I’m getting kinda tired of reading all these posts about the right and wrong way to behave as a full time writer (and apparently, I’m not the only one). I’m also curious about all these myths that we are supposed to be worried about that ultimately (in my experience anyway) do not matter. For the past two weeks I’ve seen a great number of posts
I have two under five. I’ve survived one toddler and have just a few months until my second bout of toddler-motherhood expires. It’s a trip; it’s a pain; it’s outrageous; it’s a blast. I love my toddlers, and I love to watch them learn, explore and grow at such an outrageous pace. Unfortunately, it didn’t take much to learn that when you’re watching a toddler
One of the best ways to market your services as a freelance writer is through your own website. Believe it or not, many writers do not have a website – this is a big mistake. With your own site clients can find you 24/7. In other words, you are marketing your services but do not have to put a lot of time and effort into
If you decided to search for freelance writing jobs right now, you would probably find thousands of them advertised. Many of those writing jobs are crap (and that’s putting it nicely) to the bulk of writers here. After all, do you want to get paid $.001 per word (yes that’s 1/10 of one cent per word)? Do you want to work for $.05 per word?
Normally I don’t talk about my clients directly on my blogs, but today is an exception. One of my clients (the owner of DirJournal.com) made a special link building offer to writers and bloggers, and I’d like to share that with you today. But first, let’s talk about link building in general, why it’s important for freelance writers, and how you can build quality links
One of the reasons you decided to work freelance, whether part-time or full-time, is to have the chance to work from home. You may receive some tax benefits from having a home office. Read on to learn how can you take the home office deduction on your taxes. Home Office Deduction Rules First, the IRS requires you to use your home office “exclusively and regularly”
In this series, we personally test traditional online freelance marketplaces to share first-hand experiences and honest assessments of marketplaces and resulting jobs, as many freelance writers turn to these outlets to find writing gigs. You can read all the posts in the series here. This week, I tried Amazon Mechanical Turk. Mechanical who? Why, Mechanical Turk. Yeah, the name doesn’t make any sense to me
Every now and then I talk about the excuses freelance writers make for their lack of success when they’re not happy in their careers (and how they need to take personal responsibility if they want to change that). Let’s talk about the latter half — making changes. It’s not enough to knock off the excuses. You stopped blaming the economy for your lack of work.
I know now what I didn’t know then. I spent quite a bit of time working up to a full-time income freelancing while keeping the day job during pregnancy so that after my baby arrived, I could stay home and spend more time with him and do the mommy thing the way I wanted to. I was thrilled that it seemed to be working out
Everyone makes mistakes. But when it comes to freelance writing, a lot of people make the same mistakes! New writers regularly set themselves up for failure. Even experienced writers get too comfortable in a routine and forget some of the essentials. The thing is, most freelance writing mistakes are easy to avoid. Today let’s look at some of the most common, and most foolish, mistakes
Before I get into more complex posts on how to market your freelance writing services, I want to touch on some of the basics. Although I feel that it is very important to have a marketing plan, many aspiring writers do not agree. If you believe that this is a good thing, the following information should help you get started. Believe it or not, your
In this series, we personally test traditional online freelance marketplaces to share first-hand experiences and honest assessments of marketplaces and resulting jobs, as many freelance writers turn to these outlets to find writing gigs. You can read all the posts in the series here. If you spend any amount of time online reading the many freelance writer’s blogs that dot the virtual landscape, then you
If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen an all-out rant the other evening about a complete customer service nightmare related to Amazon.com and UPS. Here’s a run-down of what ultimately happened: I ordered a small chest from Amazon (directly, not a 3rd party seller). Being a somewhat large item shipping-wise, it took a while to get to me. I checked the tracking.
Now you see it, now you don’t. The blog post you read in your feed reader an hour ago was deleted by the blogger. But why? It always baffles me when I’m reading a blog and suddenly the content changes (as in it vanishes). There’s rarely a good excuse for it, although I’m sure there are some. Before you think twice about a post and
Market research is important. You should always know what your competition is doing, because it gives you insight into your market. But copying successful formats and strategies is not generally the way to succed for yourself. Imitation may occasionally be the sincerest form of flattery, but not in business. Jessie Fitzgerald asked me on Twitter today if I owned AllFreelanceBlogging.com. I don’t, but I joked
What’s more refreshing than a brand new year. It’s another chance to do things right with your freelance writing business and your finances. Here are seven things you should do during these first few weeks of January to get your finances on the right track. 1. Evaluate your rates. As you think about your writing rates for 2010, consider how you fared last year. You
I love my cats. I really do. But today I was reminded of why I don’t like having pets in my workplace. But first, here are the little brats: I converted about a third of my bedroom into an office years ago. I sleep in there for hours. I work in there for hours. I don’t let the cats in there. You know how cats
Today my vacation time comes to an end. For the last week and a half I’ve enjoyed some time off. I didn’t go anywhere exciting, but rather just enjoyed some peace and quiet and finished a lot of much-needed housework (although I’ll still be cleaning and re-organizing for weeks I’m sure — haven’t tackled the dreaded closets yet!). Even though we’re only a few days
In this series, we personally test traditional online freelance marketplaces to share first-hand experiences and honest assessments of marketplaces and resulting jobs, as many freelance writers turn to these outlets to find writing gigs. You can read all the posts in the series here. There are a lot of different sites that post adverts for freelance writers. Since October, I have used Craigslist, Journalism Jobs,