Writers Unbound

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been thinking about some changing and refining. I’m trying to find a way to provide a resource that is actually needed, as well as one that is exciting to me.
In my little brainstorming sessions and web research, I’ve found many information- and resource-packed sites for freelance writers. (I’m listing some favorites at the bottom of this post.) These sites are organized, well-written, and faithfully updated. They cover everything from grammar tips, writing style, and prompts to job boards, query letters, and general freelance how-to. And they do it well.
For the sake of avoiding redundancy, I’m calling an official change in the focus of the Writers Unbound site. It’s been a bumpy last couple of months, both on the server end and for me as a writer; now is the perfect time to review and renew the vision. Here is the new Writers Unbound:

Writers Unbound is the site that gives you food for the freelance mind: old and new ideas and the people and books behind them. Writers need fresh input, mental challenges, new perspectives. None of us have time to dig it all out as we try to first survive and then succeed in the freelance writing world. Writers Unbound respectfully acknowledges the plethora of superb freelance writing sites and seeks, in a young, upstart kind of way, to provide a different kind of resource for those who write, freelance, read, think, grow, and want to keep doing so. Here is what you’ll find on Writers Unbound:
BIG IDEAS: Trends, theories, philosophies, movements summarized and (briefly) explained with key quotes, further reading suggestions, and where you’ll find it in real life.
BECOME AN EXPERT: Niche topics summarized with quick facts, resources, and related publications. You can be an expert at more than you think you can!
BIOGRAPHY: Learning from prolific producers, great thinkers, doers, and writers.
BOOKS UNBOUND: Overviews, summaries, short reviews, and critiques of classics and modern books.
The BUSINESS END: Management, office organization, resource documents, marketing ideas, thoughts on professionalism, and streamlining practices for the entrepreneurial writer.
WRITING LIFE UNBOUND: Hacks, alternatives, and improvements for the writing life, freelancing practice, inspiration, style, and online, print, and publishing options.

I hope this site will be able to meet some of those needs that we tend to overlook. My desire is to help you, the writer, keep your mind full of fresh ideas and inspiration as you find those jobs and set up your freelance world, so once you sit down to write you’ll find a wealth of material waiting.

Let me know what you think! And, as always,

Make it a good day.

Great Freelance Writing Sites:

• Freelance Writing Jobs. Great job boards and articles.
• Sparkplugging. Work at Home Resources and Community.
• Write to Done. Writing, freelancing, and productivity.
• Lost Art of Blogging. A guide to proper blogging.
• Queen of Kaos WAHM blog. WAHM help (great podcasts!).
• Freelance Writing.com. All the basics and more.
• About.com: Freelance Writing. How-to, jobs, resources, tutorials.
• Absolute Write. Interviews with successful freelancers.
• About Freelance Writing. All things freelance, jobs, articles, courses.

So I’ve been laying low lately. Not purposefully, just kind of by default. It’s been one of those times of rethinking many decisions I’ve made and goals I’ve set. Am I going in the right direction? Am I making any progress as a writer? Am I choosing the right jobs? Sending in the right applications? Making the right contacts?

These kind of questions - the self-doubt that plagues not just writers, but all of us people at sometime - have been keeping me from the prolific writing production I dream of and keeping me stuck in the molasses-slow movement I hate.

Know the feeling? Too many ideas can be as paralyzing as no ideas at all. Writer’s block doesn’t just come from a lack of inspiration, but from an inundation of it. Still I can’t (and don’t want to) blame my lack of movement on anything other than myself. If I can take responsibility for the lack of progress, then I can make the changes I need to. I can move forward.

I want to make Writers Unbound a site that offers something different. The only problem is, I’m not yet sure what that is yet! There are so many great freelance writing sites out there offering job boards and helpful tips and articles and resources and links and databases and feedback and everything a freelance writer could need.

My question is simple: is anything missing in the online writing world? If so, what is it? What do we freelance writers need that isn’t yet being provided?

I’m open to ideas and suggestions; actually, I’m kind of desperate for ideas and suggestions. I’ll be coming up with my own, but if anyone has a comment on a black hole in the writing world, I’d like to know what it is so Writers Unbound can try to fill it.

Make it a good day!

