I did a lot of dumb things in college that didn’t seem very smart at the time but turned out to help me get where I am today, a self-employed journalist.

Here are the not-so-smart things I did in college that turned out to be good for my writing career:

1. Work for free. I walked into the office of Loyola Marymount University’s weekly student newspaper, the Los Angeles Loyolan, my first month on campus. I wasn’t looking for a job as much as an extracurricular activity. My first story was a how-to piece on opening a checking account. My editor made me rewrite at least three times. I did it and everything else I wrote that year for free. I didn’t care, it was fun. It took me another year or two to realize I’d discovered what I wanted to do for life.

What I learned: Find your passion, work hard enough and the money comes. By the time I was a sophomore, I was getting work-study money for the hours I spent at the paper. When I became editor my senior year my tuition was 100 percent paid for through a stipend the school paid to the paper’s editor in chief.

2. Write with a hangover. Freshman year I decided to hit an all-day St. Patrick’s Day party for a few hours before heading to the newspaper office to file a story that was due. Bad idea. The party was a blast but by mid-afternoon when I got to the office and started writing – about the campus’ ROTC program – all I wanted to do take a nap.

What I learned: Hemingway and Fitzgerald may have been able to write inebriated. I can’t. Work first and party when the work is done.

3. Give away free stuff. I started schools as a film major, so sophomore year when the editor asked me to run the paper’s entertainment section I was thrilled. Being the entertainment editor meant attending free screenings of new movies so I could write about them. I got free tickets and albums too. But there was no way I could go to or listen to everything. So I gave away most of what came in to other reviewers.

What I learned: Share the wealth, it’ll help win friends, or in the case of student newspapers and other publications with small budgets, writers. And favors can lead to loyalty. Though I still wish I’d kept “The Wall” for myself.

4. Fake it. Being entertainment editor was all I ever aspired to. But when junior year rolled around the paper needed a news editor. Would I do it? I said yes. I inherited a handful of reporters, some on work-study, some not, some good writers, some not, some whose entire college experience revolved around the newspaper office, some who’d go missing for weeks at a time. I’d been one of those reporters not long before. What did I know about motivating a mostly volunteer staff? I showed up, worked long hours, and did the best I could to muddle through.

What I learned: Nobody needs to know you don’t know what you’re doing. It helped that someone in a position of authority thought I was capable of managing other people, even if I couldn’t see it in myself. It was the first time I experienced what it means to “Fake it ’til you make it,” but not the last. Halfway through junior year I got tapped to be the paper’s editor in chief and again found myself in a job I wasn’t prepared for. It’s happened many other times over the years. Knowing I’ve done it before has helped me every time.

5. Pull an all nighter. I never pulled an all nighter to write a paper or study for an exam. But I did work through the night more than once to get the paper ready for the printer (this was before everything went digital). We distributed the Loyolan Monday afternoons, which meant the printer needed pages Monday morning. Once or twice we were so short-staffed over the weekend the few of us who were there worked all Saturday, Sunday and Sunday night to finish editing and typesetting articles and laying out pages. Another time I went to a concert on Sunday night before we were done and paid the price by having to go back into the office after to finish up.

What I learned: Plan ahead, and make sure you’ve got help so when things need to get done you don’t have to all the work yourself. But be prepared to put in the hard work if all your careful planning falls apart.

6. Publish X-rated material. While I was editor we were so flush with ad money we put out a few special issues close to twice the size of the usual weekly paper. One was a fiction issue with short stories, including a rather graphic piece with a lot of profanity. Our advisor either signed off on it or didn’t see it (I don’t remember) but when the issue came out, all hell broke lose. The paper’s senior staff was called before the school’s editorial review board and I almost lost my job.

What I learned: Not everyone will like what you write, and sometimes you have to compromise. In front of the school’s editorial review board, we backed the artistic merits of the piece and explained our reasons for publishing it. I didn’t lose my job, but the school started examining what we did more closely. They also closed the separate checking account we’d used to stash advertising income, another way to rein in some of our independence. Their actions might rankle some, but they were compromises I could live with.

7. Back a nobody. A lot of students came through the newspaper office looking for an opportunity to contribute, not just writers but aspiring photographers, graphic designers and editorial cartoonists. Many were so-so. Some were just plain bad. When I was editor, a freshman came in who liked cartooning. His technique left a lot to be desired but he had a good sense of humor and was tapped into what was happening on campus. Despite the reservations of some of the editors I worked with, I used him on a regular basis.

