Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Around the Blogs This Week: Ebooks, Copywriting and More

Here’s what happened on the blogs this week…

Blogging: 5 Easy Ways to Have Fun and Make Money With Your Blog

Got a blog? That’s excellent. Your blog is a property: an asset, just like your home. When you understand this simple concept, you’ll treat your blog with the love and respect it deserves. Let’s look at five easy ways you can have fun and make money with this online property: your blog.

Write Your Ebook: New Trends To Use Ebooks to Build Your Writing Career

Want to build your writing career? Write ebooks. The popularity of ereaders like the Kindle means that there are huge opportunities for savvy writers to get ahead of the pack, and to build profitable careers.

Writing Articles: 4 Super Simple Ways to Get Great Ideas for Articles

Are you writing articles? Whether you’re writing content for your own websites, or are selling articles to websites and magazines, quality content starts with a great idea.

These days, great ideas are essential. Google’s Panda update declared war on junk content, so no one wants rehashed, stale material.

“Brand” Journalists: The New News Writing

When companies develop a content marketing strategy, they run up against an inconvenient truth. Sooner or later, they run out of content about widgets (that is, whatever it is that they’re selling.) That’s when they hire brand journalists.

Copywriting Beginner: My Top 5 Tips To Help You to Make Money

Copywriters write to persuade, so copywriting involves salesmanship, whether of a product, or a point of view. Vital: you’re selling to a specific audience, one person at a time. The tips in this article will help you to do that.

WTF? Cue Much Loud Swearing, then Surrender

I do a lot of researching. Yesterday I was researching dieting plans for one of my blogs, and landed at Scribd. In order to download the document, I was asked to upload a document of my own, or pay a fee. Scribd has started charging for your content.

Your Writing Career: Get Started, Make Money

Love writing? If you do, keep reading. On the other hand, if you need to push yourself to write, professional writing is probably not the career for you. Every writing career involves lots and lots of writing. Here’s the good news: you can make fantastic money writing, once you develop the skills you need.

Hobbyist Writer to Full-Time Income FAST

Want to earn a full-time income as a writer? This week, in Fab Freelance Writing Ezine, we'll look at how you can turn your writing hobby to profit.

It's easier than you think.

It starts with your mindset. 

You build your professional mindset by understanding what sells.

More in the ezine, which is out tomorrow.

Enjoy. :-)

 

Writing Articles: 4 Super Simple Ways to Get Great Ideas for Articles

Are you writing articles? Whether you're writing content for your own websites, or are selling articles to websites and magazines, quality content starts with a great idea. 

These days, great ideas are essential. Google's Panda update declared war on junk content, so no one wants rehashed, stale material. 

Better yet, they're prepared to pay for it. Companies are hiring their own "brand journalists." Allegedly, these folk have editorial freedom. Their job is to create good content, primarily for their employer, but also for others. When a brand journalist writes for another site, he gets a valuable link back to his employer's site.

Let's look at four super simple ways to get great ideas for articles.

1. Look for News in an Industry

Your first step is to check the news in an industry. Not so that you can rehash the news, but so that it informs your own thinking. In the news, you'll find indicators of industry changes. You'll also find sources for interviews.

2. Keep a Journal

Mae West said: "Keep a diary, and someday it'll keep you."

Truer words were never spoken. Successful writers journal. Your journal clarifies your thinking. It's a repository for ideas you'll write tomorrow and next year.

Journaling is also valuable as a writing practice: it keeps your mind focused on your writing.

3. Think About Your Audience

Whenever you're asked to write articles on a topic that's new to you, your first step is to understand your audience. Talk to people. Visit the blogs they read, and the forums they frequent.

What keeps your audience awake at night? What drives them to despair? Put yourself in your audience's shoes. 

Talk to people. Sites like HARO give you access to sources. 

4. Explore Press Releases, Forums, and Blogs

Press releases, forums and blogs are vital resources. Few writers use these resources effectively.

When reading press releases, forums and blogs, never research without a plan -- questions to which you want answers. Make notes. Keep the notes in your journal.

Set strict time limits on your research. I usually limit myself to ten minutes per session. 

Stay focused on your research plan. You'll never know "everything." Your aim is always firstly to know enough to understand your audience. Then you need to get ideas, and finally, you need to know the answers to specific questions raised when you're writing.

You can generate a six-figure income, just by writing exclusive, unique articles. It's worth learning how to do this well, and it starts with getting great ideas.

 

"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".

Around the Blogs This Week: Web Writing, Goals, Become Prolific

Here’s what happened on the blogs this week…

Take Charge Now: Web Writing Gives You Power

Are you in charge of your writing career? If you’re not, it’s time to take charge. Consider writing for the Web.

What If They’re Wrong?

My life changed when I started to focus on writing for the Web. Here’s why: I had direct contact with readers. Discover why readers are the only ones who matter.

Goals and Magic Words (Ezine)

In just a couple of weeks, 2011 will be half over. I hope you’re well on the way to accomplishing the goals you set for yourself in January. This week’s ezine will help you to revisit your goals, create new ones, and will also introduce the “magic words” strategy to you.

Become a Prolific Writer, and Have Fun

Want to become a prolific writer? Angela Booth’s Top 70 Writing Tips: Write More, Improve Your Writing, AND Make More Money has been helping you to do that for several years. It’s now available on the Kindle, so you can take the tips with you.

Writing For The Web: You’re Missing Out On The Opportunities In Front Of You

If you’re a Web writer, you’re missing out on opportunities right under your nose. Most writers are. They work too hard, for too little. In my new writing guide, Writing For The Web: Make Money Today, I show you how to make more money from your Web writing, by SEEING the opportunities that you already have.

