Freelance Writing for Nonprofits

I figure outlining has cost me about a month’s worth of time that could have been spent actually writing this book.

Last month, as I really got into this project, I started to get obsessed with the book outline, because I was getting so many comments from well-meaning friends about how important it was to really flesh out the outline in great detail for a project this big.

I listened, and frittered away many hours working on the thing, frustrated all the while, shuffling the decks and not making any significant progress.

What I failed to take into account is that I DON’T WRITE THAT WAY!

Outlines work for me in a very general, macro sort of way. If I’m writing 1,000 words, I might create an outline in my head of  three or four items. Say this, talk about that, example here, etc. And I do have the equivalent of that kind of outline for this book, with five-six subheadings per chapter. But trying to get deeper than that in the outline is where things go awry.

I just need to write the damn thing. I know what I need to say. I need to get it out. Then I go back, see what I have, fill in gaps, then re-order everything and cut out what doesn’t fit. In other words, I’m a much better organizer than outliner.

So, I’m back to what works for me. I’m just doing it. I’m much happier, and the book is coming along at a much better pace.

All freelancers who write not just for pleasure but to pay the bills as well have learned one important skill and have successfully put it to work: repurposing content. There is absolutely no shame in recycling your material, as long as (1) you own the copyright (i.e. you haven’t sold all rights to a magazine or written as work-made-for-hire for a client) and (2) you invest a bit of time in making substantive changes.

Say you are a blogger. Where else do you write for publication? Your blog posts could be recycled into articles for your or a client’s website, print newsletter, e-newsletter, press release, e-book, workshop lesson plan, etc.

Use one or more of these techniques to freshen up your original article each time you use it elsewhere.

Change the angle. If you emphasized one particular element of the story, emphasize a new one now. If you told the story from one person’s perspective, tell it from the perspective of someone else in the story.

Change the person. If you wrote the article in third person (”She walked away . . .”), change the article to a first-person account (”I walked away . . .”). You’ll need to ensure that the person telling the story approves the new version told from her point of view.

Make it shorter. Cut out some of the extra details and focus in on just one key point or message.

Make it longer. Add in some additional material from your original research or interview notes.

Rewrite the lead paragraph. Start the article in a new way.

Turn it into a how-to article. What did the story’s participants learn and can that be shared with others? Turn those lessons into a how-to or step-by-step article for others.

Get the most out of the time you spend researching and writing articles by using that material in many different ways.

Need an example? This article is repurposed from one I just wrote on my other blog, Nonprofit Communications. That version emphasizes how nonprofits can recycle their best stories to market their organizations in different ways. To recycle that post for this blog, I pulled out one of the four steps from that article, changed some of the wording to address freelance writers instead of nonprofits, and added a new title and lead paragraph. I spent nearly an hour drafting the first post, but only ten minutes on this one. See how well this can work?