Holding Value as a Writer
First I want to say hello to all the NBT readers and a big thanks to Deb and Jennifer for inviting me participate.
Over the last several months, I’ve missed being in touch with my entrepreneurial and work at home side.
Recently I was approached with an issue that, to be honest, I wasn’t sure about. So often, I don’t trust my gut instinct because, well, I have been known to be wrong. And later, I find I often wish I had trusted my instinct.
A writer that I’ve grown to admire and have watched increase in value over the last couple of years wrote to me for advice. The advice was on what to charge for freelance writing. When the details were sent to me, I couldn’t help but notice the offer included some requirements that I would personally not feel comfortable with.
The offer was not only for lengthy articles written rich in specified keywords but they were requiring the articles be submitted to an ezine article warehouse.
Something about that doesn’t settle so well with me.
Forgive me if I’m wrong and by all means, if I am, please feel free to tell me so. But it seems to me if a person values their writing and wants to keep the value of their freelancing high - they shouldn’t allow their name and content to be victimized as duplicate content around the web.
I liken this to a celebrity or sports figure keeping the value of their signature high by not pandering it at every stop. Sometimes you just have to say no.
If you aspire to become a well paid writer, you must realize that you are the prize. You can name your terms, your price and conditions under which you will write.
I’ve written articles that are quick, easy and do not have my name associated with them for $10 - however, when I’m putting my name on the line, the terms become far more defined. I’ve learned that by taking pride in my name and my expertise in some areas - I can easily quote a price of $40 - $100 per article and get it.
Blogging for a Living: Is it Better to Work at Burger King?
Though they’re an awesome place for networking, I rarely visit writing and blogging forums anymore simply because I don’t have that kind of time. The other day however, I noticed traffic coming to my Freelance Writing Jobs blog from the Absolute Write Water Cooler. I popped in for a visit. Someone was looking for a blogging gig paying “fast”. Now, I can write a whole post about that inquiry alone, but instead I’d rather quote one of the responses:
Start your own blog, for love.
Put on Google ads, or a paypal donation button, or blogads.com. But blog for love, not money.
Some bloggers make a living at blogging. Most … don’t.
If you need money now, get a job. Burger King is hiring.
What the heck? Does this person not realize many people earn an admirable living blogging - and even support a family? I think Jennifer and I are proof of that. Sure blog for love, but don’t be afraid to blog for money too. If I didn’t start looking into paying blogging opportunities, I might not have landed my wonderful full time community manager gig. Blogging is the future of business. More and more corporations are hiring bloggers and social networkers to help promote their businesses. To tell someone not to blog for money is lame, wrong and is from someone who is clearly misinformed. Do blog for money. You might not make a mint at first, but it can lead to bigger and better things. Trust me, I know.
Now, I know many who scoff at network base pay because it’s low to start, but I wonder if these same people would turn up their noses at four figures a month with the same base plus traffic bonuses. Plenty of network bloggers earn thousands of dollars each month. I had one client who paid me several thousand dollars a month to update a couple of blogs on a regular basis. I think that’s a little better than a fast food salary. And yes, it pays fast. More traditional forms of writing pay sporadically - on publication or acceptance, whenever that may be. Blogging pays at the end of each month. Some private clients pay once a week. So I wouldn’t put on that fast food apron just yet.
Do blog for love, but don’t turn up your nose at blogging for money. It can lead to a very good living. Just ask Jennifer, Gayla McCord, Chris Garrett, David Peralty, Liz Strauss, Lorelle VonFossen or any number of well-respected professional bloggers.
Feel free to testify below!
Unofficial International WordPress Day
Hey, I had no idea, but today is Unofficial International WordPress Day. I noticed this before July 1 ended, so I can officially post about it. Oh, and yes it is still July 1 where I am. I’m one of those weird bloggers living in the Northwest. It seems like all my blog pals live on the East Coast… But I digress.
Oddly, earlier today I got into a lengthy discussion with a client about why I can’t stand Drupal as a blog platform, which believe me, is about four posts in itself, so we won’t go there. I’m trying to get said client to switch to WP, because I think it’s the most blogger friendly of all the platforms I’ve worked with. I also think that when it’s set up correctly, it’s a very nice reader-friendly platform.
Since I’m a big old fan of WordPress, but not the only blogger on the planet, I thought I’d put the question out there: Which blog platform do most of your clients use? Which is your favorite? Would you turn down a blogging gig if a client used a platform you hate?
