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New Look & Category

April 3, 2009 Leave a Comment

I’ve been debating on which theme I wanted to use here.  I liked the simplicity of the Tarski theme, but it didn’t really fit how I wanted the place to look.

I’ve decided on Slickpress, which is the same theme I currently use at The Music Rocks! Blog.  I really love this theme, but haven’t quite got all the kinks worked out.  I’d like more content on the front page since the sidebars are full of information and makes the side of the page way too long for the main content.  But this will have to do until I can find a nice tutorial or something on the theme.

I’ve also created a new category, Writing 101: Basic Training.  This will contain information on basic writing and English skills.  I hope by using the category it will make navigation easier when you’re looking for those posts.

I hope everyone has a great Friday, and it is Friday!  Yay!  I have a full day of work ahead, but my work day doesn’t start until 9:00 am.  So now I’m off to fix my lovely bowl of oatmeal (old fashioned- NOT instant).

Write On!
Patti Stafford

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I’ll Just Point Fingers Today

April 2, 2009 Leave a Comment

After previewing this post it appears that WordPress has formatted it the way WordPress wants.  I’m sorry if the text is gigantic.  If you don’t see well you will probably appreciate this.  Sometimes WordPress just has a mind of it’s own.

Yesterday in,  “Can I Get Some Scrambled Eggs With These re-Hashed Writing Tips?” I did a rant about re-Hashed writing tips, as is evident in the title.  Today I want to cover a few of these writing tips I’m ranting about.  The writer will remain nameless, but if you’re subscribed to these tips you will figure it out.

A recent tip for copywriters was titled,  “How to get clients for your new copywriting services business”

The tip was…“Start by working out what processes you’ve used to attract clients  in the past.”

Okay, if I’m a new copywriter just how many clients do I have?  I possibly don’t have any clients if I’ve recently dubbed myself as a copywriter.  So, I’m supposed to do more of what?  What do I do more of?  I’m NEW remember?

[Read more...]

Filed Under Discussion Tagged With bad writing, bad writing prompts, bad writing tips

Can I Get Some Scrambled Eggs With These re-Hashed Writing Tips?

April 1, 2009 3 Comments

I should state here that this is an opinion piece, if you’re looking for writing tips today, this isn’t it.  Sorry.

I want to rant just a bit today, or maybe rant quite a bit, or I may even fully climb up on the soapbox, but I want to complain about all the writing tips you get in your email.

Several years ago I signed up for some writing tips from a rather well-known writer on the web.  I was a bit disappointed in most of the content I received as tips.  I then took a rather long hiatus from writing and cancelled all emails regarding writing tips.

Recently I have picked up pen and paper once again and returned to my passion.  I mean that literally too, I love writing with pen and paper.  It’s more personal than a keyboard and computer screen- but that’s another story.

Now that I’m back to writing, this writer with the great tips began showing up again.  I signed up for a few.  I won’t mention her name but she has tips on every writing category under the sun, tons of writing courses and classes that you can sign up for–for a nominal fee of course.

Needless to say I am more disappointed this time around.  She’s been busy alright, and created more websites and more courses than should be humanly possible.  Her email tips consist of a lame tip and a dozen links to her websites/courses.  There’s more links in the body of these emails than text.

I have to admit that this pissed me off years ago when I walked away from writing.  I thought things would improve over time but alas, it’s worse and still pisses me off.

I have come back to writing with a renewed passion for being a better writer, for giving information that people can actually use and not wanting to create a writing class in hopes that people will sign up and make me rich.  Yeah, I’d love to get rich doing what I love, but that’s not the reason I write.  I write to entertain people, to help people, and because it’s the one form of communication that I find I’m actually half decent at.

My website will contain tips on writing, but I promise if I serve you hash there will be scrambled eggs to go with it.  I may even throw in some bacon, toast and coffee.

Now that I have your attention why not hop on over and sign up for my ecourse?
I’m kidding.  I don’t have an ecourse.  I don’t even have an ebook or a newsletter.  I’m just a writer who wants to improve my own writing skills and help others along the way.

This post was also inspired by:

3 Shocker Reasons Why Article Marketing Is Not Driving Enough Traffic To Your Blog

Ryan said:
Don’t EVER buy into the whole, “for more info on how to make money online, click here or visit my website” type attitude. If your writing an article on “how to research profitable keywords for your google adwords campaign”, then for heaven’s sake, include ALL the tips, techniques, and strategies that you know. Don’t provide one or two small tips and then say “for more info on researching keywords, check out my site”. By doing that your not creating enough value for your reader. Your article is thin and needs more content.

And that reminded me of my rant with writing tips!

All feedback is appreciated.  Share your thoughts or experiences with rehashed writing tips on the web.

Write On!
Patti Stafford (climbing off soap box to work)

Filed Under Discussion Tagged With improve writing skills, patti stafford, rehashed writing tips, well known writers

What Holds You Back From Writing?

March 31, 2009 1 Comment

You’ve decided to write something. You sit down to write and what happens? Do you go blank? Do you get writers block? Or, maybe you’re like me and you have so many ideas you can’t choose one.

