Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Make the most of your writer's Web site

Got a Web site? I sincerely hope you have. Your writer's Web site is much more than an online portfolio or brochure: it's the key to a fabulous writing career.

Think I'm over-stating the case, or indulging in mere hyperbole? Not so.

I can give you dozens of reasons you need a Web site, but I'll confine myself to just one: credibility.

Read the rest of "Your writer's Web site - make it easy for buyers to buy".

Write and sell ebooks for a great home business

Writing and selling ebooks is a great home business. You can start part-time, and then turn it into a full-time profession. However, the key is "bestselling."

Not every ebook you create will become a bestseller, but with a little thought and planning, you can increase the odds considerably that your ebook will sell not one, but many copies every day.

Read the rest of the article.

Your writing success needs a PLAN

Image via Wikipedia

From my mailbag:

Angela, I'm trying to get writing jobs. Over the past three weeks I've created a one-page Web site, and placed a couple of ads on Craigslist as well as on two other Internet classifieds sites. No one's responded at all to the ads. I've also applied for several writing jobs and again no one's responded - what am I doing wrong?

Signed: Striving Writer

Dear Striving Writer

You sound as if you've made a good start with marketing your writing. However, you don't mention a marketing PLAN. A plan is vital for your success. With a plan in place, you're focused on the overall plan, rather than on each individual action you've taken.

Your marketing plan needs to include:

* The kinds of writing you're doing and the markets you're targeting: Web writing (content, articles, copywriting, with the names of sites), print writing (newspapers and magazines you're targeting with the types of articles), copywriting (types of businesses plus names of businesses and agencies, with the kinds of copy you're writing);

* How you'll approach those markets - queries, cold calling, advertising - both free and paid, press releases, article marketing... etc;

* The amount of money you have to invest in your writing business;

* Your projected income for the first year (and years two and three as well).

Then your marketing plan must be transformed into an action plan for the year, month, week, and day.

I'm sure you have a complete marketing plan in your head - you know what you want to do, and have some idea of how you'll do it. However, it's vital that you write down your plan, so you can see it in black and white.

With your plan written down, simply take action on the plan, and each day, perform your marketing tasks.

Can I guarantee your success? Of course I can. The demand for writers has never been greater. Your clients NEED you. However, they also need to be able to find you. And you need a plan for finding them.

Create a plan. Create it on the back of an index card if you wish. Your plan certainly doesn't need to be a 20-page documents (although creating such a document couldn't hurt.)

Once your plan's created, you'll know exactly what you're doing, and when. You can contact me for help  in creating your plan if you wish.

Plan first. Then act - and you'll succeed.

"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.

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Turning your writing into a writing business

As more and more writers become familiar with writing for the online world, more are turning their writing into a business. Setting up a business is much easier online than in the physical world, especially a writing business. If you've got a computer and an Internet connection, you've already got most of what you need to start your own writing business.

But what about money?

Bootstrap your writing business

The easiest way to start a writing business is to bootstrap it: to start it without external funding. Rather than taking out a business loan, you're funding your business from your savings, and from working outside the business, in your day job.

Bootstrapping is also the best way to start your writing business, and to learn the fundamentals of running a business, such as the importance of cash flow. A writing business is just like every other business; cash flow rules your life. You need money flowing into the business, so you can pay your business expenses.

Start with a napkin business plan

Most business plans are too complex, and you don't need a complex business plan for your writing business. So write a simple "napkin" business plan, covering:

* A short description of what your writing business is, and what it does

* A short description of who needs your writing services (your target audience)

* A list of the writing services your business provides, and the fees you will charge for these services

* A marketing plan - how you will let your target audience know about your writing services

* A cash-flow estimate for the first 12 months

The best kind of writing business: copywriting services

Copywriting services is the most lucrative type of writing service. Many copywriters earn six-figure incomes, so if you want a writing business which will thrive over the long term, consider copywriting.

Not sure whether a copywriting services business is for you? Subscribe to New Copywriter Tips.

Technorati Tags: copywriting

Writing a book? You may want to rethink your process

Publishing has changed dramatically in the 21st century. You can now make money more money faster self-publishing online than you can going the traditional publishing route.

Here's the traditional book publishing process for writers:

1. Write three chapters plus an outline

2. Get a publisher and advance

3. Write the book

4. Promote the book (at your own expense, mostly)

This process doesn't work for 99 per cent of writers. The publisher makes the money; you're left the "glory" of calling yourself an author.

