CornerScribe

Archive for December, 2007

If you’re looking for a piece of free software to get something done, then check out Paperback Writer’s list. Wow, this is huge, and definitely worth bookmarking.

Here’s a list of top blogs for writers. If you’re looking for a new blog to add to your RSS feed (and who isn’t!), then this list is one to check out.

Here’s a contest to win $500, if you’re feeling lucky.

Check out this list to find a freelancing job.

Here’s another market listing from Paperback Writer. If you’re not already reading her blog regularly, why not?

Steve Pavlina has a great site. This recent post of his talks about Working for Free and why it can be good for your career.

I completely agree, and here’s why.

Provide Value, Make Money

Steve Pavlina talks about how your first step in making money should be to provide value. If you provide value to people, then making money should come relatively easily and naturally. (I’m paraphrasing quite a bit, check out his site for details)

If you think about it, it makes sense. If you have a product or a service that is useful in some way, then people will be willing to pay for it. How many times have you seen someone start off in the opposite direction? That is, they start trying to make some money without demonstrating that they have anything of real value. I see this a lot online. I’ll find an interesting “article” on a search engine only to find out that it’s a sales pitch. That’s fine, except that I’d like to know more about what the person has to offer before parting with some cash. Often the person doesn’t have any example content, blog, site, etc. to reference, so customers are being asked to buy site-unseen.

Making money online

There are several ways you can turn your “free” work online into a way to make money.

• Provide free content and monetize your traffic via ads (like adsense, chitika, or text link ads)
• Write paid reviews for someone like Blogitive or ReviewMe
• Use affiliate links, like Amazon’s
• You might sell a product or products off your site. CafePress and sites like it can allow you to create custom products.
• You might write an e-book and sell it as a download from your site. Lulu and other print on demand publishers provide these services.

Whichever route you choose, providing free content provides your readers with something of value, which will keep them coming back AND attract new readers. Many of your money-making opportunities depend on traffic, so that’s a positive move. In addition, if you’re providing good content, then your readers will be more likely to buy items you have for sale because they’re already familiar with the quality of your work.

My freelancing experience

Free work can also enhance your ability to make money from more traditional freelancing.

I’ve done some freelancing on E-lance, and the same thing applies. Very few people are willing to take a shot on you unless you have some previous customers and positive ratings. In essence, you have to have already proven your ability to provide value before you can ask for pay.

Online writing can provide a portfolio you can show off to potential customers. If you guest blog for others, then they can provide positive reviews for your work that can help you turn free freelancing into paid freelancing. Offer to do some free work for sites you frequent or for bloggers that you know online. Offer to do a little work for free in return for a review in your portfolio. A handful of positive reviews later, and you’ll be ready to search out paid work.

I’ve been struggling to keep up with everything, and we’re finally ready to tell everyone what’s up, and what’s been taking so much of my time and attention.

We’re pregnant!

I found out around the first of November. I’ve been excited and very distracted. I’m behind on everything; we just got the Christmas tree up last night. Shopping isn’t finished. Christmas knitting is WAY behind. I’m not writing regularly, and you know how well I’ve been keeping up with the blog.

I’m working on getting myself pulled together, but I’m more tired than usual, so there seem to be even fewer hours in the day now. I promise to post more regularly and keep you posted on how things are going.

Dosh Dosh has a terrific post, Flagship Blog Project. He outlines a week by week plan to start a new blog each month, and set them up to make money. I’ve tried a few monetization techniques here in the past, but I’ll be working on that more seriously over the next month or so. In fact, I intend to follow his 30 day cycle, for a few months at least, and see how it goes. If you’re already blogging daily, then give it a shot and post here about how you’re doing.

Daily Blog Tips has a good post on your blogging strategy, from stocking up on posts to writing for your target audience.

43Folders has a post on organizing your environment. There are some great general tips that can be applied to your writing life as well.

If you’re looking to kick back and relax, check out these Funny You Tube Videos from Zen Habits.

Well, I didn’t make 50,00 words this year, and surprisingly, I’m not really upset about it.

For one thing, I’ve got a pretty decent novel underway. I’m happy with it, all 30k or so words. Here’s my take on how things went and what worked (and what didn’t).

1. I went back and did some serious rewriting about a week in. That lost me two or three days and about six thousand words. However, it also made the novel a lot better.
2. I re-read the previous day’s work and did some minor edits along the way. It helped me get back in the “flow,” but overall, it was probably a waste of time.
3. I just didn’t spend as much time this year writing. I missed a few days entirely, and with a goal of almost two thousand words a day, you can fall behind very quickly.
4. I followed an outline, for about a week. Then, I realized there were problems and re-worked the whole thing. I’ve done the first 30,000 without an outline, but now I’m finding that I need one.

I do have something else going on that’s taking a lot of my time and attention, so I’ve been lax on writing and blogging. I’m not quite ready to talk about what’s going on, but maybe soon!

I should be back to a normal posting schedule now. So, please stick around. I have some interesting posts and changes to the site scheduled for December.