Freelance Medical Communications
“Science Careers”, from the Journal Science published this great article today – it’s a content collection comprising links to their best resources on careers in science writing. They all make for interesting reads in general for anyone in the medical communications field, but they’re especially valuable for anyone thinking about transitioning into medical writing.
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Image Credit Digital Art @FreeDigitalPhotos
This year’s AMWA Annual Conference is almost upon us, so don’t forget to register if you’re fortunate enough to be able to make it this year.
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AMWA have published this presentation on Getting The Most From The Conference when you attend. It contains lots of handy tips to consider if you’ve never attended either this conference in particular.
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Inquill is currently hosting a Medical Writing Festival – you can check out the schedule and pricing for the seminars on their site. I don’t know anything about the company, so can’t give any first-hand information about it, or about the festival for that matter. But they do have some very prominent names giving seminars, so even if just one of the talks appeals to you, you may find it worthwhile to register for it – you don’t have to sign up for the whole thing, you can opt to simply buy one seminar if you choose. And maybe you can even buy recordings of past seminars from the start of the festival if one of those catches your eye?
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The main reason for me posting this, however, was to share a short video with you. One of the talks is by George Buckland, an experienced medical recruiter – click on this link and play the free 3 minute video clip that is about halfway down the page. He shares some important points about the need for medical writers to have an online presence, as well as sharing information about how he searches for writers.
LinkedIn is one great way to network with recruiters, so if you haven’t yet made yourself a profile there, now is the time to do it – you can use the search box to find recruiters looking for medical writers, as well as by joining medical writing groups where recruiters will often post job ads.
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Registration is open for AMWA’s 71st Annual Conference in Jacksonville, FL, October 20th-22nd this year.
If you’re not already a member of AMWA, I’d highly recommend joining.
Cover One Of The Open Sessions
Additionally, you can make the most of your AMWA Annual Conference attendance – AMWA are looking for writers willing to cover one of the 37 open sessions for the AMWA Journal.
Dr. Kristina Wasson-Blader advises AMWA members: “Writing a summary for the Journal will give you a published piece and also bring the conference to those who can’t attend the conference or a particular session. If you are interested in writing for the Journal, send an email to the AMWA Journal Editor at amwajournaleditor@editorialrx.com.”
Time for Step 7 of the “Beginner’s Medical Writing” series – a step-by-step guide to getting yourself started in freelance medical writing – an extremely basic guide for making the first move into medical writing.
If you’re just arriving, feel free to check out the earlier steps:
The next best step, if you haven’t already jumped the gun and done so, is to join AMWA – the American Medical Writers Association.
The current annual membership fee is $165 ($60 if you’re a student). If you’re hesitant to spend this much money without really knowing what it’s about or what it might be able to do for you, I’d advise checking to see if there’s a local chapter anywhere near you. Local chapters hold meetings throughout the year, and you can still attend these without being a member – you just end up paying about $5 extra on the local meeting fee than members pay.
This way, you can attend a meeting and get to network with some friendly medical writers local to your area – this will certainly help you get a feel for the organization and how you can benefit from it.
So check out their website and at least consider attending a local meeting – I guarantee you’ll feel inspired afterwards!
Time for Step 6 of the “Beginner’s Medical Writing” series – a step-by-step guide to getting yourself started in freelance medical writing – an extremely basic guide for making the first move into medical writing.
If you’re just arriving, feel free to check out the earlier steps:
Back in Step 3 I urged you to consider using some form of social media for your work. This is especially useful for those of you working freelance, but is also helpful even if you’re getting into medical writing and intend to work as a full time employee somewhere.
If you only wanted to use one networking site, LinkedIn would be the one I’d advise. Launched in 2003, this is one of the oldest of the social networks, and is the one most used for business – and it recently stole the spot as 2nd largest social network from MySpace.
The principle behind LinkedIn kind of reminds me of online dating. You create a profile that describes you at your most stellar, and make connections with professionals in similar industries, or anyone who you think could potentially be a useful contact for you.
Advantages Of LinkedIn
Getting the most out of LinkedIn
Some Useful LinkedIn Links!
Miriam Salpeter is one of my favorite online job coaches, and her blog contains a lot if useful material about social networking for business.
I also came across this free, downloadable chapter of her book: “Social Networking For Career Success” which has some useful information in it for using LinkedIn.
And hot off the press, I just discovered How To Get Around In LinkedIn (via Twitter!).
So go ahead, set up your profile on LinkedIn, and please feel free to join me there. And if it all seems like a lot of work to do at once, why not just devote 20 minutes each day to it until you’ve completed it?
Time for Step 5 of the “Beginner’s Medical Writing” series – a step-by-step guide to getting yourself started in freelance medical writing – an extremely basic guide for making the first move into medical writing.
