All Freelance Writing

Getting Started in Copywriting With Angela Booth

Jennifer Mattern — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:51:24 +0000

Today in our “Getting Started” series, copywriter Angela Booth will be our guest. She’ll share a bit about her own history in copywriting and offer some advice and tips for aspiring copywriters. Do you have what it takes?

Here’s what Angela had to say:

On How She Started in Copywriting…

“By accident. In the early 1980s I was writing romance novels for a British publisher (MacDonald Futura) and running a business as well. I considered myself a novelist. When I was growing up, I thought that all “real” writers wrote books, so I wasn’t interested in other forms of writing. The happiest day of my life was when I received a phone call to tell me that my first book had been accepted.

So I was happily writing novels, and running this business; it was a dog training operation. We were spending way too much money on straight advertising. I decided we needed publicity, and wrote some press releases, which brought in lots of customers. From then on, business colleagues and acquaintances asked me to write their publicity and advertising, and my copywriting career was launched.

For many years, all my copywriting clients came to me by word of mouth. Looking back, this was a good thing, because I knew the people, knew what they sold, and knew their businesses. This made writing copy easy; doing research before I wrote was automatic; I just talked to my clients. That became an excellent habit. Many new copywriters skimp on the research phase and write copy before they know the product they’re selling, and the copy suffers for it.”

On Needing Specialized Education or Experience Before Starting…

“Formal education-wise, the best thing I ever did was to take a marketing course. It took a couple of years of evening classes.

Experience-wise, for many years, the only copywriting I did for others was copywriting I was doing for myself. In the early years (1980s), I wrote advertising and press releases; I was doing it for the business anyway, and did it for others too.

This helped me to get very comfortable writing copy and testing it.”

On How Writers can get Started in Copywriting…

“Start off by working out what kinds of copy you want to write. Copywriting is a huge field. I begin my “Seven Days Copywriting” product by saying that copy is all around us, from the time we wake in the morning (spots on the radio, commercials on TV and the Internet, product labels on toothpaste, copy on cereal boxes…) until we fall into bed at night. Therefore, a new freelance copywriter needs to work out what kinds of copy he wants to write.

Once you know what you want to write, you can get an education in that. If someone who wants to freelance as a copywriter is already a writer, that’s a big help. Then you can write your own copy (as I did and have always done), and once you’re happy that you know what you’re doing, you can write copy for others.

There’s a HUGE market for copywriting, but most business people have a limited understanding of copywriting — many aren’t even aware that they can hire people to write their marketing collateral.

The Internet means that just about anyone can get hired to write copy, so it’s just a matter of learning, and you can earn while you learn.

As well as being a huge market for direct-response kinds of traditional copywriting, the Internet’s throwing up new opportunities all the time, especially in the audio-visual field — you can get hired to write video and audio scripts, as well as to maintain pages on social media sites like Facebook.

Learn and earn — that’s the best advice I could give anyone who’s thinking about taking up freelance copywriting.”

On Things Prospective Copywriters Should Know…

“Firstly, get comfortable selling. I’ve always found this easy, because when I started, I was focused on something else — the business I was running. I knew we provided a great services, and was focused on telling people about it. Selling came easily. Then I was focused on helping other small businesses and writing copy for them — and again, it was easy, because I could see that their products/ services were brilliant, and I loved getting the word out.

So being comfortable selling [is] vital, but it’s easier said than done. I know this from my own experience. I’ve always been great at marketing for others, but for most of my career fought shy of marketing myself. I didn’t have to do it — until around 2001, I was always too busy (writing books, magazine articles and writing for my copywriting clients) to worry about it.

Then the tech wreck happened, and suddenly many of my magazine clients vanished. I decided I’d make up the difference in income with copywriting clients, and that meant marketing, but it was hard — I had a visceral disgust about saying to people “I’m a great copywriter, hire me!” Which was funny, in a way; I was happy to market others, but very reluctant to do it for myself. So I forced myself to do it, and do it, and finally it became fun.