Just this morning I’ve penned 5 writing ideas and I have 2 from yesterday, plus a draft in the back-end here at my blog. Those are just on ‘writing’ topics and do not include other ideas I want to write on in fitness, health, etc.

One problem I find is wanting to write in my own voice. This is not the same as finding your voice in fiction writing. I mean I want to write straight out of my head–which is rarely ever grammatically correct.

I began this post March 26 and saved it to drafts, which gave me 2 posts in draft.  I now have about 15 topic ideas jotted down for writing.  Several years ago I was writing 10-12 hours a day.  I burned out and took a rather long hiatus.  I’m now having trouble getting back to a regular routine with writing.  I begin writing and soon get hit with more ideas and then find it hard to focus on the topic at hand.

It’s not really writers’ block that holds me back, it’s writers’ overload.  Some days it’s easy to just ‘pick a topic’ and go with it, other days it’s quite difficult.

What do you do in these situations?  Do you suffer writers’ block or writers’ overload?

Filed Under Discussion, writing tips Tagged With writers block, writers discussion, writing tips

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-03-29

March 29, 2009 Leave a Comment

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Benefits and Drawbacks of “Subscription” Freelance Job Boards

March 25, 2009 Leave a Comment

Using a paid subscription freelance job board over free service sites often means you get higher paying, better quality assignments. Many times, your first assignment will more than cover the cost of joining a paid subscription site. The advantage to using paid job boards is less competition. The disadvantage is beginners often don’t have the income to pay for the services.

The top paid subscription sites include:

Freelanceswitch.com (www.freelanceswitch.com). The cost is $7 per month. It offers freelance listings for design, development, writing, illustration and flash.

Benefits: Less competition, community forum, blog covers advice, news and opinions, low monthly fee.

Drawbacks: Dated listings, slow assignments, more geared towards web designers.

Directfreelance.com (www.directfreelance.com). Freelancers pay a yearly fee of $99. Freelance agencies pay a yearly fee of $199. There is no charge for outsourcers looking for freelance services.

It offers listings for graphic design/multimedia, photography/videography, programming/database development, website design/marketing, writing/editing.

Benefits: New listings, plenty of open projects, online profile for your services.

Drawbacks: Yearly fee may seem steep for newcomers, limited projects for writers.

Hiremymom.com (www.hiremymom.com). The cost is $99 per year and is for listing your professional services.

Benefits: Good listing for professional career moms who want to leave the corporate world but still work. Services they cover include: administrative, writing, graphic design, accounting, bookkeeping, customer service, marketing, public relations, programming, web design, coaching, sales, desktop publishing, payroll, human resources, database development, medical billing, etc.) Does not accept MLM’s, home parties, or Network Marketing opportunites.

Drawbacks: Yearly fee may seem steep for newcomers, can only view a sample of the projects without joining. You can cancel at anytime but offers no money back guarantee.

Contractedwork.com (www.contractedwork.com). This site has several levels of membership. Gold Plus membership has a monthly cost of $34.95. Gold costs $24.95/month or $160.00/year. Basic costs $14.95/month or $100.00/year.

Benefits: Many opportunities for writers posted on the projects board, limited amount of bidding on projects (less competition).

Drawbacks: Cost of membership, but significant savings for yearly subscription on two levels of membership.

Freelancedaily.net (www.freelancedaily.net). First week is free. Jobs are sent out through email. After the free week is up, the costs is just $3.95 per month.

Benefits: The site sifts through and list over 250 job board sites daily, sift through over 400 ads daily. This saves you the time of sorting and sifting through these sites yourself.

Drawbacks: Does not post in-house, permanent or full-time projects.

After you’ve gotten a few notches under your belt and feel you are ready to use a paid subscription freelance job board, these are the ones I suggest. I tried to obtain several price ranges to fit anyone’s budget. Remember, writing good content lands you better paying jobs on these paid job boards.

More happy writing,
Patti Stafford

Filed Under Discussion Tagged With freelance work, freelance writing boards, freelance writing career, freelance writing jobs, subscription freelance job boards

Benefits and Drawbacks of Top “Free” Freelance Job Boards

March 25, 2009 Leave a Comment

The beginning of your freelance writing career can seem daunting when you don’t know where to find clients or writing projects. I’ve gathered some useful free freelance job boards. This list is not all inclusive, but should give you a good start in your freelance writing career.

In the beginning of your freelance career, free sites are an excellent choice when you’re working on a tight budget. The job offerings may not pay as well as the subscription sites, but it is a great source to start getting your feet wet.

The following are well known free job sites. I start with these because they will show up quite a bit in your search when you’re looking for places to find jobs.

 

 

Gofreelance.com (www.gofreelance.com), formerly known as Freelance Work Exchange, is a free site for writing gigs, as well as other freelance work.

Benefits: Free, well known, clean and easy to navigate.

Drawbacks: Limited writing gigs listed.

