50 Ways for Writers to Find Article Ideas
One of the joys (and frustrations) of being a freelance writer contributing to multiple magazines, newspapers, and websites is the need to come up with a constant flow of new ideas for articles.
This is not always an easy task by any means—often it seems downright impossible—so we’ve compiled a list of ways to find articles almost anywhere. Continue Reading
That’s Not What I Thought I Wrote!
“Um… what did you mean here?”
Those words make every writer flinch, and every writer who gets feedback from others hears those words at some point. They can signal something as minor as a forgotten preposition or as major as having a section that doesn’t explain itself well. Once the problem’s pointed out to you, it’s as obvious as a huge red zit without concealer. How could you have possibly missed that?!
Easy. When you read it yourself, you read what you meant to say rather than what you actually wrote. Everybody does it. It’s unavoidable.
What you can do is minimize it.
Pare a Phrase to Paraphrase: Correctly Use Paraphrases In Your Writing
“Drat!” echoes in your mind. You’ve found superb sources for what you’re writing, chock-
full of information you would absolutely love to use. How do you paraphrase the
information?
First, why should you paraphrase? If you use someone’s information and its wording as if
it is your own, it is plagiarism. If you use someone else’s unique information and do not
credit it, it is plagiarism. Plagiarism is illegal. It also tends to have nasty side effects on your
reputation, be it for work or school.
How to Win Any Job on eLance, oDesk or Guru.com
As an employer with over 30 staff at Interspire, most of the time when I need something done I can call on a staff member in the office and they will take care of it for me. However, sometimes I need the skills of an experienced freelancer for one-off jobs, such as writing a user guide or putting together a product overview video in Flash. In these situations I turn to freelancers on eLance, oDesk or Guru.com.
After posting a job ad, the responses start to come in within a few hours. 95% of the time the candidates have no idea how to reply to the job ad and will either send over:
Reslanting and Reselling for Writers
It was one of the most brilliant article ideas you’ve ever had. You sat down and wrote up a beautiful query letter, tailored it perfectly to the publication you were targeting and sent it off. Now to sit and wait to receive the assignment from the editor.
The reply comes faster than usual but instead of containing a word count and a deadline it’s…the form rejection letter.
It wouldn’t normally be a big deal except the article was about a niche topic and this was the perfect magazine to publish it.
Time to toss the idea and move on, right? Wrong. It’s merely time to re-examine it and consider other ways it could be written.
Tips for Staying Ahead of Your Freelance Writing Work
While having a regular freelance writing gig is nice, can you keep up with the ongoing need for fresh content?
Can you balance the workload with other projects?
Say you have a client who has you blogging weekly or even daily. Have you found it easy to come up with simultaneously original and useful content each and every week or even every day? In some saturated niches, it’s not always easy producing regular content.
Here are some tips you can use to to blunt the edge of writing dry spells, if they happen–or prevent them altogether.
Before starting this post, I had not completed a single article or post in over four weeks–my longest dry-spell since I started to take blogging seriously in 2005. This was mostly due to recently getting into non-writing and long-term writing projects. So while I did earn some income, my concern was for what would happen when those projects ended. A creative dry spell has a habit of perpetuating beyond control if you don’t do forcibly do something to get out of it.
Entering the Unknown: Success as a New Freelance Writer
The idea of freelance writing had always been appealing to me. Although my background in fitness and nutrition prepared me more for personal contact. After a few years spent in the gyms and working in academia, I knew I wanted to help people, not one-on-one, but through my writing.
Unlike many there was no leap of faith involved in my decision to begin working towards my goal. To avoid missing a once in a lifetime opportunity, I left my office job and set off on an adventure to live abroad for a couple years due to an assignment with my husband’s employer. With the language barrier and those ever frustrating document issues, I had no plans to work in our new city. Fortunately, this gave me the perfect opportunity to launch my freelance writing career.
It took me a while to get my ducks in a row, toughen my skin and start tackling the process of learning about freelance writing and blogging. I never once thought it would be easy, but I also soon realized there was a lot I didn’t know.
These are some questions I ask myself on a daily basis and some answers I’ve come to discover through both my external research and that all-important internal reflection about my desire and will to write.
