Spike Wyatt’s book on freelancing grabbed me from the title. ‘Going the Half Hog?’ I asked myself. Did this mean a half hearted approach to freelancing, as opposed to going all out aka the full hog? No, it didn’t. Instead this is a book for those who want to make a part time income or work part time as freelancers.

The book is subtitled Freelancing without Marketing – another draw for me. Sure I can get my writer marketing done in a short time, but not marketing at all? I was intrigued.

Going the Half Hog Contents

I found Spike’s book an easy, no-nonsense read. The contents list includes:

• How to freelance as a writer
• What you need to get started as a half-hogger
• The basics of online content creation
• The “natural marketing” alternative that takes almost no time or effort
• Where to find freelance writing jobs that suit you
• How to sort through the crap jobs and find the gems
• The major ways to earn – all with their pros and cons
• Avoiding the cheats and scams
• The editing and proofreading route to success

The Best Bits of Going the Half Hog

I knew I was going to love the book when I read the disclaimer, which stated: ‘the author has been known to talk crap’. From then on, I was clear that this was going to be a down-to-earth read with no pseudo-guru-speak – yay! And I was right.  Spike promises ‘real information with actual, explicit ideas and guidelines’ and that’s what he delivers. Among my favorite bits were:

• on what clients really want – most just want a reliable, professional writer who will produce high-quality work on time, every time
• on getting paid – Repeat after me: you deserve to be paid the same as full-time freelancers of similar talent for similar work.
• on running a writing business – There is no ‘right’ way to run a business, beyond a few simple concepts such as honesty, integrity, producing quality work and meeting deadlines
• on how to freelance successfully – Provide solutions. Create accurate specifications. Offer simple, clear contracts. Keep deadlines. Do quality work.

I also liked the 5 principles of being a good freelancer – simple rules which anyone can sign up to – and the questions you need to know the answers to when you get started. These are especially useful for new writers. New writers will also get value from the section where Spike provides a simple structure for writing articles for an online audience.

My one point of disagreement with Spike was on the importance of spelling, grammar and punctuation. He says: ‘I’m not saying that spelling, grammar and punctuation are unimportant: they just don’t have to be perfect for the majority of online media.’  I say: people notice these things, even if subliminally, and it’s important to get them right. That’s the only niggle – and I’m still prepared to recommend the book.

I know the experienced writers out there are wondering what’s in it for them. I can tell you where I learned something – in the section on scams and cheats. I’ve seen my share of writing scams, but Spike added a couple twists on them which haven’t yet come my way (probably because I stay off the bidding sites.) It’s always good to know about these things in advance.

The Verdict

Overall, I think Going the Half Hog lives up to its description:

With this unique, straightforward book you’ll learn everything you need to get started as a freelance writer, including content creation, ways to earn online, where to find freelance work that suits your skills and schedule, how to sort through the rubbish jobs and find the gems, how to avoid the cheats and scammers, a “natural marketing” alternative that requires almost no time or effort and lots more to build a solid foundation that you can scale up whenever you want.

With all that value, at $7.50 it’s not hard to see this as a good investment in your writing career.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of Going the Half Hog and I like it so much that if you click on the links below and buy it, I might earn a few cents.

Check out Going The Half Hog: Freelance Writing Without Marketing (or the Kindle edition) on Amazon.com

Check out Going the Half Hog: Freelance Writing Without Marketing (or the Kindle Edition) on Amazon.co.uk

I’ve never been very good with forums. I always like the idea, join, participate for a while and then virtually abandon them. But one new forum has changed all that. It’s called About Writing Squared and it’s run by Lori Widmer and Anne Wayman. It’s the home of the Five Buck Forum because it costs five dollars a month to be a member.

Is it worth it? You bet your booties it is!

Here are three of the things I like most about it.

A Friendly Space for Writers

Let’s start with the feel of it. It is a friendly space where you can interact with experienced writers who are happy to share their knowledge on any issue that troubles you. In the time I’ve been on the forum we have talked about dealing with clients, marketing, top blog lists and a range of other topics. The writers in this forum are generous people who have an opinion on practically everything and aren’t afraid to share it.

