How to Work with Writing Partners
Increased capacity helps you grow your writing business

We've been talking a lot lately about how to grow your writing business by building a writing team. The whole idea behind having a team is increasing your business’ capacity.

One thing I hear a lot from writers is that they're really surprised how quickly their fears move from wondering whether they'll ever find writing gigs to wondering how on earth they’ll find the time to get it all done.

“I am turning away work because I just don't have any more room on my plate,” they say.

In the famously frustrating words of Brian Klemmer:

So, get a bigger plate.

One way to get that bigger plate is to build a team. The last several editions of this newsletter have discussed some why you should consider building a team, who you'd want on your team, and where to find people you can  make money writing with as a team.

Now we’re going to take a look at how to work with the writers on your team. There are a few areas we need to address.

Taxes
Unless you want to get into a bookkeeping nightmare, I recommend working with your writers as independent contractors. Pretty much any accountant will agree that getting into payroll, and all the regulations and rules and taxes involved in that is much more of a headache than it would be worth. Independent contractors are responsible for their own taxes, insurance, and everything else. All you need to do is keep track of how much you paid them. At the beginning of next year, you'll furnish any writers you paid $600 or more with a 1099. In order to do this, you need to have all of your writers complete a form W9, which they can download from www.IRS.gov.

Payment
For most of the writers I work with, we handle invoicing and payment through PayPal.com. PayPal makes it really easy to pay them, and I can quickly download reports for my accountant. You'll need to establish in advance whether or your writers want to accept credit cards through PayPal because there is a fee for credit card payments.

The other way might want to work with payment is to use Guru.com. If the writers are registered on Guru, they benefit every time you pay them through that site. Yes, Guru does take a small bite out of the payment, but many writers consider that worthwhile because it continues to build their ranking.

Deadlines
One of the fears writers have about working with a team is that they're going to end up pulling an all-nighter because the other writer didn't submit work on time. This can happen. But it can also be prevented fairly easily.

Especially when you're just starting to work with a team, you want to build in some extra time. Figure out how much time it would take you, if you worked like a crazy person, to finish the project if everything else went to pot. That is the very latest deadline you want to give to your writing partner.

It's also a really good idea to start off small. I made this mistake early on. I worked with a writing partner on a full-length book. She blew the job. I had to rewrite all of it, and it was not fun. Thankfully, I learned my lesson the first time. Now when I'm working with a new writer, we'll start off with one article at a time.

The important thing to remember is that you’re client really does not care what happened - they want on-time delivery. You are ultimately responsible for meeting the deadline.

Plagiarism & Stinkiness
Another big fear is that a writing partner will plagiarize or otherwise stink up a project, and leave you with a big mess on your hands.

This can happen.

Again, because you are ultimately responsible for the quality of the work you turn into your client, you need to plan ahead. Make it very clear at the outset that plagiarism will not be tolerated. Also make sure you request and review your writing partners’ work samples. I've seen some samples that were so bad I knew it would never work. Better to know that at the beginning.

It's always a good idea to run your writing partners’ work through Copyscape.com. There might not be anything more embarrassing than turning in work to client having them report back to you that it failed Copyscape. For five cents a search, you can protect your business and your reputation.

These are the biggest hurdles most writers face in building a writing team. They may be enough to keep you just writing on your own, and that's fine if that's what you want. It really all depends on your long-term vision for your business. If you're content to write for a little bit of extra income, you can absolutely do that on your own. If you have writing skills that are in high demand, especially for corporate clients, you can probably meet your writing income goals on your own without working all the time.

But those are not your only two options. If you build a team, your earnings potential is virtually unlimited - even if you’re not Bob Bly! And you can still have a life, too.

by Sue LaPointe - December 12, 2008

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