There are, literally, hundreds of blog communities out there screaming for your writing ability. Be a little discriminating about which ones you choose, however, and you can actually earn money (faster). Here’s my list of good potential sites. My criteria is pretty simple: 1) legitimate, non-spammy content and 2) cash up front or very high ad revenue sharing percentage. Or both. I’m not picky.

• Mahalo. I haven’t written for Mahalo, but they are in my top five of the “next blogging community sites to try out” list. (Okay, I don’t actually have a written down list with that long of a title… but mentally, well, yes, I must admit that I do…). The Mahalo deal is a little different; it’s not technically a blog you’re writing, it’s a Search Engine Results page (SeRP in Mahalo-speak). Basically, you apply to be a Greenhouse Guide, write an SeRP from one of the available titles, submit it for consideration, and get paid if it is approved. The pay rates vary pretty wildly: from a quick $10 or $12 up to $250 for (much) more involved pages. It also looks like, depending on which category you want to write for, you might have to contact particular editors for approval even after you’re approved as a Guide. I’m not sure. Once you’re logged in as a Guide, it may all be wide open. Anyway, it’s worth applying for and you could definitely pull together some quick cash because it’s a lot more researching and organizing information than spinning beautiful prose from the top of your head. Good gig for when your brain is mushy.
• Content Quake. I’m waiting to hear back on an application I submitted a few days ago. There are quite a few blogs in need of a writer, covering lots of different topics: American Idol, Home and Garden, Technology, Digital Cameras, Entertainment, Reality Cooking, Single Parenting… and many more. Some of the blogs are already up and had a previous writer and need someone new. Some are new blogs for which you would be the original writer. Content Quake pays per post (though they don’t say how much), uses Wordpress (always a good sign), and the application is quick and simple. The overall feel of the community is clean, fresh, and professional. I hope they like me.
• Bright Hub. This is a great, professional blog community with a goal to “share knowledge about how the simplest scientific idea evolves into tomorrow’s technology.” That whole “scientific” and “technology” aspect is not going to pull me in, as I have not enough expertise in either area to write consistently about it. I guess I could go back to school and try for a degree in physics or something, but that kind of misses the point, doesn’t it? However, for those of you who do know something about science, or technology, or science and technology, or some other, unnamed combination of the two, this is a great place for you. They have clear Writer’s Guidelines, pay $10 per post of 300 to 750 words, plus future revenue sharing (rate not specified, nor when “future” begins), and the application won’t take very long.
• Wise Bread. I’m an avid Wise Bread reader, and their writers consistently produce well-researched, well-written, in-depth articles. We’re not talkinga bout chintzy 500-word posts here. These people produce good content on a regular basis. One day I will be like them… Ahem. Okay. The deal is no cash up front or pay per post, but you getr 100% of the ad revenue from the pages that host your articles. Wise Bread, or Killer Aces Media, the parent company, makes their money from the ad revenue on the shared, community pages (topic lists, introductory pages, etc.). Pretty good deal. You can read through their guidelines for application here and decide if it’s a fit for you. Let me know if you get in…
• Parenting Squad. If you love Wise Bread and you have kids, you will love Parenting Squad. It’s part of the Killer Aces Media network, too, so you’re going to find the same high-quality articles, just across a totally different set of topics.You’re also looking at the same payment set-up as Wise Bread. See their guidelines for application here. Not surprisingly, very similar to the ones that Wise Bread has. Imagine that!
• Demand Studios. Not technically a blog, either, Demand Studios is the parent company of eHow.com. Now you can go to eHow.com and join as a writer and (potentially) make money from traffic revenue. Or you can go to the Demand Studios site, apply from the back-end, and earn $15 per how-to article. Sure, it’s not a huge amount and sure, you could potentially make more from the ad revenue generated over time. But sometimes a little cash now is a whole lot better than a shadowy big pile of cash in the distant future. There are lots of titles to choose from, once you’re approved as a writer, though some are kind of, um, obscure. Still, $15 is $15. If you know something about anything, you can write some of these.

That’s it for today. More to come, as I continue to check into all the blogging job options out there. Remember, you don’t have to write anything for $2 per post. Great content can get great pay, you just have to dig a little more.

Make it a good day.