Share Your Stuff

Second, there’s a thread specifically for sharing your latest blog posts. At the very least, other members of the forum will visit and they will often comment and share as well. This is not a place to share everything you have ever written but it’s a great place to share the good stuff, especially if it’s related to writing. Often you’ll get a whole other discussion going on on the forum which will help you think about your topic in a new way and may even give you ideas for other blog posts.

Rant or Rave About Writing

Third, we all have those days when we feel frustrated or need to rant. The forum provides a safe place to do that. And it’s also a great place for sharing successes. Lori and Anne also provide members only specials on all their books, monthly conference calls, webinars as well as lists of  high-paying writing markets (land one gig and you could cover your forum membership for a couple of years) and a weekly tip that will help you to improve your writing business.

I visit the forum almost every day because I know I will find information from fellow freelance writers whom I respect that will be relevant, useful and may even make me smile . It’s simply a great writer hangout. Check it out and see for yourself.

Today, I’m happy to be reviewing SEO Marketing by Brian Belfitt of BlogEngage. This free ebook (which you get when you sign up for BlogEngage)  has just 27 pages and covers:

1. Introduction to starting your very own blog
2. Hosting and set up
3. Selecting the right theme
4. Setting up your wordpress blog
5. SEO, Marketing and Promotion
6. Making money online with your blog

The ebook is a compilation of the best articles from Brian’s SEO Marketing blog and gives some useful tips.

What I Disagreed With

There was only one thing I disagreed with in the book – Brian’s advice at the start that  you should buy domain name and hosting from the same provider. In fact, I do the opposite and for almost all my domains, have them from separate providers. That means that if I ever fall out with one, I’ve still got the option of getting my site up quickly. (And I do that because I’ve been burned in the past.)

Next, Brian moves onto themes and he lists some of my favorite providers there. He discusses the importance of researching your posts and keeping them consistent and relevant for your readers. He also includes the importance of keeping your blog maintained – not only by checking and removing out-dated links, but updating tags if relevant.

Best Feature

One of the things I like best about Brian’s book is his blog marketing plan – what you need to do to market your blog. However, you might find you need more info to implement it if you are new to blogging.

His checklist of factors to look for in deciding where to market and promote your blog (by interacting and commenting on other blogs) is useful, as is the section on how you can use forums for promotion. There’s also a section on seeking advertisers and affiliate marketing, with links to some key ad networks.

The Verdict

Overall, I think this book gives a good snapshot of where to start and since it’s free, it’s hard to complain about the lack of detail in some areas. If you want an overview of the things you need to think about then you can read this book in a few minutes and have a pretty good idea. But if you want more in-depth information, you will have to check out the articles on Brian’s site and elsewhere.

I’m always looking for the chance to learn new things, so when American Writers and Artists Inc (AWAI) offered me the chance to review their Accelerated Program for Six Figure Copywriting, I jumped at the chance.

This course is aimed at copywriters and would-be copywriters. If you’re a writer or blogger looking to use your skills in a more lucrative area, then it’s worth considering this course. And if you’re already in the direct response copywriting game, but want to know how you can take your skills and earnings to the next level, then this course is definitely for you.

What’s Inside AWAI’s Accelerated Copywriting Course

The course is in 13 chapters (more than 500 pages) covering the following topics:

• #1 Getting Started as a Copywriter: The Opportunity & Lifestyle
• #2 Taking the First Step towards Copywriting Success
• #3 Copywriting Myths and Realities
• #4 The Secret Structure of Direct-Response Letters
• #5 Communicating with Your Prospect
• #6 Building Your Offer One Brick at a Time
• #7 Making and Closing the Deal
• #8 Why We Need Guarantees
• #9 Ready … Set … Write!
• #10 Backing Up Your Claims
• #11 Putting It All Together
• #12 Becoming a Master Storyteller
• #13 You’re a Copywriter!

There are also writing exercises and resources to go with each chapter, as well as a wealth of bonus materials. You can access these online or download the PDFs so you can peruse them at your leisure.

There are also lots more materials on the site: webinars, teleconferences, job listings and a forum – there’s seemingly no end to the resources available. And there are links to other courses too.