What I learned: Take chances on people. That freshman was Mike Smith, who went on to become an award-winning editorial cartoonist at the Las Vegas Sun. Other writers I worked with became daily newspaper reporters, editors and authors.

8. Drop out of school. When I was getting ready to graduate, the economy was almost as bad as it is now. Instead of looking for a job, I stayed in school. I’d switched my major from film to English and figured I needed a proper journalism degree. I applied for and got a scholarship to Marquette University’s graduate school of journalism. I lasted a year. I was tired of being in school, tired of being a starving student and ready to put the journalism skills I’d been developing to use in a real job.

What I learned: If you’ve got the basics, the degree doesn’t matter as much as the drive. The summer after that first year of grad school I parlayed an internship with a magazine publisher into a full-time job, and never looked back. Nine years ago I went back to grad school – as a journalism professor.

What crazy things did you do in college that ultimately helped your career?

It takes equal amounts of planning, goal setting, self discipline, self confidence and your own personal “cheer team.”

That’s the advice that life coach Marla Beck shared during the yesterday’s WordCount Last Wednesday live chat.

Beck specializes in working with writers, and during the often lively hour-long discussion she shared insights she usually reserves for her blog, The Relaxed Writer, newsletter and one-on-one telephone coaching sessions.

Here is a recap of points about finding and keeping work/life balance and success as a freelancer or other self-employed creative type that Beck made during the chat, as well as observations and resources shared by the writers who tuned in.

Is it possible for writers to achieve work/life balance?

Yes, but it doesn’t just happen, you have to work at it. “Balance is a practice, not a static state,” Beck says.

You also need a plan, Beck says. “You have to know exactly what you want for your life and business, and a specific, doable plan.”

What kinds of things stand in the way?

• Fear of rejection.
• Fear that you’re not good enough.
• Taking on too much work just for the money.
• Disorganization.
• Distractions.
• Failing to work when you’re “on” or sticking to a schedule.
• Failing to make time for things you really want to do for work or for fun.

How can writers overcome the internal and external obstacles that stand in the way of success?

For creative people like writers, many of the obstacles are internal. Writers have to learn to cope with rejection without taking it personally.

Beck recommends having a group of people you can lean on for support – a “cheer team” of individuals who will be there when you need them. Beck’s cheer team consists of her husband, business coach, friends and meditation coach.

Denver-based translator Corinne McKay (who I previously interviewed for this post) says she never could have made it through her first year of freelancing without her husband and best friends.

My cheer team includes my husband, mom, yoga teacher and a handful of writer and editor friends I’ve known for years.

Other suggestions for overcoming obstacles:

• Refuse to give into negative thoughts or self talk. Acknowledge your fears, but then work through them. “Recognize fear, harness it’s energy & use it to propel you forward,” Beck says. Susan Johnston, a writer who runs The Urban Muse blog, suggests reading author and essayist Annie Lamott’s book on writing, Bird by Bird, for her take on how feeling overwhelmed can sap energy and creativity.
• Don’t give up on things because they’re hard or tricky. If a query gets rejected redo it and send it in again.
• Consider your habits and eliminate things that are getting in the way of your long-term goals. Beck gave up watching TV online “and feel much better about myself.” I gave up electronic games for Lent and even though I might only have played a total of 30 minutes a day, feel more productive because of it.
• Streamline. Dump volunteer commitments or other obligations that you’re not passionate about. If you can afford it, outsource work or household tasks that could free up more of your time for activities that are more important.
• Pursue what you love. It’s amazing how much more energy you have when you’re working on things you want to do, Beck says.
• Work when you’re on, or follow a schedule or structure that works for you. McKay is a fan of the Personal Efficiency Program. Beck recommends David Allen’s Getting Things Done organizational system, especially his advice to have a Monday morning meeting with yourself to map out the things on your to-do list that absolutely, positively need to get done that week.

My days are packed. How can I  find time to work on my “dream” project, something that could take me to the next level of my career?

It’s easy to get swept up in the daily grind. If you don’t plan for it, you might never carve out enough time for the novel you’ve dreamed of writing – or in my case, the e-book series I’ve been telling myself for the past year that I’m going to write.

Start small, Beck says. First identify what your dream project is. Then, set aside a little bit of time every day, or even every week, to work on it. If it helps, enlist a friend to be your goal partner.

Breaking it into chunks and thinking of it as “doable” could make it less intimidating, she says.

