freelancing

Guest Post: 5 Online Communities for Writers

By Kimberly Wilson

You’ve been wracking your brain for story ideas for hours. You have a host of half-baked ideas written in a notebook, but what you really want is someone to use as a soundboard for your ideas. You want to test the merit of your ideas, but you’re probably isolated in your room, on a computer, with no one to turn to. So what can you do?

You probably already know the answer: go online! Writers looking for guidance and solidarity among their peers should find no shortage of resources in the vast writing communities that specialize in topics ranging from fan fiction to professional publishing. These online resources serve as community-based social and professional hubs where writers and players in the writing industry can vent their troubles, discuss technical and grammatical issues, and brainstorm for inspiration. Below are just four great resources for writers.

Inkpop
Inkpop is a dynamic writing community dedicated to authors of young adult fiction. Started by the infamous publishing house Harper Collins, Inkpop seeks to attract and unite newfound talent in young fiction. When you first log onto the site, you’ll notice a series of ‘Top Pick’ fiction works featured for your perusal. Works get a ‘Top Pick’ rating if they get enough positive feedback from the Inkpop community, who deem the book worth the time of a publisher. You yourself can edit posted works on Inkpop and contribute to the ongoing conversation about what makes quality young adult fiction.
Book Country
For writers who love producing and reading genre fiction, Book Country Book Country is the place to be. The site functions as an open forum for writers of Romance, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Mystery genres who can publish their work and review the work of their peers. Also, users on Book Country can browse entire works for free. Book Country isn’t as concerned with selling its users works, its more focused on getting talented writers the exposure they deserve in a competitive literary atmosphere. Search for top users by the category or look at high contributors and peer reviewers. Book Country also has a space entirely dedicated to discussions about the writing industry, with a forum hosting topics from getting an agent to shopping your book to various publishers. In other words, Book Country is a writer’s resource.
Writer’s Café
Writer’s Café , like Book Country, is caters to both serious and amateur writers. Hundreds of forum posts offer advice on topics ranging from character development to punctuation. New users will find forum members to be consistently helpful and substantive in their criticism and advice regarding writing. In addition to the site’s extensive forum, users can peruse the posted works of other writers for inspiration or guidance. New users are encouraged to post their own work regardless of its completion so other writers can assess its strengths and weaknesses.
Goodreads
Goodreads is an online reading community geared towards writers looking for inspirational reading material or fellow bibliophiles with similar reading interests. Unlike other social networks geared towards reading and writing, the important part of a profile on Goodreads isn’t in the personal information of the user, but in their book list. Every user in Goodreads lists and rates all the books they’ve read in an effort to build up a reliable book-rating and recommending site that avid readers and writers can depend on. Users can further specify their reading tastes by listing books that interest them those that they intend to read. Use the comprehensive rating system to either search for books that might cater to your tastes or seek out reading groups of like-minded individuals. Goodreads connects similarly-read users, suggesting potential books, reading groups, and individual users based on your reading tastes. A writer searching for compatriots with whom to discuss the writings of authors from Herman Melville to John Grisham will find ample company on this site. For its wealth of book reviews and writer’s book groups, the site is as invaluable a resource for writers as it is for casual readers.
Absolute Write
Writers of any background or speciality (freelance, fiction, songwriting, screenwriting, etc.) can seek out writing peers at Absolute Write. This online writing community houses a diverse group of writing professionals and enthusiasts who can yearn to address the writing issues of anyone who has a question on the subject. The site’s extension forum caters not only to fiction writers, but to copywriters, freelances, and nonfiction writers as well. They even have threads dedicated to proper letter-writing and advice on how to craft attractive cover letters. For a thorough, friendly, and substantive writing community, you can’t go wrong with Absolute Write.

Your turn! Do you participate in online writing communities? What would you add to this list?

Kimberly Wilson is from accredited online colleges, where she writes on topics including career, education, student life, college life, home improvement, and time management.

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Filed Under: guest post Tagged With: community, freelancing, writing

Freelancers: 5 Ways to Generate Client Leads and Increase Web Traffic

By Susan Johnston 1 Comment

By Mike Law

You love your freelance website. It’s visually striking and easy to navigate. The content is fresh and informative. You’ve got the latest search engine optimization techniques working for you night and day. So why isn’t the site generating the return traffic or client leads that you’d hoped for?

