Book Marketing Author Interview: Kristen Fischer

Kristen Fischer, self-published author of Creatively Self-Employed, is one of the more effective authors that I’ve come across when it comes to using blogs as a marketing and PR tool to promote a book. Find out how she embraces the DIY style of book marketing with CSE and her upcoming book through Super College LLC. What can you tell us about Creatively Self-Employed to give

Book Marketing Author Interview: Hannah Stone

I had the opportunity to talk to Hannah Stone, the self-published author of two books on pregnancy loss, Forever Our Angels and Remembering Our Angels, about marketing her books. Hannah’s insights give you a look not only into promoting self-published books, but also how to market to a narrower niche audience and how to build interest and confidence in your work before your book is

Five Reasons to Reject the Humble Keyword Article Gig

I’ve been itching to respond to Jennifer’s post at CatalystBlogger: Five Reasons to Embrace the Humble Keyword Article Gig for a few days now, after seeing it mentioned at Anne Wayman’s blog. So here are some of my reasons as to why most freelance writers should reject these keyword article gigs (and for the record, my comments aren’t meant to be an attack on Jennifer

Book Marketing Author Interview: Tammy Powley

For our first book marketing author interview, I talked with author / blogger / jewelry guru Tammy Powley about her now somewhat unusual experience with book marketing: publishers who do the bulk of the work. While publishers increasingly expect authors to be more hands-on with their book publicity and marketing efforts, they do still play an important role with many authors (even if just trying

Writers’ Resources: Press Release Writing

Today I’m going to tackle one of my own areas of expertise: press release writing (not sure why it took me so long). If you’re interested in PR writing (public relations writing), knowing how to write a press release is essential. Use these press release resources to help you learn how to write effective press releases for your clients (or yourself!) – please note, most

How Can I Work With Clients Who Can Barely Speak English?

This week’s reader question comes from Mariella on the writing forums, regarding a request she recently received for copywriting services through a forum private message system: “I’m guessing someone referred him to me, I just can’t get it out of him because he barely speaks English. If I’d ever ask a question for your blog Jenn, it would be how to deal with such clients.”

Weekly Writing Challenge: Plan for Your Writing Future

It can be a common misconception that being a freelance writer is an “anyone can do it” kind of career. I’d imagine most of you reading this blog know that’s simply not true. A successful career as a writer means that you have to do a lot more than just dream about being a famous novelist or enjoying a “cushy” career in your pajamas writing

What's the Best Way to Deal with Bossy Clients?

This question comes from Latoya of Writers Brew: Question What’s the most professional way to deal with bossy clients? Those who like to dictate every aspect of your work as if they were your employer. Answer I’m sure plenty of writers are going to disagree with me on this one, and perhaps my mindset on this issue stems from my primary role as a consultant

Weekly Writing Challenge: Discover New Outlets

Sure, you could browse through the latest edition of the Writers Market looking for outlets to query. But then you’re just querying the same outlets that all of your competition already knows about. This week I want you to forget about your typical go-to sources for writers’ markets and your more well-known niche publications. I want you to step a bit outside of your comfort

When to Turn Down Freelance Writing Jobs

If you’re the type of freelance writer that accepts every writing job that you’re offered, you’re very likely dooming your writing career. The best writers are always choosy in who they work with. They set standards such as: The types of clients (or industry / niche of clients) that they’ll work with. This allows them to develop a reputation as an expert writer in a

What to do When Someone Steals Your Work

It’s so easy to steal content on the Web these days that it feels like “everyone” is doing it sometimes.  Whether it’s through publishing your blog content from an RSS feed without consent (a debatable issue in and of itself) to blatantly ripping content from a site, what can you do to protect your rights when someone steals your work?  Here are a few tips

Suite101: Writer Warning Update

I received this note from the Editor-in-Chief of Suite101 today. I was quite content leaving it at my last post, b/c it was a simple solution to avoid the regular emails nagging me about why I was leaving. But apparently it wasn’t enough. And since I’m under no contractual obligation to keep any such correspondence confidential as it was offered after my contract termination, I’m

