Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Freelance Writing Tips: How To Find The Confidence To Start Today

Freelance writing: what’s the BEST that could happen?

Perhaps you want to:

• Write a book;
• Turn freelance writing into a full-time career; or
• Create a money-making blog.

Take ten minutes and think about how your life would change if you achieved the best-possible outcome.

Write a quick description of your new life. Writing down what your new life will look like is the start of building your confidence in your writing—and in yourself.

via www.angelabooth.com

The Ultimate Online Editing and Proofreading Checklist for Writers

Topics

We'll start at the beginning with topics. Knowing which topic to write about can come from various places, but these tips will double check that what you're writing about will resonate with your readers and have the chance to rock it with SEO.

Does this topic align with our content strategy? Will our readers/buyer personas care about it?

 

Have we covered this topic comprehensively in the past? Will it add anything new and interesting amongst all the content clutter on the web? If both answers are yes, consider updating and republishing the original draft.

 

Can the angle be tweaked to be even more interesting?

Does this topic have SEO have high potential?

Is this topic relevant to the industry/timely?

via blog.hubspot.com

How To Manage Your Content Marketing Projects with ClickUp

The task templates include consistent information like:

• Naming convention: I identify each post with “Blog Post” to keep the order consistent and the intent clear across other tasks and projects. I start with “Blog Post” and then follow it with the topic of the post, such as “Blog Post: Project Success Factors.” The topic of the post is also the name of the task.
• Draft link: We use Google Docs and include a link to the draft that is accessible by our whole team, but a field for the draft is included in the task template
• Post info: We also include prompts for the topic research, like the keywords we’re trying to target, the keyword difficulty and more.
• Creative Brief/outline: Also in the task description, I’ll essentially include the creative brief here as well (though I don’t often create one if I’m writing the post myself!) This would include information on the point of view of the topic, any must-have mentions and potentially an outline for how the post should go.

via clickup.com

I'm a new ClickUp user. From my experience so far, I LOVE the templates. :-)

Pay Attention: The Art of Noticing

Draw what you see

Photography can be the default mode now that we all have cameras constantly within arms length on our phones. Instead of taking a picture the next time you see something interesting, why not draw it? No artistic ability is necessary, and you don’t have to show the drawing to anyone else. 

When you’re tempted to reach for your phone out of boredom, go for your notebook instead (you can even find a cheap one that’s sized like your phone). You don’t have to draw everything, just draw one thing. Then repeat every day until you fill your notebook. 

via 99u.adobe.com

Writer Beware®: The Blog: A New "Beware": Scammers Impersonating Reputable Literary Agents

These approaches are followed by opportunities to spend large amounts of cash. For the Jennifer Jackson scammer, it's a "review" of your book plus "book insurance and returnability" for a total of $1,400. For the Victoria Marini scammer, the video trailer she's shilling for "promotional" purposes costs $3,000 (an amazing discount!) For the Danielle Burby scammer, it's "Submissions to Traditional Publishing Companies" by "Book Scouts" for the wallet-squeezing sum of $5,000. 

via accrispin.blogspot.com

Procrastination vs. Perfectionism and How-To Git ‘Er Done

Perfectionism says, “I need to tweak everything. I need to have the cover done and then the outline finished, along with everything else.”

Git ‘Er Done: You don’t. Just start working on it. You can always tweak it and make it better. Just do it. In the case of the book, I wrote it, I read it, I updated it, I ran it by a second set of eyes, and then I tweaked it again. I would get each chapter done as if it was a project.

Even the book cover was a project. I came up with a title and then I started playing around with some ideas and then I sent it to a designer and she sent me version A , then B, and then C and I kept taking those different designs and putting it out on the internet and letting people look at it and vote on them until I finally came up with the right book cover. Just keep working on it step by step.

via www.business2community.com

13 Visualization Techniques to Help You Reach Your Goals

Visualize Yourself Succeeding at Your Goal

This is the easiest visualization technique and the one that most people start with. Simply visualize yourself succeeding at your goal.

You might picture yourself crossing the finish line of a marathon race or see yourself shaking the hand of the CEO after a major promotion. As long as you have some kind of visual in your head, you’ll be able to derive motivation and confidence from the experience.

via www.lifehack.org

Plotting A Series Of Novels: 5 Tips To Get You Started

Create a framework for your series: a world, and big conflicts

Keeping your characters together — giving them a reason for interacting — is a challenge for every author, no matter the genre. Devices to keep characters interacting can include:

• Family relationships;
• Settings: a workplace, or a small town;
• A quest, or a challenge, or a crime.