That’s the secret: if you love writing and want to write copy, but hate selling, just face it, and do it anyway. I promise that it WILL become fun for you, and you won’t look back.

Secondly, realize that your clients NEED you, and that they’re intimidated by you. This is a revelation to most new copywriters. They’re comfortable with words, and don’t think it’s a big deal, but most business people are not comfortable with words. They struggle even to produce a brief, let alone write copy. So if you’re a new copywriter, realize that your clients can’t do what you do, and moreover, they’re leery of you. They think skill with words is spooky — it’s witchcraft. New copywriters get lots of confidence when they realize that their clients need them.

Thirdly, be honest. When you’re new to copywriting, admit it. People will help you. You should always be honest in your copy too — if you think a product stinks, don’t take the gig. If you’re lying in your copy, people will know. This is the reason people talk about “hard sell” and “cheesy” copywriting. They know that the copywriter’s lying. Real copy vanishes — it’s completely transparent. If people read your copy, and feel uncomfortable, it means that the copy is lousy. Your own discomfort shines through. Be honest — there’s no other way to write good copy.”

On Angela Booth…

Angela Booth is a top copywriter, writing teacher and author. She’s been writing copy for around 30 years. Her writing blog at http://www.angelabooth.biz/ discusses copywriting and other forms of writing. If you’re a writer, and would like to begin a freelance copywriting career, Angela can help you to do that, in just seven days, at http://abmagic.com/Copywriting/copywriting.html

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Freelance Writers: Check Out This Week’s Virtual Blog Tour

Jennifer Mattern — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:30:49 +0000

I’m taking part in a 5-day virtual blog tour this week, where you can find an interview and four guest posts from me throughout the freelance writing blog community. The schedule is below, and I’ll update this post with links to published content when it’s available. I’ll also update the post time to keep this fresh on the site each day so you don’t miss anything.

Monday: 3 Decisions Every New Freelance Writer Must Make – hosted by Corey Freeman at WriterSeven.com
Tuesday: Freelance Writers: You Might be a Hypocrite If… – hosted by Yolander Prinzel at FreelanceWriterville.com
Wednesday: Simple Holiday Marketing Ideas for Freelance Writers - hosted by Michelle Oxman and FuelYourWriting.com
Thursday: An interview with me hosted by Jennifer Escalona at The Life and Times of a Freelance Writer
Friday: The Value of the Little Guy: Why You Shouldn’t Underestimate “Smaller” Bloggers - hosted by Ami Spencer at Write Out Loud

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Carving Out a Real WAHM Work Space

Rebecca Garland — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:08:09 +0000

Every freelancer needs a real work space –a place to tackle your projects and assignments without wrestling with your child’s latest play dough creations and free from the risk of any crayon incidents on important contracts. It can be a trick to find the ideal space for a work-at-home mom or any other freelancer as many of us don’t have the luxury of our own offices.

Location, Location, Location
If you’re working at home without any company, you can likely work form any room in the house without distraction or disruption. If you’re working from home with small children nearby, you need to be mobile, and if you’re working with older children or other adults in the house, having a quiet corner to retreat to can be a lifesaver.

Before planning a desk and computer layout, spend time contemplating locations. Should you be in the center of the home to better listen for tears and emergencies? Is a quiet corner of your bedroom perfect for the after-hours desk? Can you make a full office somewhere in a space crunch?

The Mobile Office
A laptop can be a huge advantage to a busy WAHM. The laptop with a simple backpack carrier can travel with you to the carpool lines in front of the elementary school. It can go to the two-hour soccer or football practice. It can even go to the indoor play areas for toddlers. Working mothers of young children already know that they can get a lot done in a dozen ten-minute intervals throughout the day. Hauling around that laptop along with a pad of paper and a few pens might be all you need for working during the day.

The Central Office
Bedroom offices are popular, but often the corner of a bedroom is removed from the action of the household. While this might sound like bliss, many work-at-home moms would much rather be in the center of the chaos to better hear and reach their children. To facilitate this, you’ll need a central office. You can do this easily by purchasing an inexpensive stationary desk that fits neatly into the corner of your living room, family room or breakfast nook.

A small desk can house your laptop when you’re able to sit normally and work and can also hold the household bills, scissors and whatever pens you can manage to hold onto with little grasping hands about. If your children are old enough, you can even make this small desk off-limits to any and all other family members giving you peace of mind in the midst of your other-wise crazy life.

Creative Office Solutions
Some moms have gotten creative, especially in small spaces. If a small stationary desk won’t work for you – perhaps your computer is too large or you need more room to work, consider finding a creative solution. One increasingly popular option is to transition a shallow closet into an office. Simply remove the sliding doors and replace with bifold doors. Hang inexpensive shelving from a home-improvement store and you have an office that is easily hidden away when company appears.

Another option is to use the formal dining room as an office. Many families with young children make this room a playroom as it’s rarely used as a dining room at this stage of life anyhow. But if you have a large table already in your dining room, simply push it against a wall and settle in with that as your desk. It might even feel like an office…until you turn around to see the colorful bins of toys and inevitable mess that follows your children wherever they go.

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3 Month Make Money Blogging Challenge – Day 52

Jennifer Mattern — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:57:00 +0000

It’s update time again on the 3 month make money blogging challenge.

The blog has started to see its first trickle of pay-per-click (PPC) ad revenue. It’s a good thing, but the overall amount is absolutely nothing to get excited about. If anything I’m starting to doubt that this site will reach the goal of a three figure income during its third month. I’ve been way too hands-off with it. As of today that will change, and I’ll salvage whatever I can out of it.

That said, there is some good news here. The ad revenue so far, while miniscule, is backing up the market assumption I made based on my past experience and keyword research before launching. This is going to be a great PPC site in the long haul. I picked the right niche and am putting up the right keyword-targeted (while still highly informational) content. Clicks are paying at over a dollar each on average right now (in line with other sites I’ve run in the general niche).

I want to put more emphasis on the affiliate programs though. One or two good affiliate sales is enough to reach the earnings goal for the month while I wait for PPC ad revenue to pick up as traffic slowly grows.

That’s where it stands now. I need to get my butt in gear with posting and doing a bit of marketing over the next couple of weeks, and with a little bit of luck an whole lot of effort who knows? Maybe we’ll still see the goal met after all.

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Freelance Theater has Officially Launched!

Jennifer Mattern — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:00:45 +0000

You’ll have to pardon my delayed announcement here, but I didn’t want this announcement to interfere with our word count trackers’ release and the launch of our two newest series: Jenn Escalona’s monthly DIY series and Chris Bibey’s “How to Write” series. In my continuing stream of news and launches, Freelance Theater is officially up and running.

What is Freelance Theater?

Freelance Theater is a joint project I’ve partnered with Yolander Prinzel on — a series of audio plays attempting to take a lighthearted look at serious issues some freelance writers face (while offering a tip or two for overcoming them). We started working on the first episode of this project way back in July. Although it took much longer than expected to get logistics worked out to have it ready, we’re hoping to release one episode monthly moving forward (today I’m actually finishing up the rough draft for our second show and Yo’s already working on December’s).

The MadLance Series

We were inspired by old horror-style radio shows, so you’ll see a bit of influence from that style in the first series we’ve launched — the MadLance series. Our first episode of the series covers the issue of “vampire clients” who seem to suck the life right out of you from time to time. You can listen to “The Dead Don’t Write” at FreelanceTheater.com (the “Theatre” version should also properly redirect for our “Queen’s English” folks). There’s also an .mp3 download link available in the post for the episode, so you can listen to us on the go if you prefer.

While there’s a way you can embed the episode on your own site if you’d like to (a feature we’re hoping future guests will enjoy to promote their own shows), I’m going to ask that you don’t do it for now. We’re going to be switching to another podcast host soon that will allow better embed features, iTunes inclusion and more (if I’m not mistaken), so there will be some minor changes before the next episode goes up.

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy “The Dead Don’t Write.”

Note: Oh, and the guy doing the show introduction? That’s Yo’s hubby. He’s awesome. In fact he puts the rest to shame. So a big thanks to Hubby Prinzel for his help with the project, not to mention our awesome Wordpress designer and logo designer who will soon be featured on the site’s About page — I wholeheartedly recommend either of them for your coding or design projects.

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How to Write SEO Articles

Chris Bibey — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:00:19 +0000

The internet has helped more people than ever before break into the freelance writing industry. One of the most common “online based” projects is SEO articles. These projects are also known as search engine optimized articles and keyword articles. No matter what the client calls them, the basics stay the same.

Here are three tips for effectively writing SEO articles:

Length. How long should an SEO article be? This all depends on who you talk to. I have clients that want each article to be at least 750 words. At the same time, many others feel that a 250 word minimum is just fine. Before starting any SEO article project be sure to ask the client for clarification of this detail.
Keyword stuffing. The whole point of an SEO article is to include keywords that the client wants to rank for. For instance, if you are writing an article on “making money online” you will want to include that phrase throughout. Again, how often and where the keyword(s) appear is subjective.
Angle. What type of angle are you going to take? Just because you are writing SEO articles does not mean you are putting together a bunch of slop. Even if the client is only using the articles for search engine optimization and directory submissions, you must still an angle and try to provide accurate, high quality information.

Before I go any further, you can probably see by now that every client is going to be different when hiring you to write SEO articles. I strongly suggest that you discuss the three details above, as well as any others that are important, before you get started. It will save both you and the client a lot of time in the long run.

Who needs SEO articles?

Now that you know more about this type of project you are probably interested in getting started. Through my experiences there are two types of people who are in the market for SEO article writers: webmasters and companies.

Some of my best clients are one-man shows who do nothing more than create and manage websites. To achieve success they need as many SEO articles as I can send their way. Don’t pass up a client because they are not a large corporation – this is a big mistake.

Of course, companies of all sizes can benefit from the use of SEO articles. I work with companies of 1,000 people or more in this capacity. At the same time, small businesses also need this type of content.

There is a huge market for selling this service. With the tips above you should be able to improve your SEO article writing skills, while also keeping an open mind to the type of people who are in need.

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Organize Your Office on the Cheap with These DIY Cork Board Projects

Jenn Escalona — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:00:27 +0000

Before I was a freelance writer, I was a branch manager at a corporation. Whenever I needed something for the office, I found it in a catalog, placed an order, and welcomed the FedEx guy a few days later. Now that I’m in charge of my own office, though, those catalog prices begin to look exorbitantly expensive. Why pay over $100 for a large white board at Office Depot when I can head next door to that other famous Depot and buy the components for under $20?

This monthly series on do-it-yourself projects for freelance writers will serve a dual purpose of saving you money on all the various and sundry freelance writing accoutrements you need and allowing you to personalize your office space. After all, you’re a freelancer unlike any other, why use the same old laptop stand, pencil cup, or inbox tray that everybody else uses?

This month’s project is all about cork boards. Cork boards, known by school children everywhere as bulletin boards, come in second only to white boards as the handiest of all office wall decorations. Though you can’t write on them, you can fill them with your schedule, reminders, outlines, pictures, motivational sayings, and whatever else you need to see in your day to day. If all else fails, you can also throw darts at them with few lasting effects to your office walls. Better yet, both of these cork board projects can be done safely from your own home with only hand tools.

Cork Board with Personality

This is possibly the easiest DIY project for the office, but also one of the most versatile. Not only can you use cork boards in the traditional spot – on the wall where you can easily see them – you can use them in hidden places such as inside desk cabinets, or on the side of the file cabinet.

You will need:

4 (or more) cork tiles (available at Office Depot)

Fabric in a style and pattern that suits you

Staple Gun

Scissors

Super glue/Glue Gun (Optional for Hanging)

1.) Measure your cork board, then cut your fabric so that it is 1 ½” longer and wider than your cork board on all sides.

2.) On a flat surface, lay the fabric print side down, making sure there are no wrinkles. Lay the cork gently on top of the fabric. For some reason, the meeting of cork board and fabric will cause the fabric to immediately wrinkle. This will be your challenge. Pull the fabric taut under the cork board and be prepared to struggle to keep it that way.

3.) Fold the excess cloth around the back of the cork board, as when wrapping a present.

4.) Start stapling. Staples should be about ½” to 1” from the edges of the corkboard, and about 2 inches apart in order to hold the fabric in place. During this step, watch for wrinkles in your fabric. Pull taut every time you staple.

5.) Use thumbtacks or nails to attach the finished product directly to the walls. Get creative and use negative space or a diamond pattern to make your cork boards stand out. If you wish to hang your cloth covered bulletin boards inside desk drawers or on the side of a file cabinet, use a hot glue gun to apply. Be advised though that this is a permanent solution. (Hot glue can be removed, but it’s difficult.)

Criss-Cross Cork Board

Do you already have a bulletin board, but get sick of how its dull corkiness sticks out like a store thumb in your otherwise immaculate office? Transform it into a criss-cross board! Criss-cross boards are surfaces covered with cotton batting and fabric, then criss-crossed with ribbons. The ribbons allow you to stick receipts, bills, notices and photographs right onto the board without bothering with thumbtacks.

You will need:

1 Cork bulletin Board (Substitutes: large piece of cardboard, plywood, artist’s canvas)

Cotton batting

Fabric in a style and pattern that suits you

Spool of ribbon (or a variety of ribbons)

Sawtooth Picture Hanger

Scissors

Pins

A Staple Gun

A Glue Gun

Decorative Thumb Tacks (Optional)

A DIY ribbon board with horizontal/vertical ribboning.

1.) Decide whether or not you wish to remove the bulletin board frame. My personal ribbon board still has its frame, but the project works either way.

2.) Remove your cork board’s hanging mechanism. Sawtooth and other hangers can be glued back on after the project is complete.

3.) Cut the cotton batting so that it is 3” longer and wider than your cork board on all sides. (Can be shorter if you choose to remove the bulletin board frame.)

4.) Lay the batting on a flat surface. Then lay the bulletin board, cork-side down, squarely in the center of the batting.

5.) Gather the excess batting around the back of the bulletin board and then staple the batting to the back of the bulletin board. Staples should be about 1/2” to 1” from edges of the bulletin board and about 2” apart. When finished, trim off excess batting.

6.) Next, take your cloth, cover the front (cotton batting side) of the bulletin board with it, and use that measurement to trim it to size. Leave a generous amount of fabric (at least 6”) so that you have room to wrap the fabric around the board. You can always trim the fabric later.

7.) Staple the cloth to the back of the bulletin board. (Try to avoid the staples you used for the batting!) Staples should be about 1/2” to 1” from edges of the bulletin board and about 2” apart. Trim the excess fabric.

8.) Now comes the fun/hard part – applying the ribbons. You can either apply the ribbons in one of two ways: horizontally/vertically or diagonally. I recommend diagonally because it’s allows for better hold in day to day use. Starting a couple of inches from one of the corners of the board, run a piece of ribbon diagonally across the fabric surface to the opposite side of the board. Hold the ribbon in place temporarily with pins or fabric tape, then do the same with the rest of the ribbon. Then run the ribbon in the opposite direction over the fabric surface, so that the ribbons form a criss-cross diamond pattern on the front of your board. You will be tucking small papers into the ribbons, so be sure to leave enough room.

9.) When the ribbons look the way you want them too, hot glue or staple them to the back of the board.

10.) Hot glue or staple the points where the ribbons intersect. You can optionally use decorative thumb tacks for this purpose to give your board a little extra flair.

11.) Glue a sawtooth picture hanger to the back to hang the board.

There’s a whole lot more you can do with malleable and versatile cork board. If you want to get creative with the shape of your cork board, visit DesignSponge.com for a template for the mother of all funky cork boards. Or if you simply want to construct a school-style bulletin board of your own without bothering with fabric and glue guns, visit Instructables for a step-by-step guide to DIY bulletin boards.

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Getting Started in Writing Fiction With Evan Marshall

Jennifer Mattern — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:48:20 +0000

Today in our “Getting Started” series, we’ll hear from novelist, literary agent, and nonfiction author Evan Marshall. If you’d like writing fiction to be a part of your future, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better brain to pick on the topic. I’ve personally been a big fan of his Marshall Plan for Novel Writing for years (a book, workbook, and software package are all available). If you’ve decided to pursue novel writing, I wholeheartedly recommend The Marshall Plan as a jumping off point to help you get things outlined and get a rough draft completed.

In the meantime, here’s what Marshall had to say about how he became an author and what you should keep in mind if you’d like to do the same:

On How he Became a Novelist…

“I started writing novels when I was eleven, but it wasn’t until years later that it finally dawned on me that I was creating novels only for myself and wasn’t truly thinking about publishers’ and readers’ needs. So I started from scratch, cold-bloodedly studied the market, targeted a genre in which editors were aggressively buying, and came up with a fresh angle. These were my Jane Stuart and Winky mysteries–cozies featuring an amateur sleuth no one had done before: a literary agent. I created a proposal and within a month had a three-book contract. I’m currently at work on my tenth novel, which will be published in late 2010.”

On Needing Specialized Education or Experience Before Starting…

“I’m constantly reading cozy mysteries to see what’s being done and what isn’t. That’s the most important kind of education–knowing the market inside and out. Experience helps, of course (I based my first series on my own experience as an agent), but thorough research can take the place of experience. My current series, the Hidden Manhattan Mysteries, feature a New York Sanitation Department supervisor. I’ve had a ball researching–touring SDNY garages, interviewing personnel, and so on.”

On How Writers can get Started in Novel Writing…

“At any given time it’s important to find out the genres in which editors are currently actively buying. Of course, the genre also needs to appeal to you. Right now, for example, paranormal is huge, so fresh ideas in this genre are welcome.”

On Things Prospective Novelists Should Know Up Front…

“1. You will probably not be able to make a living solely from your writing any time soon, if ever.

2. It takes a while to build a readership, so you must be patient and keep at it.

3. There may be times when you have to change course–start a new series, change your name, change publishers. It’s how this business goes.”

On Evan Marshall…

Evan Marshall is the author of a number of popular mystery novels; recently released in his Hidden Manhattan mystery series are Death is Disposable and Evil Justice; coming in March 2010 is Dark Alley. Learn more about Evan’s mysteries at http://www.evanmarshallmysteries.com. He is president of the Evan Marshall Agency, a literary management firm specializing in fiction, and is a former book editor and packager. Evan is also the author of the bestselling Marshall Plan® writers’ guides. Recently he and coauthor Martha Jewett released The Marshall Plan® Novel Writing Software, based on this series. Visit http://www.writeanovelfast.com and download Evan’s free 77-page Fiction Makeover guide, packed with tips and ideas for writing a great novel.

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2 Free Word Count Trackers for Writers

Jennifer Mattern — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:25:58 +0000

To kick off the new collection of free online tools for writers that we’ll be releasing here at All Freelance Writing, I’d like to officially announce the launch of two new word count trackers. Yes, two (long story). If you don’t like one, you can play with the other.

I was lucky to find two guys who created two very different, but very cool trackers for you to play with. Whether you’re kicking off NaNoWriMo in a couple of days and working towards your 50,000 word novel or you just want to set a blog posting or income goal to share on your own site or blog, our new trackers can help you out!

Word Count Tracker #1

This is your basic word count tracker if you don’t want to customize things too much. That’s not to say it doesn’t offer plenty of features though! If you know a little bit about CSS you can use the advanced options to easily change the color and size of your progress bar to match your own site or fit any space (and without having to play with the final embed code to do it!).

You can use this word count tracker to track your NaNoWriMo progress, word count on an e-book you’re working on, or for a book (or pretty much any writing-related project) at any time during the year. You can either customize the size or you can choose from two presets — a small version that’s perfect for a narrow blog sidebar or a much larger version that you can use in a forum signature to share your progress with the world.

Word Count Tracker #2

Our second word count tracker is a cool little tool that you can use for much more than tracking your word counts. For example, if you set an income goal as a freelance writer and you want to keep your blog readers updated on your progress (for the year, month, or however long you choose), you can choose to track a dollar amount by entering that into our custom field. Or you can use our preset options to track words, pages, or posts (such as a certain number of blog posts each month). Do you know what’s really great about the custom field though? You can use this to track anything, even if it’s not writing-related! Need a weight loss tracker? Here you go! Want to count down until a vacation or other event? You can do that too! You can track just about anything you want!

After deciding exactly what you want to track, you can decide whether or not you want to display the percentage or just your progress level. You can also choose between three different output sizes for your progress bar (and if you know a bit of css and html, you can certainly adjust that manually in your embed code).

For right now our word count tools are pretty simple. We aren’t going with heavy image-based ones due to the fact that they’d likely crash the server. I also opted for word count trackers that have to be updated manually (also to cut down on admin work and load — you won’t be able to login and simply update your tracker, but instead will visit the tracker page and enter your new info each time). Down the road I may release a more advanced version of one or both of these tools, but for now I wanted to get them in your hands before NaNoWriMo for writers taking part, but also before the New Year when you’ll be setting new writing goals to track.

I hope you enjoy these word count trackers. If you have any problems while using them, please comment on their page and I’ll see what I can do.

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Five Signs You Might Be a Blogwhore

Clint Osterholz — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:38:36 +0000

Dear reader, I’ve called you here today for an intervention. Oh sure. It started out innocently enough. You started out at Blogspot (maybe even Livejournal!) and put your ideas out there. It was pretty nice catching up on your infrequent and irregular posts. Once in awhile you would put up several posts in a week, other times you wouldn’t update for months on end. It was harmless.

Oh but then you couldn’t get enough, could you? It turns out that Xanga was just a gateway blog for you. You started thinking about increasing your SEO. You started updating your meta description before you even wrote your posts. You imported your blog from a nice free service to your own self-hosted domain. And–dare I even say it?–you got a Sociable plug-in. Do you even recognize yourself in the mirror?

I’m sorry. I got a little accusatory. This is an intervention. I am doing this because I love you. I …worry. I think you may have become a blogwhore. Don’t believe me? Here are five signs that you’ve become a total blogwhore:

You now read more than ten blogs per day and leave a daily comment on each one. You have never once actually contributed to the conversation beyond something chirpy like, “Wow! Great article! I never thought of it that way!” Even if the article is about tying your shoes. This is the blog equivalent of telling someone to have a great summer in their yearbook back in high school. I also hate it when you do this because I am awfully witty, and that just means you ignored my totally rad comments. Sorry, again, this is not about me.
I follow you on Twitter, and I don’t think you have once tweeted about anything but your blog. Not only that, but you often retweet yourself. That is like clapping for yourself at an award ceremony. It’s one level below getting drunk and humiliating Taylor Swift.
You use bit.ly and su.pr, so when you update your blog, I’m always tricked into clicking on it. You always post links to your own writing like they’re a complete and total surprise to you. “Wow! Look at what I found!” you tweet. I know you’re not surprised by your own writing, not unless you’re part guppy. Is there something you’re not telling me?
You post status updates on Facebook AND you hooked up your RSS feed to Facebook notes. Not only that but you’ve also linked your updates to Tumblr and Twitter so for any given update to your blog, I end up seeing that you just wrote an update four times. The next logical step is for you to call me, leave me a voicemail, text me, email me, fax me, send me snail mail, and physically come to my house and announce via megaphone that you updated. If you want, I even know a guy who can do skywriting. He’s not cheap, but people need to know that you JUST NOW at THIS VERY MOMENT updated, so spare no expense.
The last time I sent you an email, you asked me if I wouldn’t mind submitting your response to Digg.

We need you to stop before you end up, cold and shaking, outside the New Media Expo, asking people if they’d be willing to give you a linkback if you add them to your blogroll. Do you recognize yourself?

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