Suzanna Stinnett, a San Francisco writer and leader of the Bay Area Bloggers Society, limits her fiction writing to a certain time of day. It helps, Stinnett says, “to restrict the assigned time, as in ‘This is the ONLY time you can do it.’” It’s an odd brain trick, very fruitful, she says.

Beck suggests using the following questions as prompts to start your own quest for better work/life balance:

1. Think about your cheer team – are any additions/deletions needed?
2. What single daily action can you do to feel that you’re working for yourself? Living your life?

You can see the entire chat on Twitter by searching the hashtag #wclw.

Join us tomorrow, March 30, for the next WordCount Last Wednesday live chat, when my guest is Marla Beck, a Marin County, California, life coach for writers.

Beck specializes in helping writers get the most out of their work, and their life. In the chat she’ll discuss:

• Signs your work and life are out of whack
• How to synch what you do for work and fun
• Obstacles that stand in the way of achieving better work/life balance
• Integrating “dream” projects into your daily work life

She’ll also answer questions about getting more out of your work and life.

Please join us March 30, at 10 a.m. PST. On Twitter, use the hashtag #wclw. We’ll start off with some introductions, I’ll ask Beck some questions and we’ll leave plenty of time for questions from participants.

See you then!

Many weeks, my answer to that question would be a resounding “No.” I work too much and sleep too little. I can’t escape the constant feeling of being behind. I work, shuttle my youngest to school and activities, make dinner for him and the rest of the family, do laundry, pick up the house and am lucky to squeeze in a couple workouts a week.

On top of all of that, I wonder whether the work I am pursing so vigorously matches my long-term goals. And just what are my long-term goals?

Marla Beck, life coach for writers

That’s why my guest  for the March 30 WordCount Last Wednesday live chat is Marla Beck, a Marin County, California, life coach for writers.

Beck, who I interviewed a year ago in this post, specializing in helping writers get the most out of their work, and their life.

In the chat, Beck will discuss subjects including:

• Signs your work and life are out of whack
• How to synch what you do for work and fun
• Obstacles that stand in the way of achieving better work/life balance
• Integrating “dream” projects into your daily work life

During the chat, Beck will also answer any of your questions about getting more out of your work and life.

Please join us on Wednesday, March 30, at 10 a.m. PST. On Twitter, use the hashtag #wclw. We’ll start off with some introductions, I’ll ask Beck some questions and we’ll leave plenty of time for questions from participants.

Although it’s possible to use the standard Twitter interface for a live chat, you might find it easier to follow along with an add-on application such as TweetGrid, TweetChat or HootSuite. Of those three, my favorite is TweetChat. This tutorial explains how to set them up.

If you’re afraid you’ll offend your Twitter followers by tweeting too much during a chat, you can suggest they use an app called TwitterSnooze to temporarily turn off your tweets. Right before the chat starts, tweet a message like: “I’ll be in a live chat for the next hour; if you don’t want to follow, turn off my tweets with TwitterSnooze.com.”

Planning for 2011: I’m planning the last half of the 2011 WordCount Last Wednesday chats, so if you’ve got an idea for a subject you’d like to see covered, send it my way. If you’re an expert in a particular aspect of freelance writing, running a freelance business or tech tools for writers and are interested in participating in a WordCount Last Wednesday chat as a guest speaker, please contact me.

Hard as it is to get away when you run your own business, it’s important to take time off to recharge mentally and physically.

I’m following my own advice this week and taking a little much needed R&R.

Here are my top 10 reasons why vacations are important:

1. You need a break from the constant pitching, reporting and writing.

2. Stepping away from the daily grind can give you some perspective on where your business is headed, and help determine if you like where it’s going or want to steer it in a different direction.

3. The change of pace or scenery could lead to story ideas.

4. You’ll finally get the chance to finish – or start – the books that have been piling up on your nightstand, and they too could lead to story ideas.

5. You work hard week in and week out – shouldn’t you reward yourself every once in a while, even if only for a long weekend, for your labors?

6. Writing can be a very sendentary occupation – some extra physical activity will do your body good.

7. Call it Murphy’s law of freelancing – the big call back, project or email you’ve been waiting for will inevitably arrive while you’re gone – so what are you waiting for, get lost – but bring your laptop or smartphone with you.

8. Speaking of laptops, if you really have to, you can always go away and bring it with you to sneak in a little work.

9. You owe it to the people in your life to step away from the keyboard every once in a while to do more than throw in another load of laundry, make dinner or drive somebody to baseball practice.

