| Allison 的个人资料Allison's space日志列表 |  工具  帮助 |
|
|
2月6日 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. 2月5日 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? 2月4日 An early start to finish some articlesHi all. Yes this is my second blog post in as many days! I'm just grabbing a slice of toast at my desk so I thought I'd get back in touch again. I'm getting ahead of myself a bit today, finishing some articles that aren't actually due until next week. It's one of those times when the deadlines are mostly a week or more in the future, but luckily I'm motivated to get as much done as possible today! It certainly frees up the next week to slot in more work as and when it comes in. So how motivated are you feeling at the moment? It comes and goes in waves for me. So for example, I tend to find that whenever some new work comes in I get a rush of excitement and a new urge to get it done well. I could never say that about any of my previous jobs! lol I'm still waiting to hear back from a few article suggestions and emails I sent out to people last night, but I have a handful of articles to write for myself today. Remember I mentioned Constant Content yesterday? Well they could be seeing a few submissions from me today... Another possibility is to get on Hubpages to find some new work and get myself out there a bit more. Hey it worked with Squidoo, so there is no reason it shouldn't work for Hubpages as well. In case you didn't know, Hubpages is basically a selection of 'hubs' (or single pages) which each deal with a different subject. A friend of mine has had some really good successes on there, so I'm thinking of having another go at it. To date I have two hubs live, and I'm not happy with either of them! I think I took the same approach to it as I did to Squidoo, and they don't work in the same way. So we'll see what happens as I start to revamp my account on there. Will keep you posted... 2月3日 A brief break in the mountain of work...Hi again all! Yes I'm still here and still at my desk pretty much every day, even though I've not been blogging that much recently. It seems the January doldrums hit me a bit late this year. I'm back on track now though, and I've already landed one nice regular monthly job from someone who used to send just the occasional piece of work. That's been good news, and we get on extremely well too which is always a bonus! So how is your writing progressing during 2009? Have you set clear and worthwhile goals to further your writing during this coming year? I have stuck by mine pretty much - it's a shame I didn't add 'regular blogging' to that list... I've jotted it on the bottom now though, so let's see if it works! One of my main aims this year was to be more active in finding new clients. It's so easy to settle and never get any new work or challenges coming your way. Although I have three main sources of work that I fully intend to keep up with, slotting in other smaller jobs here and there can really be beneficial. So far it's worked well for me, and I've put my fees up too with no problems at all. Hopefully this new pro-active stance will continue to pay off. My next aim is to get more articles onto www.constant-content.com. I've sold a lot on there in the past but those sales have slowed to a trickle just lately. It's on my schedule for tomorrow though, so I'll let you know how it progresses... 1月9日 Back for 2009!First off, Happy New Year, and I hope you all had a great Christmas. We had a very relaxing one - two whole weeks, for the first time ever! - which has left us ready to get our teeth into the New Year. And now things are back to something resembling normality, I am planning to get back to updating my blog much more regularly. We are still pinching ourselves as far as eBay is concerned - that was one busy Christmas, especially seeing as this credit crunch is supposed to be affecting everyone. But now there is a fresh new year to think about, and I have some writing goals I would like to make happen. The main one is to develop my client base a little more. Isn't that every writer's resolution for a new year? Maybe it is, but it is there for a good reason. I've been freelancing for a whole year now (it's actually one year today), so I know how the whole thing works and I've had a year to really settle myself in. I've found that it is VERY easy to work all the hours that are available to you, and I was certainly guilty of depriving myself of some social time last year. So this year my partner and I have decided to give ourselves every Sunday off, plus Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings at the least. This week we have had almost every evening off, so it depends on workload and more usually how quick I am to get my work done! But I am finding that because I am having more time off, my writing speed is WAY faster. So I am completing pretty much the same workload per day in less time! How cool is that? My brain definitely needs some downtime and it obviously pays to actually give it some. So I will let you know how that little experiment goes, as I was getting rather stressed with all the constant work I was doing. Doing the same in less time seems to be doing well! But back to developing my client base. Keeping in touch with old clients is definitely a good thing from time to time, since you might just squeeze an extra job or two out of it. But developing new clients and websites that you can work for is also well worth it. I remember deciding to spend an evening browsing the freelance job sites and classified ads for writers a couple of years back, and I got my best ever paying job from that little exercise. And I still work for them now, so it definitely paid dividends. Anyhow, I think that is enough waffling for now! It is 7.50pm here, and I've got to get my work organised for tomorrow, so I don't waste time in the morning. Aren't I being efficient! Speak again soon - and let me know how your own writing goals are shaping up for 2009! 