Looking Deeper At The Accelerated Copywriting Course

Getting back to the course itself, there is a lot of information packed inside those pages. Each section gives an introduction to the topic, provides examples (lots of them) and lets you apply what you have learned. This is not your average online course – you will need time to work your way through it. I have been reviewing it for weeks and still haven’t quite finished because it takes time to absorb the course content.

Although I’m not a direct response copywriter, I believe that I’ve already learned some techniques that will help me to improve sales pages and marketing for my own products and, who knows, perhaps one day those copywriting skills might come in handy for clients. As AWAI says: “Even if you’re not interested in becoming a professional copywriter, the selling and marketing knowledge you’ll gain from this program will help you in any business you happen to be in.”

Is It Worth It?

This course costs $397. Yes, that’s a hefty price tag, but it’s nothing compared to the cost of a college course, and considering all the additional resources you get, it’s a bargain. I’ve seen lots of criticism online of the promises made in the sales page about earnings in the tens and hundreds of thousands once you complete the course. I don’t believe that everyone who finishes the course will earn at that level (I’m always sceptical of big promises), but I do believe that some will, especially if they’re prepared to put in the effort to market their new skills. In any case, what I’ve completed so far convinces me that writers can still gain something from this course.

This course has got information that you can use right away to improve your writing, as long as you’re prepared to invest some time. And there’s a guarantee. If you buy the course and don’t think it’s wonderful – you can get your money back within 30 days after you purchase it. So what have you got to lose? I recommend that you try AWAI’s Accelerated Program for Six Figure Copywriting today. (And I’m not the only one; other writers I respect share my view).

Disclosure: AWAI didn’t pay me for the review but they did offer me free access to the course materials so I could review it. I liked the course so much that I’ve signed up as an affiliate and I’ll be devoting some time every week to completing it.

Whether you have an affiliate marketing site of your own, or you are a freelancer who has been commissioned to write copy for somebody else’s, one thing it will almost certainly need to have is reviews of the products you are aiming to promote. These serve two purposes – one, as content that can help search engines find your site, thus boosting traffic, and two, as sales copy to encourage your reader to take further interest in, or buy, the product. Here we take a look at some of the ways you can write great product reviews that will meet both of these objectives.

SEO

SEO (search engine optimization, to the uninitiated) is all about getting the best possible search engine ranking when somebody runs a Google (or other) search on keywords which are relevant to your website. You need to make sure your product reviews are optimised with keywords in the title and body which are the best and most likely match to what a prospective customer for your product might search for. What these are will vary depending on what you are promoting. If you are selling something with a particular brand and name, which people are likely to search for explicitly, then that would make sense as a keyword, perhaps in connection with keywords to do with the price of that item (“cheap”, “discount” etc.). If the name of the product is less well known you need to think about what it does, and questions it might be the answer to.

Information

If you are in an affiliate program, chances are you picked it because you believe in the product you are marketing, and even if you don’t you are going to write from a positive perspective because you want people to buy. Of course, people reading reviews are actually looking to find out how a product works and if it delivers on its promises, rather than to read a lot of sales copy about how wonderful it is, so try and give a good mixture of actual information about the product as well as the positive review element. If you are marketing computers, don’t just say that the model is the fastest and most reliable on the market, actually discuss the specs and compare it favourably to some competitors (ones it is superior to, obviously, don’t out and out lie).

Call to Action

As with any sales related copywriting, the piece should end with a call to action. This is harder to do with a review than with normal sales copy, but not impossible. You could mention that you got the product you were reviewing at a very good price because of a promotion that was going on, and urge your reader to participate in the same promotion right away. The reader needs to be told to buy, rather than just imparted with a positive overall feeling about the product.

Product reviews are really great content for any affiliate marketing site, and by following this advice you should be able to create ones that really add value.

Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One of the best books I’ve read recently is Mike Stelzner’s Launch. Even though it’s not a writing book (that is to say, it’s not about technique), it’s a book every owner of a writing business should read. In Launch Mike tells you how to launch a successful business with content. As writers, content is our business and that’s why we should read it. I defy anyone to read it without having at least one lightbulb moment.

This book captivated me as though it had been a best selling novel and I devoured it within a few hours. I know I won’t have taken everything in, so I plan to go back and reread at leisure, dipping into the sections I need as I need them.