I lied. That was three questions. Feel free to pick and choose.
Do you need to hit enter to be a good blogger?
This is sort of a blog chain of events. Last week I posted Do You Need A College Degree to Blog? Then Deb posted a reply of sorts; Do You Need to Be a Good Writer to be a Good Blogger?
I was thinking about Deb’s post, because the things that bug me about blogs, so much so that I quit reading, usually have less to do with the actual writing quality and more to with personal annoyances. If a post has some misspelled words, I can overlook it. Being a fan of weird random dashes, even when they’re not necessarily correct, I don’t mind oddball punctuation. If thoughts are sort of fuzzy, but the blogger still makes their point, or better yet makes me laugh, I’ll hang.
If a post has so many misspelled words that you can’t follow, or constant question marks where periods should be, yeah I likely won’t stick around, but I don’t see this too often.
What annoys me is when a blog is not user friendly due to lame little things. For instance, I HATE when people don’t hit enter. I expect spaces. Trying to make your readers blind, by making them scan walls of text for meaning is not cool, and I won’t do it.
I don’t like when people can’t be bothered with inserting links. It takes less than five seconds to insert a link. Stuff like http://www.lameblog.com looks so bad in a post. Why not just insert the link correctly. Non-inserted links don’t always drive me away, but they make me think twice about revisiting a blog.
Lastly, I hate all the darn acronyms in posts. I say this all the time, because frankly, I don’t even like them in emails. It looks lazy to me to use stuff like ROFLMAO, MTF, BF, and so on in a post when you could use words. Also, some of them make no sense (SOTMG or YBS for example). I don’t enjoy having to look up insane acronyms to see what you mean, and I won’t. I don’t mind acronym use in post comments. I think they’re ok if you’re talking about your mean MIL or an ASAP situation, but that’s about it.
These issues force me to leave a blog and never return. What about you? Is there something that bugs you more than lackluster writing skills?
Hello My Name Is: Spam
About 2 weeks ago I attempt to comment back to a reader at one of my WordPress blogs. I post a decent size comment, hit enter, and I’m popped up to the top of the blog. Weird; that never happens?
I scroll down and don’t see my comment. Hmmm. I try again and nothing. I feel uneasy, but all blogs have issues from time to time, so I head over to another one of my blogs, post a comment, and the same thing happens. Now I start getting a little nervous. I go to one of my favorite blogs that I don’t write and try to leave a comment - the same thing. I seemingly can’t leave comments anywhere.
Right away I do what you should not do about a blogging issue; I panic. I note that other people seem to be able to comment, so it must be me. In fact I thought it was my computer, on which I had recently downloaded some new software. I figured I messed up my computer somehow, so I try a system restore. I know; that makes no sense since it was an internet, not an actual computer issue, but as noted I panicked and was in the middle of a bad week to begin with. Of course system restore did nothing. Next I try posting comments on Blogger and Drupal platform blogs; which by the way I can do, so now I’m totally confused.
Finally, a very nice b5media co-worker tells me that maybe Akismet is sending me to spam. Well, finally an idea that actually made sense. This is why it pays to post issues at forums where other (more clear-minded) bloggers can suggest ideas. I check my spam comments and there I am, all spammy.
I email Akismet a support ticket and in a day they fix me up. That is until yesterday. The same thing happens; I can’t leave comments on any WordPress blog in the blogosphere. Do you know how frustrating this is for someone who spends most of their time either posting to or commenting on WordPress blogs? Pretty darn frustrating. If blogging is a huge part of your world, and you’re declared spam, it’s sort of depressing.
In any case, since this happened to me, and someone else I know, I figured I’d bring it up. Maybe save you some panic. If you’ve always been able to leave comments before, and suddenly can’t, maybe you’re also part of a system glitch. In this case head to Akismet and hit their contact form. Someone at b5media has also suggested emailing tech support for not only Akismet, but your blog network as well, which is another smart move.
Has this ever happened to you; twice, in the same month?
Blogging Detour: Music Now Playing
Do you listen to music while you blog?
I actually can’t blog without my music on, so there’s always something playing. Usually on my record player, because I’m a die hard LP sort of girl, but I also recently decided to get an iPod (shocking to all my friends), so lately I have iTunes going half the time.
