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Writing Etc. – September 15, 2005

ISSN: 1545-5580

Tips, Techniques, and Resources to Transform You From An Average Freelancer to A Highly Paid Professional.

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To subscr*ibe to Writing Etc. and receive the fr*e e-book, “Power Queries,” surf here: http://filbertpublishing.com

Forward Writing Etc. to all your writing friends! They’ll be glad you did.

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In This Issue:

Notes from Minnesota

How to Skyrocket Your Freelance Income by Building Your Own Website

2005 Action Plan to Jumpstart Your Writing Career

We Recommend…

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 This issue is sponsored by:

Think It’ll Take Forever To Earn A Great Living As A Writer?

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• Write powerful queries that’ll open new doors of opportunity
• Promote your writing business for little or no money

Absolute Write calls Jumpstart “a marvelous tool for novice writers and often published authors alike. It’s refreshing, easy to use, and applicable”.

Pick up your copy today so you can jump ahead of the pack and start snagging great paying assignments, read more here:

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Greetings from Minnesota!

This morning I sent my baby off to school.

Ok. I know. The boy’s sixteen years old.

What made today different was that yesterday he finally got his driver’s license and this morning I watched as my little boy drove off (picture a huge grin on his face) in our maroon Ford.

Dang, time goes by fast.

Don’t worry. I won’t start waxing poetic.

However, something about the whole experience reminded me of the writer’s life…

Peder (my dear son) took his first driver’s test last May. Almost hit a bus. Needless to say he failed. Second test: hit a pole. Failed.

About this time we figured he needed more practice. He drove all summer and took test number three two weeks ago. Failed because he didn’t “look carefully enough at intersections.” Dang.

As we sat waiting for test number four I watched Peder’s anxiety heighten. Ears turned red. Hands shook.

“It’ll be OK,” I said. “Besides,” I added, “What’s the worst thing that could happen if you failed again?”

“I’d have to take this danged test again,” he replied. Then he added, “But I’m not gonna let my nerves get the best of me again.”

And he apparently succeeded because he’s driving today.

Which brings me to you.

I think the worst e-mails I receive are those from discouraged writers who contemplate giving up after a few rejection letters. And if you find the heat of rejection too hot, perhaps you’ve chosen the wrong career.

Writers must somehow nurture their creative muse while at the same time develop elephant skin. We must figure out a way to allow our soft imaginations fly free while withstanding the barrage of negativity that can sprout from those dang rejections.

Guess we have to be like Peder. Learn. Practice. And most important… persevere until you succeed.

Enjoy your week everyone!

Beth

P.S. Here’s our best seller list… be sure to pick up a copy of each of these titles. They’re awesome.

1.      Jumpstart Your Writing Career and Snag Paying Assignments by Beth Erickson http://filbertpublishing.com/jumpstart.htm

2.      Bob Bly’s Guide to Freelance Writing Success: How to Make $100,000 a Year as a Freelance Writer and Have The Time of Your Life Doing It. http://filbertpublishing.com/bob.htm

3.      Weekly Writes: Exercises in Creative Writing by Shery Ma Belle Arrieta http://filbertpublishing.com/Weekly.htm (You’ll get a ton of fr** writing/freelancing tools direct from Shery at http://WeeklyWrites.com when you order this title!)

4.      Writing Wide: Exercises in Creative Writing by Billie A. Williams http://filbertpublishing.com/WW.htm  Get even more info here: http://writtingwide.tripod.com/

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~~~~~~~~~~~~ Feature Article ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How to Skyrocket Your Freelance Income by Building Your Own Website

Beth Ann Erickson

FilbertPublishing.com

BethAnnErickson.com

Welcome to the new and improved Writing Etc.!

Yeah, you’ve always received incredible freelance information in this zine, but now it just got better.

After a major website revamp, I just wanted to take a minute to point out some of the intense freebies you can pick up:

1. Be sure to download Power Queries. This powerful little e-booklet is responsible for landing more assignments than I can count. E-mails come in weekly from astonished subscribers telling me how glad they followed the guidelines in this book. Here’s the URL: http://filbertpublishing.com/Power.html
2. As a valued subscriber, you’re now entitled to view the entire contents of the Writing Etc. vault. Your key to entry is this URL: http://filbertpublishing.com/Top_Secret_Vault.html I only ask that you do not share this link with anyone outside the Writing Etc. family.
3. Writers often don't like to think of themselves as marketers, but that's exactly what you are. To help you become the best marketer you can be, our very special gift to you is your own free copy of Claude Hopkin's Scientific Advertising. Written in 1923, it’s a surprisingly easy read and incredibly eye-opening. Read it. Study it. Master it and you'll never want for writing assignments again. Here’s the URL to start reading: http://filbertpublishing.com/Our_Very_Special_Gift_To_You.html 

I hope you enjoy the freebies. More than that, I hope you grab every one of these resources, devour them, and start building an incredibly profitable writing career.

