A lot of folks are intimidated by writing for magazines. More often than not, this is because they think that Time or Wired would never accept an article from them. Well, maybe Time isn’t going to roll over with your first query. That’s okay. Set your sites a little lower and work your way up.

Here’s how to make it happen:

• Choose your market – Consider where your interests lay. If you’re clueless about all things techie, don’t beat your head against the Wired wall. Why make your life that tough? If you have expertise in a particular area, chart that course.
• Research the magazines that fit your interest and expertise. When I found out that my neighbor was building the first vodka distillery in Alaska, the idea came to me that this would make a great story. I didn’t query Gourmet, I queried Alaska Magazine. They accepted and the article was published six months later. Make a list of magazines that you would love to write for. Go out and buy the current issues of each of them and absorb as much as you can about editorial slant, typical topics and overall style.
• Go online – This is a crucial step. Most of these magazines will have submission guidelines on their site. Read, know, understand and print these. If you skip this step you are asking for trouble and you may make a mistake that will bar you from ever writing for that magazine. Often, they will tell you exactly the kind of articles they are looking for. If at all possible, try to tailor your article idea into one that fits what they are looking for.
• Send the query – If you did your homework and read the submission guidelines, you’ll know exactly how to send the query. Some places want email queries only. Some still prefer snail mail. Some don’t want attachments, some are okay with it. Your query needs to be one page and the very first sentence needs to have a significant hook. Include the anticipated word count, whether or not you have images and any ideas you might have for sidebars. Include a paragraph or a few sentences that make it obvious that you have read the guidelines. For the Alaska Magazine article, the submission guidelines said that they are seeking articles about “Ordinary Alaskans doing extraordinary things.” Plenty good. I included a sentence in the query that said something along the lines of Toby being an ordinary guy, just my Alaskan neighbor doing an extraordinary thing.
• Follow up – It’s okay to follow up with the editor, just don’t be a pest. Under no circumstances should you contact the editor prior to the timeframe the submission guidelines give. I’ve found that these days, I hear back pretty quick, especially for email queries. Patience, my friend. Patience.

These are the initial steps to breaking into the magazine market. There is a bit of work involved but it’s all worth it. It only takes a few successes to set you on your way to a lot of writing opportunity.

Here are some of the best quips from the book and how they apply to writing:

• Excellence is not optional – This one kind of says it all. Whatever you write needs to be your best. I recently found a book I was considering for purchase on Amazon. It was one of those 99 cent Kindle editions and I went to read the reviews and many of them complained about the sloppy writing, grammar, spelling and editing. The author actually responded and said that the $2.99 version had a much better editing job. Are you kidding me? Why on earth would a writer put something out there that was less than their best?
• Success at the expense of family really is failure – I’ve written on several occasions about the importance of balance in life. This little quote is right on the money. If your family goes by the wayside, the writing ain’t worth it folks.
• Develop a sense of urgency to your work and pay attention to the details – Your job as a writer is to be detail oriented. Second rate grammar and research skills will not take you very far in this field. Details, the little things are important. A sense of urgency helps cement this concept in place.
• Don’t put all your eggs into one client’s basket – For freelance writers, this is a big one. Like your portfolio, you need to diversify. One bad turn and that client could go away. THEN what are you going to do?
• Customers will find a way to buy from you if they like you. They will also find a way not to buy from you if they don’t like you. – Do yourself a favor and be likeable. For some of us, it comes natural. Those lucky folks have saved themselves a lot of heartache. If you are not naturally friendly, work on this. The rewards are more than you can fathom.
• Never be too busy to follow up on the little things. – Something that may be insignificant to you may be a big deal to a client. Never assume that the little things don’t matter. If a client has a concern, no matter how trivial, follow up on it, handle it, get it done.
• Arrogance is deadly – This goes along the lines of being likeable. No one likes arrogance. It’s not a very good impression to give to new clients. Confidence is one thing, arrogance is annoying. You ain’t all that and a bag of chips. Trust me.
• Each day you get better or worse. It’s your choice. – You can choose to learn from your clients and blend the positive takeaways into your psyche or you can be eternally pissed off about everyone and everything. I’ll take the former, thank you very much.