Because I can’t blog without music going, I get curious about what other folks are listening to. That said, I’ll say what I’ve got going on, then you tell me about your music. Right now my current records (which are strewn about the floor) include:
- Little Queen - Heart
- A few Dead albums
- Goodbuy - Cream (I know, everyone hated that album, it’s my favorite though).
- Court & Spark - Joni
On my iTunes:
I actually have my thinking mix on there right now because I’ve had a lot on my mind. I guess the songs don’t make too much sense in terms of thinking, unless you’re me, but it will show you just how woefully behind the times my music taste is.
- Cowgirls in the Sand - Neil Young
- Strawberry Fields Forever - Ben Harper
- Hyacinth House - The Doors (the acoustic version, not the sappy studio version)
- I Got S**t & Corduroy - Pearl Jam
- Heroin - Velvet Underground
- Strange Currencies - REM
- Ruby Tuesday - Stones
- Root Down - Beastie Boys
- Three Hours - Nick Drake
- Sing - Travis
- Where’d You Go - Mighty Mighty Bosstones
- Blues Music - G-Love
- Jailhouse - Sublime
- Plus some random Bob Marley acoustic stuff
The mix above is good, because it sort of intermittently relaxes and wakes me back up. I’m not over or under stimulated. If I listen to all loud music while I blog, I want to get up, leave, and go to a show. If I listen to all chill music, well, I chill way too much and won’t blog well.
Um, does anyone else give this much thought to their blogging music, or is it just me? What are you playing right now? Or do you need quiet?.
Organize Your Bookmarks for Blogging Ease
No matter which bookmarks you like to use (I use both del.icio,us and my plain old browser bookmarks), you can save some time blogging, if you set them up in an organized way.
The method that works for one person, may not work for others, but I can share what works for me. I have a bunch of blogs and each gets two bookmark folders - one for basics and one for posts.
Example using one of my blogs, Declutter It:
The first basic bookmark folder is entitled “Declutter It” and has only three links in it; the blog’s homepage, my blog log-in, and the stats page.
My bookmark Blog Posts folder is a main folder and Declutter It is a sub-folder. In that sub-folder I have post folders titled like…
- Declutter - Post Ideas
- Declutter - Product Ideas
- Declutter - Link love (I use this as I find stuff that’s cool, when it’s full, I do a link love post).
- Declutter - Blogs to add (it’s nice to add to your blogroll sometimes).
- Declutter - Visual motivation (an ongoing series I add to).
If I have any promotions, contests, or special features, I add and delete those folders to my post folder as necessary.
All my blogs have their bookmarks set up like this, but personalized to fit the blog. For example, Offbeat Homes has a much bigger folder, because there are tons of home styles, so each type has it’s own folder. This makes it quick for me if I want to blog about glass houses vs. prefab; I just find the glass house post folder and see what I have in there.
Maintaining the bookmarks:
If you like using bookmarks, they won’t do you much good if you don’t keep them updated. Once a week, I go through mine really quick and delete any links I’ve used (and won’t need again) so I don’t waste time clicking on used links all the time. Also, I go through my feeds maybe three times a week, and I add new content links.
Of course I also have a network bookmark folder with all my social network sites in it, and another set up for ads (for personal blogs). In my case, once I got my bookmarks in an easy to search, easy to use format, I was able to speed up posting time, because I’m not always wondering where that one cool link went.
How do you organize all the links you need for your blogging gigs?
Get To Know You Question of the Week: Why Do You Like Blogging Better Than Other Forms of Writing?
Holy - what do you think of that long title?!
If you’re here, I’m going to assume that blogging is your writing format of choice, which begs the question, why? There are all sorts of writing projects you could be doing. How come you like blogging better than other types of writing? What’s the one major selling point of blogging for you?
My answer:
There are a multitude of reasons that I like blogging best, but if I had to choose one major reason, it’d be the social interaction. When I went full-time freelance, I was working only 1/4 of my time as a blogger. Most of my time was spent on other various writing projects, and there was very little social interaction. I almost went back to a full-time day job; in fact I did go back part time for a while. I got some random job at a flower nursery, because I just plain missed people. Being alone in my office writing articles and copy, is not a dream come true for me, I get fidgety and miss chatter with co-workers.
