Freelancer & Mommy Writer Dominique Rambert

Freelance writer Dominique Rambert from New York City joins us today at Writers in Business. Dominique writes mostly about parenting and education issues, but also writes book reviews which are posted on web zine, Balancing Act. She is also the founder of Mommy Writers, a non-profit organization built to offer a community to writing mothers.

You are one busy woman! Please tell us about your web sites and blogs.

I am pretty busy. I maintain 4 different sites. The two that take up most of my time are Searching for Freelance Success - my writing blog, and Mommy Writers - the site for for writing moms support group. I also produce a web zine called Balancing Act which I started in hopes of offering opportunities to new writers to earn their first clips and begin to build their portfolio. Then, of course, there's my web page which serves mostly to promote myself as a writer.

On your Searching for Freelance Success web site, you wrote "I started this blog to chronicle my journey in the freelance writing industry, while hopefully offering some lessons from the trenches to other writers who are beginning their careers." Can you share two of these lessons with us?
The most important lesson I've learned to date is to give yourself more time than you think neccessary to complete writing jobs. I made the mistake of promising a prospective client some samples once only to find that I didn't have them. So I had to complete brand new sample newsetters in a couple days. That didn't happen and so as you can imagine I didn't get her business.

Lesson two is along the same lines. When asking for interviews make sure the bulk of your work is already done. Or at the very least be able to give the people you're interviewing a realistic deadline for the piece. I interviewed someone for a piece expecting to be finished with it in a couple weeks. It ended up taking more than double that. It's not easy wrangling interviews.

All- in-all both lessons have to do with deadlines. I've learned that dealines are a way of life for a writer.

I understand you created Mommy Writers with a goal "to foster a sense of community and sisterhood among Mommy Writers". How do writers find you? Where do you meet? What does the organization do to help mothers hone their writing skills?I participate on a lot of social networking sits like BlogHer and Mom Bloggers, so they find me there. Or occassionally I'll post an update in Yahoo Groups where I think people might be interested.

So far I've hosted two Mommy Writers events in NYC, both of which were held in the Brookyn Heights Branch Brooklyn Public Library. I will be hosting more vents in NYC in the future at different locations around NYC, and Mommy Writers members are welcome to host events in their areas.

To help mothers hone their writing skills I offer free online writing workshops. Right now the first is already in session. I use books written by writing professionals, share excerpts with the members registered for the workshop, I give assignments based on the material covered, and then we all give each other feedback on the assignments. It's a good alternative to expensive classes and using reference books with no feedback.

In the future I will be holding workshops in person and speaking engagements for our members as well.

Visit Freelancer For Hire and Mommy Writers to learn more about Dominique and how she can help your writing business.