Steps to Blog Writing that Works

1. Produce longer content. Numbered lists, short posts with big photos, a little linking and one-sentence reviews with the embedded YouTube videos: short content. I (obviously) produce posts like this. I do lots of numbered lists here. I do quite a few shorter posts over at my other site. But I try to balance the little stuff, the shallow stuff, with some big, deep, heavy, valuable, longer content. Actual articles, with good quotations and relevant research cited, or with a logical outline and argument, development of an idea longer than one paragraph. You know. Stuff like that. Like those essays you had to write in college. Opening paragraph with thesis, main idea, supporting ideas, evidence, refutation of opposing ideas, summary, conclusion… Yikes. Seems like a lot, and sometimes it is. But if you think about it and give yourself time to do a bit of brainstorming and researching, and you’re used to popping out regular (shorter) posts, you can do longer posts as well. Just think of them as a series presented in a single post… might help.
2. Link within context. Don’t make a big deal out of your links and don’t link to irrelevant junk that you haven’t really looked over yourself. Link through the appropriate (couple of) words within the related sentence and move on. If people like what you’re writing about, are interested, and want to read more, they’ll follow. If not, being flashy and obvious isn’t going to convince them. And if visitors try a link or two and find them to be boring or broken, well, you’ll have a lot of work to convince them to try again.
3. Use professional pictures. Or at least professional-looking pictures. There are thousands available with Creative Commons Licenses, many of them taken by actual professional photographers. Some are taken by talented people who just like to take photos and let other people use them. With that great a wealth of photos around, there’s no excuse for using sloppy looking photos or graphics with your posts. And as far as using your own, that’s great if you know how to make them look decent as well. Crop the unnecessary edges, lighten or darken if needed, fix the red-eye. Don’t get too crazy happy with the effects, with one caveat: turning a not-so-great photo into black and white will not make it a better photo, but it will make lots of people think it is a better photo. Just so you know.
4. Give proper credit. For photos, for research, for data, for statistics, for opinions, for graphics, for videos, for music, for articles, for ideas. Sure, not all of that stuff is copyrighted and you could probably get away with using and not crediting more obscure items, but it would still be 1) unprofessional, 2) stupid, and 3) just wrong. So don’t do it. Give credit where credit is due.
5. Take one idea further. Instead of trying to promote fifteen ideas in one post or article, grab one idea - the one that is most exciting to you as you are writing - and just expand it. Write about it. Look at it from every angle. Give examples. Give illustrations. Draw a graph. Do some research. Brainstorm. Get deeper with one idea. By the way, since I just preached about giving proper credit, I want to come clean that this idea of taking one idea further came from a post I read several months ago. I just spent ten minutes searching for it and can’t find it… it was a guest post on a productivity blog, but that’s all I can remember except for the (well-developed, single) idea of the article. So, to the writer of that article, my apologies for lack of specific credit. If I find it, I’ll come add it.
6. Use recurring themes. You don’t have to use memes or join groups, though that’s a good way to get a recurring theme going. Come up with your own, something in keeping with the focus of your blog (you do know what that is, don’t you?). People like what’s familiar and they like knowing what to expect. If you have a great post every Monday about, um, meringue pies, then you will get a following who come to your blog simply because they know and love the Monday Meringue Pie Post.
7. Pick a side. Don’t be wishy-washy. Say what you mean, say it clearly enough that people know what you mean, and then back yourself up. Accept that there are enough people with enough diversity accessing the internet that you are guaranteed to displease someone, somewhere, on something you say. That’s okay. You don’t need to be mean, rude, disparaging, or get personal: you do need to be honest and have integrity. I’m drawn to writers who are honest even when I disagree with what they say. I just like the honesty and the willingness to put a view out there even though they know they’ll end up with lots of negative comments or questions simply because they stated their opinion strongly. I don’t like pandering. Nobody does.
8. Be professional. As mentioned above, don’t be “mean, rude, disparaging, or get personal”; it is unprofessional, impolite, and juvenile. If you’re old enough to drive, you’re old enough to learn how to express yourself without using profanity, personal attacks, and/or inappropriate expressions. Sure, everybody is going to differ a bit on what’s appropriate and what isn’t, and obviously the focus, content, and audience will differ from blog to blog. But you know when you’re crossing a line, and so do your readers. When your writing is emotionally fueled, free from all logic, and backed up by evidence that is personal and subjective, you’re probably deep into unprofessional territory.
9. Use a consistent format. Set your standards for your paragraph headings, image sizes, links, quotations and block quotations, and other little niceties of blog posting. Once you’ve decided on what you like, stick with it. It’s annoying when the format of posts across a single blog keeps changing, annoying enough to make me quit reading.
10. Throw in some extras. Give people good resources that you’ve found. Offer tips. Offer ideas. Offer the research sites for further investigation into the subject you’ve just posted about. Offer the sites you’ve found that present completely opposing views. Go a bit above and beyond in what you write about, how you write, and how you respond to your readers. “Extras” can be as particular and personal as you want them to be. They don’t necessarily have to be products, or freebies, though of course people like those, too. Just take what you’re doing, and then take it a little further. Do that consistently. People will come to quality.