I hope you got as much out of these quips as I have. If you get the chance to purchase this book, I think you’ll be impressed with the wisdom it contains.

Image from www.show.me.uk

Not literally, of course. What idiot would try that?

I am referring to a quote I read over twenty years ago which has stuck with me. I was pretty certain it came from a book on runes, so I searched online just now and it did indeed pop up on a runes website as an interpretation of a certain rune reversed i.e. picked upside down. Runes, if you’re unaware, are little stones with special symbols on them, and are used much as you would use Tarot cards.

The bit I remember was: When in deep water, become a diver. Having found the full passage, here it is with some of the preceding advice:

“Take heart. Consider the constant cycling of death and rebirth, the endless going and return. Every thing we experience has a beginning, middle and an end, and is followed by a new beginning. Therefore do not draw back from the passage into darkness: When in deep water, become a diver.”

Having been involved in acting and writing on and off for nearly 25 years (mostly “off” with the acting, it has to be said), I’ve had my fair share of career ups and downs. I also watched my dear mum suffer from Multiple Sclerosis for most of my life, and fight two battles against cancer, and go through the last ten years of her life in pretty much constant agony after a fall that caused pain no doctor could ever deal with, short of zonking her out with morphine – which she didn’t want. She was a remarkable woman, brave beyond belief, and is terribly missed.

Those were dark times. They brought thoughts no one wants to think, and feelings no one wants to feel. Still, you have to deal with those issues or you can never fully move forward.

This was the time that I had my novels published. This was the time I was at my most creative. Writing was a lifeline back then, and I clung to it like a man in a maelstrom.

But there were long periods when I did go under, and nothing would get me back up to the surface, and that’s when I always remembered that quote: When in deep water, become a diver. Of course, the real trick is in accepting you’ve gone under in the first place, but that’s a different article altogether.

I always took that quote to mean that you’re down in the depths anyway, so you may as well have a good look around. Explore the scenery, ugly though it may be. Confront whatever’s lurking there, so it’s not so scary. You never know, you may even find a sunken treasure chest that forever transforms the rest of your life.

One of the best ways to become that diver is through writing. Getting your thoughts and feelings down on a screen or on paper can make sense of them; sometimes it even reveals what you never knew existed. It’s an amazingly cathartic exercise, and can liberate intense creativity of the sort you may never find again when you eventually break surface.

I killed a lot of people in my two novels. The second one especially, Man on a Murder Cycle, I simply couldn’t write again now; I don’t have that mindset. It’s pretty sick stuff, to be honest. It came from the depths. But I know both novels focused my thoughts on something else for the times I was immersed in them, and they channelled my anger and confusion into a money-making venture.

I’ve heard it said that John Cleese never wanted to write more than two series of Fawlty Towers because he wrote it when he was depressed, and once he started to feel better he couldn’t create that same hysterical vitriol – he couldn’t tap into it any more. I think it’s one of the funniest sitcoms every written.

I have no idea what’s happening with any of you. But if you are in pain, and feel like you’re drowning, why not take a look around while you’re down there?

Then write like hell.

Image from hooksigns.com

For folks that are involved in sales, there is something known as being in the zone. Being in the zone means you are in a place where your focus is laser honed. Outside distractions are not a distraction at all and you can accomplish nearly anything. It’s almost as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist. For us freelance writing types, being in the zone is what allows us to operate at our highest power. Being in the zone for us means that we pump out the writing with nary a care. We do our best stuff in the zone and we are completely inspired.

Getting into and staying in the zone is different for each of us, I suspect. Motivating factors differ from writer to writer and may involve, deadlines, money or credibility.

