Series

3

Today I’m going to talk about traffic widgets. These are little snippets of code that you put on your website, perhaps in your sidebar, to bring traffic to your site. This a free way to promote your site. There are dozens of traffic building widgets out there and I have tried ...

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2

If you’re promoting yourself as a writer, then you can’t ignore social networking. The question is where to start and which sites to choose. I am not going to pretend that I could ever answer this question to everyone’s satisfaction, so instead I’ll tell you about the sites I use ...

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5

In the first part of this series I suggested that writers start a blog as a virtual shop window for their writing services. If you’ve done that, then you are now part of the blogosphere, and there’s more to participating in it than simply having a blog. Blogging is all ...

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2

Social bookmarking is another free self promotion technique that writers can use effectively. It’s also an excellent way of keeping track of your writing research, though I won’t say much about that here. If you’re interested I wrote a post on Why Writers Should Use Social Bookmarking which explains that ...

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16

I can’t talk about promotion without mentioning one of my favorite ways to promote – through article marketing. I’ve heard people criticize it, but I have found it an effective and free way to promote my writing services. The only investment you need to get started is the time it ...

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4

Once you’ve got a virtual shop window for your writing services, it’s time to let people know it’s there. One effective way you can promote yourself is to use forums. There are thousands of forums on any topic you can imagine, so it won’t be hard to find one. As ...

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1

One of the first things to address when promoting yourself as a freelance writer is having somewhere where people can find you. These days, that means having a web presence – and that doesn’t have to cost you anything. My preferred method is to get a blog, because you don’t ...

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6

I often get questions from new writers about how to get the word out that they are there and available for writing work. This topic has been coming up a lot recently, so even though it’s been covered before, I thought it was time to revisit it. From my experience, ...

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6

One of the mysteries for new freelance writers is how to bid for jobs. As a new writer, you often have no idea what to charge or what clients are looking for. Sure, you can write, but bidding is about selling yourself so you can get the chance to show ...

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29

Give me my money! That’s what most freelancers want to say when they have done a piece of work but have not been paid. When you freelance, there’s always the chance that you might fall victim to a seasoned scammer – there are lots of them about. Three Freelance Writing ...

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15

Why aren’t you writing yet? A lot of people dream of starting a freelance writing career, but never get around to doing it. One of the reasons is that they fall in love with the dream of writing, but find the reality hard to achieve. So what’s the first thing ...

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3

Catherine asks What did you find most difficult when you first began freelancing? And how did you overcome that difficulty? When I went freelance, I faced two issues. One was a lack of contacts. The other was a lack of recent clips. While I’d been lecturing, I’d done the occasional ...

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7

If you’re going to write for a living, then you need to put your writing life on a business footing. That doesn’t mean giving up the pleasure of writing; it just means that you need to take it seriously and get others to do the same. So how do you ...

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7

Here’s another in the series of questions on freelancing. Rachel asked me: Do you ever think about going back to being an employee? She also asked about the benefits of freelancing. While the benefits are different for different people, here’s what I get from freelancing: I work for myself. That ...

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4

In my last post in this series I answered Rachel‘s question about why I decided to freelance. However, wanting to go freelance doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good idea to just jump ship and do it. Rachel also asked: ‘Should a young freelancer like myself try to get a stable ...

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4

Last week I invited you to ask your questions about freelancing. I got a great response, with several questions to answer. Rachel asked why I decided to go freelance. For me, the decision was relatively easy. I didn’t realise how essential writing was to my well being till I stopped ...

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10

One aspect of freelancing that always stymies new writers is how to set the right rate for the freelance writing job. In fact, even experienced writers who are bidding on a new area might have difficulty. A post the other day on rates for blog posting provoked some discussion. There ...

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15

I get a lot of emails from people who want to know how to get started as a freelance writer. It’s one of my favourite topics and I never mind giving a few tips. My advice is based on more than 20 years in the writing business. I have worked ...

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