1. Kelly James Enger posts The State of Full-Time Freelancers’ Income on the Dollars & Deadlines blog. The good news: 7% of freelancers make six figures.

2. My buddy and Freelance Writers Blast Off co-host Carol Tice had a great guest post on Copyblogger called 12 Ways to Turn Your Old, Dusty Blog Archive into Cold, Hard Cash. I think I’m going to do some of these!

3. I love this post from Susan Johnston of The Urban Muse on 5 Lame Excuses from Late-Paying Clients—and How to Respond. Susan shares what she’d like to say to these pikers — and what she actually does say. Funny!

4. Moving? On the Diary of a Mad Freelancer Blog, P.S. Jones writes New Phone Numbers and Old Contacts, about her tactics for keeping her clients in the loop whenever her contact information changes. Good plan. [lf]

*****

Looking to boost your career this summer? Our next Freelance Writers Blast Off sessions start on August 2 and 4. For a ridiculously reasonable price, you’ll get six hour-long phone calls with Carol Tice and me, resource handouts, and support from us and your fellow freelancers in the Freelance Writers Den forum. You’ll learn how to figure out your writing niche, build or improve your writer website, write a query and letter of introduction, run your freelance business, and more. Sign up today!

Here’s some of the bogus advice I’ve run across, and why you may want to break it — Renegade style.

1. Break This Rule: Blog posts should be very short — under 300 words.

This reminds me of the now-debunked advice that query letters must be under one page, which Diana and I addressed in The Renegade Writer. I had been following this advice to try to break into the women’s magazines with no success, and an editor at Woman’s Day took pity on me and let me know she liked to see more research in writers’ queries. I wrote up a 3-page query — and landed my first women’s mag assignment — my highest-paying assignment at the time. Three-page queries quickly scored assignments with Family Circle and Redbook.

I think the same thing will happen with the “short post” advice — people will start to realize that the bloggers endorsing it don’t necessarily know any more about it than they do. I have to say, I hate it when I’m drawn in by a great post headline and then the post is nothing more than a 250-word shortie — equivalent to a magazine FOB. I want information! I want substance!

Most of my blog posts are at least 800 words long, and Steve Pavlina, who has a hugely popular blog, regularly writes posts in excess of 3,000 words. So if you have a lot to say about a topic, don’t be afraid to say it. Just make sure that every word counts.

2. Break This Rule: The headline is all-important.

Sure, headlines are important. But you know what’s even more important? Good content. People don’t read blogs for the headlines…they read them to be enlightened, to be entertained, to learn something new. Headlines draw people in, but if you want them to come back, you need to deliver on the promises of those headlines. See Break This Rule #1 above.

3. Break This Rule: Find free images for your posts online.

I can always tell when a blogger has trolled the Internet looking for free photos because they end up posting images that look unprofessional and have only a tangential relationship to the content of the post. For example, a post on how to get more clients will have a candid photo of a middle-aged woman opening a birthday present. I guess getting clients is like getting gifts, but c’mon.

I understand that not everyone needs professional photography — for example if you’re running a personal blog — but if you’re one of the sixty bazillion bloggers looking to monetize your blog, would it hurt to drop a few dollars to make your posts look attractive and professional? I use iStockphoto to find images, and it costs me about $3.00 for each image — hardly breaking the bank, and I think you can see the difference.

Since I’ve been writing for magazines so long (14 years full-time at this point), I tend to view The Renegade Writer blog through the lens of a magazine professional. Print publications are not in the best situation right now, but one thing they do right is accompany their articles with professional, eye-catching photos.

4. Break This Rule: Establish your expertise on your About Me page by describing yourself as a social media rockstar, black belt writer, cooking guru, etc.

Well, yes — you want to establish your expertise. But what I’ve found is that many bloggers make inflated claims about how great they are. Here’s a hint: Most bloggers are not rockstars, ninjas, mavens, gurus, or black belts in anything other than martial arts.

This is a case of “show, don’t tell.” Instead of telling readers that you’re a black belt writer, how about listing some previous publications? Rather than saying you’re a social media rockstar, how about describing some of the results you’ve gotten for your clients? Results are what matter — not self-appointed titles. [lf]

Stacy asks: What should I blog about? I’ve thought about having a blog about my freelance journey, but I’m afraid it may be boring. Plus, I find it hard to write about myself. I’ve also thought about having a blog about short story writing, which I also pursue, but I haven’t had anything published and am far from it. But I’m afraid that editors and businesses won’t be interested in reading anything about that.

My initial reaction is that if there’s nothing right now that stands out to you as a good topic, and nothing you feel passionate enough about to blog about, why not hold off on the blog? It’s not like it’s imperative to have one. You could always just have your bio, portfolio, etc. on your website until you feel ready to blog.