Here’s what gets me in the zone:

• As much as I hate to admit it, I’m deadline oriented. I seem to do best and produce the most work when my back is against the wall. I have several clients that I write for and I always seem to find a way to put off those assignments until the end. I know, not a very wise way to operate. There are a thousand things that could go wrong and put me over deadline. So far, those times have been few and far between but I know that at any time they could be right around the corner.
• If I have a large chunk of similar articles that need to be written I get myself into the zone simply by writing the first one. When I have ten long-tail keyword articles that are due, I see each completed one as a step closer to being done with the damned things. I get in the zone and I don’t let anything distract me until I am finished. I use one article to feed into another and another until I’m close enough to see the finish line.
• I set up my environment to be conducive to the tasks I need to complete. The house gets cleaned (I find clutter to be distracting), I make sure I’ve completed any chores or tasks so that they are not tickling the back of me brain and I make a pitcher of tea or whatever. I close out my email and web browser so that those temptations are not quite as easy to get to. Finally, classical music seems to help me quite a bit so I set the mood with that radio station gently playing in the background.
• With my environment set, I work on my mindset a bit. Sometimes I’ll meditate to clear my mind and help me focus. Other times, I’ll sit and look at the assignment and go over the keywords to get some initial ideas for the articles.

All of these things help me to get into my zone. The zone is where the best of my writing takes place and it’s my own little shell in a great big world. For my writing projects that are of any size, being in the zone is just the ticket for getting them done.

How about you? Do you have a zone? What kinds of things motivate you to get into your zone?

Image from teenstuffonline.com

As I sit here on the cusp of two years worth of freelance writing, I’m thinking there sure are a lot of things I’d do different if I had known better. First, I think I would have Googled “smart, funny, take no prisoners, laser wit” so I could have gotten Mark Pepper’s email addy sooner. And that’s just the beginning, folks.

The genesis for this post is from reviewing an ebook for a good friend on some blogging strategies. I thought, “Man, I wish I’d known this stuff way back when.” Upon further reflection it occurred to me that time hasn’t passed me by. Why couldn’t I rewrite history? I could not come up with a good reason why.

In order to rewrite history, it seems to me I needed to know what my history was. Sure, I had an ethereal, gossamer notion of where I had been, but the history was contained in a lot of different places, a little bit here, a tad there. I had to put it all together in one place, for my own sanity if nothing else.

I started my story with a close examination of the decisions that led me to get into freelance writing. From there, I looked at my early decisions regarding the site name, my hosting provider and what I had envisioned for my brand. I looked at early documents and dates. I reviewed the files for my early clients and some of the companies I wrote for. I went back and found some of my first affiliate programs I joined. Finally, I reviewed my archived posts to try and get a feel for my development as a blogger and a writer.

When I had all of the pieces in one spot (well, sort of), I was able to put together my freelance writing story. As I went through, I highlighted the turning points where I made certain decisions. These were the points that I wanted to rewrite based on what I know now.

The reality is that you cannot change history. What happened, happened. The important thing is that that does not have to be the end of the story. I found plenty of things that I could do differently and while they may have been more effective if I had done them early on, they still had the ability to be effective if I took the time to implement them now.

So in front of me are two documents: My history and a list of things that I could do to help re-write my freelance writing history. It’s going to take a little time, but now I have a roadmap.

This little exercise of writing my history has been great. It was interesting to see what I had gathered in two short little years. It has also motivated me to make the necessary changes to stay fresh and to correct the mistakes of the past where ever I could.

Spend a weekend and write your freelance story. I’ll bet you’ll be glad you did.

Image from webtvwire.com

I was watching Steven Seagal: Lawman the other night. In case you don’t know, Steven Seagal: Lawman is a documentary following Seagal’s exploits as a deputy sheriff in the Jefferson Parish County Sheriff’s Department in Louisiana where he has worked for the past 20 years – that means before and throughout his time as a Hollywood star.

That’s got to be the ultimate bummer for the petty criminal. You’re sneaking out of a house with a TV and there on the sidewalk is Steven Seagal pointing a 9 mil at you. Whaaaaaat? Of course, if you dropped the TV, you could outrun him; a snail could outpace Seagal with the weight he’s put on in recent years. The downside would be him deciding to pull the trigger, because he was shown in the documentary shooting the head off a cotton bud, then one off a match. Smartass. Don’t tell him I said that.

