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John Lemke

How I Make a Living as a Writer (and You Can, Too) - 0 views

  • If you sit down at a blank screen every day and simply do nothing then you are a writer. If you write one word, even better. Some people will disagree. Maybe you will disagree. That's fine. We also can all disagree. Meanwhile, our DNA is telling us we are pretty much exactly the same.
  • I try to read pieces or chapters in 3-4 books a day or more. I read at least from one non-fiction, one or two quality fiction, and one inspirational. I try to read at the level I want to write. I do this in the morning before I start writing.
  • Destroy every gatekeeper.
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  • Do what you want. Self-publishing simply means you write a book and you figure out how to get it into the hands of other people. It might just be you sell it on your email list. Congrats! You're then a published author. In my post "How to Self Publish a Bestseller" I write about the details and the numbers.
  • This seems opposite of what I said above. But blogging is not such a bad idea. How come? Because it makes you write every day. And it also is fun to build friends and community around your blog. But if you want to blog, don't just register a domain name and start blogging. You won't get any traffic.
  • There's a thousand ways to build community and practice writing on the Internet. Blog is one of them but there are many others. My #1 suggestion: first practice on Quora (cc Marc Bodnick) If you go there, follow me and say "Hi!".
  • If you don't write every day, you won't know what your potential skill level is. You will be producing sub-par work. And in a world where 15 million books will be published this year, your book will have little chance to shine.
  • Do the math: if you just write 1,000 words a day that are publishable then you have a book every two months. 1,000 words a day is not easy. But it's not hard either.
  • No. You used to be able to make a living writing articles. Just a few years ago. In 2005 I made a good living writing about 3-4 articles a day for different publications while I was running my fund and before I started and sold Stockpickr. But those days are over. People just don't pay for content. And there are too many writers. It's a supply and demand thing.
  • ou have to write more than one book. And for most people, you have to write dozens of books.
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    A great article of advice from a published author.
John Lemke

» Earn $100 a Day With Textbroker : Freedom With Writing - 0 views

  • Textbroker makes it possible to not only claim assignments from the job board but to also set your own price for private clients that contact you through the system. This is a great system that allows you to make more money from repeat clients.
  • Once you sign up you can apply for writing privileges. This is a standard writing sample based on a topic that they choose. It’s important to write this as though your salary depended on it because it does; your sample will be rated and the better the rating, the more you get paid per assignment.
  • This is where Textbroker outshines every other site: While you are looking over the assignment no one else can look at it or claim it. You have 10 minutes to make your decision. If you accept it then you can write it. You have 24 hours to write it after claiming it. If you don’t want to write it then it goes back into the assignment pool for someone else.
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  • The problem is that once you have accepted an article you have 24 hours to write it. While that is not a problem in and of itself, while you have that article selected you cannot select another article. You write one, submit it and then choose another one.
  • The writing platform at Textbroker is not great. There is really no way to sugarcoat it and make it seem better than it is. It’s basic, has no automatic save and is honestly one of the worst out there.
  • Every article you write is rated. Your rating is the average of the last 5 articles that you have written. If you have consistently high ratings, ask to be moved to a higher category. Your rating can also be lowered if your reviews are consistently poor. There is room to move at Textbroker.
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    A good review of the textbroker writing site
John Lemke

» Increase Your Freelance Writing Income in 5 Days : Freedom With Writing - 0 views

  • Spend a few minutes setting up an email system that you can use to contact potential clients. The ideal system will let you contact many people at once, based on a custom list that you create.
  • you need to spend the time to create a custom pitch to that matches your potential clients very closely. Once that is done, set your email system to send the email out at 8am on Tuesday
  • look for potential network possibilities. This should only take about 5 minutes of your time. You want to check Meetup.com for both freelance writing networking as well as networking opportunities within your writing specialties. Check for local community meetings such as School board and city/county council meetings. All of these are great places to meet potential clients.
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  • oday is the day for cold calling. Most people don’t particularly enjoy this aspect of marketing but it is extremely valuable. Use the list you made on Monday and call each company.
  • By now you are getting some serious responses to your quick burst activities. So today you want to focus on social media. If you don’t already have Facebook and Twitter accounts for your freelance writing business, this is the time to set them up. You should also have a LinkedIn account. If not, set one of those up as well. Then go into the settings of LinkedIn and Twitter and set them up to update whenever you post to the associated Facebook page. Properly setting up your social media pages is extremely important; you are selling yourself. Make it look good.
  • PLEASE do not use your personal Facebook page for this. You do not want clients and potential clients to see the funny faces you made during your best friends wedding reception! Use your professional Facebook page for this and close your personal page to anyone but friends. If you are thinking it doesn’t matter, look at your page as though you were the client. That should do it.
  • Ok we are at the end of the week. You have set up an email marketing blitz, found and attended networking opportunities, written a letter to your local paper, cold called potential clients and set up your social media sites (and are updating them!) The only thing left is to update your Freelance Writing Website.
John Lemke

