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March 25 From article writer to blog writer...Hi all - it's been a busy week or so here, which is why I haven't posted to my blog lately. But there has been a lot going on behind the scenes... Firstly it feels as if I have been focusing more on blogs than articles recently. Is everyone concentrating on developing their blogs instead of getting articles written for them? It certainly seems like it - and it has been a nice change, I must say. But even as I speak there are some more articles coming in to be written, so that should even things out a bit! Do you have any preference as to the nature of what you write? Do you think of yourself as an article writer, or do you focus more on blogging for other people? It helps to develop both skills, since it doubles your chance of getting work. I have also found that I am doing more reviews recently as well, which again provides a nice change. So if you are looking around for your next writing job, why not cast your net further afield and try your hand at other types of writing? Not only could you earn more, you will also get a much more fascinating mix of things to write each day. February 06 Back on Hubpages with a vengeance...Yes it's true. I got started on Hubpages around a year ago, and to be honest I never did more than a couple of hubs (web pages) before leaving it alone. I'm a really big fan of Squidoo and I've got some work through there from some good clients, as well as earning from the site itself. So I started out by approaching Hubpages in exactly the same way. And that was a BIG mistake. They are similar in some ways, but mostly they are very different. What makes a good Squidoo lens does not necessarily make a good Hubpage. Recently though a friend of mine said she'd been having a lot of success with Hubpages. Her hubs are good, too. Very good. Ironically she is having the same problem as me but in reverse - she can't do a thing with Squidoo! But Hubpages is a different story. So it got me thinking this week, as I had a few hours of spare time on my hands. So I finished up my work for the day and grabbed a couple of hours to explore Hubpages again. The upshot of that is that I have now associated my Google Adsense account with my account on Hubpages, and I've published three new hubs. Two of those are going to be part of a series, and I think that the other one (about eBay) could be along the same lines too. I'm linking into my main website from each hub - just at the bottom, saying who wrote the lens and where you can find me, so to speak. Hopefully I might attract the attention of more clients that way; it certainly seemed to work at Squidoo. So anyway I'm planning on creating a lot more hubs in the near future. If you're looking to get your byline seen online for the first time, or maybe you're just looking for a way to promote yourself as a writer a bit more, why not give Hubpages a try yourself? It's free to join and there are plenty of benefits once you get the hang of it. Let me know how you get on. February 05 Exploring the webI'm sure I have said before about the need to keep promoting yourself as a writer. As a freelance especially, if you don't do this the work is likely to dry up sooner than you might think. I had a spare couple of hours yesterday to myself, so I took the opportunity to do some promoting, as well as exploring the internet for any new writing possibilities that may have turned up. There are several benefits to this, quite apart from actually finding new sources of work to add to the existing ones. Firstly you are keeping in touch with the marketplace. This is particularly important as it does occasionally happen that new websites will turn up and you can get in 'on the ground floor', so to speak. I joined a new website yesterday that I found through creating a new hub for Hubpages, and while I may only get perhaps three or four articles a month out of it, it's a nice little job. And of course it will also help me in linking back to my own writing website and this blog. There is a flat fee per article, plus ongoing royalties, so over time it could be very beneficial. And it's nice to be part of another writing community too. Secondly, as you can see from the above example, it can unearth some writing possibilities that you would never have found otherwise. It almost feels like I am skiving if I'm not actually writing, but it can be a very profitable and life enhancing activity! I now find myself part of a large community that seems very helpful and pleasant. That's a wonderful bonus along with those few new articles every month. Where could you go today to make new connections? October 23 Has web writing been affected by the credit crunch?My answer would have to be no, at least not yet. And given the fact that this state of affairs has been with us for about a year now, you would think that we would have seen some kind of effect by now. But maybe it depends on what type of web writing you do. I write articles, web pages and eBooks on the whole, and so far I haven't seen any real difference in the amount of work I've been doing over the whole of this year. In fact in some cases I've managed to get more work over the last couple of months than I did previously. But is this partly to do with attitude, as well as the situation the market is in? One guy I work for, a local web designer, said that his main competition has had to lay off staff. And yet he has never been busier and has just taken on someone else to cope with the workload. How can this happen in a credit crunch? I think attitude has a lot to do with it. Businesses - and freelancers - who struggle to survive are invariably the ones who sit back and let themselves be affected by events around them. If they go under, it's the fault of the credit crunch. The people who do well and continue to do so even through a bad economy are the ones who get up and make the effort to keep on working and keep on finding their share of the work. I realise this is a somewhat simplified view of things, but if you are on the verge of launching your freelance career as a writer - no matter what avenue of writing you are in - don't let all this negative news stop you. JUST GO FOR IT!! I can't stress that enough. It doesn't matter what the economy is doing - if you want to succeed badly enough you WILL do it. That's all there is to it. Just hang on in there and it will happen. Anyway, that's enough from me for today. Time to get back to work! October 18 Books, articles and eBay listings...September 02 Do articles bring in more money? |
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