Sorry, this is supposed to be about writing. Okay, my point is that this guy has kept doing a regular job when he didn’t have to. He didn’t give it up when he became successful. As a writer, your goal may be to reach a position where that’s all you have to do to earn a living. It’s probably the ultimate goal for many writers to give up the day job.

However, you need to stop and think if that’s really the best course of action. For one thing, you need to be good at writing. Stating the bleedin’ obvious perhaps, but I’ve spoken before about the delusion that infects so many people involved in the Arts.

Delusion personified

When I was an actor, I agreed to do a read-through of a script in front of gathered TV and film commissioning people. There was no pay, but expenses were covered, so it was a free trip down to London. I could see an old buddy of mine, and perhaps one of the head honchos might take a shine to me whatever the script was like.

I say “whatever the script was like” because I told my agent I would do it even before reading the script. My role was to be the lead part, which I would get if it was made into a film. I went to Liverpool to meet the writer and he showed me around the city, pointing out all the locations where he envisioned the different scenes playing out. He was super-confident. So much so that he had several months before given up his job as an English teacher to concentrate full-time on his writing, and he had spent thousands of pounds of his savings promoting his script, booking a central London meeting place, paying expenses for the whole cast, and generating interest from film and TV companies so their people would show up for the read-through. It was all very exciting.

Then he sent me home with the script and I read it.

It made me laugh, but it wasn’t a comedy. It was the bitter amusement that derives from incredulity that someone could be so terribly deluded. It was a thriller that didn’t thrill. The characters were crap, the dialogue dire and dull, and the plot pointless. What plot there was had so many holes you could have zig-zagged a London bus back and forth through it from start to finish. It was a total disaster and there was zero chance that anyone would ever commit their money to making it. Quite simply, the guy couldn’t write to save his life.

I went down to London, had a great day out, and never heard anything about it again. Of the TV and film people who showed up, all but one left halfway through when we broke for tea and biscuits, and I think she only stayed because she was an ex-RADA friend of mine.

I can only assume that the “writer” went back to teaching.

Greener grass?

Freelance writers work hard for their money. It can be a very lonely job, and there is no holiday pay or health insurance or pension. These are down to you to cover. If you take a vacation, you effectively lose money, and you may even lose existing clients if you can’t help them out at short notice. First of all, of course, you need to get the clients, and that’s not easy with so much competition.

Great as it sounds, working from home can also have its problems. The people you live with may not view your working day as that. You may be interrupted, which is bad when you need to be flowing. And it may not be a working day; it could be a working day and evening and night. Free weekends may disappear. Self-employed people are at the mercy of their clients. You cannot start at 9 and close at 5.

If you are not terribly organised and supremely committed, you will find the life of a freelance writer very difficult. Above all, you must love writing, not just the romantic notion of being a writer, and you must be prepared to have that love tested every day.

If you check out my website, you’ll see a bit of artwork of mine. I paint the odd picture and I’m pretty good, but I couldn’t be a professional artist because I don’t enjoy the process enough. I cannot sit down day after day and paint. It sounds like a dream scenario, but I couldn’t do it. I struggle to complete one picture a year. A few years ago I spent 18 months driving artics (big rigs) around the UK. Incredibly long and solitary hours away from the family I love, but, as jobs go, I really enjoyed it.  That’s odd, no?

If you feel you are on the cusp of giving up the day job, take stock. Do you really hate what you do? Would you not miss the people you work with or even the daily routine? Living in Spain, I meet people who came out here to retire. Many of them are working again now. Not for the money; for the activity. They could be painting or writing every day, or indulging any passion they wish, but they are doing the very jobs they thought they hated in the UK – shop work, bar work, driving, cleaning, etc.

It is not my intention to crash your hopes and dreams about writing; that is never my aim. I am, as usual, just offering an alternative take on things. If you are feeling miserable every day because you want to write full-time and you can’t, stop beating yourself up about it. Check the grass under your feet. It may be greener than you think.