10. The world’s pretty cool and you’re not getting any younger.

Freelance writers already possess many of necessary attributes, including an drive to be their own boss and willingness to jump into the non-writing aspects of the journalism business, including marketing and collections.

Portland Afoot Publisher Michael Andersen/Photo by Lee Van Der Voo

But spurred by the economy, hard times in traditional media and a wealth of cheap online publishing technology, some writers are taking self-employment one step further and started publications – not just hyperlocal news sites or blogs (though many use blogging software) but fully realized newspapers and magazines.

One of them is Michael Andersen, a Portland, Oregon, journalist and publisher of Portland Afoot, a print and online publication about the city’s buses, bikes and “low-car life.” The monthly print edition – Andersen calls it a “10-minute newsmagazine and wiki” – is currently available free to anyone who works in North Portland or downtown.

Andersen took a couple minutes off from his busy schedule recently to answer a few questions from WordCount about the trials and tribulations of starting a publication, hyperlocal news, and his favorite Portland bus line and walking route.

If you like what you read, stick around to the end of the post and find out how you can receive Portland Afoot for only $10 a year.

WordCount: How’d you come up with the idea for Portland Afoot?
MA: I was covering local government for a suburban daily newspaper and cranking out all these 700-word stories that were monkey screech to anyone who hadn’t been following local government news. I don’t know anyone who reads local government news every day except local government employees. Portland Afoot is designed to deliver one niche of government news (public transit) to one group of people who care about it (transit riders) in a quantity they can handle (10 minutes a month, with searchable evergreen information on demand).

WC: How is running a publication different from being a freelance journalist?
MA: I’ve only freelanced since I started Portland Afoot — it’s a way to keep the cash flowing — so it’s hard to say. Compared to local newspaper work, there’s a vast difference in the chance that someone will return my call. I now assume that 4 in 5 cold calls won’t get returned. At a newspaper I could bat .500 if I played my cards right.

WC: Do you have staff, and if so, what do you pay?
MA: It’s a nonprofit, so I report to a five-person volunteer board, and we’ve had a handful of other amazingly supportive volunteers. That’s it so far. I hired Rebecca Robinson, a friend and statehouse reporter, to do one 300-word interview with Rep. Jeff Smith. She got $30 and a batch of brownies.

WC: What’s been your biggest challenge so far?
MA: Budgeting my time. Having lots of things you can always do means that you’re constantly tempted to do the fun things. It’s very important to do the not-fun things, like convince people to give you money. That’s why people who do that get paid more than reporters.

WC: What have you learned about yourself?
MA: My flaws — distractability, shyness, thin skin, procrastination — didn’t magically go away. If I succeed despite them, it’ll be because of strengths I didn’t have, and couldn’t have built, while working at a larger company.

WC: AOL is hiring Patch editors all over the country, but Allbriton just pulled the plug on TBD, a high-profile news site covering suburban Washington D.C. What does that say about the future of hyperlocal news: will it last, and is there still a place for solo entrepeneur like yourself?
MA: I didn’t have time to check out TBD, so I don’t know what their content was like. I respect every local-news experiment, including AOL’s. But the key is brand depth. Here in Portland we’re lucky to have one of the country’s best and most successful local-news startups, BikePortland.org. I think Jonathan (Maus) would tell you the #1 key to his success has been brand-building. It’s taken him five years, but it’s his deep, hard-earned relationship with readers — not his pageviews, though they’re substantial — that earns premium prices from his advertisers.

WC: Your favorite TriMet bus line?
MA: The 85-Swan Island. Three reasons. (1) It feeds this industrial area where everybody works extremely regular shifts, meaning that there’s this iron-like camaraderie that you can feel when you get on. (2) The line was more or less singlehandedly created and protected by my friend Lenny Anderson. (3) Every month, we run a funny “Only on the Bus” story on our back cover. I’ve been sitting on one about the 85, told by local bus-driver celebrity Dan Christensen, until next summer. It’s that good.

WC: Best metro area hike?
MA: My favorite so far is Rocky Butte, which I visited on a trip with local hiking writer Laura Foster as part of the City of Portland’s Ten-Toe Express urban walking series last year. I’m going back with a young lady this Saturday, actually. I think my first book is going to have to be about car-free dating.

WC: Words of wisdom for entrepreneurial journalists who aspire to do their own thing?
MA: Portland-born phrase here: Just do it.

