Archive for the ‘Writing for Income’ Category
Friday, February 26th, 2010 |
Well, it’s been about a month since my last update, and I’ve decided to focus today on tips for staying cool under fire…this, after writing religiously every day for a couple of weeks. I confess, after writing my last entry about regulating tasks and maintaining a decent schedule - my tasks exploded and my schedule went to hell. This is called not practicing what you preach!
Because of the insanity of this past month, I’ve decided to put together a list of tips for staying cool under pressure - a new, streamlined approach to handling an overwhelming, almost impossible list of tasks and projects in a way that lets you complete them without sacrificing your livelihood or your family life. It really is possible - and I’ll show you how I’ve finally done it with my own schedule (it’s also the reason that I’m finally blogging here again).
Taking Stock of Projects and Status
So, you’ve got 5 or 6 clients and they all want a piece of you? The better you are as a writer, the more likely you’re going to find yourself in this situation. Once people recognize that you are able to produce quality content at a reasonable speed, you’re going to discover that opportunity knocks. The downside is that opportunity is going to knock from so many sides that you’re simply going to run out of hands to open those doors. You can’t do everything for everyone.
Once you’re at a successful point in your writing career where you have more opportunities than you know what to do with, it’s time to take a step back and reorganize.
From day one, you probably wrote for peanuts just to get your name out there and your writing recognized. After a while, you went from writing for practically free, to writing $10 to $20 articles. The next thing you know, you’re getting offers to write for professional blogs at $35 to $50 and up, as well as job opportunities for editing and management. This is what you’ve worked so hard for - but if you just keep taking more work, eventually you’re going to run out of time and burn out.
So, take a few moments to create a complete and detailed list of all of your current job responsibilities, as well as any upcoming opportunities that you’ve been offered - and make sure to associate an earning amount and “time to complete” for each task. This will help you gauge the true value of your work as well as priority.
Shift Priorities to Higher Paying Work
Here’s the scenario: You have two clients who both want you to write for them as much as possible. You are completely tapped out on time, but you have space to fit in about three more articles per week. One client pays $25 an article, and the other pays $45 per article. Which client should you offer to write more articles for? It certainly doesn’t seem like rocket science does it?
What complicates matters a little bit for writers is when you’ve been writing for a lower-playing client for a very long time, and then a higher paying client comes along and offers you work. Most writers take on the extra work, but maintain their previous workload with other clients.
However, if your new client is offering you even more articles (if you had that time to write them) at such a higher rate than your old client pays, wouldn’t it make sense to cut back on your writing for the old client? This seems intuitive in writing, but you’d be surprised how many writers I’ve met who simply can’t let go of any work, even if it means they’ll be able to replace it with work that pays more. It comes down to your ability to say no to people.
Tips for Staying Cool - Plan Out All Hours Available for Work
I’ve tried all sorts of approaches for scheduling and managing my work, from utilizing online calendar applications like Google Calendar (which I do still use), as well as Astrid for my mobile Droid. It seems that, inevitably, I always come back to using my trusty Excel spreadsheet.
This week I tried using a new color-coded schedule system in Excel, with a different color representing a different client, and assigned blocks of time for the tasks that I need to accomplish every week.
Originally, I had an Excel spreadsheet that just listed all of the tasks I needed to do without any color coding at all, but by coloring blocks of time, it better differentiates the limits of your blocks of time - and there’s no question where the task starts and stops. Most importantly, use large gray areas for periods of time when you simply do not do any writing work, whether that’s time off, time with family, or otherwise.
This approach insures that not only do you get your work done when you’re supposed to, but it also assigns blocks of time to not working, which is just as important to not getting burnt out.
Respect Your Schedule!
Rule #1 to making an efficient schedule work is this is more important than any other one of these tips for staying cool under stress - follow the schedule you’ve defined. Don’t overrun the block of time you’ve set up for work and then eat into your evening sleep, because the next morning you’ll never be able to get up and accomplish the block of time you’ve set aside there. Each overrun will intrude on the next until you’ve completely burnt out.
What makes a schedule work is when you respect it and follow it. Trust that you’ve analyzed your demands properly and that you’ve assigned the right priorities. After that, stop worrying about what you’ve got due next - just focus on that task at hand and get it done in the time that you’ve assigned (or earlier). Make sure to assign enough time to the tasks (don’t short-change yourself), and you’ll find that not only are you less burnt out, but when you are not working and taking time to relax, you’ll worry much less.
Posted in Life As a Writer, Writing for Income | No Comments »
Sunday, December 13th, 2009 |
If you’re interested in a career in writing, then a good definition for technical writing may come in handy, because for the right person it can be a very lucrative career. Technical writing is exactly what it sounds like - it’s a form of writing where you take information or concepts that are technical in nature, and you put them into coherent written form.
