Archive for the ‘Writing for Income’ Category

4 Creative Writing Tips For Writing A Short Story

September 3rd, 2010 1 Comment

creative writing tipsOne of the most popular writing genres these days is the short story. In a time when people are rushing about in their ever-busy lives and everything has to be shrunk down into headlines, summaries and bullet points in order to get someone’s attention, the short story stands out as a medium where people can be quickly entertained.

This is in comparison to a novel which takes far too long to complete and which requires a huge investment of time, energy and deep thought. Three values which are becoming increasingly rarer as everyone’s attention span turns into the length of a SMS message.

But its short duration does not mean that a short story is easy to write. Many a person have attempted to write short stories only to end up in the rejection pile of an editor’s desk. As someone with some experience in writing short stories, here’s four creative writing tips to make your short story more attractive to a book or magazine editor.

1. Don’t get too ambitious – Remember, a short story is in the region of 5000 – 10,000 words. It isn’t a novel which can be in the region of 100,000 words. Therefore if you are planning a mini Lord Of The Rings-type epic with wars, fantasy worlds, sword fights and magic, the short story may not be the right format and you should adjust your sights accordingly. If you are determined to make it a short story, scale down the plot and make it less complicated. Otherwise you are only letting yourself in for grief later.
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Posted in Writing for Income Tags: , ,

How The Internet Has Changed The History Of News Reporting

September 2nd, 2010 No Comments

internet and news reportingIf there is one thing that print journalists hate, it’s the internet. And who can blame them right? After all, it’s the internet which is killing their profession.

As everything goes online and everyone expects their news to be free, print publications are rapidly going out of business and those who are still holding their heads above water are having to cut back a great deal in staff and resources. A far cry from the glory days when Fleet Street ruled the world and everyone flocked to the newspaper stand on the street to buy the latest edition to see what was going on.

I was privileged to work in newsrooms in the PI age (pre-Internet) and I can now look back with hindsight and tell you three things which have changed since then.

1. No more phoning in stories – When out and about chasing stories, you obviously had to observe your deadlines. Missing the deadline meant the newspaper would “go to press” and you would miss your chance to get your story in the next edition. So if you were outside the newsroom, you would have to find a phone box, make sure you had plenty of coins, call the news desk and “phone in” the story before the deadline passed.
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Posted in Writing for Income Tags: , ,

5 Ways That a Writer Can Successfully Work From Home Online

August 27th, 2010 2 Comments

work from home ideasOne of the most successful careers available, if you want to work from home, is becoming a freelance writer. All you need is a computer with Internet access, a desk and a chair, and bingo, you have it in you to become the next Ernest Hemingway.

But while you’re waiting for that big publishing deal to come through, you can pay your bills by taking on other forms of writing work, which may be less interesting but still brings in cold hard cash to put food on the table and pay for your Internet connection. Plus, it fattens up your resume a bit, which is always a good thing.

Here are some work from home ideas that you can do to keep your writing skills sharpened and your bank account looking rosy.

1. Write for blogs – When you read your favourite sites in the morning, do you ever ponder for a moment how those blogs are written and put together? No, the words didn’t magically fly onto the page - they were written by a hard working team of writers – and that writing team may have an open vacancy that could be just perfect for you. So go to your favourite sites, find a “contact us” or “write for us” link and see if anything is available. Or advertise on your Twitter stream or Facebook account that you are looking for work. Someone somewhere may see it and offer you something.
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Posted in Free Writing Resources, Writing for Income Tags: , , , ,

3 Ways Bloggers Prove to Readers That They Are Idiots

August 21st, 2010 No Comments

businessmanThere are so many blogs out there on the Internet (with even more being set up each day) that it is absolutely essential to get that thing called “professionalism” firmly nailed down. Lose it and people will never believe a word you say ever again. Lose it and you will probably never get it back again.

The ironic thing is that it is not difficult at all to get things right but people just don’t do it, perhaps because of laziness or because of a perceived need to rush out posts to beat the competition. But if you take an extra couple of minutes before hitting that “publish” button, your reputation to the readers will rise monumentally.

Here are the top three things to remember.

