Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Get a blog job - discover how this week

Our feature article in this week's Fab Freelance Writing Ezine is "Get Blog Jobs - Fun and Profitable if You Love Blogging".

Here's an excerpt:

Do you blog? I hope you do, because blogging can do a lot for your freelance writing career. For a writer, blogs are not only an instant-publishing tool, they're also an opportunity to find great writing jobs.

Blogs are a phenomenon. Although many "A-list" bloggers have been publishing for years and have built up strong audiences, it's only in the past couple of years that blogs have become mainstream.

Read the rest on Tuesday. The ezine is sent to your Inbox, completely free.

I cover three EASY ways to get blog jobs, and oddly enough, two of the easiest ways are rarely (if ever) used by writers.

So if you want to kick off a six figure writing career, discover how to find and get blog jobs this week.

Imagine... $1,000 A Week For Just Ten Hours

You can get paid to blog. The current rate for experienced bloggers is around $1,000 to $1500 a week for from two to five posts a day - VERY nice writing income.

Find out how to blog with the blogging best-seller "Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger -- in your PJs, if you want". It's my complete new ebook package, with free coaching/ consultations as well.

Avoid Writing Income Disasters with These Five Tips - Part Two

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These days, writers can make an unlimited income. If you set your mind to it, you can make as much income as you choose. Many writers are earning six figures. You can too, as long as you avoid common writing income disasters.

In the first part of our article, we discussed three of the most common disasters:

1. Not asking for a retainer

If you don't ask for a retainer of at least 50 per cent, you have no way of knowing whether or not a client is genuine, or whether he's a scammer.

2. No writing services agreement

Without a writing services agreement, you're in a very bad place.

3. Procrastination

When it's time to write, write. The more you write, the more you earn.

You can read about the above three disasters in detail in Part One of this article.

Now let's focus on the other two most common disasters I see.

4. Writing for low pay

Assuming you have some writing credits (in other words, someone, somewhere, sometime has paid you for your writing), you can charge appropriately.

Writing for higher pay is actually easier than writing for low pay, and here's why: clients who pay you appropriately know their business and they know the value of writing. They're successful, so they want the best writers.

Many writers start their writing career on the out-sourcing sites. Now, while I have nothing against these sites, once you have a couple of writing credits it's time to get away from those sites, and FAST.

Why? Because of the "rush to the bottom" mentality that abounds on these sites. The writers on these sites use them inappropriately - they want to win projects by under-bidding each other. They've never learned any marketing skills.

Nobody wins when writers do this. Not the writers and definitely not the clients.

The writers don't win because they're forced into writing like battery hens are forced into laying eggs. They write so much the quality suffers. They have no time to get out of the writing ghetto and look for better writing jobs. They have no time for self-promotion, which would ensure that they get better writing jobs.

The clients don't win because sub-standard writing ensures that their projects are sub-standard.

Now let's look at the next writing disaster.

5. Forgetting to promote yourself

Writers need to learn self-promotion, and then they need to promote themselves.

Want to know the easiest way to spot a newbie writer? OK. Here it is: the newbie writer creates a name for their writing "business", like "The Write Standard", or "Writing Wonder Words" or "Just a Another Writer" or whatever... Please note that all these names are fictional, as far as I'm aware. I made them up; I certainly hope that no one's using them - if anyone is, I'm sorry, because I'm not referring to you specifically.

Big, big tip: a professional writer uses his or her own name ONLY. They realize that promoting anything is hard work, so they might as well turn their own name into a brand, rather than creating a ditzy name for their business.

Use your own name. It helps you to build your credits. Editors, publishers and clients will remember your name, so use it.

Please avoid all five writing disasters, now you know what they are. When you treat your writing with the respect it deserves, you will make an income beyond your dreams, and you'll richly deserve it too.

Recession-proof your freelance writing career

"Write More And Make More Money From Your Writing: Develop A Fast, Fun Productive Writing Process" gives you all the tools you need for a thriving writing career, no matter what the economic climate.

Three weeks after completing the class one student wrote:

"Thanks Angela, for all your help and advice in class. I'm quitting my job next week. I printed out my letter of resignation tonight after landing a contract writing job that will pay me more for three months part-time work than I earned in from my day job in the whole of 2007! You were right – the great gigs are out there, and now I've got the skills to land them. Your class opened my eyes. Bless you…"

"Write More And Make More Money From Your Writing: Develop A Fast, Fun Productive Writing Process" shows you how to thrive as a freelance writer. Would you like to write five times more than you're writing now, and sell to higher-paying markets? Take the class.

Avoid Writing Income Disasters with These Five Tips - Part One

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There's never been a better time to be a writer. You've got the potential of earning an unlimited income. Writing jobs abound, on the Web and off it.

However, some writers manage to cripple their income, both by not understanding all the opportunities which are available, and by not understanding that their writing skills deserve to be well-recompensed.

So let's look at five writing income disasters, and how you can avoid them.

1. Not asking for a retainer

Sadly this disaster is very, very common, especially for writers who are used to writing for magazines and newspapers.

