When a chance to blog regularly for a respected education site fell into my lap, I realized how nice it is to have a steady income stream instead of having to hustle for every piece. I took it for granted for two lovely years but made the mistake of not realizing that all good things must come to an end. When the gig ended, I was left with experience, confidence, lots of clips, and no long term backup client. Yikes.

I read a parenting article on a website, and noticed that the author linked back to her own site. I checked it out, and saw things she had written for other venues including two I wasn’t familiar with. One was the blog for an educational technology company.

I read the author’s posts on the blog for this ed tech startup, and thought, ‘This is a field I know lots about but have never written for… Hmm.’ After gathering my confidence, I sent an email to the company contact button, offering my services to write for the blog. When I heard back from the CEO, I was in shock. I’d contacted him on a whim, not thinking anything would come of it. We talked on the phone, connected over our vision for the blog, and got to work.

This is now an ongoing client, which is great. Even better, it opened my eyes to a new way of finding clients. I spend some time every week with news of angel investments in the education technology sector, then seek out companies who have recently gotten funding. Often, they have blogs. Even more often, their blogs have been forgotten. I have garnered two solid additional clients, with one more in the works, all by reaching out to companies who clearly need help with their blogs.

Eliana Osborn is a mom to two, wife to one, and English professor to thousands. She lives and writes from the Arizona desert, primarily about families and education. Follow her on Twitter: @ElianaOEliana