Image from Gimphelp.org

If you are new to freelance writing you may wonder where in the world(wide-web) you can you find freelance writing jobs.  It’s a good question, and you need to be prepared for a lot of trial and error.  If you find something that works for you, congratulations!  Don’t be afraid to look under a lot of rocks.

• Craigslist.org – Careful, Craigs can be scamalicious.
• Textbroker.com

Freelance Venue

Write Jobs

Writers Weekly

Poe War

About Freelance Writing :

AdAge Talent Works :

All Freelance Writing Jobs :

American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors (AASFE) :

Associated Press :

Association of Alternative Newsweeklies :

Berkeley Journalism Jobs :

Blog Her :

Blogger Jobs :

Blog Post for Sale :

Bookbuilders of Boston :

Book Jobs :

Brizcomm :

Broadcast Career Link :

CCNMA (California Chicano News Media Association) :

CMS Wire :

Content Central :

Constant Content :

CopyBlogger Jobs :

Creative Niche :

Cub Reporters :

ECPA :

Faculty of Information & Media Studies Jobs (FIMS) :

Freelance Success :

Freelance Writing :

Freelance Writing Gigs :

Fresh Web Jobs :

Gannett Jobs :

GigsList :

HireMinds :

Houghton Mifflin Jobs :

Inland Press :

Investigative Reporters and Editors :

Jeff Gaulin’s Job Board :

Journalism Jobs :

Journalism Next:

Journalism Now :

Journalism UK Jobs :

JournalistUSA :

Journalism & Women Symposium Jobs :

Lingo Tip :

Lost Remote Jobs :

Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) :

Mac Circ Jobs :

McMurry Copyediting Jobs :

Media Bistro :

Media Job Market :

Media Recruiter :

Media Week Jobs UK :

Min Online :

National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) :

National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) :

National Writers Union Writing Jobs Hotline :

News Jobs :

Newsroom Jobs :

New York Association of Black Journalists (NYABJ) :

Newspaper Career Bank : .

NUJ Freelance Direct :

Online Writing Jobs :

Open Ad : 

Performancing :

Places for Writers :

Poe War :

Poynter :

ProBloggers - 

Project Pool :

Project4Hire :

Project Worm :

Pros to Go :

ProZ :

PR Week :

Publishers Weekly :

Publishers Marketplace

Religion Newswriters Association :

Search Web Jobs :

Smashing Magazine Jobs :

Sports Casting Jobs :

SunOasis :

TheBookseller :

The Golden Pencil :

Translators Cafe :

Trally :

Triond :

TVSpy Job Bank :

Variety :

Worldwide Freelance Writer :

Write Jobs :

Writing Career :

WriterFind :

WriterLance : 

Writers Row ( Now Called Freelance Writers Weekly) :

Writers Weekly :

Writing World :

However, sometimes our mood does not seem to respond accordingly. Of course we tend to react to a writing success with feelings of happiness, and to a failure with feelings of disappointment. But we can also experience a success and feel strangely deflated, and a failure and feel oddly empowered.

Understanding why these feelings affect us is crucial to our being able to maintain our momentum. When you become confused about why you are doing something and what is happening, it’s very easy to lose your drive.

I believe the key to achieving a through line is to turn your eyes within. You need to feel content that you are doing your best, and that this is the only goal worth striving for. You need to challenge yourself in your writing, and enjoy that challenge every day, and not be always looking at what other people are “achieving”, and certainly not what other people are earning.

I put “achieving” in quote marks because this is the subjective criteria that can so screw us up. If you measure your achievement by what other people say, and what other people are willing to pay, you are relinquishing control of your emotions. You are saying that other people are the true arbiters of your work and without their approval you have failed. Thus you can be published but still be sad if you didn’t get the publisher you wanted, or the size of print run, or the paycheque, or the critical acclaim. And you can feel empowered by a “failure” because you know it is nevertheless a solid stepping stone on your path to self-improvement, or simply because you are pleased to have done your best, regardless of what anyone else might think.