If you don't have a regular gig writing for them, magazines and newspapers are lousy markets. After they cherry pick your proposals and you get a commission, they take their time paying you. They pay on acceptance or on publication, but they don't pay a retainer.

They train writers to wait for their money, and it cripples writers when they write for businesses or for the Web. They fail to understand that they must get a retainer.

A retainer is standard, it's vital, and if you don't ask for it you have no way of knowing whether you're dealing with a genuine client, or with someone who's out to scam you.

So get a retainer of at least 50 per cent of your fee. On long projects, your writing services agreement should include payment milestones - weekly, monthly, or as the project progresses.

You send an invoice for your retainer when you send your writing services agreement. Don't start writing, until you've got the retainer payment.

2. No writing services agreement

This is the second most common writing disaster I see.

You must have a writing services agreement, and you must state your payment and delivery services clearly in the agreement.

The project as you understand it forms the main part of the agreement. Please don't copy and paste into the agreement from the project brief. Rewrite the brief in bullet points and in your own words, as YOU understand it.

Rewriting the brief in your own words will not only clarify your thinking about the project, it also means that you will ask more questions of the client so that you understand completely what's required of you.

3. Procrastination

The more you write, the more income you make. Procrastination is a writing income disaster - and it's easily avoided.

Here's how. Make a commitment to write when you're at your computer. Write! Don't "research" (surf the Web), or dither. Decide that when you're sitting at your computer, you'll write. You can Web surf after all your writing for the day is done.

When you commit to a writing project, and have received your retainer, your speed of delivery is paramount. Your clients expect speed, but 90 per cent of the time their expectations are dashed.

Therefore when you fail to meet a deadline, not only do you guarantee that your current client won't send you further projects, you also poison the pool for other writers he may consider hiring.

So please, meet your deadlines. All it takes it commitment.

Watch for Part Two of this article, in which we'll cover other writing income disasters. If you avoid all five disasters, your writing income will soar.

Write more - the key to your writing success

Yes, you can write more - even if you're a world-class procrastinator.

Did you know that when you write more, your writing improves? Many of my writing students experience this. They find that when they write more, writing is easier for them - they're not dominated by their inner editor.

My new writing class, "Write More And Make More Money From Your Writing: Develop A Fast, Fun Productive Writing Process" is based on lessons I developed for my private coaching students to help them to write more, improve their writing, and make more money writing.

If you're struggling with your writing, the class will help. The techniques you'll learn in class with help you write fiction, nonfiction, and copy for business.

Discover how you can write more, improve your writing, and sell more of your writing to higher-paying markets.

Artful Blogging - new blogging magazine

If you've read this blog for any time at all, you know I love blogs, and have a great many of them.

I'm always telling writers that blogging is life changing, and once they try it, they find that yes it is. :-)

Artful Blogging is a sumptuous (new - to me) blogging print magazine.

If you're wondering whether and how you should blog, this magazine will provide great inspiration.

I'm sending away for my copy now...

"Go From Zero To Making $250 Per Hour For Web Writing - Kick Off Your Web Writing Career In 24 Hours!"

There's great money in Web writing. Some Web writers are making $20,000 a month by blogging for a stable of sites. Others are writing articles or ebooks.

Want to jump on this opportunity? No matter what your level of writing skill, you can make great money writing for the Web too.

Get a full year of weekly assignments; become a Web writing pro with Sell Your Writing Online NOW.

Write and sell self-help ebooks for a great home business

In this week's Fab Freelance Writing Ezine our feature article is "Self-help Ebooks - Inspiration and Motivation Mean Profits."

Here's an excerpt from the Editorial:

Ebooks are HOT: if you can write ebooks, not only will you find a ready supply of buyers and people who will commission you to write, but you can also create your own ebooks and sell them online.

In our feature article this week we discuss finding topics for self-help ebooks. Self-help is an incredibly popular field, and all writers can write self-help, because you can use your own experiences.

Sell Your Writing Online NOW (SYWON) subscribers are finding that focusing on self-help leads to easy sales of articles, reports and ebooks because the self-help industry is huge.

Subscribe and read the issue tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: books, ebook, freelance writing, get published, get started freelance writing

Want to make money writing online?

Want to make money writing online? Get my free report.

"Get Paid to Write: Make Money Online Today" is a 23-page PDF containing a series of articles to help you to make money online, just by writing.

Enjoy. :-)

Hypnosis for writers - super-powers for your writing

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In this week's Fab Freelance Writing Ezine, our feature article is "Hypnosis for Writers - Get Inspired and Write".

Here's an excerpt:

Everyone gets hypnotized, every day. You're in a mild form of trance whenever you concentrate on something to the exclusion of everything else. When you're reading, for example, or driving, or watching a movie.

So hypnosis is a natural ability we all possess.

You can make use of that natural ability in your writing. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, gives the best explanation of the "powers" that hypnosis gives you that I've ever read.

He maintains that everyone can be hypnotized and gain these three powers:

1. Extra relaxation

2. Extra imagination

3. Extra focus

Subscribe now - the issue's out on Tuesday.