The book is subtitled How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition and through 9 chapters, Mike uses a spacefaring analogy to show you how to do just that. He speaks of adding rocket fuel to your launch and shows how you can put the pieces together.

Launch – Chapter Listing

The chapters are:

1. Rockets Don’t Fly Themselves

2. Starting Your Mission Plan

3. Finding Inspiration by Looking Outward

4. Leveraging the Power of Other People

5. Actively Engaging Other People

6. Making Content the Fuel of Your Marketing

7. Creating and Using Primary Fuel

8. Creating and Using Nuclear Fuel

9. How to Employ Marketing

There are also five appendices with examples of primary fuel content. If you haven’t been reading Social Media Examiner, then you’ll enjoy these. A key idea of the book is the Elevation Principle – meeting your customers’ needs by helping them to solve their problems at no cost.

Why Launch Rocks

Since I’m not a natural marketer, but really enjoy writing, the way this book was set out really worked for me. It’s almost like an anti-marketing manifesto – marketing without marketing – heaven! The most useful chapters for me were chapter 5 on engagement and chapters 7 and 8 on creating and using different kinds of content – those were a real cauldron of ideas.

If you haven’t been reading Social Media Examiner, then you’ll enjoy the content samples in the appendix that Mike uses to illustrate his points.

There’s no point in reading a book like this unless it’s going to provoke change. The guidance in this book has inspired me to revamp some of my web properties and resources (this is ongoing), and I’ll be using some of the principles in my next launch.

I highly recommend Launch. I’ve known Mike for a while, since writing a few articles for Writing White Papers back in 2006  so I’ve watched him do exactly what he talks about in this book – that’s part of the reason it’s so inspiring – real advice from someone who has done it.

Grab your copy here:

Launch – Kindle Edition (US)

Launch (Amazon.com)

Launch (Amazon UK)

Launch (Kindle, Amazon UK)

I’m always a bit sceptical about tools that claim to improve your grammar and, as a result, your writing. Maybe that’s because I’m a professional writer with an excellent command of the language and its rules. (I even know when it’s OK to break them.) But I couldn’t help but be intrigued by Grammarly, which claims to be ‘the world’s most accurate grammar checker’, so I decided to check it out. After all, it couldn’t possibly be worse than Microsoft Word’s tool, could it?  According to the site, 300,000 students as well as international business people and bloggers are using it to provide:

• 150+ Grammar Checks – Check your text for the proper use of advanced grammar rules. Get accurate error explanations.
• Plagiarism Detection – Find borrowed text before it gets you into trouble. Automatically generate references.
• Vocabulary Enhancement – Use words that make an impact. Liven up your sentences and improve readability with context-optimized word choice suggestions.
• Contextual Spell Check – Spot correctly spelled words used in the wrong context. No more embarrassing typos like then-than, to-two-too, lose-loose.

It can also check citations, and features an in-line editor.

Grammarly in Action

Here’s what happened when I put it to the test.

I pasted a 900 word blog post into the checking window, selected ‘blog post’ as the type of content I was checking, pressed the review button and waited a short time. It found 53 issues, each of which had a pop up card with short and long explanations of the grammar point being flagged. You could even vote on whether the information was useful before moving on. How many of those did I agree with? Here are the notes I made as I was going along.

• Incorrectly saw the ‘in’ in LinkedIn as a preposition at the end of a sentence – perhaps that needed to be added to the dictionary.
• Pronouns – though I didn’t agree with the error it highlighted, it indicated that I could have omitted one pronoun.
• In one sentence, it didn’t pick up that picture was being used as a verb and flagged it incorrectly.
• Grammarly correctly found one missing comma around the phrase ‘of course’.
• Then to the spell check – it didn’t recognize blogging ( in this day and age, come on! ) but at least it offered the option to assume the word was correct.
• Did plain text need a hyphen? Perhaps!
• It didn’t pick up my bullets on copy and paste so incorrectly flagged lower case letters.
• Some people might find the tips on word choice helpful, but didn’t do much for me. When I described something as beautiful, that’s what I meant, not beauteous, divine or lovely.
• Perhaps where I used good, I could have replaced it with brilliant or nifty.