Make it a good day!

Does Slow and Steady Still Win the Race?
I finished my first book on the list, Emma Brown by Clare Boylan (and Charlotte Bronte). I’ll post a review soon. A quick summary: I enjoyed it, but not as much as I’d hoped to. It’s worth a read, but it’s not worth putting your current read down for.

I’m working my way through My Several Worlds by Pearl S. Buck and Getting Things Done by David Allen. A strange simultaneous combination, I know. That should be one kicker of a review. I’m further along in Allen’s book, which has lots of sections I feel comfortable just skimming. Maybe you don’t count that as actual reading, but I do! And it’s my party… so, um… oh, never mind.

The Buck book is slower going. It has lots of words on lots of pages. Itty bitty text. Not that I’m complaining. I’ve just gotten lazy and dependent on bolded paragraph headings and little illustrative graphs and charts every three pages or so. I love Buck’s writing, however. Part of the slow pace is simply that everything she says is so good. I keep folding down page corners and highlighting paragraphs so I can find them later to muse as meditative and quotation material. At this rate, I’ll be quoting about a paragraph from every other page.

It’s a very different experience than reading Allen’s book. The much-touted GTD concept is smart and logical, but it’s so common sense that sometimes I just feel like Allen is coming up with ways to say the same thing so he can fill up a whole book about the GTD method. It’s not that complicated, but it’s over-explained. (Hence, the skimming.)

Enter Pearl S. Buck who, in the midst of a simple story about one childhood day in China, manages to make these incredibly wise and pithy observations about culture, life, government, character… This woman packs her words so full of meaning that I slow down to avoid missing any of it.
It’s worth the slow progress. Emma Brown was a quick read, and the other Allen book I have on my list should go equally fast, so I hope to catch up and still be successful.

I’ll let you know.

Make it a good day.

More on the July Book Blow Out:
from The Book Stacks: Where’s Your Book Set? Meme and Book BlowOut Update.
from Blue Archipelago: Book Review of Matrimony by Josh Henkin.
My Reading List.

Applying for new jobs is very important for freelance writers. It’s our lifeline, our income, the food on the table… No new jobs, no steady jobs = no money. No money = sad (and hungry) freelance writer.

The time taken in applying for new jobs can keep us from the work we already have waiting. Which one is more important? Money now, or money later? Obviously we don’t want to lose the clients we already have, so we need to meet those deadlines with productions of excellent quality. Keep ‘em begging for more. In the meantime, though, we don’t want to miss the opportunities out there. The answer is to do both: get your work done for your current clients and be sure to search the job boards and put in the applications, submit the queries, send in the manuscripts. It’s all about streamlining.