Continue Reading
The Accidental Freelance Blogger
If you’d asked me on January 1st what my plans for this year were, the word “freelancer” wouldn’t have appeared.
No, I was going to launch a wildly successful weblog, make a fortune from Google AdSense, and sign a six-figure book deal…
…I’m not quite there yet.
But I have managed to arrive somewhere wholly unexpected. I’m earning money from staff-writing on two blogs, both major players in their niches (Diet Blog and Daily Writing Tips) and my own blog has a small but regular readership. I’ve made about $800 so far; not “quit the day job” money, yet, but enough to make me realize that freelance blogging could be a viable way to earn a living.
You might well have a blog, though perhaps it’s a personal one based around a hobby or passion, rather than a professional one. And since you’re reading this on Freelance Switch, I’m guessing you have some interest in freelancing. If you’ve read through the “Getting started” articles, if you spend hours staring at your cubicle walls and dreaming up your next blog post (or typing away on the sly), and if you’re waiting, waiting, waiting for that first job, first client, first check, you might be closer than you think. Here’s how to fall into freelance blogging by accident… Continue Reading
Shooing Your Work Demons: Time-Wasting Activities
Whether you freelance or not, if you’re like many working adults, you probably find yourself wishing there was more time in the week. If you work at home, time has an unusual way of slipping by. (I’m probably less productive now than when I worked in an office somewhere, though there are several other factors at play.) At the end of the week, you might be wondering why you didn’t get more work done, as might your clients!
Recognizing Your Work Demons
With all the web technologies out there, it’s tough for web workers in particular to keep up, and sometimes bad online habits can become very addictive. These could be some of the things that are holding you back from freelance success. Continue Reading
4 Steps to Create a Great Pitch and Sell Your Writing
One of the constant struggles of freelance writing is finding work, and gigs in the print world (and, increasingly, online) require writers to pitch their stories to editors.
As a freelance writer, your pitch is your greeting card, your foot in the door, and, hopefully, your meal ticket. Because editors don’t usually have time to review full articles, those queries will likely affect the bottom line more than your writing itself.
That said, it pays to know how to sell yourself and your ideas: in other words, how to quickly craft compelling pitches.
The Profitable Copywriter: an Interview With Ed Gandia
Creative careers work in magical ways. Take Ed Gandia, for example. The Georgia resident was working in sales and always wound up working for companies with small or no marketing budget. He never thought that he could be the one creating the marketing collateral.
Then he fell into copywriting, and the rest is history. Now Ed, 36, runs his own copywriting business along with www.TheProfitableFreelancer.com to inspire other copywriters to make good money doing what they love.
Ed leveraged his strong background in sales to enhance his career as a copywriter. Prior to launching his copywriting and consulting business, he was a senior account executive with Constructware, an on-demand construction software company. During his five-year tenure there, he created and implemented a marketing and sales program that helped revive a software product and boost its sales by more than 500 percent.
Now Ed’s a copywriter and consultant specializing in technology—and he’s earning big bucks doing it. All the same, Ed has got a passion to help other creatives earn great money, and I wanted to find out how he’s doing it. Continue Reading
High Octane Freelance Writing
The engine in a NASCAR racecar produces, on average, more than 750 horsepower. That’s more than twice the horsepower of most production engines on the street. You wouldn’t guess it, but NASCAR engines are very similar to street engines. They use the same cylinder bore centerlines as street engines, they have the same number of cylinders, and they start out their lives the same size as street engines.
A NASCAR Lesson
During the building process, however, a NASCAR engine changes radically. It grows to about 358 cubic inches, a full 20% larger than most street engines. A NASCAR engine has a radical cam profile that makes intake valves easier to open and holds them open longer. A NASCAR engine’s subsystems are all designed for high temperatures and blazing speeds.
A NASCAR engine is almost exactly like a street engine in the beginning. What makes the difference?
A heck of a lot of hard work.
The same is true of freelance writing. Most writers have some talent. Only the best, however, have what it takes to race with the best. So, how do they do it? How can you boost your writing horsepower and pull ahead of the pack? Continue Reading
