How to write queries that sell
The need to market my writing business just got more urgent – a relatively new client that I’ve loved working with just announced drastic cuts that will effectively doom the relationship. As a result, I’ve got a couple works in progress that now need new homes and openings on my calendar that I need to [...]
FieldReport.com offers new home and prizes for personal essays
Personal essays are fun to write and hard to sell. For every freelancer who places an essay in O, The Oprah Magazine or the Washington Post’s Style section or the New York Times’ Modern Love column, there are dozens with essay manuscripts sitting on their computer hard drives, waiting to make a sale. Which brings [...]
Link your WordPress, Six Apart blog to your LinkedIn profile
Ever since LinkedIn added a status update feature, the online business network’s members who blog – including lots of writers – have used it to let people know when they put new material online. Now LinkedIn’s made it even easier for bloggers to flag friends and acquaintances about new posts. The networking company has partnered [...]
Tech tools for writers
It’s hard to keep up with all the online tools that make the lives of freelance writers more productive, more organized or more fulfilling. But in recent weeks, I’ve discovered two Websites that do a good job of finding and explaining new software and other technologies that are either specifically intended for writers or that [...]
Journalism awards add online categories
As news moves online, it’s begetting new forms of interactive story telling and causing professional journalism groups that run annual awards programs to expand their definition of excellence to include them. In the latest instance, the Association of Health Care Journalists is adding an online category to their four-year-old Excellence in Health Care Journalism awards. [...]
How to squeeze more out of your freelance work day
Everyone has their own secrets for squeezing more productivity out of their freelance work day. My personal favorite is getting up early – today it was 4 a.m. – to work sans interruption before the rest of the world is awake. I know other writers who stay up late to write or work in coffee [...]
Prep work is key to conducting good phone interviews
An interview is only as good as the prep work you put into it. Have you ever picked up the phone without having done any background research on your source, thought of questions or figured out how the person will fit into your story? Sometimes it happens, especially if you’re covering breaking news. But more [...]
Freelancers find creative ways to save, grow during bad times
It’s one thing to read a laundry list of actions that freelance writers could take to keep their writing business afloat during the current weak economy, which has hit the publishing industry especially hard. It’s another thing to read what people are actually doing. Here’s first-person advice from a handful of freelancers who answered a [...]
Happy anniversary to me
This month marks the first anniversary of re-launching my freelance writing career – and what a difference a year makes. In the past 12 months, I’ve written for close to a dozen magazines and Websites, reconnected with former colleagues I hadn’t talked to in years, discovered LinkedIn and Facebook, started this blog, joined a writer’s [...]
Portland is for word lovers
Portland has a lot of nicknames. Stumptown. The Rose City. Rip City. Bike Town. Tree City. But come Nov. 8, the best name will be Portland is Wordsville. That’s the day the annual Wordstock literary festival begins and Portlanders renew their passion for words. Now in it’s fourth year, Wordstock is a two-day celebration of [...]
