The Writer's Journey

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Elance "Connects"
2008-01-13 23:15:00
Ever since the Elance changes, they have advertised that even though you get very few "connects" with the new memberships (their new annoying word for bids), members would be free to buy more connects anytime they need them. Well, I bit the bullet and bought some today. I swore I wasn't going to, but the site now requires so many connects to bid and gives you so few, that to even bid on the number of invitations I get leaves me without connects after a week or so. Now for the shocker- you can't just buy a pack of connects. Once you buy more connects, you are obligated to buy that amount every month forever. You have to actually agree to change your account so that the new amount is what you'll be paying for every month. Very sneaky, Elance. I had pretty much planned to move to Guru in March, but it's now a concrete plan. Elance is no longer hiding the fact that they are trying to gouge writers. All the talk about making the site better by charging us more rings pretty hollow whe...

Freelance Bidding Sites
2008-01-09 17:42:00
Freelance bidding sites are one of the ways that freelance writers get started. There are also lots of writers who work almost exclusively through them and do quite well. I've used two of them consistently for both work through the site and to secure regular clients. Now that I think about it, I'd say about 90 percent of my regulars have come to me through an initial bidding site project. Of course, some sites are better than others, and no site is identical to any other. Here's a basic breakdown:RentACoder- This one is free to use and was the first bidding site I tried. The well-paying gigs aren't as plentiful as they used to be, but they can still be found if you're persistent. What I usually do is check the buyer to see if they've been outsourcing to India/Pakistan/Bangladesh for content. If they have, I pass. If not, there's a chance that they may pay a decent wage. This site gets knocked a lot because it has some of the lowest-paying work you'll ever see. And, yes, it d...
More About: Sites , Freelance , Bidding

Unsecured Loans
2008-01-09 17:40:00
If you can’t afford to hire a freelancer, but still want your business to take off, you might think about taking out a loan to get started. Many small businesses start with a loan for start up costs, and for online businesses, sufficient capital is often needed to hire a web designer and a content writer. America One Unsecured offers unsecured personal loans as well as business loans. And, as you may have guessed from the name, these loans are unsecured. You don’t have to put up your house or car in order to get the capital you need. A small personal loan of as little as $100 can be obtained to fund personal projects, or you can apply for a business loan of up to $50K to give your business the best possible start. And, when you apply, America One Unsecured gives a fast reply with no credit check required. This is a sponsored review.
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A Good Time for Seasonal Articles
2008-01-07 21:12:00
Unlike the print world, where seasonal material is usually requested about six months in advance, seasonable material doesn't have to be in that early online. It occurred to me the other day that we're probably going to have Valentine's Day in the Western world again this year, no matter what I have to say about it. With about five weeks to go, this is the perfect time to get Valentine's Day web content underway. Sometimes it's tough to come up with something that hasn't been covered a million times already, but there are a few ways to do it. One is by coming up with a creative list, such as: Ten Ways to... or The Five Best Ways to... Lists are usually easier to digest as Web content anyway, as they are broken into quick chunks of information. I just hope I don't run across anymore articles that tell men to buy flowers and take their dates to a romantic dinner. Blah.
More About: Articles , Time , Seasonal , Good

Pay Per Play Ads
2008-01-07 18:27:00
Most webmasters have tried AdSense and other passive ad methods on their sites. The problem with a lot of those is that the ads are strictly PPC- you don’t get paid unless someone clicks on the ads. But, there’s a new way to sponsor your site that pays every time someone is exposed to the ad. They don’t have to click anything and you don’t even have to take up space on your site with the ad. Pay Per Play Online Audio Ads put a 5-second ad on your site. Five seconds isn’t long enough to be obtrusive, but it is long enough for your advertisers to get the word out. There are 66,000 Pay Per Play advertisers just waiting to get their short message on your site- and pay you for every listen. This is a sponsored post.

