Jennifer Mattern This morning I received the following question from Susan Brewer: “How important is it to have a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing in order to launch a writing job as a freelance writer? Or, I should say, “How helpful,” is it?” I told her the short answers are “not at all,” and “it depends what you want to do with it.” But let’s dig a
A great feature of WordPress is its ability to save different versions of your posts as you go — such as when you hit the “save draft” or “preview” buttons. These saved versions are called “revisions,” and they give you restore points if anything goes wrong. Awesome, right? Well, it can be. But WordPress revisions have to be saved to your database just like your
Do you wish you could spend more time using social media to connect with colleagues, clients, or readers? Do you ever feel like trying is almost a waste of time because of all the noise? If so, here’s a simple solution for you on Twitter. Use the “Mute” feature. Why Mute Twitter Accounts? Twitter gives you a few different options for eliminating noise from users
Are you tired of competing with countless other bloggers for every advertised gig you find? Do you wish you could reliably earn $100, $200, $500, or even more per article as a freelance blogger? If you’re looking to build a more stable and higher-paying freelance blogging career, you can. Opportunities are practically endless, if you know how to look and how to make yourself stand out. Consider giving
For this week’s free resource for writers, I’m giving you an action plan template loosely based on my own action plan format (though mine are usually scribbled out on 5×8″ index cards). Here’s a bit of background on what an action plan is and how you can use this template. What is an Action Plan? We talk a lot about setting and reaching your goals
No matter what kind of website you run, frequent backups are a necessity. With WordPress sites and blogs that’s especially true because of the frequent core, theme, and plugin updates you have to perform. Having a fresh backup means you can revert all, or a part, of your site if something goes wrong during the update process (or if you’re ever hacked). Whenever I would
While I don’t personally believe that writers must write every day to be successful (as I often hear), I do understand that some writers need that strict of a habit to keep them focused on their work. And you have to do whatever works for you. If think writing every single day is what you need, then this challenge is for you. The goal is simple: write every day
It’s not enough to simply have an author website. You need to make sure the website you have actually works for you. It has to reach whatever goals you set for it. And if it’s not currently doing that, you should consider making some changes. Not sure if your author website needs work? Conduct a simple website audit to find out. What is a Website Audit? A website audit
Let’s welcome Michael Kwan, freelance writer and author of Beyond the Margins: An Indispensable Guide for First-Time Freelance Writers, Designers, and Other Work-From-Home Professionals. Michael sent me a copy of the e-book for review, and he graciously took the time to answer some of my questions. Beyond the Margins focuses on beginning freelancers and offers a well-rounded look at the choices to be made and the work involved in building a successful
The other day I was reading an article about Google working with Barnes and Noble to offer same-day delivery of books in a few locations. It’s no secret that Amazon is also keen on making same-day delivery a reality for more shoppers. And it got me wondering. How might the rise of same-day deliveries affect book buying habits, and how might it affect the business
This is a very flexible challenge that you can use for any kind of writing. Basically you choose your own word count goal for the month, and you write until you reach it. Easy peasy, right? Well, let’s make those goals challenging enough that it’s not. 🙂 You set word count goals for a specific project for the month, or an overall word count goal.
Whether you’re a professional blogger or you simply have a blog attached to your freelance writer or author website, chances are good you have social media sharing buttons attached to each post. And if not, you should. They’re simple tools that allow your readers to easily spread the word about your posts. Yet I see bloggers make a common mistake when using these sharing plugins.
