Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Beyond Writing: How to Make Money Online

I love writing. Writing is my life. (Sad, I know, but there it is. :-))

If you're reading this, you may feel the same way. We're on exactly the same wavelength.

Unfortunately many writers are living in the desert, and it's a long time between drinks. Perhaps you're making little money from your writing career. Or maybe writing's a hobby, and you feel somewhat guilty about it. Your family members look at you reproachfully: they believe you should be spending your free minutes and hours with them, rather than tapping a keyboard.

Many of my writing guides teach you how to make money writing. Inevitably however, once you know how to write, chances are you're still trading hours for dollars.

For your family's wellbeing, and your own, this makes no sense. Once you know how to write, trading hours for dollars is like sitting on top of a goldmine, and leaving all that gold in the ground.

I'm considering creating a new email list which teaches you how to make money online, using your writing skills, but using them in a specific way, to receive a result.

Interested?

Please vote in this poll. Thank you. :-)

 

 

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Writing Services: How to Write YouTube Scripts

This week in Fab Freelance Writing Ezine, our primary article is: "Hot Youtube Scripts: How to Write Them and How to Promote Yourself As a Scriptwriter".

Here's an excerpt:

This week, we're going to look at writing YouTube scripts. Once you get comfortable with this, you'll have a new service you can provide to your clients. 

Over the past few months, I've seen many people advertising for YouTube script writers on Craiglist, and on other sites. However few (if any) writers are offering this service. 

If you establish yourself in this field, expect to make a nice income. Script writing for online video will be very hot in the years to come.

Read the rest in the ezine. This issue will be sent to subscribers in a couple of days.

Next week we'll be discussing another hot new writing service you can provide: "Writing Facebook Fan Pages: Promote This New Writing Service and Get Eager Clients".

FYI, the content in the ezine is exclusive; I won't be publishing it elsewhere. Enjoy. :-)

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New "Selling Yourself As a Writer" Series Launching on Fab Freelance Writing Blog (PR)

Angela Booth is launching a new "Selling Yourself As a Writer" series on her popular Fab Freelance Writing Blog. The series gives both established and new writers powerful strategies to get a constant flow of writing jobs and take advantage of opportunities.

Top copywriter, writing teacher and author Angela Booth is launching the "Selling Yourself As a Writer" series on the Fab Freelance Writing Blog this week. The series will run over the next few months.

Angela says that she developed the new series because many writers find making sales of their writing services and products a real challenge. Angela says: "Writers readily admit that they lack the knowledge and confidence to sell their services effectively. This is easily fixed, and the new series will help them to develop sales skills as well as confidence."

The series helps writers to look at their writing from the point of view of buyers: businesses, publications, websites, and acquisitions editors at publishing houses.

"It often comes as a horrible shock to writers when they discover they need to market their writing," Angela says. "Writers tend to expect someone else to do that. Once they accept this hard truth, and learn to promote, they fail to see the final step in the process: selling."

Articles in the new series include:

* "Power-Up Your Confidence: It's the Key to Success". This article offers essential confidence-building strategies.

* "Give Them What They Want: You Must Sell What's Selling Today". Writers will discover what's hot right now, and what buyers need.

* "Make It Personal: Sell Yourself With the Personal Touch". In this vital article, Angela reveals a simple pre-sales process which any writer can use with success.

Angela Booth started the popular Fab Freelance Writing Blog in 2006. The blog's primary aim is to help writers to develop a professional writing career, and it's helped many to do just that.

The blog has a companion writing tips ezine, which is delivered via email each week. 

Writers can subscribe to the Fab Freelance Writing Blog to read the series.

 

Blogging: It's Not About the Blog

I wrote this editorial about blogging in Fab Freelance Writing Ezine over a year ago. I'm posting it in response to queries writers have had about their blogs. 

Blogs became mainstream in around 2004, so by now every writer either has a blog, or feels guilty because he doesn't.

In my chats with writers however, I've come to realize that many/ most writers interpret the instruction to "Get a blog!" or claims about what blogging can do for their writing career in a very limited way. They think their blog is about blogging.

Your blog shouldn't be about blogging per se, and when you blog, it's not about the blog. If that makes sense. :-)

Your blog is just a tool.

It's what you do with it that counts, and if you feel that "blogging doesn't work" it's invariably because you've either had no specific goals for a blog, or tried to get one poor little blog to do too much.