The New Year's Writing Resolution You Can Actually Keep - Copyblogger - 0 views

  • Every day in January, write for 20 minutes. By every day, I mean every day. Including weekends. Including the Martin Luther King holiday. Including the days that get crazy.
  • To become a better writer (whether it’s for text, podcast scripts, video scripts, or anything else that needs words to be strung together effectively), you need to write. And the best way to write more is to build the habit of writing every day. Give it a try for 31 days, and let us know how it’s going! And if you’ve ever tried a daily writing practice, we’d love to hear about it in the comments.
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    This is a pretty decent tip.  The reality is simple.  If you don't love to read, you have no business even considering being a writer.  Furthermore and more on the topic of the article, if you are not writing daily, you shall never be a writer.
John Lemke

How to Stop the Psychodramas and Get Your Writing Done - 0 views

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    An article about how writers are often their own worst enemy. Almost every successful writer has "write daily" as rule number one. Those that let themselves fail have rules like "I need inspiration", "I write better in the morning", etc., I don't care if it is a journal, editorial, tweet or a FB post, if you wish to write, find a way to write daily.
John Lemke

How To Write Well: 10 Essential Self-Editing Tips | Write to Done - 0 views

  • The easiest way to write well is to edit your writing. The best person to edit a manuscript, article or blog post is the author herself.
  • Leave your writing alone for a while
  • Pay attention to what jumps out at you as awkward.
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  • You’ll catch clunky sentences, missing and repetitive words, and misspellings.
  • Make a list of your most common offenders. Then search for those words and see if you can take them out without altering your intended meaning.
  • Take a look at each sentence and see how many words you can cut out.
  • Check to make sure you put commas before direct address in dialog.
  • The most mutilated verbs are lay, sink, drag, swim, and shine.
  • Flowery verbs such as quizzed, extrapolated, exclaimed, and interjected, stick out. Instead, use said and asked, with an occasional replied or answered.
  • When sentences begin with “it was” and “there were,” readers are left wondering exactly what “it” is. These words are vague. “It was hot today” can easily be replaced with “the sun baked his shoulders,” which paints a clearer picture. Think: strong nouns and verbs.
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    A good list of tips to help you with your re-writes.
John Lemke

Creative Writing Contests and Competitions 2014 - Freelance Writing Jobs | A Freelance ... - 0 views

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    A nice list of creative writing competitions complete with tips for success
John Lemke

The Secret to Writing Well Isn't What You'd Expect, Says Study - 0 views

  • While visualizing your story may seem like the right way to approach writing, it turns out that for full-time writers, the brain performs a bit differently. When Dr. Lotze watched writers from a competitive creative writing program perform the same tests, he found that experienced writers, while brainstorming, used parts of their brains associated with speech instead of vision.
  • Novice writers, Lotze suggests, are more likely to watch the story unfold like a movie inside their heads.
  • And perhaps more importantly, write often. If creative writing is a skill your brain learns over time, then like anything else, the more you practice, the better you’ll get.
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    The important part of the finding is that writing is a skill that one can master over time.  While I agree with Stephen King in the sense that great writers can not be created, I also agree that anyone can become a decent writer.
John Lemke

» How to Get Paid as an "Elite" Writer with iWriter : Freedom With Writing - 0 views

  • iWriter is perfect for both the beginning and the established writer that wants to add another writing site to their list.
  • The range of these topics is considerably greater than most writing sites and includes pretty much anything you would want to write about and probably a few things you never considered.
  • Unlike many sites, there is no article submission required for approval. Don’t let this throw you and make you think less of this site. The site simply uses other methods to get and keep quality writers. This is great because you can get started immediately instead of waiting for an editor to approve your work.
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  • You can select the type of writings you want to do. Your choices are articles, ebooks and rewrites.
  • A rather odd note is that the writing block area specifically tells you not to copy and paste from other software into the block. However the FAQ suggests doing so. I recommend the copy and paste method simply because if there is a glitch during submission then there is little chance of recovery and you would need to start over. As an alternate, you can copy and past your work from the writing block into your word processor.
  • Essentially, you have to write at least 30 articles and have a rating of 4 stars to move to the Premium level. Once you hit 4.6 stars you move into the Elite tier. The only ratings that count are those from clients, iWriter only counts your articles. Because of this it’s important to do a good job for the clients and it’s also important to pay attention to the types of clients that you choose. Clients that reject often and are overly demanding may not be worth the effort.
  • Payment is made once your account reaches the minimum of $20 and is paid to your Paypal account.
  • Set up notifications for the topics that interest you
  • Get up early on Monday. Monday is when many new articles are added to the system.
  • Take many small articles at first.
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    This one looks very promising.
John Lemke