To that end, today I’m running a vintage Writing Etc. article outlining all the cool ways you can market your writing online using a web page. Here it is:

Ten Reasons Every Writer Needs a Web Site

By Beth Ann Erickson

FilbertPublishing.com

I received a very interesting e-mail the other day.  It came from an extremely talented writer who wrote something that went like this:

“On the advice of a “career coach,” effective immediately, I am closing my website.  At this point in my writing career, it's money better spent elsewhere.”

I was stunned.  How can a legitimate “career coach” advocate closing a website – especially when a website is a powerful weapon in every writer’s arsenal.

As I pondered what she’d written, I could think of ten reasons why EVERY writer needs a website.  Here they are:

1. Your website builds credibility.  Having a website presence places you as an expert in your field.  A writer who takes the time to write and maintain a website is a writer who takes their career seriously.  Not only that, having a web address on your business cards looks impressive....
2. Your website is a wonderful place to house your clips.  Every query you send out can provide your URL along with links to your clips.  Face it... a web site is like an interactive billboard advertising your writing services.  It’s available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, plus it provides more information about you and your writing than any query could possibly hold.
3. Owning a website makes applying for online writing assignments a breeze.  Keep an updated resume on your site.  When you query online publications, place the resume URL in your query.  Also include your home page.  Then your site will do most of the work for you.
4. Keeping a separate page on your web site for various resumes gives your assignment searches flexibility.  Create one URL for your resume that focuses on your article writing abilities.  Create another one for your fiction pursuits.  Maybe you want one web page solely for your copywriting achievements.  Each page can hold links for corresponding clips.  Creating multiple resume pages focuses your querying efforts like a laser.
5. Owning a website is inexpensive.  You can easily find a reliable hosting company for as little as five bucks a month.  Plus, the cost of owning it gets lower when you consider that the cost is tax deductible (if you use it solely for business purposes).
6. You can sell writing projects on your web page.  Once you have a nice flow of traffic visiting your site, you can diversify your income by writing booklets, articles, reports, books... and selling them.  You can even sell e-books and forgo effort of packaging items, or running to the post office.
7. Maintaining a website creates a hub where clients, other writers, and potential customers can congregate and “meet” you.  When you have a website, I’m sure you’ll create an e-mail link on every page so visitors can contact you.  Answer every e-mail you receive.  You’ll make invaluable contacts, you’ll network with other writers, but most of all... you’ll make friends.  Writing can be a lonely profession.  But not so when you have your own “cheerleading section.”
8. A website may make you newsworthy.  And when your name is in front of your potential customers on a regular basis, you’re more apt to obtain their writing assignments.  What’s newsworthy?  The answer to that question is only limited by your imagination.  Make your site the best source of information your clients need and you’ll find yourself newsworthy.
9. If you want to write books, using your website to create a message board, “e-mail list” or e-mag may make finding a publisher easier.  Showing a potential publisher that you’ve taken the time to create an audience for your subject, showing them that you’ve got a few thousand potential readers waiting for your messages on a regular basis just may tip the scales in your favor when it comes to considering your proposal.
10. Owning a website and attracting traffic towards it is a big step in acquiring a readership.  Fiction writers will find attracting a readership invaluable.  Post chapter samples of your newest project online.  Request feedback.  REALLY get to know your audience.  You’ll be surprised how your perception of who will read your work differs from reality.  When you know your audience, inside and out, you can tailor what you write to fit their needs.  Then everyone’s the winner.  The reader receives something they need.  You’ll sell you’re writing.

As you can see, these are some very compelling reasons to own a website.  But if these haven’t convinced you, here’s four more bonus reasons why you should own a website.

