by Caroline Vaught
The coronavirus made 2020 a rough year for advancement. I know we’re all tired of hearing about it at this point, but I think it’s easy to forget how much this really affected students that are still in college. You hear a lot about what graduates had to do, but I lost a really big internship last summer that would have done a lot for my future in book publishing all because of the pandemic.
It’s easy to focus on the negative, but sometimes you have to take what is available to you and use it to the best of your ability. On a whim, my roommate decided to join Fiverr.com to try and get a few extra dollars here and there. In reality, it wouldn’t hurt anything, so I signed up too. Starting a freelance business can be disappointing. After all, you start with no reviews, no credibility, and no idea what to do first. All it takes is one buyer to have faith in you to get things rolling. Will it be exactly what you want? No, my first client was for a dating book that was priced over $50 for a small paperback. Taking the skills from my classes, I managed to pull together a small list of 30 people that I thought would be interested in advertising or reviewing her book. I composed emails and send messages to every single person. Then, silence. It took days to get two responses and only one of them panned out. It was humiliating and I felt like I looked like I didn’t know what I was doing. That was my first 5-star rating and the start of a freelancing career I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around.
Soon, I was getting several clients a week. Each client was different, making me think differently for each book genre and finding the perfect audience. We learn in class that the media can be particularly hard to work with, but I have found that to be somewhat false. Not once has someone in the media told me to leave them alone, but I have had several clients ask I’m actually trying to help them. The main thing people do not understand about PR is that it requires patience, connections and faith. Clients would ask for me to get them connected to Netflix, celebrities and large groups of people that I had no chance of reaching out to.
After a while, you reach a rhythm. Remind your clients that you are a freelancer and not a giant PR firm, so you won’t have the kind of connections they might be hoping for. I tell all my clients that I can’t guarantee any results. No one wants to hear that, but PR is subjective, especially when it comes to products like books. As self-published authors, they don’t have the name of a big publishing company behind them, they don’t have a marketing department, I’m a college student and I’m doing my best. People that failed to understand wouldn’t even consider my services anymore, but all of my clients were grateful that I at least tried. I put forth effort for something they couldn’t do for themselves and no one else was willing to.
What started as a whim has morphed into a part-time job with a steady income. Teachers always tell their students to try freelancing, but how many of us scoff or simply think it won’t work? It’s possible to do these things, to build a portfolio from your home and to do some trial and error before breaking into the industry. I get a new order from a new client and a 5-star rating almost every day. It didn’t happen overnight. With some determination, some faith and planning, the potential for freelancing is right at our fingertips. It is up to us if we decide to reach out or let it fly away.