Out of 53 issues, I agreed with 3 or 4, and I loved the ability to save the grammar report as a PDF.

Testing Academic Grammar

My second test was with a dissertation excerpt ( the other categories are academic essay, report, book review, research paper, presentation and business document). It found very few errors, disliked the use of square brackets and ignored Harvard referencing which is common in UK academic institutions. However, it did give examples of how to fix the references using three forms of referencing common in the US. This would be extremely useful to students, who often struggle with this area.

I performed the test again on a piece of writing I knew was flawed (I won’t say who it came from) and it correctly identified spelling and punctuation errors (though I would have loved to see some word choice suggestions. For this person, who struggles to write clearly, Grammarly definitely has some potential benefits.

Good Grammarly Features

Things I liked about Grammarly included:

• being able to see a summary report with one click – there’s a link at the top of the screen
• as much or as little explanation of errors as you can cope with
• the plagiarism checker – I checked this with a post I knew had been scraped and correctly identified it as 100% plagiarized, though it didn’t find the original source
• the fact that you can choose from several different types of documents.
• the ability to ask questions about grammar points from the review screen via a pop up form – answers appear on http://answers.grammarly.com/
• the online grammar handbook – http://handbook.grammarly.com/
• the grammar checker is better than the one in Microsoft Word, in my opinion

Who is Grammarly for?

Most of the writers I know write too well to need a tool like Grammarly, but as a teacher, I knew plenty of students and beginning writers who could have used the help. Like other tools of the type, Grammarly isn’t a substitute for knowing the rules yourself, but if you’re a poor writer, it can help you improve. A year’s subscription will set you back $7.95 a month, but there are 20% increases for quarterly and monthly plans.

Raise your hands if you need a blogging mentor! I believe in learning something new whenever I can, so when Annabel Candy announced her new Successful Blogging site and a shiny new ebook, also titled Successful Blogging in 12 Simple Steps (disclosure), I immediately stuck my hand up for a review copy.  After all, even if you’ve been blogging for years, there’s always a chance that you’ve missed something.

Successful Blogging Contents and Summary

Successful Blogging is a 64-page, 12-step guide to blogging covering (the summaries are mine):

1. Topic & Goals – How to come up with a topic and sub-topics for your blog, with questions and worksheets to help you focus.

2. Branding – Brainstorming your brand, describing it and securing it.

3. Planning a blog – Design brief and content organization – pre-planning to save time later.

4. Blog set up – A quick tour of the main WordPress functions so you can get up and running fast.

5. Writing static content – How to brainstorm and write about pages and other static pages on your site.

6. Writing blog posts – Types of blog posts and headlines.

7. Writing for the web – Web writing, formatting and editing to make your blog posts great.

8. Reality check and adding value – Checking that everything you’ve done so far works; adding pillar content.

9. Blogging and other social media – A brief guide to getting started with Twitter and Facebook.

10. Online networking – Exactly what it says on the tin – starting out with networking online.

11. SEO, stats and rating progress – The behind the scenes stuff that can make or break your blog.

12. Guest posting – How to find and land guest posting opportunities.

There’s also a bonus chapter on motivation.

How The Book Works

Each chapter is clearly laid out and covers a couple of pages. The chapter content includes a thinking point, a hot tip (as in ‘here’s a way to make this work quickly’, an action point and a checklist to help you go over the content and apply it to your own blog. This is all based on Annabel’s actual experience of growing a blog from nothing to a well respected and often visited blog in its niche. She knows what she’s talking about, but takes the time to explain it in bite sized chunks so her readers will too. That’s why this is a great guide for someone completely new to blogging. There’s no chance that you will be overwhelmed.

SEO – Where Should It Be?

There’s just one area where I disagree with Annabel – and that’s where she places the chapter on SEO. Personally, I’d think about SEO right at the start, when choosing a domain name and before I write any content. That might be hindsight talking, though. When I started my first blog almost six years ago, I didn’t think about SEO till I’d already been blogging for months. And, to tell the truth, if you’re an experienced blogger, you can just dip into the SEO chapter when you think it’s right to do so.