I firmly believe that freelance writers should never expect to succeed. Expectation that something will turn out as you believe is the surest way to achieve crashing disappointment in any walk of life. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep trying and stay positive – you should – it just means that you should do so for reasons that are 100% disconnected from thoughts of what you think should await you at the end.

If you read my first post on this site, you will know that I went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London from 1987 to 1990. I wanted to be a famous actor in Hollywood. I believed the talent that I had and the commitment I showed meant that I deserved to make it. I had an expectation. I believed it was my right to get there.

I was wrong. I did a lot of TV but never made it. I still think I can act, and probably a lot better than many of the people who are making millions per movie, but I no longer believe that I was cheated by life or God or whatever else you may believe is running the show. I also think my writing stands up to scrutiny better than that of many others who are making a comparative mint from their scribblings, but I don’t feel (quite so) pained by the apparent discrepancy any more.

One of the biggest problems I feel contributes to the perpetuation of these feelings of expectation and deserving in writers and actors and others involved in the fickle arts is the huge amount of crap pushed our way by the “psychology of achievement” brigade, also sometimes even presumptuously called the “science” of achievement. I gobbled up this garbage for years. In short, this is the belief that “what the mind of man can conceive of, and believe in, it can achieve”.

I think if you want to succeed – as society perceives success to be – of course you need to keep positive; if you’re not positive, you give up the doing, and you have to do things to have any chance of success. Positive thoughts can also transform your personal life and make a great many aspects of it better. But positive thoughts backed by action do not always lead to financial and commercial success, as these people dogmatically insist. Just because the richest people in the world have done certain things to get rich does not mean that anyone who does these same things will also become super-wealthy. That is an incredibly simplistic notion. Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich has supposedly sold to over 30 million people since it was first published in 1937. I wonder how many of those millions made millions after reading it. I read it more than once, and did as instructed for two solid decades, and my bank manager is still pissed off.

Think about what these so-called gurus are implying: if you don’t make it, you have not only failed in your chosen pursuit, you haven’t even got what it takes to think properly. You’re so crap you can’t even get that right. The whole concept of the psychology of achievement is deeply flawed. So all the millions of people leading miserable lives in horrendous conditions in the underdeveloped countries of this world are doing so because they don’t know how to think positively? That’s pretty insulting. Do you think they don’t want and need to improve their lives a billion times more than you or I? The psychology of achievement is a money-making ruse that could not survive outside the developed world; it simply would not make sense.

Freelance writing is a tough job, but only in the way that choosing between several delightful dishes on a menu is a tough job. Some people don’t have a menu, or a restaurant, or any food.

If you want to write, and make a career out of it, and most importantly feel at peace with being on that path, you need to forget the idea that your efforts deserve to be rewarded. Write because you love to do so, and because you have the freedom and the time and the opportunity to indulge your passion. The rest will follow.

If anything is going to work for you, it’s that.

A lot of folks are attracted to the idea of being their own boss and owning their own business. Lots of benefits to that for sure. The amount of benefit is directly proportional to the work and the risk involved. Those who have been doing it a while know that it is tough work. Tough work that requires as much attention as a new-born baby.

As much as we don’t like to think of it this way, freelance writing is a job. As such, it requires the same (if not more) dedication that you would put into a 9 – 5 gig for an employer. Bunny slippers and mid-day naps aside, if you worked for someone else, you could hardly perform your duties half-heartedly and expect to be successful. Checking your email every ten minutes, chatting online with your Facebook buddies and searching iTunes all day for the latest and greatest apps will not win over your employer.

Your success as a freelance writer requires you to look at this not as a hobby or as a distraction, but as a real live job that requires your attention, substantial effort and a strong work ethic. Anything less spells failure. If your mindset at the moment is one of seeing clients as a hassle, the writing as an impediment to your World of Warcraft time and the initial pay as stifling your dreams, then you need to seriously evaluate your dedication. If you find that you just do not have the heart to dedicate yourself full time to being a freelancer, that is 100% okay. Give yourself permission to back out and maybe just do a writing side job now and then to satisfy your writing moods. There is no reason at all for you to not do this as a hobby if that is where your comfort meter is pegged.