3 Steps for Creating Meaningful Goals That Will Help You Make Progress as a Writer - 0 views

  • This goes beyond setting goals for individual projects and instead spans all parts of your writing life, from pitching to craft to the business side.
  • Brainstorm all the things you’d love to see yourself accomplishing as a writer. Once you’ve got your ideas down on paper, streamline those thoughts by writing in one sentence that encompasses your overall objective for writing.
  • Each big picture requires a different set of tasks. And each short-term goal will flow naturally from your big picture goal.
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  • Create specific dates by which you want to reach each short-term goal. It may initially feel strange and groundless to set deadlines when you’re unsure of how long things should take. Do it anyway. You can always go back and edit. In fact, you should regularly edit and tweak your goals as you gain expertise and knowledge
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    I am big on goal oriented planning.  This is good article, complete with personal examples from the author, on how to specifically apply the process to copy and freelance writing.
John Lemke

How To Become A Prolific Writer While Holding Down A Day Job | Positive Writer - 0 views

  • The author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (real name, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), continued to work day jobs throughout his life.
  • Other authors who held down day jobs throughout their writing careers include Bram Stoker, Philip Larkin, T.S. Eliot, and Virginia Woolf, among many others.
  • she wrote the bestselling book Interview With The Vampire while working her day job as an insurance claims examiner.
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  • Anne Rice
  • Having a day job makes it imperative that I allocate time for writing. I insure I write at least 2 hours before I go to work come rain or shine. And I do this by following my rituals every morning without fail.
  • Regardless of what time I work (shift work), I wake up at least 3 hours prior and like clockwork, 1) I brush my teeth, 2) make breakfast, 3) sit down at my desk, 4) check emails, 5) check in on my social connections and finally 5) after stretching my legs for a moment, I write on cue for at least two hours.
  • ake note of the things you do consistently every day before and after work.
  • Create a space of time within your current daily rituals for writing every day. Make sure it’s at a time of day that works best for you.
  • Commit.
  • I highly recommend creating a writing sanctuary for yourself, somewhere you only go to write, and therefore, your mind will associate being there with writing.
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    A good PMA oriented article.
John Lemke

Writers Don't Write to Get Published | Goins, Writer - 0 views

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    I write because I can't not write. This article is a good one on that perspective.
John Lemke

» "Is there really writing work out there?" : Freedom With Writing - 0 views

  • How, then, do writing opportunities work? To be paid for writing, you need to look for a person with two characteristics: They’ve got money to spare. They’re looking for writers. This could be: A magazine editor who is looking for feature articles. An aristocrat or multi-billionaire who wants to support the career of an aspiring artist. A blogger who makes money from advertisements, or from selling information products, but is too busy to do all their blogging themselves. A book publisher who is looking for the next Da Vinci Code or Harry Potter. A business owner who needs help from a writer to promote their business. Do you see where this is going? There are writing opportunities out there, if you know where to look, and if you know the right people.
  • First, the more money a potential client has, the more they’ll be willing to pay you. Bloggers and content creators don’t typically earn much money from advertising. That’s why revenue sharing sites, which share advertising revenue with writers in exchange for content, often pay a relatively low rate. Magazine editors and book publishers are somewhere in the middle. They pay reasonably well, but they’re looking for extremely high quality, so you’ve got to be real good to get their attention. Business owners who have a steady income usually pay the most generous fees to writers. Businesses have a budget for marketing, so they’ve got cash to splash.
John Lemke

Freelance Writing Jobs | A Freelance Writing Community and Freelance Writing Jobs Resou... - 0 views

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    Many people praise this list. Many people recommend it. If you want to write for a living, you should have this site in your feed reader.
John Lemke