Assuming your site is truly as rocking as you believe it to be, it may just need a good jumpstart. For sure, it takes time to attract attention, build an audience and convert customers. But nothing says you can’t help speed the process along. In fact, it’d be foolhardy not to. Check out these five great ways to kick-start a steady flow of traffic to your site and solicit more leads for your freelance business.

Offer a Free Special Report
These days you can hardly visit a website without some pop-up appearing, urging you to download a free special report stuffed with juicy tips and information. The pop-ups may be irritating, but the concept behind them is smart. Offering visitors free, valuable information in a 5-10 page report is an effective way of attracting potential clients to your site. Why? A couple of reasons. A free report gives prospective clients a reason to visit your site. Use the special report as a lure at networking events, during cold calls, or in direct and email marketing campaigns. Even if your target isn’t in the market for your services at the time, the information the report offers could be tempting enough to persuade prospectives to come to your site to download it. While they’re there, just maybe they’ll take a closer look at your portfolio and services – and remember you the next time they need someone with your expertise.Special reports can also establish you as an expert in a particular field. Let’s say you’re a web designer specializing in building sites for personal injury lawyers. If you produce a report highly targeted to your audience (e.g., “10 Web Designs Personal Injury Lawyers Should Avoid at All Costs,”) you can come to be known as the web designer for personal injury lawyers. Prospective clients will begin to seek you out on the basis of your expertise.
Add an E-Course to Your Site
With the advent of autoresponder services such as MailChimp and KickStartCart, e-courses have become increasingly popular. An e-course is an online learning course in which you’d share tips and techniques on a particular topic with your target audience. Most courses are conducted via email. Interested persons could sign up for the course on your site by entering their email address into a form, and the autoresponder service would begin to send them a sequence of emails (your lessons) for a predetermined length of time.Like a special report, an e-course serves as an excellent reason for prospective clients to visit your site and can solidify your position as an expert in your field. But it has one major additional advantage. Because an e-course can extend over a long period of time –anywhere from several days to several months – you have a great opportunity to build a relationship with the participants of the course. Familiarity breeds business, goes the old marketing saw, and your former students may become your future clients. Moreover, if you encourage interaction and feedback from the participants, you’ll get a clearer understanding of the topics your general audience would like to learn about and discuss.
Conduct a Survey
Another way to encourage readers to visit your website is by conducting a survey or taking a poll. Surveys and polls are an outstanding way to discover the content that interests your audience, the effectiveness of your site, or gain insights into an issue that affects your audience. For example, if you’re a freelance photographer who covers weddings, you might conduct a survey of engaged couples or newlyweds on big turnoffs when it comes to a wedding photographer. You could score a few clients from conducting the survey alone. However, the real potential to pull in client leads lies in publishing the survey results. You could publish the results on your blog, sure. But you could also provide the results in a short special report, which would be available for download on your site or via email. This, of course, would allow you to reap the benefits that come with offering a free report.Moreover, if the sample size is large enough and the findings sufficiently intriguing, you could even write an press release highlighting your conclusions. Send your press release to relevant magazine editors, journalists and bloggers, and just maybe the survey results – and your site – will receive a mention in a widely-read publication. You’d be golden.Check out sites such as SurveyMonkey or PollDaddy for learning more about how to set up an online or email poll.
Host a Webinar
Not big on writing content to give away? No problem. Consider hosting a webinar to attract readers and share your knowledge. A webinar is a web-based seminar or conference. Participants from anywhere in the world can dial into the call, listen to your presentation, watch visuals you’ve prepared, and even ask questions. Think of it as a live version of a special report or e-course.The advantage of a webinar is that it provides a great opportunity to be interactive with your audience in real-time. Keep this in mind when you structure the presentation. Don’t just be a talking head: pick a web conferencing platform that includes “chat” or “show of hands” features so that you can effect a true exchange with your audience. You’ll want to start a lively conversation that participants will continue thinking about (and tweeting about) after the webinar ends. Popular webinar hosting systems include GotoWebinar, ReadyTalk and WebEx.To get a good turnout for your webinar, begin promoting it about a month in advance. Start a countdown on your blog, use social media, write a guest post, and issue a press release. After the webinar is over, use your web hosting platform to distribute a feedback form to participants. This will not only help you assess the success of the webinar, it’ll keep people thinking about you.
Offer a Discount
Dare I even suggest this? I do. Whether or not to offer a discount is a very controversial topic among freelancers. On the plus side, it’s a fail-safe way of drawing prospective clients to your site. Everyone wants a good deal. On the negative side, it can devalue the service you provide, causing prospective clients to believe that your work is worth less than actually it is. It can also transmit a vibe of desperation, which can cause low-balling types to come crawling out of the woodwork.In the end, I believe little harm can arise from extending a “limited-time only” discount to jumpstart your business and increase site traffic. But be careful: you don’t want to become the freelance version of Rugs-O-Rama. Make sure your clients understand your regular price and the unique opportunity of the discount offer. And don’t worry about losing clients when you return to your regular price. If you produce consistent, high-quality work, a good client will understand your true value.

