Is there really any money in CME work?
Lots of people in the freelance medical writing space would like you to believe that you need to spend half of your time (or more) marketing for new clients.
The #1 rule of being a freelancer is to always market, market, market!
When you're not constantly marketing, you're putting your future financial stability at risk!
If you don't market now, you'll pay for it later!
Here’s the truth: there’s an easier way to find steady work. You don’t have to constantly market your services when you start working on projects that are cyclical in nature.
It is possible to even out the ebbs and flows of freelancing. And it’s possible to work on projects that are highly meaningful in the medical community.
I’ll show you how.
Introducing a new course, How to Write Needs Assessments Like a Pro: Make your clients happy, write more grants that get funded, and stay in a loop of steady income
““As an established freelance medical writer, I took Write and Prosper’s 4-week course on writing needs assessment to expand my areas of expertise into the field of CME (continuing medical education). What a wonderful investment in my professional development! The instructors, Jennifer Gregg and Maria Granovsky, present a curriculum that is clear, relevant, and intellectually challenging. By the end of the course, I felt confident in my ability to produce high-quality, persuasive needs assessments to meet and exceed my clients’ expectations.
Of equal importance, the weekly, live, interactive webinars create a vibrant learning environment enriched by Jennifer and Maria’s keen professional expertise, warmth, generosity, and dedication to mentoring medical writers seeking to grow professionally. I gained not only valuable professional skills in writing needs assessments, but also ongoing connections with colleagues who share my enthusiasm for and commitment to our meaningful work as medical writers!””
CME is a $2.7 billion a year industry. In the last 10 years alone, CME interactions with all clinicians grew more than 50%. In that same time period, CME interactions with participants other than physicians, such as nurses, physicians assistants, and pharmacists, grew more than 90%.
This represents a HUGE opportunity for medical writers who work in CME. This also represents a HUGE opportunity for you.
Nearly $740 million of the total CME income comes from commercial support (i.e., pharma). That money eventually goes out to educational companies to produce educational programs. The first step in that process is writing a successful needs assessment (a.k.a. grant proposal). That is where you come in.
CME as a business is cyclical in nature (see below). There will ALWAYS be a demand for writers to produce needs assessments. From a freelance perspective, a perk to writing needs assessments is that it can place you in a continuous cycle of income with the client. And that eliminates the need to constantly market your services.
What are some other benefits to working in CME?
You don’t need as many clients as you think you do to have consistent work. Three to five clients are likely going to keep you pretty busy.
You don’t need to be an expert in any particular subject area. Once you have a proven system developed, writing about new topics will be less of an issue for you and your clients.
You have the chance to do really meaningful work. The whole point to writing a needs assessment is to outline gaps in practice. If the proposal gets funded, the program developed will change practice behaviors, leading to better care and management of patients.
““I came into the course having a basic idea of the genre of medical writing I wanted to specialize in. I came out of the course not only more knowledgeable about NAs but also convinced that I made the right decision to focus on CME content.
The instruction was commendable and the live Q&A sessions made this course even more attractive, quite unlike other online courses I have taken in the past. I also like that we developed gap analysis sections and actually practiced writing NAs. Jennifer was so relatable and reassuring and she made the learning process less intimidating.
Thanks Maria and Jennifer for your valuable input, encouragement, positive energy, genuine guidance and help.””
Learn my exact process for writing needs assessments using a proven system that leads to funding and makes clients happy.
Just sign up below to get on the waitlist for the course.
““This course was the whole package. I learned how to write a needs assessment, how to promote that skill, and a dozen other useful tips.[...]
The course structure was well designed, the information was valuable, and the instructors engaging. I did not realize the link between grant writing and CME until taking this course.””