Discover Private Label Rights (PLR) , a sizzling HOT new way to make money as a writer

The basic idea of PLR content is that it's content which is sold to people to edit, mash up, or use directly on their Web sites. PLR content may be articles, ebooks, reports, or even audio. It's CONTENT - stuff for Web sites - in its generic form.

If you can write ten PLR articles in a week, you can make $4000 a week

Sounds weird, but it's true. Many writers are already cashing in on PLR, and you can too.

"Instant PLR Author: Make Money Writing Private Label Rights Products" shows you how.

Freelance Writing Home Business - 5 Tips to a Top Income

Image by thepyrokinetic via Flickr

Want to start your own freelance writing home business? You can. And chances are, if you go about it the right way, you'll make much more than you could at your day job.

How much, you ask? Six-figure incomes for freelancers are becoming common - the Web has a voracious appetite for words. However, to hit the freelancing heights, you'll have to treat your writing as a business, not as a hobby.

This means being business-like with your writing.

I'm often asked when you should consider going full time in your own writing business, so I've chosen five tips for you. If the tips make sense to you, and you take them to heart... you're ready.

Who writes, wins - become a prolific writer

Writers write. It's a given. If you're not writing, you're not a writer. Notice that we haven't said anything about "publication". Publication follows, when you write.

Publication's inevitable.

When you write, your skills improve, and sooner or later you'll get published. This by the way, solves none of your problems - it just gives you a different set of problems to deal with. You solve these new problems by... yes, by writing.

So how do you become a prolific writer?

I've covered "writing more" on this blog previously, so let's cut to the chase:

1. You trust yourself

You set goals. You have NO idea how you'll achieve these goals, but you trust yourself. And you start writing.

2. You realize that writing is just one word after another

Each day, at your appointed "writing" hour or hours, you sit down, and write. You write well, or badly, but you write.

You may have a migraine, a broken ankle, be in the middle of a divorce. Whatever. You write at your appointed hour.

Writing is just something you do: just as bakers bake, and candlestick makers make candles and sailors sail.

If you start judging your writing as you're writing, slap yourself smartly on the wrist and get back to writing.

3. You repeat the above for your entire life

Yes, you get to keep on writing forever. There's no end to it. Nothing will change: you still get to keep on writing. :-)

I've known writers who set out to achieve a particular goal - a six figure income, or a book on the NYT best seller list. When they achieved the goal, they thought their life would change. And yes, some parts of their life did change; one thing didn't however - they're still writing.

So that's how you become a prolific writer. You write - consistently and persistently. How much have YOU written today?

Recession-proof your freelance writing career

"Write More And Make More Money From Your Writing: Develop A Fast, Fun Productive Writing Process" gives you all the tools you need for a thriving writing career, no matter what the economic climate.

Three weeks after completing the class one student wrote:

"Thanks Angela, for all your help and advice in class. I'm quitting my job next week. I printed out my letter of resignation tonight after landing a contract writing job that will pay me more for three months part-time work than I earned in from my day job in the whole of 2007! You were right – the great gigs are out there, and now I've got the skills to land them. Your class opened my eyes. Bless you…"

"Write More And Make More Money From Your Writing: Develop A Fast, Fun Productive Writing Process" shows you how to thrive as a freelance writer. Would you like to write five times more than you're writing now, and sell to higher-paying markets? Take the class.

Nothing matters... as long as you write

I get lots of questions every week, and 95 per cent of those questions can be answered with: "It really, really REALLY doesn't matter."

Your obsessions stem from a lack of confidence

Writers have many obsessions and all of them stem from a lack of confidence.

For example, it doesn't matter:

* How you format a magazine query; or

* What blogging platform you use - use WordPress, Blogger, TypePad; or

* What you charge - what you charge is up to you. Set a fee, and people will either pay it, or not. You can always change it later. Or -

* What your current credentials are. If your have no writing credits, that's perfectly fine. Everyone starts somewhere. Write some samples... Make it clear you're a new writer. Be honest. It also doesn't matter:

* Whether you've finished your book or not. Send off a query letter to a selection of agents. They'll respond, or not. If they respond, they'll offer suggestions. Accept the suggestions. Or not...

Nothing matters! Make a decision on how you want to do something, and keep writing.

Write more - the key to your writing success

Yes, you can write more - even if you're a world-class procrastinator.

Did you know that when you write more, your writing improves? Many of my writing students experience this. They find that when they write more, writing is easier for them - they're not dominated by their inner editor.

My new writing class, "Write More And Make More Money From Your Writing: Develop A Fast, Fun Productive Writing Process" is based on lessons I developed for my private coaching students to help them to write more, improve their writing, and make more money writing.

If you're struggling with your writing, the class will help. The techniques you'll learn in class with help you write fiction, nonfiction, and copy for business.

Discover how you can write more, improve your writing, and sell more of your writing to higher-paying markets.

Just write, send your material out, and keep writing. If you will only write, nothing else matters.

Please believe this, because it's true.