Marketing Departments

OK, maybe Marketing produces even more written communications than Human Resources. Product brochures, businesses proposals, and direct mail sales letters all fall under auspices of a company's marketing efforts. This written work is often outsourced, which frees up marketing and sales staff to study trends, identify potential new business, and make sales calls. If you have desktop publishing as well as writing experience, so much better.

IT (Information Technology)

Writers might not think to contact IT department heads, despite fact that need for writers in this area is tremendous. Not only are technical writers needed to document system specifications or create system user guides, but nontechnical writers can assist IT with creation of Internet site content for a company's customers, or Intranet content for its employees. People who excel in writing HTML appreciate working with those of us who excel in writing clear, crisp content.

Training Departments

My current day job title is "Document Development Coordinator" for Training department, in which I support trainers by creating and/or editing a wide variety training manuals and procedure materials. Let's face it, when they're actively training a class, trainers themselves have little time to research and update materials they use. Writing needs in training arena include putting together corporate glossaries of terms and acronyms unique to an industry and organization, editing training and procedure docs to ensure that they're user-friendly, and training trainers themselves on how to write clearly and effectively. If you as a freelancer can assist a company with these, many companies might certainly welcome your services.

You will most likely need to do a good deal of research, and make a number of telephone calls, to gather names of people who head up these various departments. But effort could be well worth it, in terms of uncovering dozens of "hidden markets" and new clients for freelance writing work.

3. Develop your own ezine on your favorite topic. Once summer begins to wane and people head back indoors, many of them will return to their computers in search of information. Now is perfect time to plan an ezine, create your first few issues and begin to solicit subscriber sign ups. Not sure how to generate income with an ezine? Here's a step-by-step guide to show you how: http:/ inyurl.com/ixi .

4. Or maybe you prefer to write and sell books on your favorite topics instead, rather than maintain a regular ezine schedule. Again, sales for information products rise dramatically once days grow short and nights grow long. Will you have yours ready by then? You can, if you start *today*. Although very best guide for creating and selling your own ebooks is undoubtedly Ken Evoy's "Make Your Knowledge Sell!" (http://myks.sitesell.com/writeangles.html), you can also find information you need, inexpensively, in "Your Guide to Ebook Publishing Success" (http:/ inyurl.com/ixt).

These are simply just a few of ways that resourceful writers can get a head start on holiday season. For although it's true that very last thing on most people's mind in July is Christmas, you can have your writing product or service ready for them when they do.