12月7日 Too busy to blog!Hi there! Yes I am still around - but eBay has taken precedence over everything at the moment. I am still writing but it is being fitted in around running to and from the post office! lol The nice thing is that it's giving me a chance to blow the cobwebs out. We are having Christmas and New Year off this year for the first time ever, so by the time January 2nd rolls around and it's back to work, we will both be ready to start a New Year. That would be my advice to anyone who is feeling a little frazzled with all the jobs that are still to be done in the run up to Christmas. Give yourself some time off from your writing to make sure you enjoy the season. Some people are taking every job going just to be sure that they don't miss out on any cash in a time when things are difficult, but you can't carry on working too hard if it starts affecting the quality of your work. So make sure you get your priorities right, and you can enjoy the festivities as well as bringing in some extra cash. 11月13日 Balancing work and playHi all, it's been another busy week here and yet again seven days have flown by without me posting to my blog. But here I am to discuss the subject of what working - and writing - from home is really like. We have found that it has become necessary (at least at the moment) to get a day off every week by actually going out of the house to see friends and family. More than a single day off would be nice, but it is rather impossible at the moment, because eBay is flying so well that we need to keep up with all the orders. Our Sunday evenings off are sacred - it's our way of winding down for the week, even if we work during the day - but for the last two weeks we have stayed up working until about 10pm because we have sold so much during the evening. And of course if we don't do it right then, we end up getting behind for the week ahead. And that isn't good customer service. So what has all this got to do with writing? Well I am of course still writing plenty of articles and completing projects for different people, but it has become even more necessary to grab a day off each week to wind down and relax for a while. I need to help with packing up eBay orders now and again, so my writing needs to fit in around that as well. I'm not really cutting back on my writing as that is the last thing I want to do, but performing this brand new balancing act in the latter months of the year is something that is definitely called for! So we have decided we are having a week off at Christmas, when work can be a little slack anyway. Once the last posting dates have passed, we will work up until the day before Christmas Eve, and then start back on 2nd January 2009. Seems like a good pay off for working so hard over the previous three months! As I said it really is a balancing act, but it's a time when both writing duties and eBay duties need to be balanced out with real life. How do you find your own writing pans out at this time of the year? Is it easier? More difficult? Or pretty much the same? I'm off for lunch now, and to do some online Christmas shopping. Multi-tasking again... 11月6日 Stil busy? You betWell here it's been several days once more since my last blog post, and I'm squeezing this one in before my next task for the day. There is no doubt this is the busiest time of the year here. Not only am I doing lots of writing, but eBay has gone bonkers. That means it's all hands on deck and in between writing articles, web pages and short eBooks I am also helping out with packing up orders and doing runs to the post office! I am also making a concerted effort to get some more exercise, so you will usually find me reading a book while pedalling 3 miles on the exercise bike every afternoon. It certainly beats that mid afternoon writing slump I usually get. Things are going well though, so I've treated myself to a brand new mini laptop. It's just perfect for writing on the move, or when I need to be away from my desk for some reason. We can't see much of a let up until Christmas, so this manic period has a few weeks to go yet. Sundays are our best shot at getting half a day off! So with that in mind, it's back to the grindstone... 10月29日 Practical writing considerationsHi all. It's been a strange few days with some necessary tasks getting in the way of my writing a bit. Firstly it's that time in the UK where we have to make sure our accounts are all ready to be submitted, so we can pay all that lovely tax! lol Mind you it's kind of good to have some to pay, because it means we've been earning money this year. And seeing as this is for a year where I was only writing full time for about 3 months, we did rather well all in all. But we've also been shopping around for some business insurance of one kind and another, and although it's all sorted now it is still a pain having to go through the motions. So now that's all done it's back to work and focusing on listings for eBay and doing my other writing jobs too. We've got nearly 200 listings live on eBay now - how on earth did that happen? Our office looks more like a stock room but we're selling it all so it's looking good. It's really taught me the value of being organised with my writing though. I was anyway, but having to organise it round practical business tasks as well as social time isn't always easy. Still, once it's all done you can focus on writing again, so it's worth getting it out of the way. And now the insurance is sorted we shouldn't have to go through all that again... 10月23日 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! 10月22日 Writing with a migraine...... can't be done. As
I found out yesterday - and coincidentally at the same time that I
found out I do in fact suffer from migraines. Hey ho. So instead of having two days - yesterday and today - with a quite easy workload, I've had to pile it all into today instead. But it's really made me think about priorities. I love my writing but it isn't the only thing in my life. And yet it can take over at times. I think it is a lot harder to manage your day when you finally take that leap and become a full time writer. I've been a full timer since January of this year, and I am still trying to balance things out. I don't like to turn work down but I have discovered that sometimes you have to for your own benefit - simply to prevent yourself from getting tired and worn out. So don't be scared to say no to things if you know you will struggle or feel really stressed out doing them. You only get one life, and wouldn't it be great to live this life as a successful writer AND a successful person too? And let's face it, if you can get out and about and experience different things you will also gather valuable life experience to use in your writing. And hopefully avoid those migraines too. |
|
|