The end product could be a manual, a technical paper or proposal, reports, newsletters and even web pages. The true value of a technical writer is in their ability to convey either simple or complicated technological ideas in a way that’s targeted toward a specific audience. This is important considering that the audience could either be a layperson reading a product manual, or a fellow scientist conducting a peer review of a scientific finding.
A Definition for Technical Writing as a Career
A technical writer usually focuses on a topic or niche that revolves around a particular skill that they may have. This means that technical writers aren’t usually effective covering a broad range of topics. This means that if you want to be a technical writer, you need to have a good grasp on your own skills, training and expertise. Your background training and experience will define the fields that you should focus on as a technical writer.
Every field has an entire library of terminology and lingo, which is why the core definition for technical writing is that it’s a form of writing centered upon a specific skill set or career - such as lawyers, psychologists, computer experts or any other profession that requires specialized knowledge. It’s also important to remember that technical writing isn’t always even your standard form of writing. Sometimes you’ll find yourself creating forms, detailing step-by-step instructions with diagrams and schematics, or developing multimedia presentations and similar content. For larger projects such as these, you’d likely be involved in a team that includes graphic design artists and computer programmers, especially if a website is involved.
Translating and Conveying Technology and Specialized Knowledge
A truly skilled technical writer has the ability to take concepts that are conveyed to them from one highly specialized group, process that information and then convey it to a second group or individual in a way, and using terminology, that they can understand. Sometimes this might involve incorporating detailed information from programmers or engineers into a summary report or a project status report that executives and managers can understand and process. In order to do this, you need to understand what terminology they can understand, and how to translate the terminology that they can’t understand into something that makes sense for them. Technical writing is very much like acting as a translator of sorts.
This is also why technical writers are necessary within almost every discipline. Most scientists and experts have little ability to convert their highly specialized language into concepts that a lay person can understand. A technical writer is necessary, because the person has just enough knowledge about the specialized field to understand the scientist or specialist in their lingo. However, the technical writer can do what the specialist can’t - and that is to convey that highly technical information in a language and in a way that others who are not specialists can understand, and with appropriate grammar, punctuation and spelling. Unfortunately many technically trained individuals, like engineers, are very poor writers.
If you’re considering entering the field of technical writing, understand that it can be a grueling career at times. However, the fact that you are making good use of your training and specialty, in combination with your excellent writing ability will result in a writing career that you will find very fulfilling and rewarding.
Posted in Life As a Writer, Writing for Income | No Comments »
Monday, December 7th, 2009 |
I’m sure your first question is, “Why are you writing about the 4 A”s of marketing on a website devoted to online writing and search engine optimization?” The answer is that owning a successful website or blog takes two parts well-written and insightful content, and two parts brilliant marketing. Why marketing?
Well, the first thing you have to realize about having a website is that it’s existence alone isn’t going to generate a crowd plowing down the door, anxious to read your wit and wisdom. The first step in growing any website is getting folks to notice it, and not just any folks, but the folks that you are specifically writing for.
So, how do you know who you’re specifically writing for? This is where the 4 A”s of marketing come in. This was also the title of a very in-depth and detailed e-book written by author and lecturer, Brian Norris.
While Brian isn’t a website marketer or an SEO guru, he is a sales and marketing expert, and ultimately the techniques he describes will work effectively in marketing your website and converting your visitors into cash revenue. In this article I’m going to briefly outline how the principles he describes in his e-book can be used not only to drive tremendous traffic to your site, but also to generate a lot more profit from your website as well.
The 4 A”s of Marketing Applied to Your Website
The first thing you need to know about the 4 A”s of marketing are what each A stands for! The four A’s are as follows:
- Analyze your target audience. Who are they and what are their typical characteristics such as their age, interests, gender, purchasing trends and more.
- Attention of your audience. Once you know who they are and what they like, you’ll have the insight you need to successfully get their attention.
- Accept your product. This is what you need to make your audience do - accept that your ideas, your products, or your services are exactly what the need even though they have many other choices. You need to convince them to accept that yours is the best of the best.
- Action. The moment you convince them that you’re the best, you’d better have some sort of option available that they can act on once you convince them. This may be as simple as purchasing your services or buying your e-book. If you’re simply writing to generate ad revenue, then make sure that those ads are placed within the “hot spots” on your page (more on web page hot-spots in an upcoming post).
By following the simple guide above, you’ll be able to move from gathering your target audience from all disparate areas of the web that they visit, and drawing them into your website where you’ll guide them comfortably through the process until you’ve convinced them with very little effort how and why they need to perform a particular action. That action is what will generate your website revenue.