In "Traditional Publishers Are Wising Up to the Web", Aaron Wall reports that:

Books Publishing is Fast Becoming a Vanity Industry I was offered to get SEO Book published by one of the leading book publishing houses. I have made more in a day than what they were offering me as down payment for writing the book. And they wanted me to do all the book marketing as well, for no further compensation unless I sold enough books to make the hot books lists. It didn't help that my profit margins from a book sale would have been less than what I pay for a click.

I was unwilling to get published because I thought there was upside in the current model, in a growing market, and realized that the model of being published did not work unless I was interested in feeding my ego, in need of credibility, or was writing a book just to up sell more expensive services.

That's the way it is today: you can make more money publishing your book online yourself, than you can going the traditional publishing route. As Aaron says, the only upside to the traditional publishing model for writers is the credibility a published book gives you.

I've eliminated traditional publishing from my business plans for the foreseeable future, because there's no benefit in it. Publishing my own sites and blogs is faster (instant, compared to the two-year process of getting a book published traditionally), more profitable, and it's much, much more fun.

If you're writing a book, or want to, you may want to reconsider your options. BTW, this process works for novelists too. Publish your novel and associated material on a Web site as Kate Mosse did, and then get a traditional publisher to come to you.

Technorati Tags: books, Business, get published, novel, write a book, write novel, writing

Writing scams: NEVER take writing "tests" or write a "scope" for a project

I've written about writing scams before. They're very common online, and offline too. If you're a new writer, PLEASE do not write "tests". Or "scope" a project.

Companies (and sometimes individuals) know how naive, insecure and needy many writers are. They love having their work done for FREE. Here's a very common tale of woe from WritersWeekly:

I found a freelance copyediting position (online). I emailed them expressing interest and with some questions about the company and they emailed me back with a sample chapter to edit.

If anyone, at any time, asks you to write something for them for free, just delete the email, or if you find the gig online, breeze right on by. No matter how plausible these "jobs" sound, they're not.

A legitimate company, if they're not sure that you can handle the work will PAY you to do some trial work - in ADVANCE.

Never, ever take any so-called tests. If you have writing credits, they're enough to give you credibility. If you have no writing credits, write some sample articles.

Again, please - never, ever take writing tests, write trials, or write scopes. Write some samples, if you have no credits, create a Web site, and get legitimate writing gigs. Currently, businesses are DESPERATE for writers, and they pay real money. Don't get taken in.

Technorati Tags: Business, writing jobs, Writing Tip, YOUR writer's Web site

Yet another writers' scam: scamming self-publishers

I get tired hearing about all the scammers trying to twist money out of writers, however this latest scam involving writers who are self-publishers, is scarier than most. Angela Hoy was contacted by a writer who suspected she was being scammed, and of course she was. Angela Hoy says:

Here's the most disturbing part. He said, "My shipper will come and pick them up from your location."

Obviously, if someone is ordering something directly from an author, they would assume they'd be picking up the books from the author's home. The author was justified in seeing all these red flags and contacting me. Reading this part made me sick. I suspected the author may have been the target of something possibly more sinister than a simple book-buying scam.

Please don't ever, ever, EVER invite someone you don't know to your home, even if they are promising to buy 100 copies of your book! To see why, just look at the news headlines!

Beware, dear writer. The scammers are everywhere.

On a brighter note, one scammer got precisely what she deserved: six years. A Writer's Life reports in Scammer Sent to Slammer:

Writers' Beware is reporting that Martha Ivery, the vanity press scammer and fake literary agent, was sentenced today to nearly six years in Federal prison for bilking aspiring writers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars with her many swindles under various aliases (Kelly O'Donnell Literary Agency, Craig Roussan, PressTige Publishing, New Millenium Publishing House, etc.).

Great news. Martha Ivery has been scamming writers for years.

If YOU suspect a scam, Google the suspect! Just enter their name into the Google search query box, and see what the results are. These days, you can check up on anyone, just using Google.

My gift to you: Holiday Season Writer's Gift Pack - Santa's sleigh is packed with gifts for you, dear writer. I wish you and yours a joyous holiday, and your best writing year ever in 2007.

Technorati Tags: publishing, writer's scams, writing

You Can Create Your Own Writing Job... If

Want to create your own job as a freelance writer? It's a brave new online writing world, so nothing could be easier.

However, you'll need to face the fact that you're now an entrepreneur.

Note: The rest of this article was first published in my Creative Small Biz ezine in 2003. I've revised the advice it contains a little, but the advice is timeless.

You can create your own job as a writing entrepreneur, if:

1. You believe in your products and services

You must believe in your products and services enough to be able to sell them consistently. For creatives, that means you must believe enough in yourself to KNOW that you can create products people will want to buy, and then you must market, market, market, and market some more.