20 Rules for Writing So Crystal Clear Even Your Dumbest Relative Will Understand - 0 views

  • Spreading an idea means getting it from your brain into someone else’s. It means putting together the essential facts, the logical arguments and your insightful conclusions together in exactly the right way to recreate your brilliant idea in the mind of your reader.
  • Try to describe your audience with this simple formula: X who Y. For example: “Bloggers who want to get more traffic”.
  • If you can’t explain what your post is about in one simple, short sentence, it’s probably too complex or unfocused.
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  • Make sure a clear connection exists between the opening of your post and the headline.
  • If a sentence, phrase or word is particularly important or significant, use bold or italics to add stress. But don’t overdo it.
  • Always be consistent with your terminology.
  • If a point is worth making, it’s worth making twice. Or even three times.
  • Only tell them what they need to know to follow your argument. Share the minimum you need to convey the desired message.
  • Clear examples help readers understand difficult concepts.
  • Concrete language describes something detectable by the senses. Something you can see, feel, hear, smell or taste. Abstract concepts are much harder to imagine.
  • When you provide specific detail in your writing, there’s less room for ambiguity. Your reader is far more likely to end up with the same idea in their head as you have in yours.
  • Clarity does not tolerate “might,” “may” or “possibly.” If you can’t say something with certainty, perhaps you shouldn’t be writing about it at all.
  • if you’re in the business of spreading ideas, you must make friends with bullets.
  • Bullets are a valuable tool, but you should never drop your reader into a list without first setting the scene.
  • make sure each point is recognizably related to the others.
  • If you were giving your reader a list of steps, you’d present them in the order they needed doing, right? Obviously. But if the items in your list aren’t steps, they often still have a natural order – even if you didn’t have one in mind when you wrote them.
  • always supply everything the reader needs to fully understand your points within the post itself.
  • You think you’re being generous but truthfully you’re being greedy. Greedy with your reader’s time, their attention, and their patience.
  • include a clear call-to-action. Tell your reader what you want them to do.
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    20 tips on writing with clarity.
John Lemke

College papers: Students hate writing them. Professors hate grading them. Let's stop as... - 0 views

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    I am sorry but I must disagree. If the problem is that American students hate to write and write poorly, the solution is not to remove it from our education system. In fact, the opposite is true.
John Lemke

How to Write Better: 7 Simple Ways to Declutter Your Writing - 0 views

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    I am one to write the first draft long. i feel this a good list to kill wordiness.
John Lemke

How to Defeat Writer's Block | Writing Forward - 0 views

  • Physical ailments:
  • Mental and emotional stress and distractions
  • Lazy days
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  • You’d just rather do anything in the world other than work on your writing project
  • Avoidance and procrastination: Sometimes we go out of our way to avoid a difficult writing challenge.
  • Eat well, exercise, and drink plenty of water. Schedule time for rest and relaxation. Don’t run yourself down.
  • A Few, Final Writing Tips for Combating Writer’s Block
  • if you have two projects going, you can rotate back and forth to maintain your interest in both.
  • Get advice from other writers. Often, they’ll see a solution where you see no way out.
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    While different things work for different writers, I think this is a great look at writer's block.
John Lemke

Seven Ways Your Physical Environment Can Help or Hinder Your Writing | Writing Forward - 0 views

  • Are You Likely to be Interrupted?
  • What Can You Hear?
  • Are You Sitting Comfortably?
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  • How Much Clutter Can You See?
  • What’s the Mood of Your Room Like?
  • Are Your Tools Good Ones?
  • Just imagine trying to write with a dried-up pen, where you have to keep stopping to go over too-faint words.
  • If your keyboard is fiddly to type on, if the software you’re using freezes or crashes, or if you’re struggling in some way against your tools, don’t put up with this: change it.
  • Are You Allowing Distractions In?
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    A good approach to looking at how your environment impacts your productivity. 
John Lemke

How to Become a Freelance Writer in 900 Simple Steps - Part 1: Risky Business | LitReactor - 0 views

  • What exactly do freelance copywriters write? Everything! From ad copy to newsletters, from policies to blogs, from business proposals to brochures, and from catalog blurbs to t-shirt taglines, there's nothing off-limits. James told me she's worked on everything from tweets for non-profits to ghost writing a book for a motivational speaker to writing taglines for Nike. So, if you are after variety, it appears that the freelance thing delivers. Sure, some freelances have specialties, but generally speaking, they are just really skilled at writing and they help businesses who need someone with that skill to produce written content. Unlike traditional writers, these people don't get their names in the byline, but they do get paid hourly for their work. Did you catch that? HOUR-LY.
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