Freelance Web Writing Controversies
2008-01-05 20:56:00
I thought of a new New Year's Plan, and yes, it is now the 5th. So, I'm a little late.Writers in general are outspoken, striving to express themselves through writing and other means. So, they can get a little melodramatic at times. Over the past three months I've gotten embroiled in debates over web writing topics that, shall we say, tend to get blown a little out of proportion in writer's forums and blogs. I'm going to try my best not to get into the silliness anymore, and if I don't think something is controversial, then I'm not going to pretend it is. Cases in point:$3 articles- There's been a giant debate raging in pretty much every writing blog and forum I visit about whether people should take on gigs where the "buyer" is paying $3 for a full-length web article. Obviously that amount of work is not worth the money, but I'm not debating it anymore. It's crap pay and no one should take it. Pretending otherwise is just silly. After spending more time than I care to adm...
More About: Writing , Freelance , Controversies

Christmas Gifts of Angels and Devils
2008-01-03 20:20:00
These were my favorite Christmas gifts- the Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde action figures. They came complete with captions written by my spouse. The two of them together remind me of nothing less than the stereotypical angel and devil figures sitting on each shoulder. Which one should I listen to?
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Pragma Systems
2008-01-02 22:08:00
As quickly as technology is evolving these days, businesses need a company to provide the most reliable and secure access possible. Pragma Systems provides software that every corporation needs in order to stay connected and keep from being infiltrated by hackers. If your company uses Windows, this is especially important. Pragma Systems provides a number of software products to ensure safety and a reliable connection. To see what Pragma Systems can do for your company, take a look at the products available thorugh SFTP. This is a sponsored post.

A New Year, New Plans
2008-01-02 08:51:00
I hear so much about New Year 's resolutions, I have to wonder how many people will keep theirs. I don't know that I've ever kept mine. So, instead of New Year's resolutions, I'm making New Year's plans.Plan 1- Get less distracted during the day. I plan to work my set hours without allowing anything around me, or online, to distract me from getting my work done. Part of this plan is to spend less time at writer's forums. Those suckers can seriously suck time.Plan 2- Get more residual income. With more residual income coming in, I'd have more time for writing fiction and sending book queries. I've been tinkering with a few sites that pay residuals, and have a good foundation built to have more coming in. I don't think anyone gets rich from it, but I'd like to buy some personal writing time.Plan 3- Start writing for magazines. I've never queried a magazine before. Ever. I've had articles in five newspapers, a medical journal, newsletters and all over the freaking web- but ...
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How Important are Status Reports?
2007-12-30 21:38:00
I had a comment from a client recently that I hadn't sent any status reports during the course of a project. I don't usually send them for small projects because I just don't feel they're necessary. If you are dealing with a brand new web writer or one who isn't used to meeting deadlines, etc., I can understand asking for status reports just to make sure they are actually doing the work. But, from a professional with nothing but good feedback from countless clients, what's the point? The only time I send status reports is when it's a large project or when the deadline is long or indistinct. For very large projects, a quick report is warranted to reassure the customer. For long or vague deadlines, I like to send one to tell them exactly when it will be finished. If it's a project consisting of five or 10 articles, um, no. I have my deadline. I have my instructions. I will write the articles and turn them in when it's time. There's no need for hand holding on either of our ...
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Writing and Solitude
2007-12-29 09:47:00
Writing is such a solitary endeavor that it's no wonder the greats were a little freaky. Shelley, Wilde, Poe- all of my guys were a little off kilter. The intense solitude of a long writing session can sometimes make you see how easy it would be to slip into a life like that, full of weird, broken relationships and possibly a storm-tossed sailboat that was foolishly taken too far out to sea. Ah, Shelley. Where are the Shelleys today? I get so sick of SEO sometimes, wanting to stretch out and try something, anything that could possibly evoke the feeling of the Telltale Heart or a Yeats poem. Oh well, I have to get back to my colon cleansing article. Such is life.
More About: Writing , Solitude

Shopping Cart Software
2007-12-29 09:42:00
I’ve been looking around at various online shopping carts and ecommerce software for my PLR site. There are several that require a level of programming that I simply don’t have. But, for non-programmers, there are easier ways to get a shopping cart set up. ecommerce software is a big shopping cart software company, and the services they offer look pretty helpful for small-time sellers as well as bigger companies. They have SEO shopping carts, which I have never heard of and still don’t understand. But, I suppose I don’t have to. They take care of stuff like that. They also have a free trial right now and a few other special offers. There’s a free site design right now, which I could use for all of my hideously plain sites. I actually consulted with a web designer and hired him to do some work to de-ugly my sites. But, he never showed up to do the actual work. Instead, he got a job working on a new B-movie called “Chainsaw Cheerleaders.” Seriously. But, I’m betting th...
More About: Software , Shopping , Cart , Shopping cart software