As a freelance writer do you ever feel like you aren’t working to your full potential — that you could get more work done if you could just eliminate some distractions and improve your productivity a bit? Fortunately there are plenty of time management tools that can help you do that. Today I’d like to share some of my favorite types of time management tools
Warning: If you have a problem with profanity, this post isn’t for you. For any of my readers who are sick and tired of hearing about the Amazon-Hachette e-book pricing bullshit, let me start with an apology. I’m sorry for bringing that topic here. I’m sick of it too. I’ve tried to stay out of the issue thus far because most is little more than
While checking my feed reader this morning, I came across this post by Cate Baum at SelfPublishingReview.com: Why Pay for a Book Review? Now I’ve made my feelings about paid book reviews clear here before in: Should Indie Authors Pay for Book Reviews? [Hint: No.] And I went so far as to put my decade-long history in financially-successful Web publishing to work, offering tips for
For this challenge, your goal is to write 30 guest post pitches over the course of 30 days. You can take the approach of sending one pitch per day, or you can write and send them in batches if you prefer. You can take this challenge at any time and you can print out the chart below to help you keep track of your submissions. As always,
Here’s the plan for this challenge: Write 30 flash fiction stories (up to 1000 words) over the course of 30 days. You can write one per day for a month, or you can write several stories at a time if that’s a better way for you to pace yourself. These might be stories you plan to post to your author blog, or you might follow up with the
As of today, indie authors can qualify for either active or affiliate member status with the Horror Writers Association (HWA) based on earnings from their self published books. Previously, the only way to earn these member statuses from your books was to work through a traditional publisher. I’m particularly happy about this change for a few reasons: I’m an indie author myself and have been for
If you’ve been a long-time reader, you probably know I run a lot of websites. And you might have seen me mention that GoDaddy was my registrar of choice (or at least the one I used and recommended). For years, GoDaddy had the best deals. While that might not matter much if you only need to register a few domains at a time, the savings
If you’re an author, you’ve probably heard that you should consider having a blog. Some authors swear by them. Others swear them off as a distraction and waste of time. But the marketing value of blogs is undeniable, and they can be effective promotional tools for both nonfiction and fiction authors. In a future post we’ll take a look at some of the ways you can simplify
For this week’s quick tip, I’d like to bring up an oldie but goodie — a tip I’ve been passing along to freelance writers for years, coming from my background in PR. Instead of using the same writer’s market lists that most other freelancers are also using, find new prospects in media directories instead. How Media Directories Are Different Media directories are similar to writer’s
I was recently contacted by fellow writer, Melissa Breau. She was in the process of making some changes in her business, and as a result she no longer wanted to publish some of the content on her professional blog. Melissa made the suggestion of archiving her old content, written mostly for authors, here at All Freelance Writing. I took her up on that offer. As
Here’s a quick tip about how you can more effectively promote your writing every month, whether that means marketing your freelance writing services, your books, or your blogs. Use a monthly marketing calendar. What’s the Point of a Monthly Marketing Calendar? A monthly marketing calendar gives you an easy way to keep all of your marketing information on one handy sheet of paper. I have
Raise your hand if you’re an author who has ever complained that you don’t have enough time to market your books. After all, you’re too busy writing, right? While making time for larger book marketing efforts is a requirement and reality of self publishing today (or any publishing for that matter), there are still plenty of things you can do to promote your book when
One of my favorite productivity tools in my freelance writing and blogging work is a timer. I use something called the Pomodoro Technique which breaks down my work into small, manageable periods of time. It’s a great way to stay focused and push yourself to see how much you can do in a short stretch. And it turns out, it works well for writing books
For this week’s new resource, let’s turn our attention to promoting your writing business. Whether that means promoting your freelance writing services, marketing a book, or growing your blog, there are numerous ways you can turn to other types of writing to promote your work. To point you in the right direction, here are 45 types of content and copywriting you can turn to when you need
Each Wednesday I try to release a new resource or highlight something worth recommending to you. While I was off most of last week, I didn’t put something up, and I’m making up for it with two freebies this week. The first is a simple downloadable content idea checklist for your author website and blog. About the Author Website Content Checklist You don’t have to
If you’re a WordPress blogger, chances are that you’re aware of the massive brute force attempts targeting WordPress sites lately. If you’re not sure what these are, basically it’s when someone attempts to hack your site by guessing your username and password. But they usually do this with bots that let them automate the process, and your site can be hit hundreds (if not thousands)
Ah, the joys of working as a freelance writer. You get to work from home, spend the day in your pajamas, have no boss looking over your shoulder, watch soaps in the middle of the afternoon, run errands whenever you feel like it, and to top it off everybody respects you. Yeah. And then you wake up. It’s funny how non-freelancers have these idealistic views
Getting potential readers to visit your author website isn’t enough. You need to convince them to stick around long enough to get a feel for you and your books, and hopefully convince them that they want more. Yet many author websites follow a very boring template. Let’s look at five ways your author website might be boring visitors and convincing them to leave rather than