How to Get High Paying Freelance Writing Jobs

It’s not as hard as many writers think it is to get high paying freelance writing jobs. The fact is that many writers, especially new freelance writers, sabotage themselves from the start. Do you? Let’s more specifically talk about freelance Web writing. We’ll explore how you can earn more, and what might be holding you back if you’ve been trying to earn more unsuccessfully. Why

When to Turn Down a Writing Gig

Every day I look around the Web for freelance writing jobs to post to AllFreelanceWritingJobs.com. I usually find a few that baffle me, and a few that amuse me… especially when the hiring party is particularly clueless. I ran into a good example of that today. Here’s more on what I came across, and some tips to help you decide when to turn down a

Your Rights as a Writer

If you’re working as a freelance writer, you should be well aware that there are a wide variety of rights attached to all of your work. When deciding where and how to sell your writing, you get to decide what kinds of rights you want to offer your clients (unless you choose to apply for gigs where demands for rights are already laid out… then

The Importance of Writer Portfolios

If you want to be as successful as you can be as a freelance writer, you should take the time to build an effective writer portfolio. Your writer portfolio is a showcase of your abilities, and it offers potential clients a snapshot of the quality of your work. Here are a few tips when it comes to building writer portfolios: 1. Don’t link to something

Writer Warning: Suite101

OK. No one can say that I didn’t go above and beyond in promoting Suite to writers. If anything I was one of their strongest advocates before I quit Suite101 earlier this month. I can’t even count how many writers I brought into the network whether directly in my role as editor, or indirectly bringing writers into other sections, who I had met through this

Going Local: Leaving Behind the Web Jungle for the Clients Next Door

I’ve been threatening to “go local” for quite some time, but it never seems to stay a priority. It might not this time either…. Anyway, I’ve been considering doing some offline pitching of my PR writing and copywriting services to local companies (and maybe some nonprofits, since it’s been a while since I’ve played the nonprofit PR game). Should I do it? Why I’d Like

Find Legitimate Freelance Writing Jobs: 3 Tips

Many freelance writers are no stranger to work at home job scams. When searching for freelance writing jobs, it’s not uncommon to stumble across things like programs being offered to teach you how to start a freelance writing career (usually for a pretty penny) to transcription and typing work at home job scams. Here are a few tips to help you avoid work at home

Suite101: A Freelance Writer’s Playground

Update: Please note that after further experience with this network and others, my feelings on the subject have changed. I strongly recommend against signing up with any content network (also now known as “content mills”). There are far better ways to kick off your career. You can browse our blog for more up to date information on content mills and better options for your freelance writing career, or

What Makes a Professional Writer?

I came across a blog post by Denise asking what people consider when determining the difference between a “professional” writer and just an amateur or hobby writer. I hear this question a lot, especially from people who try to say you can’t determine what makes a “professional” writer, because it’s entirely subjective. As far as I’m concerned, if you say something like that is too

Standardizing Freelance Writing Rates

There’s been a lot of buzz about standardizing freelance writing rates lately, between the freelance writers’ manifesto, Yuwanda Black’s Should Writers Earn a Minimum Wage?, and some commentary on the Content Done Better blog. It’s an interesting topic for anyone in the freelance writing field, and I’d meant to comment on it previously. I think there are a few good points, and a few bad,

How to Avoid Freelance Job Scams

We’ve all seen them, and we’ve all secretly been tempted to try them. You know … those ads for work from home freelance writing jobs that promise you can make $1000-2000 a week working part-time. Don’t fall sucker to ads that promise the world. I’m going to expose some common freelance job scams, show you the warning signs to look out for, teach you how

Writers: You’re Worth More Than $5!

As a freelance writer, don’t ever let anyone tell you differently. If you can produce even reasonably high quality Web content, you can be doing much better for yourself than “selling out” to the hoards of webmasters expecting the world from their writers, for nearly no pay. Are there any good excuses for writing free or cheap content for webmasters? Sure. Here are a few: