Jen's Writing Journey

I attended journalism school right out of high school. I learned so much there about writing and publishing, and I was able to parlay that education into a staff job at a trade association working on their various magazines, newsletters, and research journals.

I wouldn’t trade the college experience for anything. I got to sit around late into the night drinking coffee and talking about philosophy, politics, great (and not so great) literature, and other deep subjects. I studied subjects that helped me outside of the magazine trade, such as economics, history, and linguistics. I was able to attend cultural events and concerts on campus and off. There were even times I considered becoming a professional student.

But, I don’t think I would go back to school now. At least, not full time. I have responsibilities and interests that would limit my ability to study. I have little interest in discussing Sartre or Arendt at 2:00 with some stringy-haired caffeine junkie. And I need to learn new skills fast and put them into action immediately.

I am lucky that I am actually working on the field I studied in college. If you didn’t study journalism in school, you may find that some of the basics of information gathering, interviewing, and avoiding conflicts of interest elude you. And those missing skills may keep you from going after the high-paying jobs you need to earn a living as a freelance writer.

A new course from freelance writers Carol Tice and Linda Formichelli can help you get the journalism chops you need without sinking two or more years of your time into higher learning. I have the opportunity to affiliate sell registrations, so if you are interested in the 4-Week J-School, I would appreciate if you signed up using the links in this post. The one component this course has that a four-year journalism degree doesn’t have is the focus on freelancing. Even though many of my J-school professors were freelance writers themselves, little coursework focused on how to get freelance gigs or the ethics of freelancing. Why not learn those skills from two well-known (and well-paid) freelancers who can speak from years of professional experience?

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You hear all the buzz about content marketing and blogging, and you know that your business needs a boost.

You have three options to create the content you need.

• Hire a staff writer. This is a great option if you know you have so many writing needs that you can keep a full-timer busy. In addition to white papers, case studies, and blog posts, this pro can keep your web copy fine-tuned and your brochures up-to-date. Not a bad deal, if you have enough work to keep this person busy.
• Hire a freelance writer. A freelancer is the perfect choice if you have enough work that you can’t keep up with it yourself, but not enough to justify a 40-hour-a-week hire. (This is my preference, of course, seeing as how I earn a living as a freelance writer.)
• Do it yourself. Your budget and skill level will determine whether this is the best choice for you. If you feel like you have some basic level of writing skill, but you would like to get training focused on growing that skill for your business, you might consider taking a course on business writing, such as Damn Fine Words, taught by long-time copywriter James Chartrand. DFW is designed for writers and business people who need to write copy that sells, whether it is selling their writing services or their business product.

Good luck, and happy content creating!

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If you are trying to make a living through freelance writing, you have probably gotten frustrated by how long it takes to submit article queries, hear back from editors, then get paid after the article appears.

Magazines are slow sources of money, but we all know that nothing compares to the first few times you see your name in print in those glossy pages.

To help you make a living while you are waiting for the paychecks from your magazine gigs, look at copywriting. You can write web content, blog posts, direct mail pieces, marketing brochures, even social media postings for small and large businesses. And the payments for this type of work are usually much faster than what you can expect from a magazine. You probably want to request a deposit of at least 50% of the total project fee before you even start work.

You can learn these skills in a few different ways.

1. Reading books. There are a multitude of freelance writing books on the market, and these can be great for creating your own self-study copywriting program.
2. Studying marketing pieces you receive. I have learned a lot about blog writing from the blogs I read regularly. I have also studied the sales emails and sales pages for strategies that work to help me help my clients. What marketing materials do you get?
3. Joining a professional training group. There are a lot of professional sites that can help you earn more from freelance writing, by providing on-demand and live webinars.
4. Taking a copywriting course. Look for a course taught by someone who has a proven track record in freelance copywriting — and who has great sales copy on their own site.

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I know the rush of filing our 2011 taxes is over for most of us, but as business-people, we are always thinking taxes and deductions. Here is some info about the 1099-K form in a snazzy and patriotic infographic.

Brought To By Outright.com

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It seems as if I have come across some great writing sites in the past few months.

Here are the ones I keep going back to.

Make a Living Writing

Carol Tice is a successful freelancer who is committed to helping other writers earn more money from their writing. In addition to the Freelance Writer’s Den, she runs the Make a Living Writing blog, which provides free daily posts on marketing, writing skill, and more.

Direct Creative

Want to write razor-sharp and creative direct marketing copy? Then Dean Rieck’s blog is where you want to be. He provides tips for being more creative, editing your copy until it shines, and selling your services and those of your clients.

Words on the Page

Lori Widmer is another freelancer who wants to help her fellow freelancers value themselves and their writing so they can earn a better living. One of the strengths of Widmer’s blog is her focus on assessing your progress toward your writing and earning goals on a regular basis.

Advanced Fiction Writing

Author of Writing Fiction for Dummies, Randy Ingermanson provides detailed information to help writers craft better fiction. He takes some of the more complex concepts in fiction writing (such as the Motivation-Reaction Unit) and boils them down into manageable chunks. Sign up for Randy’s e-zine to get his tips delivered to your inbox.

What writer sites have you found recently?

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As 2011 draws to a close, what better way to look back at what we’ve done than gathering the top posts of the year?

5. The Demise of Borders

With the slow death of brick-and-mortar bookstores, I find it harder to find places that sell a wide selection of magazines. The library has some, and the local grocery stores have some, too. But I depended on Borders for some of the less common glossies. Where do you look at samples to help you target your pitches?

4. Essential Christmas Gifts for Writers

Be honest. How many of you looked at the post for gift ideas, and how many for ideas of things to buy yourself?

3. Book Review: Overcoming Underearning by Barbara Stanny

Book reviews continue to be a big draw. I really like this book because it addresses the emotions that lead people to accept less pay than what they are worth. This is a great message for writers who don’t ask for time to write, freelancers who take low-paying jobs, and staff writers who don’t ask for raises.

2. The Genesis of an Article

In this post, I discussed how I used an event in my life to write an article, which is posted at Pregnancy360.com, the web home of Pregnancy magazine. Pregnancy is now an online-only magazine.

1. Book Review: The Productive Writer by Sage Cohen

I really love this book. I continue to use Sage’s downloadable planning tools to help structure my time. If you haven’t read The Productive Writer yet, buy a copy or borrow it from your local library.

Now that we’ve looked at the best of 2011, let’s look forward to 2012. I plan to focus more on marketing and business writing topics in the coming year. What specifically would you like to see in those fields? Any other fields you would like me to cover? Let me know in the comments.

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What are your publication goals for the new year? Would you like to see your name in print in an education magazine or journal? I can help you with that.

I was on staff at the International Society for Technology in Education for 12 years. In that time, I worked on Learning & Leading with Technology, the association’s flagship magazine; the Journal of Research on Technology in Education, their peer-reviewed ed tech journal; the member newsletter; and various special interest group newsletters and journals. After leaving ISTE, I edited a collection of the best articles from Learning & Leading, which was published in 2009. During that time, I learned a lot about education and even more about education publishing.

The same basic advice applies to education periodicals as it does to any other periodical:

• Study the market
• Follow the guidelines
• When in doubt, ask the editor

But the education market has some specific needs, and this short report addresses them from the perspectives of the professional writer, the teacher looking to get published, and the businesses that provide products and services to the field. Publication in education periodicals can help all three of those stakeholder groups, and this report includes actionable items that can help you get your name in print.

Sign up here:

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Song writers do something amazing: they tell an entire story in 3 1/2 minutes. They do it under constraints that include the need to fit a specific structure (the melody of the song) and having to waste a certain number of their words on the repeating chorus. And they have to make it compelling to a large varied audience.

How do they do it? By making sure every word counts. Each word must build on the one before it and prepare for the one that comes next. There is no room for waste, so you have to pick the best, strongest words that convey the most meaning.

Here are a few examples of songs that do a great job of telling a story through vivid imagery.

“A Lifetime” by Better Than Ezra

In this song, the most vibrant imagery for me is the feeling of being a teenager, hanging out in a field with the car doors open so you can listen to the stereo with your friends. I always wonder exactly which REM song they were listening to.

“Out of Habit” by Ani DiFranco

Here, I feel as if I am sitting in that run-down diner drinking bad coffee and eating bad food.

“Tear in Your Hand” by Tori Amos

Here, the emotions of a woman recently dumped take the forefront. Amos does a great stream-of-consciousness brain dump of her flaws that could have driven away her partner.

Using These Examples to Improve Our Own Writing

Do you see how these songs never lose their focus on the story at hand? Do you see how the song writers chose the absolute most effective words in each line?

I see these lessons playing out in the editing phase. That first draft, whether it is a work of fiction, an article, or brochure copy, is for getting the gist on paper.

When we go back through to edit, we can do such things as change “an audience that includes people of all different backgrounds” to “a varied audience.”

What songs inspire you to use the language to your best advantage? Which songwriters do a great job telling their stories? How have you studied other types of writing to help you do a better job with your chosen genre?

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• Use Music to Motivate Your Writing

Here are some classic and timely gifts for the writers in your life (or for you).

On Writing by Stephen King
An oldie, but a goodie. King weaves writing advice with his life story to create an enjoyable biography and a great resource for writers who want to find their voice and prefect their craft.

The Writer’s Workout by Christina Katz
This book just came out on Kindle, and the print copies will be shipping shortly. Katz provides a day-by-day guide to growing a stronger and more lucrative writing career in one year. Using the metaphor of a workout coach, she guides you like a personal trainer for your writing career. The book balances exercises on craft and marketing so that you are working simultaneously on both.

The Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman
Another oldie on the list, this book provides valuable insight into building a good-paying career as a freelance business writer. Because most freelancers balance their publication writing with business writing, this is a good resource for every writer, not just those who are ready to start building a book of business clients.

Moleskine Notebooks
These are some of the most luxurious and versatile sketch books and journals, and all of the different sizes and colors make them a good fit for most tastes.

iPad
Sure, there are tons of tablets on the market, but the iPad has the most apps and the form factor that a lot of people love. I like this instead of all of the dedicated e-readers on the market because it has apps for all of the major ebook stores as well as just about anything else you like to do.

Levenger pens
A lot of book authors like to use these for their autograph signings because they have fun designs, smooth writing, and quick-drying ink. If the writer in your life might need to plan for his or her big book signing extravaganza, make it special with one of these pens.

What are the best writing-related gifts you have ever given? Received?

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Overcoming Underearning is a combination narrative and workbook designed to help you break through your earning blocks and begin earning what you are worth.

It is no secret that many writers work for low wages, whether they are on staff, writing for revenue share sites, or taking low-paying freelance jobs. And many times, the reason these writers settle for these low wages comes down to a lack of confidence. Writers often fail to realize their own worth and, thus, settle for low wages.

Barbara Stanny would argue that this lack of self-confidence may be based on deep-seated beliefs that they are simply not the type of people who could ever earn a lot of money. She provides guided questions to help readers determine how their beliefs about money and the people who have it affect their own ability to earn more money.

This is not new territory. The popular self-help books Secrets of the Millionaire Mind and Rich Dad, Poor Dad both address how belief affects earning potential. But Stanny brings a new way of addressing those beliefs that I believe can be more effective. Where the Millionaire Mind and Rich Dad authors simply tell their readers to stop having negative beliefs about money, Stanny uses journal exercises and questionnaires to help readers understand where their beliefs came from and how they can address and change them.

These exercises are of particular use to writers who need to earn more money — we all journal already, so it is easy to add the guided  exercises to the regular rotation and use them to follow the steps Stanny outlines to break through our own personal earnings barriers.

Have you read this book? If so, how did the steps work for you?

What are your personal earnings challenges?

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Related Posts:

• Writing Roundup, June 24
• Writing Roundup, April 18
• Writing Roundup, July 22
• Writing Roundup, June 10
• Writing Roundup, May 9