Browsing Category: "Web Writer's Guide"
It may feel a bit early yet to think about 2009. However, this is the perfect time of year to evaluate your current state in the freelancing business, set some goals, and figure out how your going to make them a reality in the new year.
If you’re brand new to freelance Web writing, and 2009 will be when you finally take the plunge and begin working for yourself, consider picking up my latest Web Writer’s Guide e-book for worksheets, templates, and advice to help you in the planning process.
If you’ve been working as a freelance Web writer for a while now, look back to last year’s goals and resolutions? Did you make them all happen? (That could mean you didn’t shoot high enough, and should consider tougher, or more, goals this year.) Did you miss your mark on all, or most, of those goals? Try to figure out why, so you can form more realistic expectations in 2009.
By the time next weekend rolls around, try to have a list at least started. What do you want to do next year? Do you need more clients? Do you want to raise your rates? Do you want to move from generalization to specialization? Do you want to write your own e-book? Launch your first blog?
When you have some ideas, I’d love it if you would share them here in the comments. Here are a few of my writing-related goals already set for next year, to get things started:
- I would love to have my own sites, blogs, and products be my primary income source, with client work being simply part-time. It may very well happen, but I know there’s a chance it won’t - this is my “big” goal.
- I want to have at least one of my three outlined novels finished up and sent out to agents and / or publishers for consideration.
- I want to create at least five new websites - these will be static sites (not updated regularly like a blog). I want to let them “age” for about three months, and then either flip them or keep them if the income reaches $200 per month or more in that period (which I’ve done a few times before, so it could happen - by going the static route, it’s literally passive income with this type of site).
- I want to launch a minimum of two new e-books in the Web Writer’s Guide series. (Ideally I’d like 4 - 5 new titles out, but that may be pushing it since the next one on marketing will be a pretty big one).
I just wanted to post a quick note for those of you who may have been considering signing up as an affiliate for the new Web Writer’s Guide e-book, or for those who already have.
The commission rate of each net sale was just increased from 25% to 50%!
Help me promote my new e-book, and earn a bit of extra income along the way today!
One of the biggest benefits of writing for the Web is the ease of publishing - you can write and publish almost instantaneously. Unfortunately, this instant gratification can lead to publishing in haste, errors unchecked.
Therefore, when writing for the Web, it’s essential that you pay a bit of extra attention to proofreading - especially with client projects. Here are a few tips that won’t take terribly long, but will help you catch errors that you might otherwise miss:
- Read it aloud. - Whether writing an SEO article, a sales page, or a blog post, try reading it aloud before either delivering it to your client or publishing the piece to your site or blog. When you read it to yourself silently, you’ll see what you expect to be there rather than what’s actually been typed (because you know what you meant to say). This is especially true when the piece is fresh in your mind. Reading aloud can help you catch subtle errors or things that simply don’t sound right (like a run-on sentence).
- Take a break. - Don’t publish or deliver the writing until you’ve waited at least a few hours after its completion. This helps to counteract what I just mentioned - you won’t have what you were trying to say fresh on your mind, so you may catch errors you would miss if proofing it directly after writing.
- Get a second opinion. - While this is extremely important if you’re not writing in your native language, getting another opinion from an unbiased source can be beneficial to any Web writer. Another reader can be especially helpful by letting you know whether or not you’re conveying your points (you may know what you’re talking about, but does your writing really help the reader understand it?).
These tips may be simple, but they go a long way towards improving your writing for the Web.
You’ve seen the sneak peek. Maybe you even got your hands on a copy. But now you can make money by helping to promote my new e-book by taking part in the brand new affiliate program that’s just been launched!
You’ll have to be a member of ClickBank to earn money promoting the e-book, so sign up today! If you’re already a member, just follow the guide on my affiliate page for setting up your affiliate URLs.
The affiliate page even includes several ad graphics you’re welcome to use (please be sure to download them and then upload to your own servers though - don’t hotlink the graphics pretty please). Check them out!
First, I’d like to mention that I recently added some reviews / testimonials from freelance writers to the product page for the Web Writer’s Guide to Launching a Successful Freelance Web Writing Career. Check out what Anne Wayman, Angela Booth, LaToya Irby, and Abby Beal have to say about it before picking up a copy of your own - I’ll be adding other comments there as they come in. I’ve also begun the process of adding the e-book to ClickBank. If they approve it, there will soon be an affiliate program available. If they don’t, I won’t be setting one up - I’m hoping it goes through relatively painlessly. More on that later.
Now, on to the next order of business!
After some feedback on my All Freelance Writing blog, I chose the topic for the next e-book in the Web Writer’s Guide series. My next release will be the Web Writer’s Guide to Marketing Web Writing Services (or something along those lines - haven’t settled on the title yet).
I outlined the new e-book this weekend, and it’s shaping up to be another pretty thorough one. I intend to have this e-book out much faster than the several months it took to release the previous one. You can get involved with the process by checking out the list of marketing templates and worksheets I’ve brainstormed and letting me know which you consider absolutely essential and ideas for any others you’d like to see.
I’ve just launched the first in the Web Writer’s Guide e-book series tied to this blog - the Web Writer’s Guide to Launching a Successful Freelance Web Writing Career.
I’m excited that this huge project is finally ready for public launch, and want to thank my handful of reviewers who offered an incredible amount of tips and suggestions to improve the e-book before launch (thanks to their suggestions, you have quite a few additional resources!).