1. Take half an hour and update your resume, then save it in three different places: first, as a document on your computer, saved in a format that anyone can open. A pdf file is usually acceptable, or a rich text format. Save it on your computer in a couple of formats, if you’d like. Second, as a publicly accessible document on your website or blog. If you have only a blog, not a full website, you probably have the option to create separate, static pages. Put a link to it on your contact information, your about sidebar information, your profile… wherever you can on your web space. Finally, save it in some web-based document holder such as Google docs online. This way it’s easily accessible for you from any computer.
2. Next, pin down your top five areas of expertise. You should already know these. If you don’t, now is the time to figure them out. What do you write about most? What do you want to write about most? What do you know the most about? You don’t have to niche yourself into a corner, but you want to be prepared with specific writing samples for the different jobs you might apply for. You can’t be ready for anything, but you can be ready for the subjects you are most likely to notice and find appealing.
3. Polish up one article for each area of expertise. These will serve as your writing samples. They could come from anywhere: a magazine article, a longer blog post, something from your own website, from someone else’s website, from a client project. Anything you wrote can be your sample writing. Choose the best you have, somewhere in the 500 to 700 word range. (It’s usually faster to trim down than to add more.) Edit the articles you choose, take out irrelevant or outdated information, and put your information at the top. Save each as a separate document, clearly labeled so you can find it; title it something like “writingsample.education” for your education writing sample. You get the idea.
4. Finally, put together a 1 to 2 paragraph biography/summary about yourself with a picture and current links to your writing. You won’t need this for every application, but it can be the extra little bit that puts you ahead of all the other applicants. It’s funny, but in this telecommuting world we still have a keen curiosity about what people look like. Come on, admit it. Aren’t you disappointed when there is no photo to be found on the profile page? Yeah. Save this bio with photo in the three places you saved your resume.

Now, when you hit the job boards and find some likely leads, you have your resume ready to send or link to, your writing samples handy, and a professional bio to add a little icing to the freelance cake. And it won’t take nearly as long, so you can get back to the projects already waiting.

Image Credit: JulyYu at Flickr.

I’ve pulled together my not-very-ambitious reading list for this July Book Blow-Out Challenge. I am only going for 6… 5, really, if you don’t count Mr. Brown. Since July is already half over (wow. July is already half over), that’s ambitious enough for me. I’ll be writing and posting reviews of the books I read over at SisterWisdom. I’ll link from here as I complete them.

I went for it and spent the $29.99 plus tax for the big 2008 edition of The Writer’s Market. I should have bought it when it first came out, but I wasn’t quite ready to commit myself at that point. Now I’ve got it and 2008 is half over.

So the question then: Is it worth it?

I bought the book thinking that it got me a free subscription to WritersMarket.com. Turns out, you only get that if you get the Deluxe Edition for some $50.00. I hadn’t purchased the Deluxe Edition, so I still had to spring for the WritersMarket.com subscription: $29.99 for the year or $3.99 by the month.

Right now I’m just on a by-the-month basis with the WritersMarket website. I want to try it out and see if it’s worthwhile. I don’t mind paying the $30 if it will generate good information, more than is available in the book.

I love having the actual book, a hard copy of all these resources and possibilities. The articles at the front of the book are great and, in my opinion, worth the money. They include three informative pieces on “The Basics” and a Query Letter Clinic (which was kind of obvious, I thought). The really helpful pieces, I think, are the five “Personal Views” articles/interviews and the six “Beyond the Basics” pieces. One of them includes a huge chart of freelance price comparisons. Another covers how to use your old material and ideas to create new, sellable material.

It’s a big book, with the listings in sections you expect: Book Publishers, Consumer Magazines, Trade Journals, and Contests, as well as Literary Agents, Canadian Book Publishers, Small Presses, Newspapers, Screenwriting, Playwriting, and a section on Greeting Cards.

Many of the magazines are online; however, you won’t find all the Writer’s Guidelines available on their websites. That’s when having the big book is good, and having a subscription to the site is even better.

If you’re only going to get one, go for the site subscription. It’s regularly updated with new/edited listings (today: 74 listings changed in the last 7 days), a Market Watch column, and resources like an Agent Q&A (you can submit questions) and Expert Advice (articles from experts to help you get published). If you’re not sure, try it for a month. Right now they’re offering 30 days free, but I think you have to sign up for a full year to take advantage of that offer.

Both the book and a year’s subscription to the site are kind of a hefty investment for a struggling freelancer; I understand that. But there’s something important and confidence-boosting to take yourself seriously enough to get the tools you need. You might not need these particular tools, but I’ve found them helpful. Worth the price. And hey, in 2009 when the new edition comes out, I can use this one to hold down all my drafts and acceptance letters…

Make it a good day.

Image Credits: GETA.80 at Flickr.

I originally thought to make this post a list of 13 different podcast sites, each with their own collection of podcasts. You could listen for days.

I decided to narrow it down a bit. Like my productivity post of yore (two days ago), this post should help you save some time by pointing you straight to the best. We spend enough time wading through information. Of course, if you like what you hear from these links, you can browse the various archives and get more. Wading is always an option. But today, maybe it isn’t a necessity.

