It’s no secret that there are seemingly unlimited ways to promote yourself on the Internet these days. Yet, it still manages to surprise me when someone does not use them all to their fullest potential. There are just too many options not to actively seek out and take advantage of them.

Starting with the most basic methods of blog promotion, I frequently tell people that they need to start and operate a blog - it doesn’t matter if it is the simplest, least detailed project you have worked on, you need to have a blog. Start one on Blogger if necessary and start posting every day (I know, I’m one to talk, but it’s a good habit to start). Once you have started your blog, you have unlimited options to reach people. You can start memes, contact other bloggers, start conversations with your commenters, and much more.

Another necessary promotional method is to start and maintain social networking profiles with all of the major sites - Facebook, MySpace (unfortunately), Friendster, etc. These sites offer you something no other option does - a built in audience of millions that you can reach with a single click. You can be sly or you can be explicit, but always remember to present yourself as a well polished person. On these sites, you are not selling things, you are selling yourself.

Which of course brings up the matter of salesmanship. I have had this conversation with a dozen other writers and many of them do not enjoy the idea of “selling” themselves to their clients. But, it is a necessary task and when you think about how things break down, it makes good sense. The Internet is full of people who sell themselves before their services. In fact, the Internet is just a bit too impersonal not to do so. If you try to go faceless and tell people that they can trust you when they don’t know who you are, they will often ignore your suggestions. If you tell them who you are, provide ample opinions and open conversation, and draw them into the fold, they will begin to trust you more outright and you will be much more successful in reaching them.

I won’t go into the details of everything you can do to promote yourself just yet. I may continue with a series of future posts about self-promotion, but there isn’t enough room for them all right now. However, keep one thing in mind: you are your best product. Your mind and your ability to write, design, or program are the things that you are selling. If you can sell yourself, you can pick up any project you find and that’s the key to true success as a freelancer.

It has been a long couple of months - for a variety of reasons. First, I was offered a job that would have taken me to San Diego for a fairly good opportunity - a steady paycheck, sunny weather, and a nice area to call my home. But, things started to change almost immediately after I accepted the job offer. The work was pouring in, the emails were piling up, and I got well behind.

Fast forward a few weeks and I’m having the most lucrative year of my life and the freelance work is taking off - of course I had no choice but to retroactively turn down the job offer. This means a few different things. First, I’m not buried up to my eyeballs in work. Second, I can actually relax a bit and enjoy what I’ve been able to accomplish in the last few weeks. Finally, I can start throwing my energy into wholeheartedly expanding Seattle Freelance and making it into something special.

With a second writer on hand now who can both keep up with me and complete all of the projects I bring in with relative ease, this is an even more realistic goal - the one I was striving for months ago when I first launched Seattle Freelance. It will be an interesting few weeks as I start building upon my current successes and start looking for opportunities and methods to expand. The growth potential is huge, my ideas are literally overflowing from the files in which I keep them, and I now have the freedom - both financially and temporally - to see them all out. It is an interesting experience, and a fitting homage to the one year anniversary of quitting my last hourly job … hopefully for good.