Analyze
The analysis part is something that I actually stumbled upon during my early freelance writing years. One particular client sold niche marketing analysis reports for a very hefty sum. He contracted me to research and write them for a few hundred dollars, and he turned around and sold them for a few thousand. Pretty good deal for him, and I didn’t care because I needed the money. However, what I gained more than money from the experience was the training on effective ways to perform a niche analysis to identify the demographics of your audience, depending on what niche you’re serving. For example the online gaming industry is actually dominated by white, middle-aged women - and you learn this as you conduct the niche analysis, using the sort of resources I described on my MUO article outlining resources you can use to conduct that research.
One thing I can assure you is that the research looks much more difficult than it is. Once you start using the resources listed in that MUO article and you discover a few studies from Pew Research or government agencies, you’ll discover your niche audience fairly quickly.
Attention
Once you learn more about your target audience, including what they believe, how much they typically earn and what they spend their money on, you’ll be in an excellent position to get their attention. The most important things you should learn about your audience is what websites they typically enjoy the most, what periodicals they read, and where they spend most of their time. For example if you know that your audience is made up of mostly college-age male computer gurus, and that they flock to large multi-user games and like to read computer magazines - then you know where to go to get their attention.
You would find a local LAN party near you and put up fliers, or sponsor the event so that you could advertise your site throughout the event. Or you could invest in an ad or two on a computer website (choose a small one with a decent readership if your budget is small). Through creative marketing, you’ll get your website name in front of the eyes that will appreciate exactly what you have to offer.
Accept
Convincing someone that you’re the best isn’t always easy. According to Brian, at this stage you need to focus on what the outcome that your audience is looking for (you’ll have learned this by now through your niche research).
If you know that middle aged, female online gamers are desperately seeking a free source of online games - then you need to convince them that you’re not only a good source for those games, but that you’re the absolute best resource on the entire Internet and that by sticking with you and taking a specific action, they’ll get the outcome that they desire.
Action
This could be anything - submitting a survey, submitting their email address to you, purchasing a product or anything else. Ultimately the action should be obvious and easy to accomplish, and it should flow directly from your effort to gain your visitor’s acceptance. One click and they get what they desire, or submit their email address in a form and they receive the outcome they want. That’s the secret.
And the real secret to doubling or tripling those profits is by following through and providing those visitors-turned-customers with the quality product or service that you offered. This results in return visitors and repeat profits - the bread and butter of any successful business.
Posted in Making Money Online, Search Engine Optimization, Website Marketing, Writing for Income | 1 Comment »
Sunday, November 1st, 2009 |
First, a little bit about how I came up with the idea to offer online PC support on this blog. One of my favorite writing gigs is the work that I do over at MakeUseOf. The writing crew over there are some of the most talented and technically savvy folks anyone could ask to work with. One of the things that I love about MUO is that it pushes me to try to come up with interesting ways that you can “Make Use Of” Internet technologies in ways that most people don’t know about or even consider.
One of the things I really want to do is provide my blog visitors with a direct line of communication with me, and in that spirit, last month I tested and installed the VZOchat service on my blog. This service is fantastic and it’s an excellent way to offer videoconferencing over the Internet. The one drawback I noticed is that in reality, most people who are sitting in front of their PC really don’t want anyone seeing them - so they shy away from video chatting. I believe this is probably why videoconferencing never really took off as a major online service.
Offering Easy to Use Online PC Support Services
On the other hand, everyone loves to text chat. The popularity of IM services like Skype, Yahoo Messenger and the many other instant messaging services proves that people love to text. One of my favorite ways to get tech support when I used to be an Ebay Powerseller was through Ebay’s Live Support chat service, when they offered it. So, in my latest article at MakeUseOf, I decided to alter my videoconferencing approach into a text chat approach. It didn’t take very long to find the best service out there to accomplish offering high-quality online PC support - LiveZilla absolutely rocks.
The LiveZilla support software is really easy to set up - the Wizard does everything for you. It will FTP the files to your web server (assuming you have your FTP details), and once installed on each PC that you want to use to answer calls, you’re done. The last step is distributing your chat room links either through your blog, emails, Facebook - wherever. As you can see to the right, I’ve decided to use the LiveZilla service to offer online PC support sessions as well as SEO advice sessions at various intervals of payment.
