Plus, I’ve managed to pick up 2 more bonuses for you: the Squidoo Profits Plan, which shows you how to start earning real money by setting up Squidoo Lenses, and the complete 2-part “AdSense: Inexperience to Income,” a step-by-step guide for cleaning up with AdSense.

But, as I said, tomorrow is the only day this offer is good. The program will open at 8:00 a.m., central time, and will close at midnight. Once your subscription payment has been confirmed, I’ll shoot you an email with the 2 special reports, and asking which book you want and where you’d like it shipped.

I’m really excited about this, and I hope you are too. These freebies alone will allow you to really make a difference in your income. And if you use them in conjunction with the course, then pretty soon you will be your own biggest client…and you can pick and choose from there, working only with the clients you want to work with, and the projects you want to work on.

Well, I’ve kept you long enough. See you tomorrow!

For details, head on over and check it out: http://4hww.CopywriterSurvivalGuide.com

What do I mean? Well, if you put the effort in, you get results…but not always the results you’re expecting.

Last week, I decided to set aside Monday to make a few (25) calls. Some were cold calls; a few were touching base with people I’d already spoken to. All were short, and not very sales-y. “Hi, I’m Danny Thompson, and I’m a freelance writer specializing in [industry]. I just wanted to introduce myself and find out if you guys ever use freelancers to help with marketing or corporate communications.”

That’s it…that’s my script! Whether I get a yes or no, the calls seldom last more than 3 or 4 minutes.

Now, here’s the freaky part: while I occasionally get a few bites that might lead to paying work. But invariably, whenever I set time aside to make a few calls, I end up getting two or three gigs come in entirely unrelated to my calls.

I can’t explain it…but it happens too often for me to ignore. So here’s a strategy: forget the results of your calling. Make your calls expecting that every one will land you a “no,” if you want. For some reason, it will still end up getting you work, simply because the universe rewards focused effort.

I started prompts similar to the FREElance Survival Training to help make those systems habitual…ten calls a day, get the big stuff done early, plan for tomorrow before I “clock out,” send out invoices, check on payments, etc.

Then I put systems in place that took things to a whole new level. I started in order to automate the things I didn’t like, like invoicing, record keeping and collections, giving me time to focus on the work I did like. Then I took it a step further. I noticed that when I batch like tasks, I completed them much faster.

So I declared Tuesday and Thursday my “writing days.” Yes, I only write on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Think about that for a moment. I’m a writer. That is my work. I work on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I know what’s going through your mind. “That would never work! I’ve got too much to do! My clients want stuff when they want it!”

I felt the same way, until I took a closer look. More often than not, clients asked for a specific date…but then followed it with “let me know if this won’t work for you.” I also realized that I could structure my time just a bit and improve my productivity. Write more in less time…since I charge by the project and not the our, it worked out to a tremendous increase in my hourly rate!

Not only that, but I now plan my jobs and decide how much I can handle by simple checking my schedule for Tuesday and Thursday!

Of course…the Tues/Thurs thing IS a bit of an over simplification. First, I noticed I had a lot of wasted time in the car…taking the kids to school…driving to meet clients…driving out to my favorite hiking and camping spots. So, I’d work in the car, using the Jott.com service to dictate the ideas and basic structure for what I’ll write on Tues and Thurs. Second, because of this prep work…I typically write between 10 am and 3 pm on Tuesday and Thursday. Minus lunch from 12-1, of course.

If it’s a new client, I’ll typically spend a little time doing a little research on Mondays. Occasionally, I’ll take a client out for a nice lunch (can you say write-off?).

What does this mean, exactly? It means I took what was a decent life with a 27-hour work week, and turned it into an unbelievable 8-hour (plus stolen moments that would otherwise be wasted time) work week. Actually, it’s less than that now.

I tell you all of this not simply to show off. But to get you thinking about where you’re wasting time. Where you’re duplicating efforts. Where you’re banging your head against the wall, while there’s a door if you’d just take two steps to the left.

But don’t do it so you can simply goof off (or drag in more work to fill the time). The real benefits of simplifying things isn’t so you can get even more done…but so that you can DO more. My oldest son is out of school for the summer. I’ve been spending a lot of time with him doing all sorts of things. It was looking like the start to a great summer.

