Ask Me Anything

As promised, welcome to the ‘ask me anything’ blog post. I want to say a huge thank you to the people who reached out with questions. It means a lot to me. I had some really awesome questions, so thank you for that. I also wanted to mention, I’m always happy to ask any questions at all, so do feel free to get in touch if you’d like to know anything further, ghostwriting or otherwise. My friends always joke that I’m too ‘open’ anyway, so why not open that up to all of you.

Mental Health and Me

Let’s start as we mean to go on. I had a particularly brilliant question regarding mental health. I’m not shy about talking about mental health and my own struggles, as you’ll probably have realised. I think talking about mental health is so important when destigmatising it, so I’m always more than happy to talk about my past and what I’ve been through.

What’s your biggest mental health concern and how did you combat it effectively?

I have to admit that I was flattered that it looks like I’ve combatted mental health issues effectively, and that I’ve got my shit together! It’s been a long road, and I’m definitely getting there. My main struggles are depression and anxiety, like a lot of people out there. I worked in some not very nice places and this took its toll on me, which is why I turned to freelancing and ended up here. Ghostwriting, content writing and editing was definitely never something I planned to do, but I cannot be more thankful that I stumbled into it. Therefore, I think my answer to this question, would have to be something along the lines of, I got out of the situations that were negatively impacting me. That was the first step. There’s the misconception that to leave something or to ‘give-up’ is a bad thing. When in fact, it’s a very brave thing to do.

Removing myself from the situations that were causing me harm, while difficult initially, made all the difference in the long term. Once I left, I was able to put the focus and time into getting better. I reached rock-bottom before I got the help I needed. I went to the doctors and got medication that help me massively, as well as started therapy. For me, every day is still a conscious effort to take care of my mental health, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

For anybody having a bad time with their mental health, my inbox is always open if you want to chat.

Freelancing and Ghostwriting

I had a few questions about my job. Just to recap, I started Sarah Jules Writing Services just over three years ago. I offer ghostwriting, content writing and editing services to clients across a range of niches. I absolutely love my job and every day I have to pinch myself that it’s real. I know that freelancing and the gig-culture is a fickle business but nothing is without its issues. Simply put, I know how lucky I am to be doing a job I love.

How do you find ghostwriting clients?

This is a great question. If you’re thinking of getting into ghostwriting, then there are a few different ways you can find clients. First of all, your best point of call is to join a freelancing platform. I joined a few different ones to start with but found that Fiverr worked the best for me. I still gain clients through the platform to this day (three years later). I am a huge advocate of Fiverr. Of course, they’re not perfect, no freelancing platform is. However, I have to credit them with what they’ve done for me. Without them, I probably wouldn’t have realised that freelancing is a viable career. I wrote this blog post a while ago if you’d like further information about the platform: https://sarahjuleswriting.com/2021/12/08/freelancing-on-fiverr/. It can take some time to establish yourself on a platform like this, but in my experience, it is well worth doing.

Alternatively, you can find clients through social media. This is still something I’m getting to grips with and learning about because I don’t have a background in marketing or social media, so take this with a pinch of salt. Places like LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/sarahjuleswriting) and Instagram (@sarahjuleswriting) have been really useful for me, as well as Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/sarahjuleswriting). They can help you get your services out there and show people what you are capable of.  

What is the best part of your job?

This is another question I loved. There are so many awesome parts to my job that I don’t really know where to start. I love that I get to work anywhere, on a schedule that suits me, but that’s freelancing based, not specific to Sarah Jules Writing Services. So, the very best part of my job, is hearing clients’ stories. I have the best clients ever (not that I’m biased). I’m very lucky that I am now able to call some of them my friends too. The stories that clients come to me with never cease to amaze me. I feel privileged that my job is to help them get their stories out into the world. I hear so many stories and meet so many people that I wouldn’t have otherwise met, and that is the best part of my job.

What is the worst part of your job?

This one was difficult. Not because there aren’t any negatives to my job. In fact, there are quite a few, but the positives certainly outweigh the negatives. Honestly, I think, perhaps, the worst part is that my job is somewhat unsafe. As a freelancer, I’m not guaranteed a pay-cheque every month. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid. I don’t get the benefits of sick pay or anything like that. I have been lucky so far in that I haven’t had many dry periods of work. There are months when I seem super busy, and other months that are more chill, but the worst bit of my job is definitely the uncertainty of experiencing periods of time without work. I know it will happen at some point, and I’m planning accordingly. It’s just one of those things about being self-employed.

Do you listen to music or podcasts when you’re working? If so, what?

Another fantastic question! Despite loving podcasts, especially true crime ones (shout out Last Podcast on the Left), I can’t actually listen to them when I work because they’re too distracting. Instead, I listen to music. I love anything rock, punk or country. Spotify is always on in our house and it’s usually: Pop Punk/ Punk Rock, Hot Country, or some kind of coffee house playlist.

Other Stuff…

I had a couple of other questions that I wanted to answer that didn’t quite fit into the other categories above.

If you could only read one genre of book forever, what would you choose?

This question! I thought about this a lot, and settled on fantasy fiction. I think this may be cheating, but hear me out. It covers a lot of other genres in there too… romance, action, thriller, horror. That’s something I love about fantasy books, they’re so diverse and include a whole range of niches, you can likely find something for everyone.

How is your book going?

There’s a long answer and a short answer to that. The truth is that I’ve been so busy over the last few weeks that I’ve barely had time to get stuck into it. I’m currently on my last read-through/edit before I send it to some friends/family for their take on it. I’m hoping for it to be ready to either self-publish or to submit to publishers by the summer. Watch this space!

Thank you for taking the time to read my little self-indulgent blog post. If you have any other questions or would simply like to chat, please do reach out. I appreciate all of your help and support, reading my blog and sharing my business with your friends. It really does make all the difference.

As always, wishing you love and books that make your heart skip a beat,

Sarah Jules