***

Live in Portland, or just love the city? The first 5 WordCount readers who act can subscribe to Portland Afoot for just $10 a year with coupon code “WordCount.”

Not only did it make 2010 especially fruitful financially, it’s helped me grow as a writer, line editor and manager.

That alone is enough to be thankful for.

But the past year was good in many other ways too.

As I get ready to shut down WordCount Editorial Services for the day and step into the company kitchen to roll out dough for pumpkin pie, here’s everything I’m grateful for this Thanksgiving:

1. My husband and kids, for understanding my passion for what I do.

2. My editors, who push me to excel, even when I’d rather not be pushed.

3. The writers I work with, for putting up with my pickiness and tendency to overuse Track Changes.

4. A former colleague, for suggesting me for what turned into a wonderful job opportunity (see above).

5. The talented web designer who gave this blog a much needed makeover.

6. All 110+ writers, bloggers and other freelancers who took part in this year’s WordCount Blogathon – you turned an event into a tribe.

7. The talented media industry professionals who’ve shared their wisdom and time making guest appearances on WordCount Last Wednesday Twitter chats.

8. My travel agent (and friend), for booking business trips so I don’t have to – wish you could go through those full-body scanners for me too.

9. My workout instructor, for giving me 90 minutes twice a week when I can do instead of think.

10. My Droid.

11. My dog, for all the years he’s curled up under the desk while I work.

12. My mom, for being this blog’s first and biggest supporter.

13. The creative minds behind WordPress, you rock.

14. Bluehost, a blog hosting service that’s up and running 99.99 percent of the time.

15. The writers whose work inspires me to challenge myself to do better.

16. Portland’s digital journalism community, for creating a congenial co-working environment so being a journalist entrepreneur here doesn’t have to mean writing alone.

17. My readers, here, at Inside Edge, SecondAct.com, Workforce.com and wherever else you’ve found me.

18. My Facebook, Twitter and Linked In friends; I may spend the majority of my time in Portland, but I travel the world vicariously through you.

19. The members of the online writers’ groups I hang with – thanks for being there to share the troubles and the triumphs.

20. The economy, for turning around this year, at least for some of us.

Michelle

(Updated on 9/13/2010 @ 6:31 p.m. with correct info for classes offered by Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.)

It’s September and kids from kindergarten to college are headed back to the classroom.

This time of year, that back-to-school feeling is hard to escape, even if you finished your formal education years ago.

So why not just go with it, and sign up for a class or two to improve your skills and help your writing business.

Here’s a list of places that offer writing or other classes online; some are open only to members, which means you’ll need to subscribe to that professional organization in order to sign up.

Knight Digital Media Center - This journalism training partnership between USC Annenberg and UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism offers some online training materials in support of the week-long on-site seminars the schools run for working journalists. Categories include reporting, audio, video, photography, and more.

Knowledgewebb – Online training site Knowledgewebb focuses on training journalists about the tech tools they need to do their jobs, and not just to work for digital publications. Subjects range from basics such as math for journalists to planning your first multimedia story to more sophisticated subjects including content management systems, databases and getting more traffic to your website or blog. To see what you’re getting for your money, Knowledgewebb offers four sample classes you can take for free, including 50 Ways to Improve Your Blog and Workflow for Online Editorial Content. Classes are available to members only. Annual subscription is $129 a year, although generous discounts are available to members of affiliate organizations such as the Society of Professional Journalists, Online News Association, ReligonWriters.com, Freelance Success and others.

Mediabistro – The virtual community for freelancers runs online and on-demand courses and webinars, and offers one of the greatest range of topics out there, including staples such as Bootcamp for Journalists and Travel Writing Boot Camp. Mediabistro has literally dozens of courses slated to start in in the next couple weeks – but don’t worry if you miss the one you want, it’s bound to repeat sometime in the not too distant future. Some online classes are under an hour, others last several hours and others span the course of several weeks. Costs vary. Subscribers to Mediabistro’s AvantGuild inner circle get discounts on classes, but classes are open to all.

News University – This e-learning program is run by Poynter Institute, the non-profit journalism training organization that also owns and publishes the St. Petersburg Times. In addition to online training, News U. also offers webinars and in-person training, and you don’t need to be a member of any particular organization to sign up. Right now, News U. is asking freelancers to participate in an online survey to come up with subjects for a series of online writing webinars the organization plans to launch in 2011; participating writers get 50 percent off registration for one webinar plus $10 off an online class on stopping writer’s block that takes place this Thursday, Sept. 16.