If you’re just arriving, feel free to check out the earlier steps:
Back in Step 3 I mentioned the benefits of considering some aspect of social networking when you start up in medical writing – I think this is really useful whether you are considering freelance work, or if you are a full time employee somewhere.
I thought I’d give Twitter a plug today. I never thought I’d use Twitter – socially I’ve used Facebook for a couple of years, and whenever I’d hear people talk about Twitter, I just didn’t “get” it – I couldn’t wrap my head around how it operated, or what use it could possibly be.
A few friends who use it for business had told me I should definitely give it a go. I resisted the idea for a few months, but then decided to try it out – what harm could it do? If all else failed, surely I could abandon it, and at least know I’d tried?
So I joined a couple of months ago, and I love it!
How Does It Work?
Twitter is basically a service for sending and receiving status updates – so if you’ve used Facebook, you’ll be used to writing and reading these short communications. Twitter’s short communications, however, are capped at 140 characters (letters, periods, dashes, etc).
So it makes for a great way to get a short message out to people: “Free coffee at the cafeteria, 2-4pm”, or maybe a link to a cool photo. And for business purposes, people often use it to share links to web pages – whether something useful that they came across and want to share, or a link to their personal site to share an article, announcement, or product.
Due to the 140 character cap, you have to not only get creative in how you make your announcement sometimes, but you also need to shorten your weblink, otherwise this will quickly eat into your 140 characters. There are numerous applications that you can use to shorten your links (you can do a Google search to find one that you prefer), but I use bitly – it’s very simple to use:
Why Join?
I was skeptical, I just didn’t see how useful it would be – I thought it sounded quite bizarre, all these “status updates”! What use could that possibly be!? But I have been very pleasantly surprised. It’s been a wonderful way for me to meet up online with other medical and freelance writers, other medical professionals, blogs, and organizations that I feel are useful to follow.
So I’d urge you to give it a go – and like I decided for myself previously – if you don’t like it, you can abandon mission. Join up today – come up with a short Twitter handle (that’s basically your username – it’ll have a “@” preceding it) – mine is @ParryMedWriting – don’t worry too much about choosing the perfect Twitter handle, you can always change it later if you feel like.
Some Useful Guides To Using Twitter
Rather than go on ad nauseum on how to use Twitter (and I’m still getting the hang of it myself!), here are some links to very useful articles that describe it much more concisely than I could!
The Beginner’s Guide To Twitter
6 Tools To Grow Your Twitter Network
Hope to see you over at Twitter!
Thought I’d share some short YouTube videos for those of you who are thinking about branching into medical writing.
These medical writers provide some insight into their work, as well as some tips on which areas might suit you best:
How To Get Into Medical Writing
Starting A Career in Medical Writing
A Few Words About Life In MedComms
Time for Step 4 of the “Beginner’s Medical Writing” series – a step-by-step guide to getting yourself started in freelance medical writing – an extremely basic guide for making the first move into medical writing.
If you’re just arriving, feel free to check out the earlier steps:
Hopefully by now, you’ve set up a blog, and maybe even started out with some business-related social networking. On that note, I’ve been asked to discuss what purpose a blog can serve for a medical writer, so here goes!
WHY USE A BLOG?
To Advertise Your Business:
If we’re not out there, nobody will find us. Work is a little bit like dating (any kind of work, whether you want to be an employee or self-employed) – if you don’t put yourself out there, it’s difficult to be found.
Whether we like it or not, the world’s gone digital. The days of locating businesses purely through those huge, hard copies of your telephone book or Yellow Pages are history – the first port of call for most people looking for any kind of business service is now an online search. I don’t consider myself a very digital person, but I know this is the case for me. The instant gratification of finding what you want after hitting a few keys on your keyboard, is tough to beat – I can’t remember the last time I ever picked up a Yellow Pages, let alone owned one. So if we don’t take advantage of this venue, we are missing out on an important way to self-advertise.
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To Showcase Your Potential:
Your blog can provide a perfect way for you to show off your work. This can be especially useful for non-scientists who want to break into medical writing, but have no prior work clips to share with potential clients. I don’t know about you, but although I love the ability to shop online, I tend not to order things that are “sight unseen”. Your blog helps your work to be seen.
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It Makes You Real:
A blog can also allow readers and potential clients to get a sense of who you are. The digital arena has a real-time advantage over a listing in a telephone book – it allows you to engage with people as often as you choose to do so. Updating your blog regularly provides something that a telephone book listing cannot deliver – the ability to connect with others. Everything you share on your blog allows readers to get a glimpse of your personality and passion. These regular connections help to make you real – potential clients will see that you have a zest for writing, and also get a feel for your writing tone – these things definitely help when it comes to deciding who to choose for help with a writing project.