It's very common for example to see writers' blogs which are about everything and nothing at all. One post is about a movie the writer saw, the next is a discussion about brands of coffee, the next is about what the writer is currently writing, or trying to write…  

An "everything" blog can work, but it must have an overarching theme.  For example, in his "everything" blog humorist Dave Barry covers miscellany, but the blog's theme is sly humor. Every post in Barry's blog has just one goal – to get a laugh.

Blogs are endlessly useful, and you can make blogging work for you, and there's just one thing to remember – it's not about the BLOG, the blog is just a tool to help you to achieve a goal.

Got a goal?

Get  blog

A blog can help you to achieve just about any goal you care to set.

Want to write a book? Start a blog.

Want to make money? Start a blog.

Want to get people to buy your articles/ ebooks/ writing services? Start a blog.Want to change jobs and get a better job with more money? Start a blog.

When you think in terms of goals you want to achieve, blogs can help you to achieve way beyond your goals.

If You Do What Others Do, You'll Get What They Get

Nowadays, anyone with a computer keyboard can launch themselves on the world as a writer. That's fine. I'm not being elitist. I love the fact that writers can start earning quickly.

But quick money, even if it's a tiny amount, is dangerous.

Some 30 years ago, when I started writing, you served an apprenticeship. It took most writers three to five years to learn how to sell to magazines, and around the same period to learn business writing. 

If you wanted to write a book, the apprenticeship period was much longer. Of course there were blockbuster books, but if you read the details about an  "overnight success", the blockbuster writers were journalists, screenwriters  or copywriters. They had the background; they'd learned how to write. On the other hand, if they truly did jump from nowhere to bestseller status, it was rare that they could repeat the success of their first book, because they didn't have the background.

Here's what I mean by "If you do what others do, you'll get what they get."

If you've managed to get someone to pay you some small amount for an article or whatever, you'll get annoyed when you're stuck in the writing ghetto. And it's inevitable that you will. You just don't have the background to move up and out. You think that since you're making $5 an article, anyone who tells you that you could be making $1 to $3 per WORD is a liar.

You're doing what other writers do -- and you're getting what they get.

Every week, I receive messages from writers telling me they've been published on some content mill or other, so they're "experienced" writers. They're wondering why they're not making more money. They want a fast way to make more income. 

If you want to make more money than other writers who write for content mills, you'll need to do what they DON'T do. 

They don't:

* Learn writing skills

* Approach high-paying markets

* Build their writing inventory

* Create a website which sells their skills

* Etc. and etc...

There's a HUGE, unlimited world of writing opportunities out there for you. All you need to do have a huge writing career is do what successful writers do -- not what the unsuccessful ones do.

Does that make sense? 

Just model success, and stop doing what isn't working for you.

Writing Articles to Build a Solid Online Business: Four Tips

Want to build a solid online business? If you have writing skills, it will be easy. There's an enormous demand for Web content, and as more and more companies develop online sales channels, that demand will only increase.

However, article writing is different from other businesses. You're creating  products which you need to both write and sell. You need to be proactive, to make those sales.

Here are four tips which will help. These tips come directly from my students, who've established profitable Web content development businesses.

1. Focus on Building Your Client List
There's a huge demand online for quality articles. However, there also many writers who produce junk articles, so buyers are wary of hiring writers they don't know. 

Once you've been hired, you need to do everything you can to keep your clients. Get them onto a mailing list, so that you can contact them again. Once you have a list of 20 buyers, you will make a very nice income.

2. The Easier It Is, the Less It Pays
In my days of writing magazine articles, I soon discovered a horrible truth. It's this. The writers on a magazine's staff get all the plum jobs. Freelance writers get all the jobs that no one on staff wants -- but those jobs pay well.

The same applies in writing web articles. If you write “10 minute articles” you'll make minimal income. To get paid more, you need to focus on quality. This means original, carefully researched articles which are in demand by buyers.

If you're not sure what's in demand, visit the outsourcing sites. You'll soon see which topics are hot.

3. Get Help when You Need It
To turn article writing to a business, you need help. You can't do everything yourself. The more clients you get, the more you need to write, and there's a limit to how much one person can write in a single day.

Collaborate with other writers, or go into business with another writer.

