Jennifer Mattern Do you consider yourself an ethical article writer or blogger? Whether you write for print publications or the web, professional ethics are an important part of building trust with readers and clients, which is part of what keeps them coming back for more. My ethical standards won’t necessarily look like yours, and vice-versa. For example, I have ethical issues with writing about certain topics that
It’s no secret that I usually have a lot going on as a writer. I run quite a few blogs of my own. I take on freelance writing projects for clients. I write nonfiction e-books. And I’m working on much more fiction this year as well. As a result, one of the biggest questions I get from colleagues in my network is “how do you
Today I released the first podcast episode for 2015 (and sixth overall). In this episode I mostly deal with the topic of revenue streams for writers. First, I run through eleven blog revenue streams you can use to monetize blogs of your own. Then I tackle a question about e-book revenue (and share a story about my own first e-book, which is scheduled to be
The New Year is a great time to tackle a new writing challenge. So why not start with a 30 day marketing challenge? The goal of this challenge is to do something to market your writing every day for 30 days. That could mean promoting your freelance writing services. It could mean book marketing. Or it might involve marketing your blog. Here’s a free tracker
Here’s another simple, yet important, challenge for writers of all types: market your writing every day for 30 days. It’s that simple. Whether you’re promoting freelance writing services, marketing books, or promoting your blog, consistent marketing is vital. That can involve anything from an in-depth marketing campaign to simple efforts like sending a query letter or researching the competition. Use the tracker below to map
As freelance writers it’s not uncommon for us to get information online and even connect with our colleagues that way. And sometimes our circles, or at least the information they expose us to, are more limited than we realize. It’s easy to get caught up in the echo chamber, with the same stale ideas endlessly reinforced. But if you want to stand out and attract
Before the holidays we talked about preparing to take time away from writing or blogging and how you can set yourself up for success on your return to work. Well, today is that day for me — my first work day of 2015. And getting back into the swing of things has been both exciting and challenging I had a rougher start than I’d like
If you’ve been blogging with WordPress for a while, you probably know that WordPress saves several revisions of your posts as you create or edit them. These revision backups are saved when you save drafts or update live posts. WordPress revisions can come in handy if you made changes you aren’t happy with or if you accidentally delete something from a post draft. But they
Today marks not only my last working day of the year, but also the last All Freelance Writing Podcast episode of 2014. Episode 5 picks up where episode 4 left off, with more tips on keeping your blog active even while you take a holiday. In this episode I share tips on not only keeping your blog fresh with new content while you take time
The New Year will be here before you know it, and there’s no time like the present to prepare for it. Recently I shared three things to do this December to close out the current year. For this week’s quick tips, let’s expand upon that with some easy things you can do now that will have you ready to hit the ground running after the
The year is almost over, and that means it’s time to evaluate progress and set goals for the New Year. So today I’d like to share an example with a follow-up from my previous progress check-in and also some new goals for my writing business in 2015. 2014 Year-End Check-In This year was very good in some ways. But in others I didn’t come close
Episode four of the All Freelance Writing Podcast was released last week, and the show notes were published today. This episode was a special Q&A feature covering blogging-related questions submitted by members of the community. Questions for this episode were submitted by Anne Wayman, KeriLynn Engel, and Emily Fowler as entries for episode two’s e-book giveaway. In this podcast episode, the following topics are covered: What
Today I’d like to tackle a reader question from Evgeni Puzankov related to selling writing to English-language publications when English isn’t your first language. Can you do so successfully? “The question that plagues me throughout my adult life is whether one can actually make it in anglophone writing biz, while not being a native. I’m Russian and still live here. My mother sent me to
The end of the year is right around the corner. Are you ready? While you might be itching to take some time off over the holidays, December can also be a busy time for work. Freelance clients often order more to use up the current year’s budget. You’re probably at the end of the fiscal year for your writing or publishing business. And it’s time to
In the third episode of the All Freelance Writing Podcast, I’m joined by Princess Jones. We chat about extreme cases of authors behaving badly by attacking negative book reviewers. And we offer tips on how you can deal with negative book reviews more tactfully (hint: there is almost never an appropriate time for you to take on a reviewer). You can hear the latest episode below