1. Check your grammar - The most important one of all. How can you expect anyone to take you seriously if you can’t even spell and write your own language properly? If you are serious about blogging, buy a good dictionary and a style book and keep them on the desk beside you at all times. Or use an online dictionary such as Dictionary.com

2. Check your facts – Print newspaper journalists can be sued for libel if they get their facts wrong and bloggers are no different. Don’t believe for a second that bloggers can say whatever they want and get away with it. If you defame someone online, you will be held legally accountable for it and suffer the consequences that come with that. So check your facts – then check them again. You can never do this often enough.

3. Format your posts properly – Not only do your posts have to be well written and free of spelling mistakes, they also have to be pleasant viewing to the eyes. When someone visits your post, they have to be interested and impressed enough to want to read it, comment on it and share it with others. They won’t do that if the Facebook post is humping the Twitter box and the post image is slapped on top of the text.

Posted in Writing for Income Tags: , ,

Avoid Burnout as an Online Writer - Choose Jobs Wisely

July 9th, 2010 1 Comment

Along with the plethora of new opportunities that are available throughout the Online Content industry, there is the issue of too much work and not enough time. If you’re anything like me and you hate passing up good income-generating opportunities, it can be hard to say no.

The Schedule of an Online Writer

Making an income from writing is unfortunately still scorned upon by older, traditional folks who believe that a job should be something that you “drive into” by 8am and then “drive home from” by 5pm, along with the rest of the rush hour crowd. This is the right thing to do.

Well, let me tell you something about the right thing…when you are capable of generating a high volume of quality writing, and you can get paid for that writing, you best believe that the income you can earn from your skills will be just as good as any 9-to-5 job that you’ll find with any corporation.



The issue is the stereotype of the Internet. Many people still believe that the Internet is only for playing games or wasting time. Yet, as they sit down for their morning coffee, they’ll read the news on their favorite news website, or the latest gossip on their favorite blogs and forums. I think there are a lot of people who think that the content they enjoy is free. Little do they realize that someone gets paid (and paid well, I might add) to research and write that content.

Too Many Opportunities

Most major websites out there now realize that if they want to offer better content than their competitors, then it will require investment into high quality writers. Only good writers can get the job done. So now, if you’re a writer fresh out of college, with an English degree in your back pocket (or just lots of writing skill), you are now a very rare and in-demand commodity. Online publishers need you! The race is on, and as countless websites start investing into hiring and paying high-quality writers, you will find yourself faced with making some very difficult decisions. Which opportunities do you take, and which do you turn down? And yes, you will need to turn down opportunities, or keeping up with everything will burn you out - and then you’ll be no good to anyone.

4 Signs of a Good Online Writing Opportunity

Some of the opportunities you come across will be one-time writing gigs where you produce a bulk-lot of 20 to 50 articles and get paid a moderate amount per article. Other times, you may be offered to submit single pieces to blogs or websites and, if accepted and published, you will get paid. Best of all, there will be opportunities where you are assigned a certain number of articles to write every month, and you get paid a fixed amount per article.

So how do you know which opportunities are good ones? Watch for the following signs.

  • Per article payment, not royalties - Many sites try to get content that’s essentially free by offering writers “royalty payments” from the ad revenue the article generates. For the most part the revenue will be a few cents a month, if that. Your efforts would be better invested elsewhere.
  • Fair rates - It may be tempting to throw together a 500 word article for someone for peanuts, just because you can do it quickly. However, how well will it reflect upon you when, down the road, someone discovers this poorly written article that you failed to revise because you were racing through it for a quick buck?
  • Respect - You may be paid well per article, and even promoted into a management/editor position for a blog or a website, but if you aren’t treated respectfully and with dignity by the website owners or upper managers, you’ll find that you’re forever feeling insulted and patronized. This is a common symptom where a new writer shows up within another community - you are treated as though you have less experience simply because you are a new member there, despite the fact that you may have more experience or better ideas than the people actually running the site. Either say no to those promotions, or learn to bite your tongue and simply do your job…conflict and misunderstandings are too easy when you work with people remotely.
  • Prompt Payments - If you do work for a webmaster and he or she is a week late sending your Paypal payment, the odds are good that the person will be habitually late, or may even fail to pay you. It’s difficult to collect such payments in small claims for an Internet job, especially if the client is overseas, so if you sense a problem early on, just walk away.

It may be difficult to say no to new writing opportunities, but if you choose your work wisely, you’ll end up building a very strong and solid foundation for a very lucrative and successful online writing career.