If you have decided that you really want to tear up the web, writing for anyone on any topic, then go for it. Your unwavering focus should be to make every day, every writing job an outstanding success. Dedicate yourself to starting each and every day fresh. Your ability to keep things fresh will depend on being dedicated to yourself, your clients and your writing. Think back to when this tiny seed of freelance writing first germinated in your mind. What did you envision for yourself?  Did you clearly see your goals? More than likely you did, and those things are what motivated you to make the leap of faith and jump right in with enthusiasm and dedication.

Sometimes we lose sight of why we started doing this. Our dedication to it slips bit by bit over time and before you know it, you’re not returning calls and you are hooked on daytime soaps.  If this happens, remember that all is not lost!  Get back to the dedication that you had when you first began and your batteries will charge up, ready to do battle all over again.

Today is going to be different. Oh yes. Today I am going to show you how to make some money writing. I will then obviously ruin it by whingeing about the whole idea, but that’s got to be better than a blog that is 100% whinge.

Okay, here goes …

E-books

Apparently, you can earn a decent crust by setting up an e-book business. Straight off the bat, doesn’t that sound both fab and puzzling all at the same time?

Because we’re not talking about writing e-books on a subject you know inside out thanks to your involvement in that particular area for aeons. No. We’re talking about writing lots of information about things you previously knew absolutely nothing about.

That’s right, you find out what topics people most love to or need to learn about, then you research the required information, then you tell these people what they want to know and you charge them for the privilege.

Wow, I mean WOW!

Clearly, when you reference your sources, you shouldn’t just say “Google”, nor even list the Ezine articles you pilfered the information from. In fact, you probably shouldn’t bother with a list of resources at all.

Okay, yes you’ve noticed … I have started to whinge.

Personally, I find the whole notion of setting up an e-book business deeply disingenuous. I have written e-books for clients, and some of these have then been charged out to the mugs – sorry, customers of these clients. What these customers don’t know, and sshh, don’t tell them, is that I got all the information for free from Google. Tee hee.

The reason people are willing to pay for regurgitated information that is common knowledge is because of clever marketing.

“Learn the secrets the professionals don’t want you to know!”

“Discover the little-known tricks that can help transform your life!”

I’m sorry, but the people who have found the marketing pages for these e-books have clearly got some grasp of how to Google using keyword searches. Therefore, why don’t they go the extra inch and Google for the information they need?

The answer is that they cannot be bothered, and they clearly believe that the people hawking these e-books are genuine experts. Ah, bless.

Genuine experts who really have valuable information to impart are often too busy being successful at what they do to bother writing an e-book, nor would they need the money. And e-books that truly contained secrets only a select handful of people know would probably be morally dubious, thoroughly illegal, or utterly useless in the real world.

How to fly a B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber

Chapter 1 – Building a B-2 flight simulator out of common household items.

Chapter 2 – Stealing a B-2 from the U.S. government.

Chapter 3 – Finding a good defence lawyer.

Chapter 4 – Lodging a credible insanity plea.

The glorious exceptions

Of course there are genuinely useful e-books to be had; the problem is knowing where to look for them. How many times are you willing to say: “Damn, that one was useless, I’ll pay for another.”

For freelance writers, Monika’s Freelance Superstar e-book on this site will certainly restore your faith. This has been written from genuine experience, and there is plenty of information in there that I was shocked she was willing to share.

But the truth remains that the “e” of e-books generally stands for empty – i.e. bereft of information you couldn’t easily find for free by Googling. And don’t let the fact that an e-book contains 50 pages fool you. The first 10 will contain information that could be given in just 2, and the remaining 40 will be the first 10 rewritten with a bunch of extra rubbish thrown in to bulk it out.

However … however … if you can put your cynicism aside for a moment, and you are happy to peddle this garbage yourself, I expect you will make a nice living from it.

For more information on how to write an e-book, you can download my e-book – How to Disguise Blatant Plagiarism and Earn Good Money From It – for only $75 (previously $350 – discounted today only!)