An Important Lesson in Pricing
2007-12-27 07:30:00
I ghostwrite a blog on a subject that I am very familiar with- one that is enjoyable and takes minimal research. I saw a posting on a freelancing site recently for blog ghostwriters to write about a very similar topic. Great! I inquired and was told that the rate was half the minimum rate that I charge for blog posts. But, there were no commissions and I could do the posts easily and at the same time as my ghostwritten blog. Fabulous. I accepted.A few days later I was hanging around RentACoder looking at stuff, and there was a posting there for someone to write blog posts about the same topic. I applied, at my usual rate for posts, and was accepted. The buyer then told me that she'd had a couple of other bloggers that had agree to write the posts for half that amount, and that if we continued after the project ended, that would be the price. Weird, but ok. I now had three blog projects that were on the same topic. What could be better?I then got the information for the RAC project....
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Six Hours and 15 Minutes
2007-12-22 04:52:00
They were a little slow today, but to fair it was a Friday afternoon when I posted. It's late evening now, so I think it's safe to say that they have more than one employee doing this. There's where your fees are going, folks.
More About: Minutes , Hours

Women Writers Around the World
2007-11-15 23:11:00
I have been looking for an agent for a short children's book, and looking through the Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market listings. Every one of them that I saw was a woman. Taking a look at the book publisher listings, I found that most of the editors and founders were also women. My Writer's Market came yesterday and I perused it briefly just because, well, I'm a geek, and many of those listings also listed female contact names.That got me thinking about all of the lovely writers who have been kind enough to give me advice over the past couple of years, and all but one of those has been a woman. The ladies at the WAHM writers' board are of course women, but then so are most of the women at Absolute Write. I used to think of a writer as some kind of Hemingway/Faulkner type, typing alone at a typewriter with a bottle of Scotch nearby. Now I think of a writer as a woman at home trying to write with kids underfoot.Thinking that this must be some kind of new phenomeno...
More About: Women , World , Around the world , Writers , The World

Freelance Roundup
2007-11-13 07:31:00
I got accepted by Suite101 some time ago and just recently got the time to get an article up. A lot of freelance writers won't write for them because they don't offer any upfront payment- just small payments based on pageviews. It's certainly not ideal, but it's a neat site and the writers get creative control over topics and approaches. I don't know how often I'll do it, but it will be a lot more often if I end up getting any pageviews. So far, in two days, I have gotten one.Elance announced today a major revamping of just about every aspect of the site. Bids, now called "connects," will cost .50 apiece, with some projects requiring several just to bid once. All quarterly and yearly discounts have been disposed of in favor of a monthly fee. The Select program, that I had paid about $350 for, is now gone. In its place is a merit-based system, which sounds great, except that they want to charge more than $200 extra for it. They also require two credentials to be verified to be...
More About: Roundup , Freelance

Norman Mailer- Dead
2007-11-11 06:41:00
It's been a big month for literary figures, and the events continue. Norman Mailer has died, having lived a long life full of literary creations of all types. The part that I thought was interesting is how little I had read of his work, and how no one I asked about it had ever read anything of his. Ok, I've never read anything of his at all. With literary figures of his caliber, they actually become more famous than their works, much like actors. How many times have you seen a picture of a famous person, knew their name and had no idea what they've been in? The same principle seems to have been at work for Norman Mailer . This is unfortunate for him, as he sounds like a wretched person. A few of the highlights:He was married six timesHe stabbed one of his six wives, almost killing herHe hated women's liberation and feminism, and once said that "all women should be locked in cages"He was physically abusive to his fourth wifeHe claimed that the women who didn't appreciate his miso...
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Wall Street Journal nod
2007-11-09 23:35:00
I check my pitiful stats every day just to see how many people are wandering in here. I noticed this morning that a number of people were coming in from a link on the Wall Street Journal site. I couldn't access that link, not being a paid subscriber, but I poked around a little and found a page where I could access it. The site has a link to this blog at the very bottom of a story about Harper Lee and her Presidential Medal of Freedom. The link is near the bottom of the page under " Blog Posts About This Topic." I'm thrilled that they'd link to 'lil old me, but I have to wonder how they came across such a small, obscure blog. I don't yet have the best idea about how the whole blogosphere thing works, but it must work pretty well, since that post wasn't on any of the first 15 Google pages when I searched the title of the post. Thanks, WSJ!
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Harper Lee and the Presidential Medal of Freedom
2007-11-06 21:28:00
Harper Lee was just granted the Presidential Medal of Freedom for To Kill a Mockingbird. And what better a work to command such an honor? If you've ever read the book, and who hasn't, you know what an amazing work it is. It's so richly textured that you can read it again and again, further dissecting it and finding new aspects of it that contribute to the whole. The bird imagery, the use of light and dark to highlight the character of each of the players- they all add up to a masterpiece of observation and persuasion. There's just the one little thing...I really don't think she wrote it.Rumors have dogged To Kill a Mockingbird for decades, but here's what tipped me off: she came up with such a richly-textured work as her first novel, and never wrote another book. Say what, now? Someone with that ability couldn't come up with anything else? Apparently not. She also never talks about the book and never gives interviews. Adding to the questions is that fact that she lived next d...
More About: Harper , Harper Lee

