How?  By doing what we do as freelancers: Get creative.

My projects right now include some writing for other folks – blogs, articles – but also writing a lot of web content for my own web sites and publications.  In other words, I don’t just think of myself as a writer, but as the owner of publishing business.  Blogs, websites, ebooks, and also providing writing “services” for clients; these and many other products are my company’s business. (If you haven’t seen the interviews and resoruces on my Freebies page, check out the Tiffany Dow interview to see how someone can take action to build a business as a writer.)

Writers who think of themselves only as “writers”, who look for freelance “jobs” and “clients” all day, and work primarily on stuff other people will own, could be missing out big opportunities.  As a publisher, I write all I want, on anything I want, whenever I want – but I also hire other writers and designers, to build my own assets including Web “real estate” and other intellectual property.  Writers who work as publishers controlling their own content stand to weather the storm over the next few years, by opening up their options to sell not just to clients, but also directly to readers and consumers.

To light your creative fire, here are posts with ideas you can use to leverage your biggest asset – your creativity – in a financially-tightening marketplace.  One of my favorites is Pamela Slim’s post in June about what to do if the economy’s got your down.

Here’s another post from Seth Godin’s blog, about how to maintain your competitive advantage.  If you don’t read his blog on a regular basis, start now, if you want to not only keep your head above water, but thrive, no matter the economy.

What are you doing now to grow and build your business?

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• Where Have All the Freelance Writing Jobs Gone?

While Hope publishes places writers can find work, it was also interesting to hear her stress that writers MUST take advantage of the technology on the Web to market and promote their work! Writers traditionally are not considered the best “sales people” – how many writers just cringe when they even hear that term?

Yet you aren’t very likely to get to six figures unless you learn how to promote and, yes, SELL, both yourself as a writer, and your work, regardless of market or genre. I am going to be pulling out the stops in the next couple weeks and beyond, to bring you some killer tools to help you promote your self and your career. It’s about exposure, and making yourself visible so publishers, agents, and clients can find YOU instead of just the other way around. So let’s just get started with this open ended question: Taking a look over your current online promotion and outreach, do you use any/all of these tools?

• Blog(s)
• Newsletter
• Email Marketing
• Free giveaways/reports/samples
• Social Networking: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn?
• Web site that is content-rich, and cross-linked EVERYWHERE
• Forum memberships/frequent posting to forums, discussion sites
• Any of the zillions of tools, widgets, apps out there to help you build a presence efficiently

… and if you are, are you using them to their fullest potential to get yourself and your stuff out there?