Jennifer Mattern 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
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
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
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
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
UPDATE: While the post below will remain archived, please note I no longer recommend NameSilo as a domain registrar. Similar to why I moved to NameSilo in the first place, over a decade ago, as of March 2025 I’m moving all of my domains away from them (and to Porkbun). In the past, NameSilo was known for their fair and transparent pricing practices. They didn’t offer
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
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