Here are the basics:
- 100 pages - No fluff, no big images, no gigantic fonts - 100 pages of solid content and resources!
- 13 worksheets and templates
- A large resource list (everything from payment processors that let you get paid to places where you can find gigs and even places you can get templates to build your site or portfolio).
- Selling for $37
In addition to the e-book, you get three custom bonuses that were created (by me) to serve as supplements to this e-book (they’re not available anywhere else, unlike the free mass-distributed or PLR e-book bonuses you’ll often get with an e-book purchase elsewhere). Those bonuses include:
- A 30-Day Get-Started Guide
- A 12-Month Marketing Calendar
- A Web Writer’s “Cheat Sheet” (basic Web writing and HTML tips and reminders)
Check out the product page for more information or to order you copy today!
And if you haven’t seen them yet, on that product page you can also find the TOC, an excerpt, and a sample template from the e-book - have a preview before you buy!
With the pending launch of the first Web Writer’s Guide e-book, I’m already thinking about which title should come next! In the next week or two, I plan to start outlining the second e-book in the series, and I’d like your feedback. Of the titles below (which were previously announced as being planned for the series), which would you be most interested in seeing?
Web Writer’s Guide to…
- Finding Online Writer’s Markets
- Networking Your Way to Higher Paying Freelance Writing Jobs Online
- Making Money as a Professional Blogger
- Writing and Selling E-books and Reports
We could also cover any number of other topics, including:
- Marketing Web writing services
- Reputation management for freelance Web writers
- Business side of freelance Web writing (handling the admin side, etc.)
- Advanced niches (press release writing, etc.) for more specialized audiences.
I’d love to hear your thoughts before committing to anything! 
Yesterday I gave you a sneak peek of the first in the Web Writer’s Guide e-book series launching Monday - Web Writer’s Guide to Launching a Successful Freelance Web Writing Career. There you got to see the table of contents, detailing the topics the e-book itself will cover.
Today I’d like to officially announce the bonuses I’ll be including with the e-book release. But first, I want to emphasize that these are brand new, unique bonuses that you won’t find anywhere else! I don’t believe in buying resale rights products and lumping them with my product, or editing a PLR e-book or two and pretending they add value - none of that crap here! You’ll get three bonuses all custom-created by me, specifically designed to act as supplements to the e-book.
That includes:
- A 30-Day Get-Started Guide for new Web Writers
- A 12-Month Marketing Calendar you can use in conjunction with the one page marketing plan template included in the e-book
- A Web Writer’s “Cheat Sheet” (includes basic writing for the Web reminders, basic HTML you may need to know for client projects, and more!)
The first in the Web Writer’s Guide e-book series, Launching a Successful Freelance Web Writing Career, will be released this Monday! Today you can get a free sneak peek! Below you’ll find the table of contents (to let you know what’s being covered in the e-book), an excerpt from the e-book (which you’re free to re-publish), and a free one page business plan template that I created for the e-book (one of 13 worksheets and templates I developed and included).
The e-book is priced at $37. There will be an affiliate program, although that might launch a little bit after the e-book itself is released (while I get the product approved by Clickbank and create banners and affiliate info).
In the meantime, enjoy!
One thing you’ll learn in The Web Writer’s Guide to Launching a Successful Freelance Web Writing Career is that being a Web writer can be about much more than taking on articles, copywriting, or other writing projects from clients.
Something I like to talk about when I’m chatting with new writers is moving beyond that client work and writing “for yourself.”
What is “Writing for Yourself?”
When you write for yourself, you’re not being contracted to create something based on the needs of a client. You become the client! You have absolute control and complete freedom, and rather than a one-time payment, in many cases you’ll earn recurring income over time.
E-books as a Form of “Writing for Yourself”
E-books are one of my favorite things to work on as far as my “me” projects go. As you know, I’m soon launching the first e-book in the Web Writer’s Guide series. I also previously wrote and sold a short e-book called Press Releases Made Easy (which is now available for free through ProBusinessWriter.com).
Both of these projects have been completely different for me. My press release e-book was created at the demand of my clients - some simply wanted to better understand press releases. I spent a “whopping” 5 hours writing it - yep, that’s it! At that point it was just 18 pages (the updated version available on the site listed above is now 20 pages). It earned me far more during the time it was being sold than I would have earned by billing out those 5 hours to clients - and the income kept coming in. When you aren’t expecting it, it’s like a pleasant little surprise every time you see a new payment rolling in (you’ll learn to love that feeling).
The new e-book is over 80 pages (it will likely be closer to 90-100 pages when the edits are complete). It took me months to put together (a big difference from the first e-book). I ran a 14 Day E-book Writing Challenge at my freelance writing blog a while back. At the end, I felt my work was too general, and that it would be better served as an e-book series. So I spent further weeks separating that information, expanding upon parts of it, and weeding things out to target the more narrow niche of freelance Web writing. That’s how the Web Writer’s Guide series and this blog were born.
My point is this - when you write for you, you get to decide how much time you want to put into a project, what you want that product to “look like” after the fact, and how much you want to earn from it (you’ll get there with a combination of the right pricing strategy and the right marketing plan). The only deadlines you’ll face are the ones you choose to set for yourself, and a little bit of discipline will go a long way in letting you work your own writing projects around client work that pays the bulk of the bills in the meantime.
Pick up a copy of Launching a Successful Freelance Web Writing Career after the e-book launches to learn more about residual income streams available to Web writers. Keep your eyes peeled for updates on its pending launch (hint: in less than 2 weeks)!