Michael Law has extensive experience as a freelance journalist and online marketer, and has worked with a number of leading Sydney companies ranging from online marketing agencies to compensation lawyers. If you’d like to get in touch, you can send Mike an email.

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Filed Under: guest post Tagged With: clients, freelancing

Guest Post: Staying Organized & Distraction Free While Working From Home

By Susan Johnston 7 Comments

By Kate Croston

Ahhh, working from home – it just emits a big sigh of relief when you think about it. There is no getting up at the crack of dawn, no dealing with traffic, no horrible feeling of “oh NO I forgot…” as you pull into the office, no coworkers and bosses that you don’t get along with… in short, working from home is AWESOME. Right? It sure is.

Until you factor in that the kids are home, your favorite TV show is on, you somehow have misplaced that really important letter, the dogs are barking, your spouse is home for lunch, you have no real office, you are taking work to bed with you, you haven’t interacted with people your own age in you don’t know how long, you’re waking up at 3am because you can’t stop thinking about that one little task and you might as well just get up and do it now… Working from home is AWFUL. Right?

There are always two sides to everything and the grass is ALWAYS greener on the other side, no matter how annoying that cliché is. So how do you manage to stay organized and distraction-free while braving the world of working from home?

Make yourself an office.
Working from the kitchen table, the living room, or your bed sounds great in theory, but to get in the right mindset for getting things accomplished you have to carve out your own little niche. Get a real desk and make sure that you sit at it to get things done. This way you’re simulating the real-feel of working in an office and you’re not getting distracted by those big, fluffy pillows and soft, warm comforter…
Set aside certain hours for certain tasks.
One of the beauties of working from home is that you are free to work whenever you want. It’s also one of the biggest pitfalls though, because it becomes way too easy to skip “work” to watch that afternoon soap opera you’re guiltily addicted to that has a nagging way of turning into three solid hours of TV. Designate certain hours for certain work-related tasks and then schedule in time to do the things you want to do too.
Say no to distractions.
Inevitably you will have people (even family members) who think that because you’re working from home you aren’t really working. Slowly but surely you find yourself saying yes to run more and more errands for people because you “have time.” This is when you have to put your foot down –you are working from home and you don’t have time to do everything for everyone else. Set ground rules and let everyone know that you can’t be disturbed during certain hours.
Make to-do lists and make them visible.
It seems pretty obvious, but so many people neglect making an actual list and get overwhelmed. Buy a dry erase board and write out what you need to get done – and do so in order of importance. List out the things you have to get done, the things you’d like to get done, and then the smaller tasks that are optional. This way you’ll have a clear idea of what you need to really be sure to focus on.
Know when to turn it off and get out.
One of the drawbacks of working from home is that at 11pm you can still be working. Know when is a good time to call it quits for the day and stick to it. It will be better for you and your significant other/family if you have a concrete time that you shut everything down and focus only on them and you. Get out of the house, mingle with people your age, and focus on maintaining relationships. It’s easy to get wrapped up in never leaving the house and working crazy hours – but getting out and shutting everything off will help you maintain a semblance of normalcy and a level-head.

Working from home is like everything – it can be a blessing and a curse. But with some organization and strategies for counteracting distractions, you can ensure that it falls into the former category and not the latter. Besides, no one wants to find you six months from now looking all crazy-like because you haven’t emerged from your house since you quit your office job. So stay sane and set some ground rules. It’ll make everything a little easier in the end.

Kate Croston is a freelance writer, holds a bachelors degree in Journalism and Mass Communication. She writes guest posts for different sites and loves contributing cheap internet service related topics. Questions or comments can be sent to: katecroston.croston09 AT gmail DOT com.

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Filed Under: guest post Tagged With: freelancing, working from home