Stating the blindingly obvious, right?

It should be obvious, but it's not. The saying: "Love what you do and the money will follow" should be amended to: "Love what you do and be prepared to market it and the money will follow".

I've lost count of the number of writers I know who've decided to freelance, and then after six months decided that they couldn’t take it and scooted back to the corporate world.

You must be passionate, but at the same time develop acceptance. Passionate enough to put your heart and soul into your work, and into your marketing, and at the same time, accept that it will take time to develop your niche, and that you may be making less money than you could if you were working for someone else -- in the beginning.

2. You can work harder for yourself than you would for someone else

When you create  your own job, you get to do it all. You're in charge.

A lot of the work that happens in a business is invisible to you if you work for someone else. The  invisible chores include a multitude of tasks, such as keeping the computer system functioning, getting material printed, placing Yellow Pages ads, and returning phone calls. All this stuff takes time and energy.

When it's all up to you, you have to decide what's important for you to be doing right now. You need a list of what must get done today, this week, and next week, and you need to keep up to date, even if it means working on Saturday and Sunday.

3. You're constantly learning

When you work for someone else, your employer trains you so that you can do your job effectively. When you've created your own job, your training is up to you.

Learning needs to be fun for you. You must see it as an investment in yourself. The Internet is a blessing, and you'll find many training packages online. You don’t even need to leave the house to learn something new.

4. You can ignore setbacks

Stuff happens. Your computer refuses to boot up. Instead of working on a client's project you need to take your computer to the repair shop. A client cancels a meeting that you've just cancelled another meeting to attend. You get the flu, and have to work anyway, even though you're so dizzy you can’t focus on the computer screen.

After you've been working as your own employer for a while, setbacks like this will amuse you rather than defeat you. You know that in a week or a month, you'll be laughing about this, so why not crack a smile now?

5. You're prepared to invest in your business

When you've created your own job, your business comes first. This means that when you get a hefty client payment, most of that money will have to go right back into the business.

You need to be clever about how you invest this money however. Do really you need a full page display ad in that magazine? Could you save money by placing a half page ad, or a quarter page? Do you need that new software package which costs a thousand dollars?

Is creating your own job as a writing entrepreneur for you? Only you know the answer to that question.

If you want to kickstart your own writing business, you need to invest in my ebook Writing For Online Cash: Turn Your Words Into Instant Gold -- this manual teaches you everything you need to know to get started.

Technorati Tags: be more productive, make money writing, marketing your writing, Motivation, Planning, practice your writing, productivity, publishing, Writer's Web site, writing jobs

Beyond plagiarism: thief-take-all

Denny Hatch's great article: "Book Pirates! Diary of an Amateur Web Sleuth" tells the story of the theft of his father's book, which was still under copyright - not plagiarized, stolen. Essentially this was made possible by the advances in Print On Demand (POD) technology.

As Denny says:

Print on demand represents the future of book publishing. Rather than the old-fashioned model where huge investments had to be made in warehouses filled with books stacked floor to ceiling and gathering dust, the new book warehouse is in a computer hard drive where books and their covers are stored electronically.

Order a book and a computer somewhere tells a book printing machine to print one copy (or 10 copies or 100 copies) of that title. The efficiency of the new system is truly elegant.

POD means that anyone can take a published book and offer it for sale with horrible ease, as Denny says: "We hijack books. Catch us if you can."

If you've got books in print, or Out Of Print, and you hold the copyright, keep an eye on them. Some unscrupulous operators may just decide to snatch your hard work without so much as a "May I?"

Technorati Tags: books, publishing, copyright

Two blogs: which should you read?

I've had a couple of queries about The Creativity Factory, and the differences between that blog and this one.

The short answer is that this blog is primarily for writers. Over the past couple of years, this writing-related blog has become a resource for writers of difference experience levels and abilities. It's getting lots of traffic, and I'm pleased that it's useful. I want to keep adding to this blog over time, as my writing interests change and I discover new tools and information I want to share with other writers.

The Creativity Factory is useful if you're running a business. It's about online and offline marketing and copywriting, and much more. The target audience is anyone who's running a business, or who works in a business and wants to know more about business topics. I'm running a "blogging for business" series, talking about information management software, and so on.

BTW, The Creativity Factory is a WordPress blog, and RSS feeds are built-in. So if you copy the URL -- http://www.angelabooth.com/wp/ -- into your feed reader, it should pick up the feed easily. If you have problems with this, please let me know, and I'll add some additional feed formats.

Technorati Tags: blogs, how to blog your business, WordPress