Holiday Fun for Writers – Free Stuff, Prizes, Gift Ideas for Writers, and More
Get the updated December contest info and prize list HERE!!!
I want to have a bit of fun here this holiday season at All Freelance Writing, and I have a few ideas. Here’s what you can look forward to:
The Twelve Days of Christmas
For twelve days, ending on Christmas day, I’ll be sharing free stuff for writers (free software, tools, templates, e-books, etc.) to help you in your writing career in the new year.
New Year Contest
I’ll be totaling up December’s comments on the blog, and putting together a prize package for the top commenter here during the month. It probably won’t be anything extravagant. Right now I’m thinking about an Amazon gift card or a collection of some of my favorite books for writers, and possibly an e-book or two if I can convince their authors to donate a copy for promotion’s sake. Right now I’m also considering a year’s subscription to either a magazine for writers, WritersMarket.com, or Mastheads.org (haven’t decided which, if any yet… I’m still looking at a few options). So get commenting, and win some fun stuff for the new year!
Obviously certain types of comments won’t count – spam comments, comments that are simply self-promotional, and comments that don’t contribute at all to the conversation (such as “thank you,” “I agree,” etc.). I don’t often censor comments here, but if I have to delete a comment (such as something extremely derogatory), those don’t count in the running total either.
If you have a book, e-book, or anything else relevant to freelance writers, and you’d like to donate a copy as a year-end prize on the blog, contact me at jenn@allfreelancewriting.com. You’ll be promoted throughout the month (including a special sponsor post to announce your contribution), as well as acknowledged in the new year when everything is tallied up.
Gift Ideas for Writers
I’ll be putting together one or more gift lists that you can use to help you choose the perfect gifts for the writer in your life.
If you have additional suggestions for ways we can celebrate the holidays here at AFW, leave a comment!
Related posts:
- Last Minute Gift Ideas for Writers
- Prize Added for December’s Contest – The Publishing Primer
- Top Ten Gift Ideas for Freelance Writers – 2008
- Holiday Marketing – Monthly Marketing Mix – October 2008
- Prize Added for December’s Contest – The Six Figure Freelancer E-book
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24 Comments on “Holiday Fun for Writers – Free Stuff, Prizes, Gift Ideas for Writers, and More”
Here are some ideas to add to any gifts for writers lists that you put together: http://hubpages.com/_1zscpj3dl41eg/hub/Christmas-Gift-Ideas-for-Writers-and-Bloggers. Hope they help! And happy holidays from a fellow writer.
Great idea, Jenn! I can’t wait to get the ball rolling.
Hello Jenn, I just wanted to take the time to thank you for taking the time to:
1. Give newbies reasons to charge more than the $1 article
and
2. Letting the rest of us feel justified for asking for the prices we do.
While I’m not full blown PROFESSIONAL rates yet, I’m working hard and am doing so because of your fight to help writers as well.
I guess we know who’s going to win the top commenter spot, eh Mariella?!!
@Kathryn – Your hub is returning an error.
Can you try to re-paste the URL?
What a great idea! Thanks for doing this. I have a few writers in my gift list, and I’ve found that shopping for them is usually easier than shopping for other people (I mean, we all love a book or office supplies or something like that). That said, there are a few things that I would personally love to get as a writer, such as the ones here: http://www.inkygirl.com/holiday-gift-ideas-for-writers
And I really, really want one of these: http://www.alphasmart.com/Retail/
I’ve been eyeing them for years, so maybe I’ll buy one for myself in 2008!
Here’s a gift idea you’re more than welcome to add to your list — one on my own Christmas list this year, to help my family members buy for me
…
A Rolodex. Writers interview lots of experts and others, and a Rolodex will help them keep track of the contact information.
A rolodex is a great idea. Look for that list most likely tomorrow or Thursday.
I would definitively add a magazine subscription to the list. I used to have one to Writer’s Digest in the past (but the magazine it’s geared more to beginners, so I’ve kind of outgrown that). I still enjoy Poets and Writers and Editor and Publisher magazines (both of which are expensive but really nice AND useful). I’d love to get a gift subscription to them.
