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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

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.
John Lemke

5 Quick Ways Busy Freelancers Can Keep Marketing - 0 views

  • The clients are “not there” for all freelancers, until we go out and proactively market and find them. Take responsibility for your business success and realize it’s up to you to get out there and look for new clients (or new projects from current clients).
  • Don’t have a writer website? It’s time to get one. You really can’t present yourself professionally these days without a site.
  • Tweaking your site copy is something you can do 10 minutes a day on, and it’s well worth it to up your odds of drawing prospects to you.
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  • The writer who sent this comment may be missing out if they’re not active on LinkedIn, the one social-media platform where self-promotion is more acceptable.
  • My experience is LinkedIn connections are happy to recommend and refer you, if you’ll only ask. And it takes just a few moments a day to reach out. You can even mass-mail your LinkedIn contacts 50 people at a time, but use this option with caution to avoid coming off spammy.
John Lemke

The Write Life Presents: The 100 Best Websites for Writers in 2014 - 0 views

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    Fellow writers, here is a list to keep you busy. Feel free to leave a comment as to which ones you like.
John Lemke

How Semantic Search Changes The Way You do Business - 0 views

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    A more detailed article on semantic search and SEO
John Lemke

AJ Kohn talks Hummingbird, social, authority, writing and MUCH more! » SEO Co... - 0 views

  • My mantra is to do it instead of thinking about doing it. If I catch myself doing the latter I just switch to doing instead of thinking. Easier said than done for me, but I’ve gotten better at that. But there aren’t enough hours in the day. Or not if you’re also going to stay healthy and be a part of your family and not get burnt out. So things fall off the table, even more so if you’re hell bent on creating really great work. Yet, I find that quality is what wins at the end of the day and that solves a lot of other problems.
  • People scan and don’t read, so you have to format your content to meet that reality.
  • And if they share it, you gain greater readership. So I encourage writers to think of the entire canvas when creating content. Think about the headers in your piece and about the images you’ll use to enrich the story.
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  • Writers still concentrate too much on the text and not enough on formatting and presentation. Making the content you create readable, portable and memorable is what will gain success.
  • The other thing that I think was important was commenting (with links) on other content.
  • I believe in 90-9-1 participation inequality. Comments are the area on a piece of content where the 9 (contributors) and the 1 (creators) are most frequently found. Those are the people I wanted to connect with because I had a better chance of them carrying my content to other places. And they did.
  • Social media is a key factor in SEO and Internet marketing for businesses and individuals. You rock at social media, sharing across multiple platforms and gaining reach. Social media can be intimidating and time consuming. What advice do you have for managing individual as well as business social accounts? Well you hit on the big issue; it’s time consuming and most people don’t want to invest that amount of time. So that’s the first thing. You can’t half-ass it and expect to do very well. One of the things I try to do is make my content on these platforms consistent, readable and memorable. On Twitter I decided to use a convention for the vast majority of my tweets. [Activity]: [Title] [URL] [Comment] [Hashtag]
  • The last one is to not do work for free.
  • Well, I’m seeing more and more evidence of what I describe happening and believe that Knowledge Graph Optimization (KGO) is going to be more and more important moving forward.
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    Many good points about writing in this new era are brought out in this interview.
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

» 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

Top 10 Websites That Pay Upfront For Your Content | Grow Your Writing Business - 0 views

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    I don't necessarily agree with the rankings but I do actually get paid by a few on this list.
John Lemke

Writer Unboxed » A 'Logic Model' for Author Success - 0 views

  • in this age of the “writer as an entrepreneur” responsible for a growing share of the work required to not only create but also sell a book, adding management skills to our repertoire of abilities is not at all a bad idea.
  • as launch time approaches, authors get overwhelmed by thinking that they have to do “everything:” Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, ad campaigns, bookstore talks, conference panels, media articles, email newsletters, book clubs…you name it.
  • what our goals are beyond sales
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  • Based on our mission and our definition of success, we can then work out a manageable set of steps to take in line with our specific interests and goals. We feel more in control and less anxious about having to “do it all.”
  • A more viable definition of success does have a quantitative element, but it doesn’t necessarily mean “number of copies sold or dollars earned.” It can mean other measurable outcomes such as landing a teaching job or a column in a respected publication.
John Lemke

3 Big Reasons Your Freelance Writing Dreams Go Nowhere - 0 views

  • When you have access to materials that could help you create a plan for launching your business, but you never use them, you’re not serious about this.
  • Sitting around beating yourself up about what you don’t know or haven’t taken action on yet is not going to help you take the plunge into the uncertain world of freelancing.
  • Your dreams are not puny.
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

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.
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