Offering Your Expertise for Pay
Why charge for your LiveZilla online support service? Well, as a writer or blogger, the odds are pretty good that you’re very busy most of the time. If you’re not updating your blog, you’re fine-tuning your website theme or writing articles for other clients. The fact remains that there are people out there who could really use your advice and technical expertise. Do you want to help them? Sure. Do you have time when you could be devoting that time to writing another article that helps you earn more income? Of course. If you have to choose - which would you go for? Time is money - but you can still offer your expertise to your visitors who really need help, and are willing to pay for it. Think about it - most people are stuck with several options. One, ask a family member who claims to “know computers,” but who ends up messing things up worse in the long run. Two, hire a guy down the street who’s going to charge $60 to $80 an hour. Or 3, someone far less for a quick 15 to 20 minute chat session where they can ask their technical question and get a straight and knowledgeable answer.
Now, you can offer your blog visitors an option where they can pay peanuts to chat with you for 10 minutes, get a quick answer to their technical question, and their done. You haven’t wasted any of your time, and you’re putting your experience and expertise to excellent use for your blog readers and website visitors. It’s simple, easy, and you can add it as one more stream to your many streams of income earned on the Internet - it’s win, win for everyone.
Posted in Making Money Online, Website Marketing, Writing for Income | 1 Comment »
Monday, October 19th, 2009 |
While the art of writing certainly requires a bit of talent, learning the techniques of good writing through free online writing courses can send your own writing quality into the stratosphere. When it comes to online writing, the truth is that good things come to those who write well. Once your articles reach wide distribution and your name gets out there as a recognizable source for excellent writing - your earning potential as a freelance online writer is limited only by how much time you have available to devote to your writing.
Previously, I’ve written quite a bit about free online resources and tools for online writers, and I’ve also provide a little bit of insight into the path that you can follow to become a freelance writer. However, in order to lay down a solid foundation as a writer, you really need to take a few writing classes - so I’ve decided to put together a useful list of the top 10 sites that offer free online writing courses in order to provide you with a page that you can bookmark and return to often whenever you’d like to take another free writing course.
Top 10 Free Online Writing Courses
Much of the Internet is over-run with useless sites that don’t really offer anything much of value, but instead try to draw in search engine results with spammed keywords and meaningless text (often written with the most atrocious grammar you’ll ever read). In order to cut through all of that nonsense, I’ve collected the finest sites offering a wide range of writing courses that cover all aspects of good writing.
- Learning Space - This UK based online courseware site easily takes the top spot on the list of the best free online writing courses due to the sheer volume of available free courses. The Arts and History section has the most available lessons, but you can find excellent writing courses throughout other disciplines as well.
- MIT Open Courseware - Can’t get into MIT? That doesn’t mean you can’t take writing classes from one of the country’s Premier technical colleges. Select the Writing and Humanistic Studies Department and you’re whisked away to a list of dozens of classes. Just choose your class and download the full course - it’s as simple as that!
- Utah University - This University also offers open courseware that includes a few valuable English classes. Remember, these are full University courses that you can download for absolutely free.
- NewsU - I’ll be honest, I’m a journalist at heart. I love hunting down the truth behind a story. News University does charge for some courses, but there are enough free, high-quality courses here to put this site toward the top of the list. If you’re a budding freelance journalist, don’t pass this one by.
- Utah State - Utah State University also has a wide range of excellent courses for writing across all departments, but obviously the English Department is the best place to start.
- Western Governors University - This site lists a great collection of classes under “Liberal Arts.”
- Purdue - This top University offers some of the best open courseware of any other site available on the web. You’ll find fantastic courses like “Proofreading Your Writing” and “The Writing Process.”
- Steven Barnes - This well known author and screenwriter offers prospective writers a complete writing course for absolutely free.
- The Writer’s Channel - If you enjoy watching video more than reading, this series of video and audio writing courses are right up your alley.
- Ezine University - This site offers an eclectic mix of online courses, many of which are focused on the art of writing for various purposes.
Learn the Techniques and Practice
When it comes to writing, about half of the effort to become a better writer is learning how to write as though you’re having a conversation with the reader, or how to use different methods to persuade, sell or draw an emotional reaction from your reader. Once you learn these techniques, the other half of the effort is to put what you learn into practice by writing as often and as much as you have time for. Make it a hobby that you do with every spare moment that you have available, and in a very short time you’ll find that not only have your writing skills improved, but you’re writing will also be well in demand.
Good luck with your studies, and make sure you share your success stories in the comments section below!
Posted in Free Writing Resources, Writing for Income | 2 Comments »
Thursday, June 11th, 2009 |
If there was any clearer indication of a very large generational gap it is in terms of what entails proper "work." I’ve always been an avid Internet user, but a few years ago I turned to the Internet to earn part time income in order to pay off some of our debts. Technically, my first work for a company online was with Ebay - selling yard sale discoveries and, eventually, trading antiques. Even though I love writing, online freelance work never seemed very plausible or possible - and most of the sites that promoted any opportunities looked like major scams to me.