4. Keep All Your Focus on Your Buyers
Make it your aim to keep your buyers happy. Always go beyond their expectations. Quality, reliable, and enthusiastic writers are rare. Become one of those rare writers, and you'll soon build a solid online business writing articles.

 

"If You're Not Making the Money You SHOULD be Making from Your Writing, Do You Realize That You Can Make $100,000 a Year, Just From Web Articles?"

Whether you're a new writer, or are an experienced pro, you can make great money writing web articles. Discover a fast and easy step by step process to launch your new web writing career in "Article Dynamite: Make $100,000 a Year Writing and Selling Articles".

Writing for the Web: Become a Website Flipper And Profit

Website "flipping" means creating websites in order to sell them. It's an ideal opportunity for writers, because websites need words, and generating words is what we do.

I create my sites as long-term investments, but other writers create sites just to sell, and many are doing extremely well. For example, one well-known writer made $100,000 in five months from a $100 investment when she started flipping.

Website flipping will be a major part of my business plans for 2011, and if you're looking for new ways in which to invest your time and energy, it's something for you to consider.

One of the benefits of site flipping is that you can use the writing skills you already have. For example, articles form the basis of many sites you'll flip.

I've been touching on website flipping for Sell Your Writing Online NOW (SYWON) members, and many have asked me to create a larger program which focuses completely on flipping. I've developed a great program which takes you through the entire flipping process from soup to nuts, and which makes it very easy. 

Even if you're new to the web writing world, and have never created a site before, this is definitely something that you can do. You don't need to have any technical expertise, these days anybody who can use a word processor can  use WordPress.

I love website flipping, it's FUN. If you like to be creative, it may be for you.

NEW: Write to Flip: How to Make $1000 a Week Writing and Flipping Websites (without working up a sweat)

This new Web writing program is currently in its prelaunch phase; this ends on October 18.

Freelance Writing: Upcoming Issues of Fab Freelance Writing Ezine Help Writers to Build Solid Incomes Quickly

Author and copywriter Angela Booth's Fab Freelance Writing Ezine has been providing insights and strategies for the new world of professional writing since 2006. She's just announced themes and topics for upcoming issues. 

Angela says: "The ezine's provided writers with material which has helped them not merely to survive the economic downturn, but also to thrive. As conditions pick up, writers can look forward to the ezine providing them with solid information and tactics which will help them to make the most of the wonderful new opportunities for writers."

Over the next few weeks, themes covered in the ezine will include: how to win social media marketing jobs; how to write video scripts for YouTube and other video sharing sites (audio-visual writing is a hot new area for writers); powerful writing tips to help writers write quickly while improving quality; how writers can make articles the centerpiece of their writing service offerings; and writing beyond Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Writers can look forward to these feature articles:

* "Collect Windfalls of Cash from Your Writing Each and Every Month". In this article, Angela discusses new methods of workflow which help writers to write faster, so that they produce more, and sell more.

* "Discover Your Genius and Become an Idea Generator". This article helps writers to recognize, and develop, a constant stream of ideas to help their clients, as well as to create information products. 

* "Hot Youtube Scripts: How to Write Them and How to Promote Yourself As a Scriptwriter". Angela shares fun ways with video scripts and how writers can promote the benefits of online video to their clients.

* "Writing Facebook Fan Pages: Promote This New Writing Service and Get Eager Clients". Angela explains the popularity Facebook fan pages for businesses, and how writers can cash in when providing this new writing service.

This material is exclusive to the writing tips ezine.

More information on writing strategies at Angela's Writing Genii site.

About
Angela Booth is a top copywriter, and writing teacher. She offers many guides, courses and classes to help writers to enhance their skills. She also provides inspiration and motivation for writers on her writing blogs. Angela has been writing successfully since the late 1970s, and was online in the 1980s, long before the birth of the Web. Her business books have been widely published.

Getting Things Done for Writers (new series)

I'm a huge fan of David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) process.

It's been  beneficial to me as a writer, because it gives me confidence that I'll be able to manage my dozens of projects and hundreds of tasks. All I need to do is ask myself: "What's my next action?"

Over the years that I've been working with GTD, my understanding of it has grown, but what's amazing to me is that my understanding of myself has grown at the same time. I'm more relaxed, and inspired.

GTD is valuable for all writers. If you're using it in some form, I hope you'll share your own thoughts, ideas and insights in this new series.