 

Ifreelance.com (www.ifreelance.com). This site is set up well and easy to navigate.

Benefits: Jobs are listed in forum type style, filter categories of freelance work, sub-category filter and has a nice layout.

Drawbacks: Most projects require you to bid the job.

 

Indeed.com (www.indeed.com). Site allows you to search keywords and even by geographic area (city, state, etc.).

Benefits: Plenty of job listings.

Drawbacks: It’s mainly a search site listing job postings from other sources.

 

Elance.com (www.elance.com). Offers free basic membership or you can upgrade to a better account.

Benefits: Plenty of job listings, allows you to filter for only fixed fee jobs or hourly jobs.

Drawbacks: Free membership is very limited in options.

 

Writerswrite.com (www.writejobs.com/jobs/). Offers writing jobs and filters out jobs for specific categories.

Benefits: Free listings, lists jobs by categories.

Drawbacks: Limited listings.

 

Remember that free sites are usually limited in their job offerings, but really are a fantastic way to get started in this business. After you’ve gained some experience and feel more confident in your writing skills, I highly suggest you start using the paid subscription sites to land freelance writing gigs.

We all must start somewhere. Some of you have been using places like Associated Content to submit your work too. It’s a great place to gain knowledge and make extra income. But there often comes a time when you want to start testing your wings. Using free job boards will help you step out of your comfort zone to see how well you fly.

Happy Writing,
Patti Stafford

Filed Under Discussion Tagged With free freelance job boards, free job boards, freelance job boards, freelance writing career, freelance writing gigs

What’s the Best Way to Deal with Writing Samples?

March 24, 2009 Leave a Comment

How many ads do you skim that ask for writing samples?  Almost all of them, right?  I’ve posted before about not sending freelance writing samples and why.  Read: Never Send a Potential Client “Writing Samples”.

But I wonder if I should re-think this position.  I personally believe if you have an online portfolio with writing samples included, this should suffice as to whether or not you can write well.  I’m also thinking there may be another way to let the client see your work, while protecting it at the same time. Hearing back from them will still remain to be seen and I will post an update if and when I test this new theory.

My new theory is to send the potential client the writing sample, but make sure it’s already on your website with a copyscape protected logo.  Also send the potential client the link to that page on your site under the article itself.

This way, they get a writing sample in the body of your email, but they also become aware that if they use it without your permission (as many have) that it’ll be duplicate material and caught by copyscape.

I suggest you decide which niche topics you prefer to write on, write some sample articles and then upload them to your website for future use to send to clients for writing samples.  I see no reason why freelance writers have to create something new for each client when you can show your ability in your niche topic with one or two samples already written.  After all, a photographer does not go take new pictures for every client they apply for.  They build a single portfolio, add to it with their best work, and it speaks for itself.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?  Do you have a better way to deal with writing samples?

Happy Writing,
Patti Stafford

Filed Under Discussion, writing tips Tagged With freelance writers, freelance writing, freelance writing samples, potential clients, writing samples

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-03-22

March 22, 2009 Leave a Comment

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New Look at Writers & Content

March 17, 2009 Leave a Comment

We’ve got a new look and it appears to have a few bugs in it.  Please be patient with us as sometimes we play idiots on TV.

Have a great day and Happy Writing!
Patti Stafford

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Freelance Cash

March 10, 2009 Leave a Comment

by Angela Swanlund

Freelancing refers to the process of offering your services for someone else on a per project basis. The best way to explain this is through an example.

Supposing you possess excellent writing skills. There are millions (and I’m not exaggerating) of webmasters and internet marketers out there who are in need of fresh content and new products on a daily basis. Their demand for digitally written works is so great that even if they are blessed with just as much writing prowess, they won’t have the time to come up with everything that they need. Hence, they resort to outsourcing.

And this is where you enter the picture.

As a freelancer offering your writing services for a fee, you could take in some projects they will give you. You will be paid per delivery, and once that’s done, you could take in more clients for consistent earnings.

But freelancing is not only limited to writing, or ghostwriting as it is technically known. There are other services that you could offer, depending on the area of proficiency you possess. Here are more examples: [Read more...]

Filed Under Discussion Tagged With Freelance, freelance writers, freelance writing, web content writers

Automate Content Updates

March 10, 2009 Leave a Comment

by Angela Swanlund

We all know that content is king on the internet. The maxim has been cited so many times that it has already become a cliché. Well, it has become a cliché because it’s true. The internet IS the information superhighway. The processes in the World Wide Web are fueled by information. Users search for it. Web publishers provide it. And when you could give the information that people want, then you’re in business. Whether your online endeavor is based on Pay Per Click (PPC) programs or the sale of digital products, quality content will drive people to your pages.

Indeed, content is your best investment for your online enterprise. But preparing unique, premium content is often not enough. You must strive to regularly update your content so that the search engine spiders would constantly crawl through your pages and fetch them for every relevant query. This is the key to good search engine placement. It is very effective…

… but it is also very demanding. [Read more...]

Filed Under Discussion Tagged With automated content, content updates, web content
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