• From I Should Be Writing, an interview by guest host Christopher Lester with John Scalzi, blogger extraordinare.
• A 2-Part podcast series on Socializing from Business English Pod.
• I’m a big fan of Holly Lyle on Writing. Her podcasting is relatively new; I recommend listening to Episode 1: The One with the Fangs . (You’re intrigued, admit it. Go ahead and click on the link. You know you want to find out about the fangs.)
• And since one podcast from Ms. Lyle just ain’t enough, I recommend Episode 5: Originality vs. Uniqueness, and Other Goodies.
• A nice look at Writing Short from FreelanceWriting.com. Great for regular blog writers and short content producers.
• Okay, these are all on one page and they’re all good, so I’m just going to recommend them all. Roy Clark’s Writing Tools podcasts. They’re up to #30 out of 50 now. You could start at #1 and just work your way up, or go straight to my favorite tips: #10 (Cut big, then small), #16 (Seek original images), and #28 (Put odd and interesting things next to each other).
• Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips is entertaining, educational, and brief. Go listen to the Top 10 podcasts (scroll down to the bottom of the page).
• The origin of the spork (kind of) is here, at Podictionary. Go listen to it. It’s interesting. You’ll get hooked and want to listen to more. Soon you’ll fill your conversation with vague etymological references.
• Writing Excuses offers a lot, but I think you should start by listening to Episode 17: This Sucks and I’m a Horrible Writer, regarding writer’s block and that self-defeatist attitude we get sometimes. You know the one. Go kick it in the head, listen to the podcast, then continue writing brilliantly.
• On the business side of things, Jim Degerstrom offers us a podcast about Website Writing for Profit, something freelancers can always stand to learn more about.
• An insider’s view that is fascinating to me, because it’s not from the writing insider but the publishing insider: Slush Pile Confessional, by the publisher of Renards Menagerie. Listen to Episode #3 including How to Write a Good Rejection Letter. Aaaah.
• From the radio show “A Way with Words,” you might check the latest (as of this writing) which discusses blogs. Greg reads 900 blogs. I thought I read a lot of blogs.
• And from The Writing Show, it’s a toss-up between Monetizing Your Blog with Nick Wilson of Performancing.com.

That’s all for now. Make it a good day.

Image Credit: Beard Papa at Flickr.

Writing is fun. Editing is. Period. It is necessary. It is painful when someone else edits your manuscript. It can be painful when you edit your own, but lots less embarrassing. You can over-edit, of course, but I think under-editing is more of a problem, especially in the age of insta-publishing that online media has given us. Write a post, press a button, voila: my words are there for everyone. More often than I’d like to admit, I’ve scrolled back through the post I just produced and found a few typos (the most minor grievances) and sometimes just badly stated ideas, confusing sentences, or a total lack of coherence. I knew what I was talking about, but I failed to communicate it.

It’s hard to pause long enough to read through a piece objectively, spot the errors (especially the more subtle ones) and correct them. It’s worth it. A careful read and a few corrections can make a huge difference to the client who receives your piece, or to the readers who frequent your blog.

The basics, of course, are obvious. Correct spelling and right use of punctuation marks are the very basic requirements for decent writing. This includes eliminating those multiple exclamation marks (one is enough, I promise) and using the dash correctly. The second level on the editing ladder is making sure your grammar is correct. No singular nouns with plural verbs. No run-on sentences or fragments (unless you did it on purpose).

As writers - professionals in the field of letters and words - we should know these basics and implement them flawlessly. Most of us do know them. But we get a little rusty. We forget which words to capitalize, or when to use “which” and when to use “that.” More often, we get a little hurried. If someone read our piece back to us, we would catch the mistakes. That’s why we have to implement the self-discipline and force ourselves to take a precious ten minutes and do that editing.

Why does this matter? Because writing as a way to make a living has expanded into worlds that Strunk and White never imagined. The new expansion means that exclusive is out and inclusive is in, and whenever a field becomes more inclusive it becomes less professional. Inclusion is not necessarily a bad thing, but it needs balance. Newcomers to the world of professional writing need to find good examples of brevity, clarity, and correctness. We need to be those examples, and it has to start with the smallest pieces we write.

Go edit something! Make it a good day.

Image Credits: Visentico / Sento on Flickr.