Become a Prolific Writer, and Have Fun

Want to become a prolific writer? Angela Booth's Top 70 Writing Tips: Write More, Improve Your Writing, AND Make More Money has been helping you to do that for several years.

It's now available on the Kindle, so you can take the tips with you.

Try one of the writing tips now

Try this writing tip from the ebook today -- it will help you to become more prolific. 

18. Conquer Writer's Page Fright With Rehearsals – You Don't Have to Be Good

If you're procrastinating with your writing, you've got page fright. Like all performers, writers get stage fright, but in our case it's "page fright". :-)

I'm convinced that page fright is the commonest cause of writer's block.

You can conquer this fear of the blank page or computer screen by pretending that you're not really writing, you're rehearsing. Just keep rehearsing, and if you find that a rehearsal is good enough for prime time, submit it to the appropriate market.

Exercise 18: Try This Imaginative Process to Eliminate Page Fright 

Before each writing session, I relax in my office chair. I close my eyes, and day dream. I imagine myself writing easily and well, and being totally relaxed as I write… I imagine that I'm enjoying what I'm writing about… and that the writing task is completed.

This imaginative "rehearsal" only takes a few moments. When it's complete, I start writing. Try this process – you will write more, and more easily.

Enjoy the tips on the Kindle. :-)

Around the Blogs This Week: Writing for the Web and Kindle Publishing

Here’s what happened on the blogs this week…

Writing for the Web Is Back, and It’s Your Own Personal Goldmine

The Web is huge; billions of websites are online. Millions of those sites are buying content in one form or another. This means that as a writer, you can pretty much name your own price.

Ghostwriting for Profit: Cash In As A Ghostwriter

Want to make more money as a freelance writer? You can: just offer additional services. Consider adding ghostwriting services, they’re lucrative, and if you’re not offering a variety of them, you should be. I’ve been offering various ghostwriting services for years, and they’re very profitable.

Basically, ghostwriting means that you write, and someone else gets to claim the credit for your words.

Kindle Ablaze: Hot New Market for Writers

Ebooks have arrived, and in a big way. Kindle ebooks are now outselling print ebooks on Amazon, and writing ebooks is a hot new market for savvy writers.

Kindle: Beating Out Fiction

From your response to Words Into Cash, I know that many of you are using the 8 Hours method to write a novel for the Kindle and other e-reader platforms. Working on your “beats” will help you to do that.

Kindle: Beating Out Fiction

Movie: Inception

From your response to Words Into Cash, I know that many of you are using the 8 Hours method to write a novel for the Kindle and other e-reader platforms.

I wrote Words into Cash: Write and Sell Your Ebook in Just 8 Hours to give you a super-fast and super-easy method of writing nonfiction, but you can just as easily use the method to craft fiction. You just need to add a little something, specifically, Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need... Yes, Save the Cat! is for screenwriters, but you can use the beats to craft fiction.

If you're thinking: Huh? Beats?! Read the Beat Sheet for the movie Inception, Save the Cat!® » Blog Archive » The Inception Beat Sheet:

"Nominated for over 15 awards for best original screenplay, and soaring away with the coveted WGA award for writing, Inception took the world like a storm. Part heist film, part mind-bender, and part love story, Nolan’s ethereal tale is brimming with visual articulations of the Jungian dream archetypes. Waves and trains crash as the harbingers of death, glimpses of the underworld fly onscreen, an Odysseus and his crew struggle to survive as worlds and realities collide, all to Hans Zimmer’s hauntingly fluid score. Inception appears on over 273 critics “top ten” lists; the film is a visual, emotional, and lyrical masterpiece."

Visit BlakeSnyder.com to download the Beat Sheet template. It's a wonderful way to structure your novel; it will stop you wandering off on tangents, and completely eliminates the "dreaded middle", which is the downfall of many a novelist. 

Have fun writing your novels. :-)

Kindle Ablaze: Hot New Market for Writers

Ebooks have arrived, and in a big way. Kindle ebooks are now outselling print ebooks on Amazon. 

This article, Explaining Kindle's success: it's very simple(minded) - Fortune Tech, reports:

"Sales of the Kindle and of e-books are so good, and growing so fast, that they are now becoming a driver of Amazon's overall growth, says Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney."

Not only have ebooks arrived, they're also becoming a hot new market for writers. If you check the outsourcing sites, you'll find lots of projects. People and companies are hiring writers to write Kindle ebooks.

I've got personal experience of this. When I launched my new program, Words into Cash: Write and Sell Your Ebook in Just 8 Hours, several writers told me they were focusing on writing ebooks for others, and wanted a faster way to do it.

Most writers however, were focusing on writing their own ebooks.

Write your own ebooks -- and sell them

Writing your own ebooks makes more sense than writing them for others. You'll never get back the hours you trade for dollars. Focus on creating your own multiple income streams, so that the writing you do today pays off for you for years to come.

There's never been a better time to be a writer.

Got an idea for an ebook?

Start writing! :-)

 

 

Around the Blogs This Week: Kindle, Freelance Writing Rates and More

Here’s what happened on the blogs this week…

Trust Yourself: Have Faith in What You Can Do

Do you trust yourself? A little faith in yourself and what you can do goes a long, long way.

Writer to Artist: Cover Art for Your Kindle Ebooks

I’ve had some wonderful feedback on my eight-hour ebook program. Smart writers are doing amazing things. Several writers asked about cover art. You can create ebook covers very easily.

Freelance Writing Rates: “It’s My Time, Energy and Skills…”

“How much do you charge?” is a vexing question for many writers. Here are some questions you should be asking yourself before you quote on a project.

Freelance Writing: Creating Multiple Income Streams

One of the big benefits of the writing life is that you can build up multiple income streams over time. Each of these income streams flows money into your PayPal account. Some income streams ask that you trade hours for dollars. However, you should stop trading hours for dollars as soon as possible.