Last month, Jennifer Lawler wrote an excellent general copywriting copywriting and editing for universities adoption profile/”dear birthmom” letter writing (I’m starting up the website in a week or so) two e-courses Renegade Writer e-courses (taught by outside instructors) phone mentoring for writers query letter critiquing free query letter packet Review Copy Helper (a list...
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Tags: diversifying, freelancing, multi-tasking, multiple streams of income
Posted in Advice, Marketing, Observations, Personal yammerings, Rants, productivity | 4 Comments »
Think your peach defuzzer is the greatest product in the known universe, or rep a doctor who’s on the road to curing a formerly incurable disease? Then you’re probably signed up as an expert source on services like Help a Reporter (HARO) and ProfNet. I use these services as just one of many tools...
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Tags: HARO, profnet, Sources
Posted in Marketing, Public relations, Rants, Sources | 19 Comments »
I recently downloaded the free e-book The Zero-Hour Workweek by Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind. The title is a play off of The 4-Hour Workweek, the popular book by Tim Ferriss. The e-book is pretty inspiring, but when you get right down to it it’s a guide on how to start a blog on...
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Tags: e-courses for writers, writing e-courses, writing scams
Posted in Hooks & Crooks, Observations, Personal yammerings, Rants, Self improvement, Writers, productivity | 15 Comments »
Did you ever think it’s not the economy, of the toughness of the industry, or just plain bad luck that’s keeping you from flourishing as a freelance writer — but your own limiting beliefs? Many aspiring freelancers are wonderful writers with salable ideas, but they can’t break out of the writing-for-cheap (or worse, writing-for-free)...
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Tags: freelancing, query letter, writing career, writing courses, writing excuses, writing mentor
Posted in Advice, Motivation, Observations, Personal yammerings, Rants, Self improvement | 12 Comments »
Or have you? Last week a writer friend forwarded me a press trip invite she’d received (and declined) and wondered if I’d be interested in following up with the host since I had some interest in the locale. I gave the invitation a quick read. It seemed like a personal invitation, and the trip...
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Tags: getting invited on press trip, how to find press trips, invitations for press trips, press trip invitation, press trips
Posted in Advice, Public relations, Rants, Writing | 3 Comments »
I thought this post from 2006 was worth another look. Enjoy! A couple of things happened today that inspired this post. First, someone posted on a forum for professional writers asking for tips on how to get started as a freelancer. This, of course, caused many pro writers to become PO’d. (Why expect professionals...
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Posted in Advice, Rants, Rules, Writers | 10 Comments »
Three weeks ago, a writer (let’s call him Jack) e-mailed me asking for the contact information of the editor at a magazine I wrote for. I told Jack that I no longer write for the magazine and that the editor had changed since I last worked for them — but that the magazine was...
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Posted in Advice, Networking, Rants | 23 Comments »
A couple of weeks ago, someone posted a comment on this blog saying that in dissing content mills like Associated Content we “just don’t get it,” and bragged that she earns $1,200 per month on her articles on Associated Content and similar sites. (When I checked, I saw that the writer had over 1,000...
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Posted in Advice, Magazines, Money, Observations, Personal yammerings, Rants, Writing | 27 Comments »
Last week, I quit a writing project that was worth more than $10,000. When I got the project, I was coming off of a four-month famine, and I needed the dough. So I ignored the red flags. First, the expert co-author took so long playing hardball with the publisher that the deadlines were crunched....
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Posted in Book authoring, Observations, Personal yammerings, Rants | 13 Comments »
Every once in awhile I like to go through my journal to see what I was doing in this month in years past. Here’s what I wrote on May 29, 2007: I plan to either not write for again or to ask what we can do to make sure I don’t go through...
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Posted in Advice, Observations, Personal yammerings, Rants | 13 Comments »