Writers' Guild Strike
2007-11-06 07:08:00
The Writer's Guild strike is an interesting turn of affairs, particularly for writers of all types. The entire affair has gotten melodramatic much more quickly than I would have imagined, especially with no writers writing it that way (sorry, I couldn't resist). The producer's group spokesman has called the strike "irresponsible," which really made me laugh. Irresponsible? Are lives at risk? It's pretty much a few weeks of Leno jokes, right? Yeah, pretty much. Strike s like this never last long, so I can't see all new movies coming to a grinding halt. Producers make a nice bit on the venues they produce, and actors make entirely too much. So, why drag their feet over the writers' pay? I don't remember any producers getting upset over the latest overpaid actor getting $20 million plus residuals. But since actors get them, why shouldn't writers get residuals? I'd much rather see writers get them than actors.Imagine if web content writers went on strike. I tried to do that, but...
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Oh. My. God.
2007-11-04 22:54:00
You will never believe how low some "business people" are going now to get their cheap content. Apparently paying $2 to people in third world countries to write horrid content in broken English was just too much trouble. Now I've found this. It has to be the laziest thing I've seen since, well, I can't think of anything right this second, but it's pretty freaking lazy. What kind of crap are they going to end up with by using this method? Is it really so much to ask for people to pay for their content? No one is going to read their generic copy, and their $67 is worth nothing more than a tax deduction. Sheesh. Maybe it's the PMS talking, but what is the internet coming to?

Article Marketing
2007-11-02 16:35:00
It's interesting how people try to get their backlinks in so many different ways. I've seen people paying for backlinks, I've seen them willing to do work in exchange for them, and then there's article marketing. The premise, of course, is that the articles have one or more backlinks within them, or they can be in the source box. So, how well does this work?I think it works pretty well, depending on where the links are located and how they got there. The last I heard about it, article directories had been demoted in the search engine rankings, which makes those links much less valuable. I have also seen people on Digital Point bragging about the thousands of backlinks that they have. Those were likely gained form directories, so there's a limit to how effective they will actually be. On the other hand, I checked this site to see how many links a client already had to their site. The thing is, this person has never marketed their site, has never bought/worked for backlinks, and ...
More About: Marketing , Article Marketing , Article

