July 2008

43

I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while and when chatting with some friends on Plurk, we decided the time was right for a group writing project. The theme: getting our blogging start. I don’t know about you, but I’m always fascinated to hear how others got started in ...

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14

The other day I asked whether you were invisible as a freelance writer. While invisibility is undesirable, being too visible is also a problem. What do I mean by that? Deb Ng explained it best when she said that online is forever.  It’s great to participate on blogs, forums and social networking sites, ...

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13

When I started out as a freelance writer I was invisible – and that’s not a good thing to be. At the time I had years of writing experience, published clips in magazines and years of experience teaching journalism, but no one had ever heard of me. Many new freelance ...

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7

A recurring issue with freelance writers is how much to charge for writing services. Even if you get that worked out, you still have the tricky issue of deciding when it’s time to up your rates. However, there are four good reasons why you should charge more for the work ...

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8

I’ve been spending some time on Plurk recently and one thing it’s good for is canvassing opinion. I asked a group of writers for their favourite writing blogs. These are the ones they listed. 1. Men with Pens 2. Writing the Cyber Highway 3. Freelance Writing Jobs 3. Get Paid ...

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14

A recent gig creating lenses for a client reminded me of how useful Squidoo can be for self promotion. I have to be honest: although I have eight lenses, I don’t promote them very much so I don’t get the full Squidoo promotional juice. In spite of that, at least ...

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20

As freelance writers, we often have times when there’s so much work that we have to sub some out to other writers. I work with a small team of writers and get a lot of requests from people wanting to know how they can work with me and get paid ...

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15

There’s nothing like the security of having a cheque arrive every month, but when you’re a freelancer, you just don’t have that security any more. Instead, like many work at home professionals, payment for your labour may be erratic and intermittent, and sometimes you even have to hunt down the money ...

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4

It’s that time again where I share what I have been reading on the web. I was interested in 12 Realities of Pricing Design Services which offered some advice that applies to all freelancers. To get there I followed the trail from the Pen Men’s take on Pricing Your Design ...

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5

When Research Wizard Pro (also called Search Accelerator Pro) asked me to review their product, I thought I had to check it out. Anything that promised to save me time on research had to be worth a look. They were very efficient in providing an evaluation copy and it took no ...

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28

I am a professional blogger and writer, so pay me in cash. Pay me by Paypal, wire transfer, direct credit or even e-cheque, as long as I get paid for my work. Why do I feel the need to say this? Because I applied for a blogging job today. The ad stated ...

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12

A couple of years ago, I started working with a team of writers. I had good and bad experiences with that team, and the team continued to grow. Then I realised something. It wasn’t working for me. Here’s why. I was spending more time chasing other writers for work than ...

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