I really never found any of the magazines handy for freelance writers —- writer’s digest is just as good as a ezine then a magazine (just my 2 cents).
I love Poets and Writers. It’s not so much a how-to magazine as it is an insider view into the business. Lots of great interviews, nice articles on small press books, columns on the industry and the numbers it handles (ok, this probably only works if you’re also interested in writing books, rather than only articles). It’s a rather expensive magazine, though, so I probably wouldn’t get it for myself.
Thanks for the tip Diana!!!
You’re welcome. You can find Poets & Writers at Barnes & Noble and take a look at it there. It’s not for everybody, so you may not like it.
I’ll def. remember to look for it — !!
>>>>If you have additional suggestions for ways we can celebrate the holidays here at AFW, leave a comment!
Ugh! My post got cut off in half! No idea what that was all about! Let me try to repeat it. I was thinking it could help us if we had a little push to set up challenges for 2008. So maybe you could set/propose monthly challenges for your readers (like monthly income or # of queries sent or write your own ebook). The challenges could be the same throughout the year or change more to month to keep it interesting. No prizes for this type of challenge (as it would encourage competition rather than personal goals), but I think having a place to check in would make us feel more accountable for our work.
I’m a big e-book fan, so that might actually be a good challenge, or even step-by-step article series.
I used to do weekly challenges here (there should still be a category for them), but people didn’t seem to interact much with them, so they dropped off. I like the accountability angle though. I’ll give it some thought and see about doing something along those lines in the new year. 
Since I’ve been trying to work on my own e-books, that would be a great challenge for me as well. I particularly want something on the longish-side so I can try affiliate marketing. Not sure why the challenges didn’t work so well in the past. Maybe a week is too short for some people? I know if I have a lot of deadlines, I may not be able to come up with anything for a challenge and then give up because I feel I fell short. Maybe monthly would be better. Just an idea.
That’s actually what I’m doing Jenn — I’m doing short books on each type of writing, how to begin the career, — kinda like “101″ type of books — workshop types….
That was the big announcement I was making at the first of the year haha — but yes, I plan to produce a new one each month — maybe 10-15 pages on each topic, and sell them individually, AND then combine them all into one book 
I did something like that for a company. They paid me a flat fee so I don’t get royalties or a percentage (but the payment was nice enough that I’m not complaining). It would be nice to work on a series or something like that (not taking your idea, Jessica! I’ll work on a different type of series
). Maybe an e-book challenge would be really nice!
There’s so much I’d love to do, and there’s just never enough time. I’ll be happy if I hit half of my goals. lol
I’d considered doing shorter reports like that Jessica, and selling them for less than e-books. I may still in the future, but don’t think I’ll do that in the next couple of months. If anything I may write a few and give them away for free for traffic and linkbait. I’m considering something like that already – something “Write an E-book in 48 Hours” or something (considering others charge for similar information, I think it’ll be good for subscribers and links). If I did do a report series, I probably wouldn’t turn it into a book though.
So maybe I’ll actually hold off on the e-book challenge for a month or two, write that, and do the challenge through the newsletter or something, giving that away to subscribers. I don’t know. I haven’t thought enough about it yet.
I know the feeling with so much to do and no time Jenn, I’m getting to a point where I have raised my rates so that I can work 1/2 my work week and make a good living and still have other hours to do things on my own list.
I’m trying to work on things that will generate passive income in the long run. I’m aware I still need to market the e-books in order to make a profit, but that would take me a couple of hours a week (at most). Maybe not even long e-books, but something like reports that provide quick information for a lower price than e-books.
Not sure if it’s ok to link to other blogs directly here, but I wanted to share one that I frequent a lot and that helped me enormously when I was just starting: http://hollylisle.com/fm/
Holly Lisle has over 100 articles for free download on her site about making money as a writer, managing your business and getting ahead. She even offers some free workshops (mainly for fiction writers, but some for freelancers too).