Review: Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market 2008
2007-10-26 19:22:00
I received my Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market 2008 last week and found it to be a good time saver, but a little padded. The markets are not as plentiful as I would have liked, but that may be because I'm use to the enormous Writer's Market. There are simply fewer markets that cater to children, so the smaller number of markets is to be expected. However, the size of the book can give you a false impression of the number of markets it contains. The market sections are broken up, very frequently, by filler content that is so specialized that I found it useless.Aside from the filler items, the book itself is a huge time saver for anyone looking to get into the children's market. It has extensive listings for agents as well, negating the need for two separate books. And, if you're an illustrator, there are book and magazine markets, and agents, for illustrators as well. The listings seem more or less evenly divided between those for authors and illustrators.In all,...
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Print Press Releases vs. Web Press Releases
2007-10-24 06:03:00
Beginning my press release experience as a reporter choosing press releases to run, there are numerous things I learned about getting a release carried. At every paper I worked for, press releases were faxed in daily, most of which were unusable. But, when we got the rare good one we would run it almost as is. The trick with those was to take out the Pr speak and to convert it into AP style. Time after time I did this and finally wondered- why weren't they writing these in AP style? What exactly were they teaching in PR school that made them write press releases that had to be thrown out?After leaving the newspaper industry, I put my ideas to work to help people around me to get the publicity their companies or events deserved. Every one of them was carried. Every single one. How? By doing what a PR writer should logically do when creating a press release. The object isn't to glorify the client and it isn't to create a ton of information that then has to be waded through and filt...
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The Competition from India
2007-10-18 20:01:00
I see a lot of freelancers mentioning the competition from India n writers and how that has made it necessary to write for very little in order to stay competitive. Many writers believe this, and I think in some cases it's true. But, I've never considered myself to be in competition with Indian writers. I am not competing against them, or Eastern European writers, to get the low paying, quantity-over-quality assignments. I am competing with other writers who are experienced, well versed in nuanced English and dedicated to high quality, and that's all.I know that many, if not most, freelance writers get insulting offers like I often do. Sometimes they are aggressively insulting, often implying or outright stating that they have writers overseas who will work for less. It doesn't concern me what people overseas will write for. I wasn't concerned when a potential client insisted that he had writers who would write his blog posts for $1.50 apiece. He should be concerned that he's s...
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Doris Lessing- Alive
2007-10-12 04:44:00
There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be. -Doris Lessing I was amazed today to hear that Doris Lessing was just announced as 2007's Nobel Prize winner for literature. I found this amazing first because I thought she was dead and second because apparently she's been writing science fiction for the past few years. Don't get me wrong, I love me some sci-fi, but it's rare to see the genre taken seriously as literature. I hope this signifies a change in its literary reputation. I took a creative writing class once, and the professor announced on the first day that science fiction was not allowed in her class. Really? What if a Nobel laureate was taking your class? Ha!The thing about Doris Lessing, besides having some interesting short stories and essays, is that she has always been able to come up with these amazing quotes that sum up everything so neatly....
More About: Alive

Uncharted Territory
2007-10-08 07:24:00
It's weird, but I may be writing a screenplay. How did this come about? Funny you should ask. It's a long story, but it involves a bunch of people, some guy I've never met, a $35,000 camera and a new movie studio. The thing is, though, that I've never written one before and I'm not entirely sure how it's going to play out. Apparently there is screenplay software that can make it easier to get it all down. Normally I hate stuff like that, like novel-writing software that just takes a bite out of creativity. But a screenplay has to be in such a specific format, one that I'm unfamiliar with, that I'm likely going to use it.My first strategy, however, is to study the way a written piece differs from the same item on film, since it's based on a work that I wrote years ago. That sounds pretty challenging, but basically I'm watching movies based on books that I've read and noting the differences. There are obviously many things left out of a book once they get translated into fi...
More About: Char , Territory

The BellaOnline Classic Rock Site is Up
2007-10-02 12:01:00
My BellaOnline site is now up! The site is going to be populated with information about classic rock- namely bands that I like. I set up an entire subject just for Donovan and began that content this morning. I think the Classic Rock site has a lot of potential and I just hope that people find music there that they wouldn't otherwise have heard of. Finding a "new" band that you click with can be exciting, even if that new band has been around for 40 years. Oh, and you get to see my ugly mug in bad lighting and in a weird sepia tone.http://classicrock.bellaonline.com/S ite.asp
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Not About Writing
2007-09-30 09:43:00
I wanted this blog to be about writing and the struggle to constantly improve writing skills while taking on an incredible variety of projects. But, what's with those wet wipes everyone uses now? I keep seeing these in people's bathrooms, and now they've appeared in two of my bathrooms. When did adults start using what are essentially baby wipes? Have I been too stuck to a keyboard to notice the technological advancement of the flushable wipe? I must have missed the general consensus that decided toilet paper is no longer enough. But you know what? It is. I am perfectly happy with toilet paper. If, in a few decades, I need Depends, that would the only scenario in which I would use those stupid wipes. Viva la toilet paper!
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Niche Niche Niche Niche Niche Niche Niche
2007-09-28 10:29:00
You can't go anywhere in the writing world these days without hearing that word incessantly. I am seriously sick of hearing about niches. Everyone wants to serve a niche, which is perfectly fine. I just wish they'd stop using that word. I am not a niche writer and I never will be. I'll write about anything and I'm proud of it.I went into journalism because it meant doing something new every day. Being a reporter required constant exposure to new topics. I went out to a logging company and learned all about logs and the timber industry. I went to a factory that made grocery store freezer doors, learned all about them, and wrote an interesting article about those suckers. Even if you're a beat reporter, you learn so much every day and that's still the type of writer I want to be. An unfamiliar topic doesn't scare me. A client wants me to write about vacuums? Sure. Furniture? Absolutely. Fungal infections? Bring it on.
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