Benefits For Experienced Bloggers

Notice how I mentioned experienced bloggers? That’s because I think we can gain something from this blog too. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I started my first blog (the blog that eventually became Get Paid to Write Online), I didn’t know enough about blogging to approach it in a systematic way. I know a lot more now, but it will be interesting to use Annabel’s lists to check my progress when I start my next blog.

Finally, all bloggers can benefit from Annabel’s tips on using guest blogging to promote their blogs and the extensive list of tools and resources at the end. To add to the value, there’s a great list of tools and resources at the end.

Grab A Copy of Successful Blogging

This  ebook self study course on blogging is available in three options:

• Ebook and bonus chapter for $29
• Ebook, audiobook recording, bonus chapter and case studies for $39
• Ebook, audiobook recording, bonus chapter, case studies and two hour personal consultation for $499

Check it out for yourself!

As most of you know, I’m an avid reader of pretty much anything I can get my hands on. That’s why I’m always happy to review new books/ebooks that come my way. Of course, I don’t always get around to publishing the reviews quickly, but I’m working on it. Here are a couple of books I liked that crossed my desk recently.

The Smart Business Guide to Winning New Work

The Smart Business Guide to Winning New Work (aff) by Pawel Grabowski offers some great tips for beginners taking their first steps into self-employment. Small business owners and freelancers are the main target market.

The 50 page ebook is divided into several sections, answering key questions about how to market yourself in order to win new work. Issues covered include:

• What is sales?
• The three traits of a successful salesman
• The 3 characteristics of a good prospect
• Where do you find prospects

I found this book an easy read which will give those starting out plenty of ideas for selling themselves and their services. However, this is not a get rich quick book. Pawel warns readers both at the beginning and the end of the book that putting these lessons into practice in order to achieve success will take hard work – and I like that lesson best of all!

Update: The Smart Business Guide to Winning New Work will be on sale at a 30% discount on April 1, 2011 ONLY!

Guest Blogging Guide

I got this book when I signed up for Pro membership of MyBlogGuest. This is a site which automates guest posting – not in a bad way, but by providing a one stop shop for guest bloggers and those seeking guest posts to get together.  This 35 page ebook provides tips on guest blogging. It covers:

• What is guest blogging?
• Benefits of guest blogging
• What guest blogging is NOT
• How to find great guest posting opportunities
• How to approach the blog owner
• Guest blogging best practices

For me, the most useful section was a search tip in the section on finding guest posting opportunities about using wildcards to help you identify the opportunities. It’s not that I didn’t know about wildcards – I do, I do! – but Ann’s examples showed me how I could improve my searches not just for blogging opportunities but for writing work.

Those were the non-fiction books that made the most impression on me recently. What have you been reading that you’d like to share?

Authopublisher first came to my attention last year when owner Ivin Viljoen commented on Get Paid to Write Online and then offered a guest post. Since then he’s become an occasional contributor, so when he asked me to review the site, I was happy to oblige (with the proviso that I could give my unbiased opinion, of course ).

When I visited the Authopublisher site before writing this review, I was greeted by a shiny new theme which really shows off all the great content this site has to offer. I found the sidebar a bit cluttered, but that’s just a personal preference.

About Ivin Viljoen

Ivin says he’s a self publishing expert. With his first book written in three days and published within a fortnight, he just might be right. The blog is intended to help people who are looking to self publish.

The Content

Authopublisher covers a range of topics, including How tos, Blogging, Publishing, Writing Tips and the interesting WWE inspired series of posts on writing. Some of the posts I’ve found most interesting include:

• Writing Tips: How To Write Articles For Online Newsletters
• How to Find Screenwriter Jobs on the Internet and Build Up Your Profile
• Writing For Fun And Profit
• Steps to Publishing Success
• Publishing Tips: The 4-11 On The ISBN

Ivin’s also got a number of interesting videos, as well as links to competitions and interesting freelance events.

The Verdict

English is not Ivin’s first language so you may spot the occasional odd turn of phrase, but that also means that there’s very little waffle. Most of Ivin’s posts get straight to the point. When you read them, you can see that he’s not just giving you directions, but sharing his actual experience, which is important as a reader looking for reliable, tested information on self publishing. I stop by the blog to see what’s new on a regular basis and I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops. If you’re just stepping into writing and self publishing, then it’s worth a look. Check it out for yourselves!