1. You can anticipate the questions potential customers will ask and provide answers on a FAQ page.  You’ll save a ton of time if you don’t have to repeat the answer to the same questions over and over.
2. You can stay in contact with your readers.  Have an area where readers/clients/visitors can sign up for updates, news, etc.  Then keep in touch with them on a regular basis.
3. You may acquire international clients.  I live in Minnesota.  I’ve written articles for people in Europe.  Folks from Africa have purchased my books. I work with copywriting clients nation-wide. I never would have met these people without my web site.
4. You can convey the image you want to project on your web site.  Want to look like a small company?  Fine.  Create a page that makes you look warm, cozy, and local.  If you want to compete with the “big guys” make your page slick, professional, and concise.  It’s completely up to you.
5. Finally, your competition probably has a website and is already landing e-assignments.  Know your competitors.  Write better than they do.  But most of all, squeeze everything you can out of every dime you put into your promotion efforts.  Creating and maintaining a web site is a wonderful way to reach as many potential clients for just a little investment of time and money.  Your competition already knows this.  You should too.

But most of all, creating relationships is the key to succeed as a writer in this millennium.  A website enables you to create a very nice relationship with every one of your readers.  Writing is a solitary profession.  Interaction with people I’ve met through FilbertPublishing.com has become an unexpected delight as I make my way through this crazy profession.

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Beth Ann Erickson is the “Queen Bee” of Filbert Publishing. She’s also the author of Jumpstart Your Writing Career (http://filbertpublishing.com/jumpstart.htm ). She’s also a busy copywriter, speaker, and publisher of Writing Etc., the free e-mag for writers. 

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Recently Vicky and Beth got together at the Filbert Publishing headquarters in Kandiyohi, Minnesota to work on the new book they're co-creating when something far out happened...

You see, they were taping conversations to include in their book when they started getting way off track. Suddenly they found themselves talking about copywriting, getting clients, building their E-zines.  When they played the conversations back they discovered they had…

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2005 Action Plan to Jumpstart Your Writing Career

Yup. You need a website. And here are two incredible tools that'll make maintaining your own site almost effortless.

I just registered the domain BethAnnErickson.com and plan on finishing it in the next couple days.

Now you can do the same thing.

One of the most difficult hurdles you face when you’re first building your site is figuring out what you’re going to name the site, then finding someone to host it.

Well, if you’re at a loss as to how to do this, I highly recommend 1&1. They’re fantastic to work with, their prices are awesome, and they make acquiring your domain name and finding a place to host your site effortless. Plus, they’ve got super-cool tools that make the process of maintaining a website downright fun.

Here’s their link:

http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=9360513

The other hurdle you’ll face when building your website is… well… building your website.

Do you hire a designer? Do you do it yourself? Choice is yours.

However, I can give you a big tip. I just purchased a program called XSite Pro to build my websites. You’re sitting on an XSite Pro website right now.

What I liked about XSite is that it has a gazillion templates you can easily modify to give your website the look you want. It’s absolutely simple to update and change content. XSite will even FTP everything to your host. Best of all, it’ll help you do all those mystic optimization thingies to  make your site so it’s search-engine friendly… something I never quite understood… but now I don’t have to.

Oh, and it does so much more than that.

If you want a professional-looking website minus spending a ton of money on design fees… if you want an website that will effectively market your writing skills… if you want a website that practically builds itself, XSite is definitely something you want to check out. Here’s the link: http://www.xsitepro.com/cmd.php?af=304199 (Be sure to watch the video on this page! Your jaw will drop when you watch XSite pro in action.)

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We Recommend:

Writing For Dollars! The FREE ezine for writers featuring tips, tricks and ideas for selling what you write. Receive the FREE ebook, 83 WAYS TO MAKE MONEY WRITING when you subscribe. Email to subscribe@writingfordollars.com -*- http://www.WritingForDollars.com

WRITERS FIND MARKETS EASILY - Worldwide Freelance has a NEW fully-searchable Markets Database. Discover writing markets from North America, Europe, Australia and other places. It's free, so come and try it out here: http://www.worldwidefreelance.com

Instantly Download Jumpstart Your Writing Career and Snag Paying Assignments Here: http://booklocker.com/bookpages/jumpstart.html

E-Mag And Web Site Owners! Did you know that Filbert Publishing has an entire cache of articles you can use FR EE. Copy and paste these articles straight into your web site or publication. Here’s the URL: http://filbertpublishing.com/Freebies_for_Serious_Writers.html

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Feel free to forward Writing Etc. to all your writing friends. Just be sure to include the entire issue. Thanks!

We strive to make Writing Etc. an invaluable resource to writers. If you have any comments or suggestions please send them to filbertpublishing(a)filbertpublishing.com

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