Posted in Getting Published, Writing for Income Tags: , , , ,

An Example of a ScribeFire Formatted Post

July 1st, 2010 No Comments

This post is a sample of what ScribeFire is capable of. To create this post, all I did was highlight a word on a web page and click “Blog This.” The template I created did all of the formatting work for me!

Let ScribeFire Format Your Blog Posts

I wrote this blog entry up in just minutes, because I didn’t have to worry about all of the coding. The ability to focus on the creative process of writing, without worrying about the technical aspects of blogging, really offers a sense of freedom. ScribeFire really creates the reality of blogging much more often and in less time.


The images I chose for this example were based on the Google Alert page, so hypothetically this entry would be a review of Google Alert (which I guess I’ve actually been meaning to write - it’s a great service!)

Hopefully, having the ability to pop open a window and whip together quick blog entries about interesting topics, without the need for formatting the entry, will give me the incentive and motivation I need to write more FreeWritingCenter blog entries! It hasn’t always been easy to keep this blog updated, but in the coming year, with this great new blog design and the ScribeFire tool saving a lot of time, updates should really start flowing, so please stay tuned!

Posted in Writing for Income

Tips for Staying Cool Under Pressure

February 26th, 2010 No Comments

tips for staying coolWell, 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.
tips for staying cool

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.

tips for staying cool

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 Tags: , , , ,

Here’s To Tremendous Website Profits in the New Year

January 5th, 2010 No Comments

As we all continue on writing into the New Year, I’d like to take a moment to pause and reflect upon the many changes that are actively taking place across the online writing community.

As I’ve written about earlier on this blog, there is a parting of ways for people who spend a lot of time online. In particular, there is the “content producer” - the writer who exhibits the skill and ability to not only research topics that are in demand, but also to put the result of that research together in ways that are coherent and useful for readers. Then, on the other side, there are the Internet users. Those who search and surf, post comments and forum posts and in general “make use of” the Internet.
computer users

Yes, it is a parting of ways - that of the paid writer, and that of the entertained or educated (whichever the case may be) reader. Which group do you fit into, and is the line really that clear?

Are You a Content Producer or a Consumer?

I used to work for clients who were web designers that would purchase domain names with the home of publishing a page featuring lots of Google ads, with the hopes that the one web page would start generating tremendous ad revenue over time. In fact, there are still folks out there who believe that this dream will really come true.

In a recent article that I wrote for MakeUseOf, the popular tech blog, I discussed among other things the importance of fresh content for the SEO quality of a website. Stagnant websites simply don’t do as well as competitors who are always adding new content. A number of commentators either didn’t know about this fact or didn’t believe it, but it’s part of the reason why the Internet is now splitting into these two groups - the content producers and content consumers.

The Growth of the Internet

Just pause for a moment and consider the sheer growth of the Internet thanks to this phenomenon of competition for the freshest, most relevant content. Now, blogs and major informational portals are hiring and paying decent wages for high-quality writers to produce informative, novel and useful articles for the Internet audience.

Yes, there are still all of those spammy websites out there that produce garbage pages only to “trick” search engines into ranking them highly and to attract the occasional web visitor - but in time those are getting weeded out as search engine algorithms become more and more intelligent at identifying the relevant, high quality pages that pertain to an Internet traveler’s search terms.

This is the reality. As the Internet evolves into a massive database filled with more and more pages of content, the websites that win are those that have the better content - the high quality, well-written useful articles. And how do you get the content that’s better than your competition? You hire a high-quality writer with a mastery of the English language and with the ability to persuade, convince and teach your readers on the niche topics that you target.

When you choose your writers, just remember that more than any other service in the entire world, with online writers - you get what you pay for. So pay well, and screen out all of your applicants who can’t write well - only hire the best!

If you do hire well - before long, you’ll quickly recognize that your content and your website as a whole is consistently ranked at the top of search engine results.

Posted in Writing for Income

Definition for Technical Writing

December 13th, 2009 No Comments

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.
definition for technical writing

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 Tags: , , ,

The 4 A’’s of Marketing

December 7th, 2009 1 Comment

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.

the 4 a of marketing

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.


nicheanalysis

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.


lanparty

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 SEO & Writing, Writing for Income Tags: , , , ,
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