There is a strong correlation between how well you know your native language and how well you can write in English – at least formally. In essence, being highly educated in one language will make it far easier to become proficient in the English language. The root of this is the academic language that is surprisingly common throughout the world languages. Take the word “academic”:
Are you looking for gift ideas for the writer in your life? Are you worried about getting them something too generic? Too overdone? Well, stop worrying. Actually, some of the most generic gifts for writers remain some of our favorites! Here’s a collection of common gift ideas for writers, and why we still love them. Don’t be afraid to go with the traditional. But just
You’ve probably seen or heard this before. Freelance Writer A is having a discussion with new Freelance Writer B. The newer freelancer talks about how they’re struggling to find decent paying freelance writing jobs on job boards and classified sites, and even when they do find one there’s too much competition there. Writer A tells them to hang in there because there really are high
I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it here again, but when you work as a freelancer you’re a business owner. You’re the one offering an in-demand service. And that means you get to set your rates and payment policies. Just as you can’t walk into your favorite retail store and tell them what you’re willing to pay, expecting them to accept your
How many times per week do you receive direct mail (post cards, sales letters, brochures, etc.) from local businesses? If you are like me, the answer is a lot! I am not the type of consumer that responds well to direct mail, but that’s just me. There are many people out there, including businesses of all sizes, that take a close look at every piece
There is a huge focus on full-time freelance careers with conversations often centering on how quickly a writer (or designer or coder) can run away from work and stay at home being creative all day long. Understandable, but I don’t think it needs to be a universal message. Writing full-time is not for everyone, and it’s certainly not for me. Freelancing Full-Time There is no
As home-sitting, coffee-swilling, glasses and pajama-wearing writer types, we have to be super serious about our marketing efforts or our businesses will cease to be. Mostly this is because the people that we see everyday—our pets, children and spouses—make horrible clients. This compels writers embrace all sorts of different ways to market their business both aggressively and passively. Some examples include: Guest posting on blogs
Whether you need a long weekend to unwind or you’re planning an extended vacation or business trip, sometimes life calls for a little blog vacation. This is when either you walk away from blog management completely for a while or when you alter / decrease the time you spend on your blog while you’re away. But when you need time off, how can you keep
If you were a client, would you prefer to hire “yes men” who tell you whatever you want to hear, or would you prefer to hire people who tell you the truth? While I’ve seen some potential clients look for the former, my experience is that “yes men” are not what most prospects need or want. And if you spend too much time trying to
Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, get your adverbs here. Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, got some adverbs here. Come on down to Lolly’s, get the adverbs here! I’ll admit I’ve used it in the classroom more than a few times although I don’t know how much good Schoolhouse Rock really does to teach teenagers anything about the parts of speech. Don’t know what I’m talking about when I refer
Here’s a situation I’ve seen a lot in the last few years: The economy sucks. My company had to downsize. I got laid off. But I still need to pay my bills and support my family. I can’t get another job in this job market. So I’ll try freelancing. I keep looking at job boards and applying for everything I see. But no one seems
Today I’d like to talk about magazine clips. Getting them and caring for them. Ok. First things first. Getting clips is the key to getting more clips. Sound like a crazy circle? It kind of is. As you get more clips it will become easier to get assignments. Starting is the hardest part. At first you won’t be writing for much, if anything. Many people
Should you merge two of your blogs into one? How about combining your professional site and niche blog that are currently on different domains? Is it time to simply change the domain of your site for branding reasons? I’ve gone through a lot of site mergers and re-branding efforts over the years, and I’m going through another one right now. Today let’s talk about making
One thing I have found to be true is that freelance writers will negotiate with certain groups of people, but shy away from this when it comes to others. For example, you may have no problem hashing out a better deal with a webmaster in need of online content. But when it comes time to deal with an editor at a magazine, you work for
Let’s pretend for a second that I’ve heard tales of a child who was home-schooled for years and just joined a high school last year. So long as we’re pretending, we should also pretend that his mother is trying to “help” him graduate at 16 so a very close, practically inseparable, friend of mine now has a 13-year-old freshman. It’s a good thing y’all are