 
Doing Legitimate Work for a Company Online
Online freelance work never entered my mind until the second or third year while I was working as a powerseller on Ebay. I’d just spent three long hours packaging up items for a major shipment, and I was just sick of working on Ebay. The entire process of selling on Ebay consists of taking photos, listing items, packaging and shipping, and dealing with disgruntled customers. The work went around the clock and the mess from packaging was simple atrocious. So one night, I decided to do some Internet research to determine, once and for all, if it really is possible to earn decent income doing work for a company online.
Entering the Fray…And Finally Earning a Solid Income
Earlier in this blog, I wrote a bit about those first few websites I used to earn some income doing online freelance work. The most prominent on my list at the time was Scriptlance , but even there if you plan to work as a writer you have to be willing to churn out articles at a pretty low rate. I’m talking $5 for a 500 to 700 word article. Now that’s hard labor.
However, once I became recognized as worth my salt as a writer, and once I had articles published on the Internet that I could point to, new "buyers" who posted at Scriptlance were more willing to pay a bit more per article. One particular project fascinated me - one guy was looking to hire writers for his blog. Out of curiosity, I did a bit more online research on blogs that were hiring writers and discovered that there’s an entire community of websites and blogs where owners are more than willing to hire excellent writers to create a steady stream of valuable content. College graduates with an English degree must no longer fear a life of squallor and poverty. However, they need to be prepared for the overwhelming onslaught of work that’s available on the web. Yes…real work that pays real well.
It’s Not a Published Novel - But It’s a Job!
The dream of every writer is to publish a novel - but how do you plan to put food on the table or support your family. Is it still fashionable to be a starving writer? The contemporary writer is one who’s a contributor to multiple blogs and websites, building a reputation in the form of a viral meme more powerful than any publication house or agent could ever produce for you. For good writers - the Internet is yours, and if you write well you can be a king.
After about a year performing side jobs for Scriptlance buyers, I applied to become a contributing writer to one website and one blog . Performing as best as I could doing work for a company online, such as these, turned out to be the best opportunity I could have found. After a year or so I found myself promoted up to editor and management status - in effect proving to myself that it really is possible to find success with online freelance work.
The humor in all of it is that at first family and friends viewed the Internet work as all in fun - a side "hobby" that’s just part of my usual computer-obsession. I assured everyone that it was very much a part time job, to no avail. Then one day, one of them asked how much I earn each month through my online freelance work. When I told them, the laughing stopped. Few people understand how quickly and how far the Internet has advanced - and the tremendous opportunities that exist there. That is one reason why I created this blog - to spread the word that there’s an entire online industry that’s booming with opportunities for people who have creative talent.
Posted in Life As a Writer, Writing for Income | No Comments »
Friday, April 24th, 2009 |
For anyone who missed it, back in January I commented about Helium.com, remarking that, “Helium is not the place I would recommend going if you hope to earn the big bucks.” As you can see here, I’ve written a fair share of articles at Helium.com, but that was mostly at the beginning of my online writing career, when I didn’t really know any better and was just testing the waters.
Helium Decides to Step it Up a Notch
To my surprise, only a few weeks after I published that article, Helium.com decided to increase their revenue sharing approach. So, in all fairness, I must reassess my original take on Helium. Instead of earning a “paltry” income from investing your time on the site, you will now be earning a “very tiny” income - but only if you’re willing to invest a fair amount of time. Here’s how the new system currently works.
Helium is now willing to offer “up-front” payments for your articles, similar to Associated Content, but at a lower rate and dependent upon your “writing stars” and your “rating stars.” The current rates are as follows:
* 1 Writing Star – $0.50 per article published
* 2 Writing Star – $1.00 per article published
* 3 Writing Star – $1.50 per article published
* 4 Writing Star – $2.00 per article published
* 5 Writing Star – $2.50 per article published
The catch? You have to have “1 rating star.” If you don’t maintain at least a single rating star, you won’t earn those upfront payments. How hard is it to maintain a rating star? Read on.
Rating Articles on Helium is Like Watching Paint Dry
So, for a month or so, I tried to see what it would take to establish and maintain at least one rating star on Helium. At first the help page was very obscure about what, exactly, was required to establish a writing star. I once posted on the discussion boards at Helium.com that I’d rated quite a bit over a few days and hadn’t seen any change, and the next day a rating star magically appeared. Whether this was due to some sort of “processing time,” or just some admin deciding to manually “fix” some technical glitch, it’s impossible to know. A few weeks later, however, Helium.com finally added clarity to their help page.