Just a quick announcement: Princess Jones will be my first guest co-host on the All Freelance Writing Podcast, co-hosting the third episode scheduled for Thursday, November 20th. As mentioned in the first episode, I’ll bring on occasional guest co-hosts for casual, frank discussions rather than taking the traditional route of bringing on interview subjects. In the upcoming episode, Princess and I will discuss negative book
When you try to land reviews for your new book, the last thing you want is to be just another random new author reviewers have never heard of. Yet it’s not uncommon for authors, and especially indie authors, to wait until the last minute to think about book reviews. So for this week’s quick tip, let’s make sure you don’t fall into that group. Rather
In my recent book marketing plan series I shared a book marketing plan outline. One element of that outline involved marketing and PR tactics to support your larger promotional strategy. These are the specific things you’ll do to promote your book and your visibility as an author. While I’m working on a short e-book covering basic book marketing and PR tactics, I wanted to give
In my free book marketing plan outline, I suggested creating a book marketing calendar or schedule to keep track of your marketing activities in the months leading up to, and extending beyond, your book launch. But when exactly should you pursue each promotional tactic you’re considering? This post offers a book marketing timeline that you can use as a guide. This book marketing timeline includes
Continuing with this week’s series on book marketing plans, it’s time for a freebie. This is a book marketing plan outline that you can use This book marketing plan outline is a short form “real” marketing plan for indie authors (meaning it goes beyond a simple, and often untargeted, list of tactics). While a simple list might be fine when pitching publishers, a list of marketing
Market research is an essential step in creating a book marketing plan. But it doesn’t have to be as scary, dull, or time-consuming as you might think. You can’t afford to ignore it. So why not keep it simple? In this post, my goal is to help you do just that — simplify market research for your book marketing plan by helping you focus on
Today marks the first day in a week-long blog series on book marketing plans. In addition to sharing some background on what book marketing plans are all about, I’ll also release a few fun tools and resources to help you create your own. Let’s kick things off with a quick introduction to book marketing plans. Who needs them? What can they do for you and
It’s no secret that when it comes to tackling large writing projects, I’m a planner. I work from outlines for nearly everything I write (even this blog post). I’ve tried several outlining strategies over the years. And ultimately I’ve taken bits and pieces of each strategy to customize my own process. Last year, I came across someone on the NaNoWriMo forums talking about The Snowflake
We recently talked about preparing for NaNoWriMo during October, and I shared some of my own plans such as using the Snowflake Method for this novel’s outline. Today I’d like to share some of the best resources for helping you plan your NaNoWriMo novel (or any novel for that matter). Here are links to character planning resources and some of my favorite more general tools
Last year was the first year I took part in NaNoWriMo. I participated mostly as a challenge that I could document here on the site. It went well. And I’m doing it again this year, although I’ll be following the traditional rules rather than last year’s “rebel” approach where I combined a few projects that I needed to work on anyway. This year I’m working
October marks the start of my favorite time of year: when we hop from one holiday to the next. It kicks off with Halloween and continues straight through New Year’s Day. There’s decorating. Shopping. Family time. And a crazy work schedule. Fall and the beginning of winter are probably my most hectic time of the year as a freelance writer-blogger-publisher, largely because I have so
In an earlier post I explained how it can help to think like a boss when running your freelance writing business. In that post, I suggested conducting self-evaluations (as if you were an employer evaluating an employee’s performance). Here is a simple self-evaluation worksheet that you can download and fill out for yourself to identify some of your biggest strengths and weaknesses. The idea is
For this week’s resource for writers, I’ve updated and re-released an oldie but goodie — my HTML cheat sheet for freelance writers and bloggers. The cheat sheet used to come with my now-retired e-book, The Web Writer’s Guide, which was released back in 2008. The new version will be available for free permanently in the All Freelance Writing Resources Collection. This download includes some of the most basic
As writers we frequently rely on the web in our work. We manage our own websites and blogs. We visit others to stay connected with colleagues and stay on top of industry news. We use social media tools in networking and marketing. And sometimes the sheer number of websites we need to visit on a regular basis can get overwhelming. Fortunately there’s a simple trick
Readers and colleagues often come to me with questions about problems they’re having with their websites or blogs. In some cases, such as sudden search engine ranking issues or site indexing problems, one of the first things I tend to ask them is to check Google Webmaster Tools. That’s when I sometimes get the mind-blowing responses of “What’s that?” or “I don’t use that.” Not good. So