I made a comment on Twitter last week about blog posts. I mentioned how my titles for client blog posts tend to be much better than those for my own sites, and how maybe I should start treating my own projects as I would a client’s. Others chimed in with similar sentiments and LaToya thought it would make for a good blog post idea. Let’s
Throughout the time I’ve been freelancing, I’ve worked with several different clients. I’ve encountered all types of payment situations. While some clients have sent payments on time without a hassle, not all clients payments have been ideal. As you work with clients, you’ll notice their payment habits fall into one of several categories. “The check’s in the mail.” This is the client who claims they’ve
We’ve talked a lot about using e-books as platform pieces for freelance writers. And we’ve looked at how they can be used as residual income streams to complement your freelance writing work. But they can do more than supplement your writing income. If you find yourself stuck in a low pay rut, e-books might even be your ticket out. Let’s look at a somewhat extreme
I just spent more than thirty minutes looking for an example to use in this post. The original plan was to take a comment or sales thread from a popular internet forum and point out some areas where the English phrasing could be improved to make this series a bit more “real-world”. I’ve abandoned that plan for the moment because I noticed a bigger problem
As you know I don’t only blog for myself. I blog for clients as well. And on some of those client blogs I cover topics that apply to business owners — just like you. So today I’m going to be a bit of a self-promotional whore. I realized that I had plenty of articles up on client blogs that weren’t specifically written for freelance writers,
Last week was an interesting one for me in terms of responses to query letters. Two editors got back to me via email, both with the same response: we like your style and ideas, but have done too much like this in the past. Do you have any other ideas that we can run with? While some freelance writers may see this as a bad
The modern woman is supposed to have it all! I have it all, for the most part anyway, and I can tell you that the joy and satisfaction that is supposed to be encompassing my very being right now is nonexistent. Having it “all” is a bunch of bullshit. Do I hate my life? Nope. I like it. But I fully realize that my life
Today we have yet another post inspired by @vcmcguire (you can ask your own questions which will appear on the blog by tweeting @queryfreewriter or emailing jenn@allfreelancewriting.com). She wanted to know how freelance writers can make time for pitching their services to new prospects, especially when they already have a fairly full schedule. First let’s talk about why you might want to keep marketing (or
One of the biggest debates on the freelance writing range is the debate about whether it is better to be a specialty writer focusing on one niche or a generalist writer with a diverse selection of topics to possibly cover. A lot of people straddle the fence on this topic to avoid pissing off their friends and mentors. They say, “Oh, there is no single
We’ve talked about how freelancer / client relationships can be a lot like dating. And with those relationships occasionally comes the need to call it quits. How exactly do you handle a client breakup though? And how do you know when it’s time to walk away and take your freelance writing services elsewhere? Today (at Yo’s request) let’s talk about the why and how of
When you’re a freelancer, your money comes in spurts. You might get $500 this week, $200 next week, and $1,500 the week after that. Some money comes by check, others direct deposit, and others through PayPal or maybe even wire transfer. And you have to keep up with all of it. Managing a freelance income is hard enough. If you’re spending money as it comes
Here’s one you don’t think about all the time – do your pronouns match your antecedents? Consider the following sentence I used today in class: The squirrel attacked him, and he was frightened. Yes, yes – the old attacking squirrel trick. Subject aside, the pronouns are words like him and he. The antecedent in this case is the squirrel or an anonymous him. That’s the
Let’s get to this month’s book club discussion about The Wealthy Freelancer. As usual, I’ll pose 10 questions below. You can respond to all or just some of them in the comments below if you’ve read this book. You can also ask questions of other readers in the comments if you feel these don’t cover something that was important to you. The discussion will remain
Today we’re going to talk about rejection. Sensitive subject, I know. Truth is—if you want to write for magazines, you’ll get rejected a lot. Be prepared for this. The Good News Much of this won’t be your fault. Sometimes you’ll submit an idea that they just assigned to someone else. Other times the editor may have a backload of things to publish and won’t even
In what I’m hoping is the end to my recent long line of technology issues, I’m changing my ISP. Phone service should switch tomorrow with no problem. But there might be a several day gap between that and when the new company actually gets my modem kit to me to hook up the Internet connection. Why that would happen in this day and age (and