According the Helium.com help pages, in order to have a single star, you must have a “consistently high rating quality” and have “completed from 10 to 99 rates in the last 30 days or the last 90 days.” A little more clarity is provided below this under a section about rating stars that states to earn rating stars a user must maintain a “75% score,” whatever that means, and complete at least 10 rates in 30 days.
So, for a month I visited Helium.com every day and rated from 4 to 5 articles. Mind you, this was during time when I had several writing projects due in under three weeks, and didn’t really have time to sit around comparing one horribly written article to another and judging between them. Not that all articles were poorly written, but unfortunately most were. In my quest to find additional revenue on the Internet, I was curious if the magical single rating star would finally net some decent profit. It didn’t.
I Gave Up After The First Month
After those first two weeks, I realized quickly that this entire setup will never work. Writers know that it takes time to craft good writing - but to spend countless hours on a website judging and rating published content simply takes up far too much additional time. While 10 rates in 30 days doesn’t sound like a lot, the truth is that the algorithm that Helium uses to calculate your rates isn’t that straightforward. They attribute a “score” to your rates using some mysterious calculation - somehow trying to guess the value of how you rated between two articles based on your timing and reading behaviors while on the rating page. Through some experimentation I found that the system is horribly flawed, and you can lose a rating star far too quickly.
In my humble opinion, when you have the skill, and spend the effort to craft an article that is well-written and enjoyed by readers, the site that is bestowed the honor of publishing that carefully written content should pay for it. Other sites often pay very little in the form of royalties, but at least they pay straight and fair for that content, without playing silly games such as this. In the end, the Helium.com rating algorithm is the very last hurdle that the creators of this intriguing site have to overcome before they’re able to progress anywhere near the level of traffic and popularity as a site like Associated Content and others.
The thing about Helium is that the feel and community of the site is enjoyable. I just wish I could afford to spend more time there. Maybe one day they’ll get it right. When they do, I’ll certainly be one of their biggest fans.
Posted in Writing for Income | No Comments »
Friday, April 24th, 2009 |
Here I am, blogging from the comfort of a vehicle, traveling at 70 miles per hour on the interstate. A thought struck me as I watch other passengers texting, using mobile email, or with a laptop on their laps and tethered to their mobile phone - surfing Google just like they were sitting at home. We are living in reality conceived by the sci-fi authors of the past.
In fact, this new reality has changed how writers write. I recall reading ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King, where he describes his writing process of scribbling thoughts and ideas on a piece of paper whenever and wherever the moment struck. He would jot ideas on scraps of paper, napkins, or whatever else was available. Later, he would work on his masterpiece on an archaic typewriter, locked in the laundry room to escape the chaos of family life.
For better or worse, the Internet changed the landscape for new writers. Now, we prove ourselves in blogs rather than in small independent magazines. Today, the creative forces are digitized, published, distributed and syndicated in a few mouse clicks. In the writers’ modern world, when inspiration strikes, we pull out the Smartphone and instantly add those thoughts to our blogs.
Writers like King may lament these cultural and technological changes, but as the King’s mournful Gunslinger would say, the world has moved on.
Posted in Life As a Writer, Writing for Income | No Comments »
Friday, April 24th, 2009 |
When it comes to finding real free articles for your website or blog, it can be difficult to find content that consists of good writing. And it’s important to offer the readers of your website with recent articles, not old content from two or three years ago. Unfortunately, most free articles are usually poorly written, with atrocious grammer and absolutely no focus to the text other than stuffing it full of keywords that will hopefully draw traffic. If you are a webmaster or a blogger and you’re looking for high quality recent articles that an intelligent person would enjoy reading, then review the following resources and you’ll be adding the highest quality content to your website or blog in no time.
Adding Website Content Using Real Free Articles
Adding content to a website or blog every single day can quickly turn into a full time job. And when your blog is only producing income of a few dollars a month, the payout simply isn’t worth the effort. However, the only way to increase that revenue is by offering your readership with fresh, recent articles on the niche that you publish about. There are ways to increase the volume of content that you can offer your readership without using up your own valuable time. The four central methods of finding real free articles for your blog or website include the following.
* Pulling the best recent articles from article directories
* Asking expert bloggers for guest editorials in exchange for links
* Hiring low cost “bulk writers” to produce articles and rewrite the content
* Getting prime content for less
Pulling the Best Recent Articles From Article Directories
The best article directories are those that draw the most traffic. Most article directories are made up of volumes of real, free articles, but those articles are usually intended to draw traffic for a particular website or business. The good news is that many of those published articles are still very well written and interesting, regardless of the intent of the article publication. By searching through article directores for real free articles, you can actually find some excellent, well written articles. The authors of those articles allow website owners and bloggers like you to use that article, but only if you maintain the link at the bottom as credit for the work.