Don’t get me wrong — I think having a blog is a great way to show prospective clients and editors what you can do, and I recently landed a client who saw my blog listed in the Top 10 Blogs for Writers contest. And having changing content on your site (in other words, a blog) will help you in search engine rankings.

But blogging is a huge commitment…I post two to three times a week every week, and have done so for the past five years. That’s over 600 posts on one subject! You don’t necessarily need to post so much, but you do need to post consistently. If you’re not passionate about what you’re writing about, it’s hard to stay consistent over the long haul, and nothing is worse than a stagnant blog that hasn’t been updated in months. You also need to publicize your blog to attract readers and links — incoming links are another way to boost search engine rankings — and it’s easy to fizzle out on that if you’re not committed to and motivated by your blog and your topic.

I’m not recommending that you forgo blogging for good — just until you hit upon a topic that you know you’d love to write about regularly.

I hope that helps! [lf]

• In 2006, I posted How to Write Faster: 7 Tips, which is one of my more popular posts, search-engine-wise. For even more advice on cutting down your writing time, I recommend How to Slash Your Writing Time in Half at Write to Done. I like Mary Jaksch’s tip to spend time ruminating about your article before you write; this is something I always do.

• Last week I posted Bust My Excuse: I’m Afraid of Interviewing — but what if you’re afraid because you don’t know how to conduct an interview? Kelly James-Enger offers some great tips for kicking interview ass in Five Techniques to Better Interviews on her blog Dollars and Deadlines. I especially like her tip to do your homework on the source so you don’t ask him questions that can easily be found on his website.

• Did you ever have an editor kinda-sorta offer you an assignment, but then you wait weeks and weeks for the article specs, turning down other jobs in the meantime? Jodee Redmond offers good perspective on this problem in How to Deal When a Client Drags Their Feet: Do You Wait It Out or Move On? on the Freelance Writing Gigs blog. Her take: Treat the editor like the guy who says “I’ll call you” after the first date: Don’t wait by the phone, and move on with your life.

• Just getting started as a freelancer after years of working the 9-5? You may be surprised to learn, for example, that you probably don’t need a resume or that you’re not just a writer but also an accountant, marketer, and administrative assistant. Learn about the life that awaits you in John White’s guest post Five New Realities for Freelance Writers on Carol Tice’s Make a Living Writing blog.

• Every post on Jennifer Lawler’s Finding Your Voice blog is simply wonderful, but for the writers I talk to every day who fear that a single mistake will blacklist them from writing jobs forevermore, I recommend What Friends Are For. As you’ll see, even seasoned writers make silly mistakes — and keep getting jobs. Jennifer has published more than 30 books, has been an agent, and is a sought-after editor. If she can fill out a client form incorrectly three times in a row and still have success like that, so can you!

Kim asks: If I wrote a blog post about a subject that I later edited (months or maybe even years later) and submitted to a magazine and the editor purchased it, do I need to tell the editor about the blog post? I have a couple of other blog posts I plan to edit and submit to various publications and I’m beginning to think maybe posting these topics to my blog was not such a good idea. I don’t have many readers or followers, mostly just close friends and family, but I wonder if I should inform an editor that I previously wrote about the topic and that it’s technically “out there” on my blog.

If you edited the pieces enough I don’t think you need to tell editors, but if the articles are essentially the same, you should let editors know because technically it counts as having been published, and many magazines like to buy First North American Serial Rights at least. You’d need to ask them to buy print rights but not online rights.

I’d wager that many editors won’t care if a similar piece had been published on a small personal blog. However, here’s a Catch-22: You wouldn’t want an editor to know that you published a similar piece years (or even months) ago because then it sounds like you’re offering the editor stale goods. I would recommend reusing the topics but rewriting the articles totally so you avoid the whole issue. You’ve probably grown in your writing in the past months and years anyway, so this way you can also apply your newfound skills to the new pieces.

Another reason to substantially rework pieces before submitting to magazines: You never know what an editor’s threshold is for revised articles. Years ago I wrote an article for an online health magazine, and then sold an article on the same topic to an online business magazine (with a business slant, of course). The markets were different enough (health versus business) that I figured this was safe to do, and to be even safer I interviewed all new sources and changed up the writing as well. And guess what? One of the editors saw the other article and she was pissed. I don’t think I was in the wrong but I still felt like a jerk, and I lost a good client to boot. So rework the pieces as much as you can — change the slant, find new research, interview different sources, change your packaging. You’re a writer, and spinning off new slants from old work is a key skill. If you think at all that you might be cutting it too close, ditch the article or offer a reprint instead of first rights. I’d rather miss out on a single sale than burn a bridge with a client.

I encourage all writers to be Renegade and do what’s right for them, but you still need to consider the viewpoint of the people who pay you money. It’s within your rights to get as much mileage out of your old research as possible, but be prepared to defend yourself if you overstep a line — and know that it’s hard to know where the line is, as I learned from experience.

I hope that helps! [lf]