Once I started taking on blogging gigs more, and other projects less, I knew I could keep freelancing full-time, because the social aspects of blogging are abundant. Read more about my ideas behind the social aspects of blogging.
Now you:
Why do you like blogging better than other forms of writing? If you like another form of writing better, feel free to let us know why.
Do You Need A College Degree to Blog?
When people ask what I do (in the offline world) and I say “Blog” the person often looks confused, but once in a while someone will say, “Did you go to school for that?” Sometimes other writers will ask this same question on forums. The answer is no. I sure didn’t go to college for blogging.
Yeah, it’d be cool if there was a blogging major, but so far as I know, there’s not. As noted previously, I may not have started blogging had I not gone to college, but in general, blogging, and most writing in general, is free from the whole college degree issue.
I’ve written everything; magazine articles, web copy, proposals, business brochures, company handbooks, resumes, blogs, and more, and not once has a client asked, “Hey, do you have a degree?”
What do you need to blog?:
Of course you’ll need to like writing, or you’ll be miserable, but that’s sort of a given. Besides the basics that you need at any job - i.e. stuff like ethics, people skills, and time management skills, I think it all boils down to two main qualities; experience and personality. By experience, I mean experience in your topic. If your experience comes from college, fine. But your experience also may come from life, an employment experience, or a challenge you faced at some point. Personality is not a total requirement, but you’ll be a better blogger if you have a unique outlook on your topic.
You may disagree, but why I read a blog, is almost always for one of the above reasons - the blogger is smart about their topic, or has a unique personality, or both. I rarely keep reading blogs by blogger that don’t meet both.
In my case, I think that college did help me a bit in terms of being a better blogger. For example, I write a pregnancy blog, and the fact that I went to school for nursing helps. I know all that fancy science gibberish, and can rattle off meds and procedures. In other ways college was a total waste of time; considering what I do now. My minor was in technical professional writing, plus I have a degree in math, but I don’t feel that either have helped my blogging career. Trust me, no client will ever ask you jack about math. I keep waiting…
Life, volunteer, and job experiences have landed me far more blogging gigs than my college experience probably ever will.
What about you? What’s landed you more blogging work - college or life? Or maybe you think bloggers should have some sort of writing degree - if so let me know in the comments.
Batch Processing Your Blog
Last week all my child care help fell through, leaving me no childless work time. It sucked, because child care or not, I’ve still got a load of client blogs, some articles, and my own blogs to work on, only now, far less time to get it all done. On the up side, it made my brain start scrambling for solutions. On another up side, or maybe more the lucky side, Darren posted a very timely post that you may have seen; How Batch Processing Made Me 10 Times More Productive.
This was just the right post for me to read last week because it made me realize I go about blogging time a little backwards. What I normally do is estimate how much time I’ll need to spend on each project, or blog per week, then I divvy that time up. What I started considering after reading Darren’s post, is that maybe I should divvy time up first, and work blogs into the time frame I absolutely can afford, not the time frame I think I need.
Example: I have 6 blogs that need around 28 posts each per week, 1 blog that needs 5 posts a week, and 2 others that get around 7 posts a week. Previously, I’ve been thinking this way, “I NEED 50 hours a week of work time, and that includes posting, networking, all that jazz.” What happens when I think this way is I run out of time, and I’m working 50+ hours a week, which leaves me little free time.
Solution: For the last few days I’ve been timing my posts - how long it takes me to write them. I’ve also been logging my networking / other task time. (a simple hand timer works good for this). I realized that on a good day, when I’m in top notch shape, 28 posts take me around 4 - 5.5 hours to write, depending on the blog. That’s a mix of short and mid-length posts. If you do the math that works out to around 34 hours of writing time. If I tack on a good 8 hours of networking and other blog tasks, that’s still only 40-43 hours per week of total work time. I win some time if I use this system. Yay.
My new plan: Since I timed myself, I know what I can blog on a good day. I decided to allow time for blogs, not make time for them. I’m giving myself a set amount of time each week to post at each blog. I’ll just set a timer and work for the alloted time. If I get done great; if not, well that blog’s time is spent, and I better pick up the pace, right? Because clearly each blog can be managed in the set time frame. I think this move should save me time, and allow for more me time.
How do you divvy up blogging time? Do you allow a set amount of work time per blog or project?
If you haven’t seen it, you really should read the batch processing post linked above. It’s one of the best blogging posts I’ve read in a while.