This helps the author, because they obtain a free link to their site, and it helps you because you get free content. The only negative to these article directories is the fact that most of the articles are absolutely atrocious. If there was ever any place online where all of the bad writers hang out - this is it. However, with that said, there really are excellent writers there as well, you just need to know where to look.
By far, the top article directory is currently Ezinearticles. In fact, it’s getting much harder to publish anything on Ezinearticles. The editors there will only provide a free account to authors who are eventually “approved” by proving themselves through publishing high quality articles. Otherwise, authors need to pay for an account to continue publishing articles after the initial free trial is over. This is actually serving to improve the quality of content on Ezinearticles. The following directories currently (as of January 2009) make up the top ten article directories online (in terms of Alexa traffic rankings)
1. Ezinearticles
2. ArticlesBase
3. Buzzle
4. ACS Publications
5. Searchwarp
6. Go Articles
7. Article Alley
8. Article Dashboard
9. Article Snatch
10. Idea Marketers
The best way to find the highest quality content is to search these directories by “expert author” status, or just search through the list of “top authors” that most of these sites provide. For example, on Ezinearticles, you can click on “Expert Authors” and get a list of authors sorted by the number of articles the author has published.
You’ll find that most of the authors who’ve published thousands of articles also tend to be better writers. Searching through these articles for content increases your chances of finding real, free articles that are also well written. ACS Publications is unique because it lists high-quality free science and free scientific articles.
Asking Expert Bloggers For Guest Editorials in Exchange for Links
The primary focus of most bloggers, just like one of your prime needs, is to draw traffic. Typically, expert bloggers write, and they write a lot. They usually not only write for themselves, but they often write professionally for other websites and blogs. Another marketing aspect of blogging is writing editorial content for other blogs and websites, where the only payment for the article is a link back to their own blog. In fact, if your website is ranked fairly high in Google, or it gets a lot of traffic, many bloggers would rather receive a link back instead of getting paid, that’s how much value incoming links have for webmasters and bloggers.
The way to do this is by writing a page (or a blog update) about your need for guest writing from other bloggers. Detail your guidelines (minimum words and type of content required) and let writers know that in return for the post, you’ll provide them with a free link back to their site. Provide them with an email or a form where they can contact you to send the article.
Hiring “Bulk Writers” to Produce Articles
Another site that I’ve mentioned before is my favorite freelance website, Scriptlance. Now, I can tell you from experience that Scriptlance is overloaded with people from third world countries who do not have English as their primary language. So if you aren’t careful, you can get inundated with offers from people with horrible writing skills who want to write articles for you. The way to avoid this is by posting a project and making it abundantly clear that you require writers with English as their first language, excellent writing skills and grammar, and no article-farming businesses (businesses with a team of poorly paid writers who sit in a room and pump out countless horrendously written articles).
Once you post your project, you’ll immediately have a list of writers begging to write for you, with offers from $80 per article all the way down to $1 an article. Whatever you do, never hire the lowest bidder or you will receive a Walmart-quality bunch of articles. Instead, opt for the bidder who bids in the middle of the road. The posting and bidding process at Scriptlance is very simple and straightforward, with the project description at the top and all bids underneath.
What a lot of bloggers do is hire low-cost writer to produce drafts of articles, and then the blogger polishes and publishes the final draft themselves.
Getting Prime Content for Less
Of course, the best source of content is going to be a writer or two that you find are capable of producing high-quality content for you. If you find him or her through Scriptlance, that’s great. Pay them what they are worth, and you’ll find that they will keep coming back to produce more content for you. Typically, good quality professionally-written articles are going to cost about $20 for 600 to 1000 words. If you want to cut back, you may find an author willing to write for $15 per article. If you start looking for authors to write professional articles under $10, you’re going to find that the quality suffers. Remember - most of the profit from your website or blog comes from building long-term and loyal traffic. When people see high quality content on your blog or website, you can be confident that they’re going to keep coming back for more. Content should always be your primary focus and where most of your financial investment goes, especially when you can’t afford the time to produce that content yourself.
If you are in need of quality content, and are looking to invest in your website or blog by paying a writer to develop that content for you, I do provide writing services in addition to my normal writing work. You can submit a request using this form (all email addresses remain confidential), and I should be able to help you come up with excellent content for your site that draws the most traffic.
Do you produce your own content or do you hire writers to do it for you? Share your own experiences in the comment section below.
Posted in Free Articles, Writing for Income | No Comments »
Friday, April 24th, 2009 |
One of the most valuable uses for the Internet is when you’re in need of free writing, such as free letters or tips about writing. People often don’t realize how often good writing can make an important difference in their life. Whether it’s dealing with a credit card company, writing an invitation or a formal resignation letter, or if you simply want some advice about writing better - good writing gets results.
