Cloud Database technologies
B2B Sales Materials
I’ve worked with a number of content marketing agencies and companies working in the B2B sales space this year, completing projects of different kinds. Examples of my work include:
- 15 Sales data sheets for new services a Cloud-based Sales Platform company launched this year
- Three Contributed Articles for a nonprofit on trade secret protection on Intellectual Property or IP based on their new white paper
- Blog posts for a number of firms, including posts on email archiving, B2B sales practices and business intelligence
- Two infographics on sales and business productivity
Freelance Writing Coach, Book Editing
I’m a moderator at the Freelance Writers Den where I also serve as one of several hosts for weekly Thursday podcasts. As a veteran freelancer, I answer many questions in the Den forums, and schedule podcast guests. I also help several women in sales with their book projects, serving as writing coach and editor.
Here are some of the topics we’ve covered on weekly Den Podcasts:
- How to set writing fees
- How to work with agencies
- Word Press updates to add to websites
- Work-life balance
- Social media sites like TSU, and Instagram
- How to surviving financially as a freelance writer
- Basic Google Analytics
- How to handle sales conversations
- Traits of highly productive writers
- Ask an Editor
I’m also serving as a writing coach and editor for a book on B2B sales, and we’ve just finished the first three chapters.
Journalism and other Articles
I miss being a full time business journalist. It’s really tough to make a decent living solely writing business features for 
newspapers and magazines given the low rates and third-world payment terms that many magazines – not all, thank goodness – continue to insist upon. So my list of journalism projects isn’t as long as I would like. I still like to tackle assignments from time to time. My recent work includes:
- Second Home Buyer feature story for Alaska Airlines
- Retirement Home story for Horizon Airlines
- Financial column on Retirement for Alaska Airlines
- End of the year planning for Horizon Airlines
- Article on Engineering Discovery Days for University School of Engineering
In between times, I’ve moved to Central Washington, prepared and sent three children to college, and I’m acclimating to 100-degree desert living and days of smoke filled stagnant air due to fires burning in north central Washington and Idaho. I’m wondering how much water it will take to establish Kentucky Blue grass and choke out and replace the previous lawn of prickers now that we are connected to the local irrigation system.
My current pet project: I’m gathering strings for a profile on a high tech executive making international waves.
Tell Me: What have you been working on this year? I’d love to hear about your projects in the comments below.
M. Sharon Baker
ss to a large library and a college bookstore.
I also added To Show and To Tell by Phillip Lopate, but it is seemingly more academic and harder to read.
Luckily, Ardath shows B2B marketers how it’s done. Her principles not only work for enterprise companies with complex sales but any company that wants to become customer focused. Buy the book – I’m only through the first chapter, but I will devour the rest.