Then, this last week my mother’s internist found a malignant tumor. The surgery and recovery went smoothly, and luckily I got to spend almost all of about five days there at the hospital with her. It wasn’t how I planned on using my free time. But I am certainly glad I had the time to spend however I needed it.

I still wrote on Thursday…but I did it from the hospital. And in the car.

Don’t get so caught up in the “how” of being a success that you forget what the whole point is. It’s not liberating hours so you can squeeze more work in. It’s making the work easy, so you can spend quality time…however you define it, whether that’s in the woods, at home reading a book to a five year old, or simply being there at the hospital.

Here’s to YOUR success…whatever that entails (and I hope it’s more than a number).

So, let me offer this bit of advice if you’re interested in becoming a part of the New Rich: if you have a virtual assistant helping with the launch of a new site, make sure it’s clear when a change is a test and when it is a site that’s going live…hehe.

I wasn’t planning to go live with this for another week (hence the glitch some people had after ordering), but since it’s live, we’ll run with it. And, yes, the glitch is fixed.
I’ve added a new page to the site that talks about just what is included in the course. Next I’ll add a few details about the free hosting that comes with the course, which will come in handy when you get to lesson two.

If you’d like to see what the course is going to be about, visit http://4hww.copywritersurvivalguide.com/the-course/

Best of all, you are free to cancel your subscription. So, if you’re not interested in the last two or three sections (they won’t be for everyone), you don’t have to take them.

Sorry again for any confusion!  Here’s to your success.

Oh, I was been successful. And I’ve done my best to help you guys be successful, as well. And then I read this book…

This book made my 27-hour-per-week “career” seem like an 80-hour week scrubbing bathrooms at grand central station. My life, which had seemed so pie-in-the-sky perfect was suddenly exposed as something that was just half a step above life in a cubicle farm.

That book? 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss.

Wow! 4-hour work week? And it all seemed so simple…so logical.

…and even better, it worked like a charm. Much better than I ever anticipated. So much so that all that stuff I mentioned about my first six-figure year? Well, let’s just say that concern is no longer an issue.

Now, I plan on continuing this site for those of you who are finding the info helpful. But now there’s a whole new game in town…a little something I’m calling The 4-Hour Work Week for Writers. [http://4hww.copywritersurvivalguide.com]

This one is a weekly e-course with step-by-step lessons that show you exactly how I did it. It takes the principles Ferriss lays out in his book and gives you potent tactics that writers can use to put those principles into practice.

In fact, the very first lesson gives you a no-fail method that makes the course pay for itself, month after month.

And as if that weren’t enough, it also includes free web hosting and design tools, powered by HostGator. That’s right, free—with enough storage and bandwidth to cover anything you’ll need as we go through the lessons (and probably anything else you’ll need).

The course is $24.95 a month, with four lessons per month (one each week), each showing you how to make more money while spending less time on it, with the ultimate goal of having a thriving successful business that requires almost no time on your part to run—and YES, you can do this as a writer.

To find out more, just visit the site http://4hww.copywritersurvivalguide.com

What Do You Know?
So, the first thing you have to have is knowledge. Thanks to the big-box bookstores, the Net, and college bookstores, that knowledge is easy to come by. The simple truth is, if you read two or three books on the industry, you’ll know more about it than 95% of the copywriters out there (and the general population, for that matter). Read each book, and write a two page summary.

Once you’ve done this, let the information cool for a bit, come up with an angle you can call your own, and then write a 5-10 page special report based on the information you’ve read so far, and offer it for free on your site to subscribers of your free monthly newsletter. Keep reading a new book on the industry each month, along with half an hour or so of research online, and use this information as the basis for your newsletter. At the same time, you’re talking regularly with your clients and learning as much as you can about the various aspects of the business that affect them on a day-to-day basis.

Act Like The Expert You Are!
Next, contact you local university annex or community center and offer to teach a free seminar on some aspect of the subject at hand. Once you’ve taught it two or three times, contact the local trade association, and offer to speak to the industry about effective marketing. Record these seminars and offer them as free videos to your newsletter subscribers.

Once the members of the industry see you speaking authoritatively, they will see you as an credible expert…because you will be one. At this point, you can start charging fees for speaking, and you’ll have enough first-hand knowledge to start writing your own books on the subject. Not to mention the fees you can command as a Specialist Copywriter in the industry.

All from a few extra hours work each month.