Finding Free Writing Resources and Tools
In this article, you’ll find valuable links and resources to free letter templates, free tests and free questions, free tutorials to help you practice writing, and resources about writing that offer you with tips and techniques to improve your own writing abilities.
The saying, “The pen is mightier than the sword,” is very true. I’ve gotten out of some very serious scrapes and nerve-racking situations by writing a poignant and powerful letter. But not all people have the ability to craft the written word into useful prose, so when you need to have that kind of communication with a business or person, it’s important that you know where to turn. Below, I’ll provide you with some of the best online resources for both free and low-cost writing solutions. Bookmark this page and return to it when you find that you need to correspond with someone, or you just want to learn a bit more about improving your own writing skills. This article will cover the following resources:
1. Free Letters And Letter Templates
2. Free Tests and Free Questions
3. Free Practice Writing Tutorials
4. Tips and Techniques About Writing
Free Letters and Letter Templates
One of the most searches for free writing products online is for free letters. People are always finding themselves in a life situation where they need a free letter. They may be retiring, need to write a recommendation letter or a thank you letter, and people aren’t confident enough in their own writing abilities to write a powerful enough letter. The following are some of the best free letter websites that offer you with most of the more common letters.
Letter-Samples.com offers one of the most comprehensive lists of letter samples, including resignation letters, accepting job offers, and a long list of other well written letters.
Freebusinessforms.com provides an assortment of business resources, including free business letters, sales letters, collection letters and more.
TheBase has a list of decent letters in a blog format. Click the tags on the right to access the letter samples.
A1letters has one of the best collections that I’ve found of free letters in various categories, including banking letters, business letters, and a whole list of others.
Rocket Lawyer is best if you need free letters in the legal field. There are some very useful templates at this site for credit and collections, employee issues, proposals, and much more
LettersRep is the best site to purchase a custom letter at very low cost. The page above lists the letters that I currently have offered there, or you can contact me directly through this blog - I do offer customized letters tailored for your specific needs, just ask!
Free Tests and Free Questions
Educators and students are always looking for free tests online that can help them improve their score on various tests that require writing skills, such as the GRE, the ACT, or other educational tests. These tests offer free questions and provide you with the tools and information you need to not only pass these important educational tests, but also to pass them with flying colors. Online, you can find a number of excellent websites that provide such free tests.
WritingTester is a very cool free online test that lets you paste your article into a text field and it returns the “readability” of your writing, as well as the grade level that you write at. This free test isn’t for the faint of heart.
Admissions Consultants is a valuable resource for free information about taking various tests including the ACT, SAT, GRE, and a number of other tests at various educational levels.
Tools For Educators is a very useful website for teachers and professors who have very little time on their hands and need tools that can help them automatically generate free tests for their classes.
Free Practice Writing Tutorials
When it comes to writing an article or ad copy, many people find that they just don’t have the skills to do it. Writing an article takes patience, research, and knowledge of proper grammar and 
sentence structure, while writing ad copy additionally requires knowledge about how to sell people things through the power of the written word. There are a multitude of other forms of writing that require different skills, and the only way to obtain those skills is through learning how, and to practice writing by writing an array of your own materials.
The following free writing tutorials will offer you a tremendous opportunity to get some free practice with your writing skills.
Vocational Information Center features an impressive and comprehensive list of tutorials on a variety of important topics, but under the “Literacy Tutorials” in particular, you can find free practice with critical thinking, reading skills, resume formats, and much more.
AdCopywriting is a website that’s fairly simple, but it will offer you with a little bit of free practice writing adcopy for sales websites.
DiplomaGuide features this excellent article that outlines an entire list of online writing courses that various schools offer for absolutely free. These classes not only offer free practice with a variety of writing styles, but they will surely improve your writing skills overall.
Tips and Techniques About Writing
When it comes to tips and tricks about writing in general, the best writing advice that you’ll find is write here on Bettercontent. The following articles, which are offered right here on this blog, provide you with examples writing website content, information about writing for clients or websites, and a wide range of other topics growing daily.
Check out these tips and techniques about writing, and visit back often for our latest articles.
Final Words
There is no greater tool to improve your writing skills than practice and dedication. But free writing tutorials and other resources can certainly give you an advantage and a boost to improve your writing abilities. With the online world booming as quickly as it is today, more writing opportunities are constantly becoming available for writers who know how to produce high quality Internet content. This is a niche field that’s growing tremendously, and by improving your writing skills, you’ll be poised to take the online writing industry by storm.
Posted in Free Articles, Life As a Writer, Writing for Income | No Comments »