The framework for the Greenleaf series is a Memphis mega-church, the Greenleaf family, and a crime.

If you’re a pantser, and hate plotting (me, too), spend time on your framework, and the rules of the world of your series. Once you know the world, and your over-arching plot, you can cheerfully pants the novels.

via peneloperedmont.com

Nonfiction Book Sales: 2 Quick Edits To Boost Sales

Over the past couple of months several writers have talked about slowing sales, so let’s look at ways you can boost sales of your nonfiction book with a couple of quick edits.

Your nonfiction book: sometimes you can generate sales with a few simple edits

You may be able to boost sales with a few minor adjustments when you review:

• Your book’s categories/ genre; and
• The blurb (book description.)

Let’s start with categorization.

via www.angelabooth.com

Freelance Writing Zero To Hero

Simple actions to big success: step by step to success

With this program, you’ll shortcut your path to success.

I promise.

If you love to write and follow this program, you’ll succeed as a writer.

You’ll benefit from my experience. Over the years, I’ve made horrible mistakes which derailed my career (in one case, for a decade.)

While the world’s changed since I tapped away on my Olivetti and IBM Selectric typewriters, freelance writing hasn’t changed. At all. Human nature is the same as it ever was. And the same kinds of people and situations are still taking advantage of inexperienced writers and other creatives.

via www.angelaswritingclasses.com

Conflict Thesaurus Entry: Losing One's Temper

Conflict: Losing One’s Temper

Category: Power struggles, increased pressure and ticking clocks, failures and mistakes, relationship friction, duty and responsibilities, moral dilemmas and temptation, losing an advantage, loss of control, ego, no-win situations, miscellaneous challenges

Examples:
A character can lose their temper in any circumstance, with any person. The severity of the situation (and, therefore, the fallout) will depend on a number of factors:

The Environment
At work
In the bedroom
In a media interview
In the principal’s office

via writershelpingwriters.net

What if your novel's main character lost his temper?

Writing Your Novel: 6 Tricks to Layer on Stakes

Look at both positive and negative potential consequences.

When it comes to stakes, we often focus on the negative . . . because that is what is at risk.

“If [the protagonist] doesn’t defeat [the antagonist], [the antagonist] will take over the world.”

But putting positive outcomes on the page can sometimes be just as effective.

“If Samantha can nail this audition, then she can finally star in a movie.”

In this example, a positive potential consequence is what is at risk. Sure, we could change it to a negative–if she doesn’t nail the audition, she can’t star in a movie. But by considering both positive and negative, we are more likely to brainstorm new stakes.

via writershelpingwriters.net

Getting Things Done For Writers: 4 Tips To Increase Your Output

Many writers try to write whatever they’re working on straight through. In other words, if you’re writing an article, you write the title, and then plough through the article.

Invariably this leads to unpleasantness. Either the piece doesn’t work: your logic was faulty, so you end up repeating yourself, or you leave out vital information. Or you stall, then you procrastinate: you can’t think of a title, the introduction seems boring, you realize you need more research…

There are a million things which can go wrong when you try to write anything in a single session where your first draft is your only draft.

Find an Inbox for your writing: keep your initial drafts there. I like Evernote, because I can work on early drafts on my phone.

via peneloperedmont.com

WordPress 5.5 Is Here (Features and Screenshots)

Inline Image Editing

WordPress allows you to do some basic image editing like crop, resize, rotate, and scale. However, to do that you need to open the image in the media library.

WordPress 5.5 will allow you to edit images inline without leaving the block editor. You’ll be able to scale, crop, rotate, and resize an image on the spot.

via www.wpbeginner.com

Happy days; 5.5 is here.

Book Marketing: 2 Free Strategies To Target Keen Readers

Online book groups: join a group, or set up your own group

Both Goodreads and Facebook offer many groups for readers of various genres and categories. You also have the option of setting up your own group.

Many authors enjoy creating and posting to their own online group: if this sounds fun, give it a try.

Offline book clubs: they’re everywhere

Book clubs are everywhere these days, offline and online. I’m sure you’ve received invitations to join a club. You may even be a member of one.

via peneloperedmont.com