You are a microbusiness. I am a writer.

What’s a Microbusiness?

It’s the self-employed, the sole proprietor, the LLC partnership where the partners are you & your spouse/parent/best friend.

It’s you being a consultant, a freelancer, an independent creative, an indiepreneur, an artist or crafter, a blogger, a writer, a designer, a small-scale business owner (under 10 employees, or none at all).

I am a microbusiness, too.

Being a microbusiness means a couple of things:

1) We are the majority. There are 26 million of us, out of about 29 million total business establishments in the United States. In the UK, around 4.5 million, or 95% of the business firms, are micro enterprises. Microbusinesses are growing in number worldwide.
2) We do all the work ourselves. Or the majority of it. We work lean because that’s the only way we can work. Our time is precious and we’re bootstrapping ourselves, so our budgets are small.

You Need Writing

Writing is important for every business, regardless of size.

How important? Well, how important are customers for your microbusiness?

You get customers with good marketing. Guess what?

Marketing is writing. Oh sure, there’s more: data, analysis, strategic planning. But without writing? All that becomes useless. Without writing you cannot communicate. Without writing your customers don’t know you exist.

The Microbusiness Struggle

I used to write for marketing firms and their clients, mostly mall businesses. Website copy, blog posts, e-newsletter content, social media updates, white papers, brochures: whatever they needed, I wrote it.

But I noticed something.

My freelancing, independent, microbiz friends were missing something important. They are visual artists, analytical consultants, designers. They know numbers or code or sewing or app development or fashion. But words? They struggle with finding words to say what they need to say to gain and keep customers.

The marketing firms offer packages in the thousands-of-dollars range. For a microbusiness, that’s near impossibility, especially if you’re in the early stages.

What I Do

I dropped the marketing firms and changed my focus.

I now focus on writing for microbusinesses: website copy, blog posts, sales letters and landing pages, e-newsletter content, product descriptions, white papers.

Writing is my thing. Other things, like editing, social media, marketing strategy, public relations, content placement? Not so much. (Click those links for some great people who can help you with those.)

What I Charge

There are two options: my hourly rate or my a la carte pricing.

• Hourly Rate

I charge $85/hour. If you are in your first year of business, you get the newbie rate: $75/hour.

For larger projects (5+ hours),  you get a 5% discount as well asan estimate of how many hours your project will take. You can set a cap on the hours: I’ll do as much as I can within the time frame you give me.

• A La Carte

I’ve set standard rates for some of the most common writing needs that a micro business will have.

If you’re interested in learning more, and/or you would like a copy of the A La Carte pricing, please send me an email.