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To Use As Your Portfolio:
You can also put your blog to good use as a showcase for your resume or portfolio. The ability to add different pages to your blog enables you to use it to almost any advantage. Some people add a resume page, or a portfolio page where readers can link up to clips of the writer’s work that may have been published online. Or you can even upload pdf versions of manuscripts for viewing.
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To Keep You In The Loop:
A blog is such a great way to keep you from feeling as if you’re all alone in the writing world, and this is probably especially true if you are working 100% freelance. In an office environment, you have instant connection with workmates if you need to bounce ideas off someone, or get a second opinion on something. When running a solo business, you don’t have this luxury. Your blog, however, can serve as a medium for this. It provides you with an almost instant way to receive ideas, comments, feedback, opinions etc. And from all across the world too! The cyber-connectivity can keep you grounded in your business venture, allowing you to network with others who can help you out, even if just by way of moral support.
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To Help Others:
Never underestimate what you might have to offer someone. Whether it’s an encouraging word, a snippet of information, or just simple enjoyment, I guarantee that your blog will provide something for someone at some point. Someone will leave you some positive feedback, or send you an email to thank you for something, or ask more questions. And you can guarantee that your blog will be useful for many who don’t let you know – think of all the material that you read online each day – do you leave comments each time you find something fun, interesting, useful etc? I know I don’t – but it’s certainly not for the lack of interest – we all read a lot, but simply don’t have the time to comment on everything we enjoy. So don’t forget, someone loves you! A little altruism never hurt anyone.
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Having a blog isn’t going to make you successful overnight, and it won’t bring clients flocking within a month if you’re new to the business and still trying to get your foot in the door. It does, however, get you out there, and lets clients see that you are real and also serious about what you do. I feel that it keeps you accountable too – a huge help for someone starting out, especially a non-scientist without publications to use as a springboard – your blog can help you to “keep on keeping on”. Given that it’s easier to give up than keep fighting the fight, if you commit to writing a little something regularly – even once a week – you can maintain business motivation while trying to catch some initial projects, and also build up your online portfolio in the meantime.
So if you are new to your medical writing business, think of your blog as the first step in self-marketing. Maintaining it can be time-consuming, but nevertheless, very beneficial. Writing begets writing.
What’s your favorite use for your blog?
Time for Step 3 of the “Beginner’s Medical Writing” series – a step-by-step guide to getting yourself started in freelance medical writing – an extremely basic guide for making the first move into medical writing.
If you’re just arriving, feel free to check out the earlier steps:
So, where are we up to now? Hopefully by now you have a blog or some kind of website “out there”. And I haven’t forgotten that I left you with some assignments to get you started with writing for your blog.
If you haven’t yet posted them to your blog, then go ahead and do so – this is the start of your showcase, so the sooner they are up and running, the better. As for the next step – it’s time to link up with some other folk in your field. Gathering a new social circle can be a wonderful way to help propel your new business.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Does the very thought of being involved in social media leave you kicking & screaming? If so, you have a big decision to make. On the one hand, if you are social media-phobic, then it might be a waste of your time setting up accounts for your business – there’s no point pretending you’re going to give it a go, if you already know you’ll never use any of them. On the other hand, however, this is 2011 & like it or not, social media is now part of our online business DNA.
So before you dig in your heels & declare your business a failure when it’s just getting started, I’d urge you to give it just a little thought. These days, many small businesses are successfully using Facebook, Twitter, & LinkedIn (amongst others) to promote their services. So it is absolutely in your best interests to at least consider using one of them. Decide which of the social media sites might appeal to you most – take your pick based either on which will be a better choice for your type of freelance business, or which of the networks you are most likely to actually feel content about using.
Some benefits of social networking to help persuade you in the right direction:
Just One?
If you are looking to maybe just take on one of the social networks, I’d advise using LinkedIn – this will at least expose your business to the world (including potential employers) and is probably the one that requires the least maintenance once you’ve set it up appropriately. So this might be the choice for you if you absolutely know that the Facebook, Twitter, or other universes are simply not where you want to place your energy.
I use 2 networks for my business, so feel free to link up with me at any of them:
There are also direct links to my LinkedIn and Twitter profiles at the top right of the screen.
Whilst the situation will be different for different individuals, I have to say that I tried a business Facebook site, and this has been the least useful for my business purposes – although LinkedIn & Twitter have proven to be great ways to network and for me to be found.
So go ahead & explore some of the social networking options for yourself, & see which you might be interested in trying out. Your assignment today is to set up at least one social networking profile and link it up with your business site online.
Which of the social networks have you used, and which has been most useful for your business?
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