Let's get started by thinking about the Weekly Review.

The Weekly Review: Relax and Think
I'm using OmniFocus, which makes the Weekly Review relatively painless. But I admit I tended to skim projects and actions. My "review" was a Weekly Glance, rather than a real review.

Then I found this concept, which has helped me to look at the Weekly Review in a new way. Now my review is a real review, and I look forward to it.

"How I learned to be my own assistant and love the GTD Weekly Review" offers this:

... the Weekly Review... is a time to reflect, and not do. Now when I do my Weekly Review, I treat it as a real meeting with a real assistant. When I frame the weekly review as a session, during which I get to delegate to an assistant (rather than figuring out what I need to do) then it takes on a liberating quality instead of feeling like another should. I suppose you could really file this approach under “acting as if,” but whatever you want to call it, it works for me. When I’m delegating to someone, I have to be very clear as to what I want them to do. I can’t vaguely say “Work on the Thompson Project.” I need to give that person specific tasks to accomplish. Tasks that I can review with them the following week in order to determine how much progress has been made.

I love this idea, and it works for me. Rather than feeling that every action I add is another weight on my shoulders, I "delegate."

Please share your thoughts in the comments. Are you a GTD fan? How do you manage your Weekly Review?

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Writing: Give Up the Struggle, and Break Through

Struggling with your writing? 

Believe it or not, that's a good thing. Struggle -- and then give up. It can lead to a major breakthrough.

As I wrote in Top Ten Writing Tips To Help You To Write More:

In his book The Breakout Principle, Dr Herbert Benson (who also wrote The Relaxation Response) describes a struggle/ release process that leads to a new level of awareness. When you struggle, and then completely give up the struggle -- just give up -- there's a chance that you can achieve a peak experience which leads you to a new level of functioning.

That's counterintuitive.

But it works.

Try that the next time you're struggling with a writing project. Say to yourself: "OK. That's it. I give up."

Breakthroughs happen when you least expect them.

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Non-Stop Writing: the Index Card Trick

I'm writing along on the 100 Day Writing Challenge with you, so over the next few months of the Challenge, I'll cover some of the useful writing tips and tricks I've learned over the years. These writing tips and tricks may or may not make it into the Challenge program itself.

Today, let's talk about index cards. I've been using them for the 30 years of my writing career; they're immensely useful. I just hope that no one takes the "paperless office" idea too seriously, and they stop making them.

Your writing doesn't just happen when you sit down to write; it's non-stop.

I get more ideas when I'm away from my computer than I do when I'm sitting in front of it, so my index cards are indispensable.

They're particularly useful to capture observations. As a writer, you need to train yourself to observe, because the more observant you are, the easier you'll find your writing, no matter what you write.

Carry a bunch of index cards around with you, and write one thought, idea, or sentence per card. Just write whatever occurs to you, or strikes you as interesting. I often use this trick when I'm working on projects for clients. It keeps me "in" the project, so that when I sit down to write, the words flow smoothly.

I always carry my iPhone, so often I'll snap a quick image to help me to get back into the frame of mind I was in when I had the thought or insight which I wrote on a card.

You may be wondering what I write on my index cards.

I've been developing a book proposal for a client. From memory, here are some of the thoughts/ ideas/ insights which made it onto index cards in the course of a recent day.

* During my morning walk: street names (the book's a bio); a thought about a huge ghost gum looming over a house (the tree's tripled in size over the past decade); a reminder to ask the client a question.

* While I was running errands: an article title from the cover of Fortune magazine (I was sitting in my accountant's office when I spotted it); ideas for various topics we might cover in some of the book's chapters; a reference to a funny story a friend told me...

Anything which catches my eye makes it onto an index card. When I study the cards later, I get additional ideas.

I encourage you to try the index card trick. It's a good one.

 

NEW -- Need Help With Your Writing Challenge?

 

 

Here's what I learned in the first couple of weeks of the 100 Day Writing Challenge.

I learned that many of the participants are new writers, and they're confused. They're confused about what goals to set, how to get clients, what to write...

This is understandable, because they’re new writers. They have no processes to follow, so they're a little bit lost.

To help them, and to help you, if you're feeling the same, I've created a brand new, super-simple guide, Writing Dynamo: Create a Powerful Writing Machine That Generates Cash Every Day .

If you're confused about your writing in any way, it's just what you need.

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