Online News Association – This professional organization for staff and freelance digital journalists at all kinds of publications doesn’t offer much of its own online training, though members receive discounts on classes from News U. and Knowledgewebb. However, the group plans to use some of the $75,000 in grant funding it received recently to expand its own online training. If you live in Washington D.C. or plan to be there in late October, don’t miss ONA10, the organization’s annual conference, which crams as much digital-media training into two days as you could possibly hope for. In case you need more convincing, here’s a recap from last year’s conference.

Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism – The seven-year-old business journalism training program says 9,000 writers have taken its courses. The center, physically located at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, offers a variety of live and on-demand online training – all focused on how to do a better job of covering a business beat. Upcoming webinars include: Developing Business Angles on Any Beat (Sept. 14) and Think Like Google: What You Need to Know about SEO (Oct. 19).

Writer’s Digest University – The online training branch of Writer’s Digest Magazine offers training for writes in all genres, including magazine writing, fiction, poetry and technical writing. The next sets of multi-week, online workshops begin Sept. 16 and 23. Right now anyone who signs up for a workshop gets a free WD on-demand webinar on DIY publishing.

Others take self employment one step further and turn a solo enterprise into an honest-to-goodness company.

At a time when fewer publications are making assignments based on unsolicited queries and aggregators like Demand Studios, Associated Content and Helium are encouraging more amateurs to try their hand at creating web content, running your own show sounds pretty darn good.

Taking your freelance game to the next level doesn’t have to take a huge cash investment, though getting some ventures up and running definitely costs more than others.

Here are 10 writing-related businesses an enterprising freelancer could start today. Each includes examples of at least one writer who’s done it. I purposely included not-so famous writers – no Tina Brown or Arianna Huffington on this list – to make the point that you don’t have to start out rich and famous to make a go of it as a journalist entrepreneur.

Here’s the list:

1. Hyperlocal news – The equivalent of yesterday’s neighborhood newspapers, hyperlocal news sites cover what’s happening by the block, voting precinct, parish or or school district. These sites have become so popular you can do the work yourself or use hyperlocal news templates and advertising networks from companies such as Outside.in and GrowthSpur. That’s the good news. The bad news is major digital media companies like AOL and Yahoo have figured out there’s money to be made in hyperlocal and are working on their own initiatives, though how successful they’ll be remains to be seen. Examples of hyperlocal news sites started by a single writer or small group include:

• OpenFile – Read a Q&A I ran last week with co-founder and Regret the Error blogger Craig Silverman for more details about this Toronto start up.
• Portland’s Neighborhood Notes
• Tasha Does Tulsa

2. Training – Amy Webb spent 15 years covering emerging technology, media and cultural trends for Newsweek (Tokyo) and the Wall Street Journal (Hong Kong) before starting Knowledgewebb.net, a training company that teaches journalists the tools they need to succeed in the age of digital media. Today, Webb heads a team of trainers who hold webinars and travel the country teaching at conferences and providing in-person, one-on-one training. But you don’t have a staff to train other writers on WordPress, Twitter, or other technology. If you know enough about tech tools for writers to teach someone else how to use them, you could offer your services as a consultant, write e-books on the subject, or do like Boston-based The Urban Muse blogger Susan Johnston and teach blogging classes at a local community college.

3. City magazine – Books aren’t the only things the DIY publishing revolution has made it easier to bring to market. Online-based publishing tools have also made it easier for writers become print magazine publishers, as Portland freelance journalist Michael Robinson is discovering. Robinson just launched Portland A Foot, a small format magazine for the famously bike-friendly city’s “low-car” culture.

4. Customized wire service – Nozzl Media is to raw facts what AP is to news. Steve Woodward, a long-time reporter and editor at the (Portland) Oregonian took a company buy out and collaborated with two other ex-Oregonian reporters to create Nozzl Media. A cross between a wire service and a software app, Nozzl provides news websites with a constant stream of public records, social web conversations and other data they can customize to fit their particular location or niche. Since the service launched early this year, Nozzl has signed up The (Vancouver, Wash.) Columbian, The LundReport and ParkroseGateway.com. Nozzl isn’t the only company providing constant news streams. EveryBlock helped pioneer the concept and was subsequently acquired by MSNBC.com.

5. E-newsletter – Speaking of TheLundReport, Diane Lund is a Portland health-care industry watchdog who for years published a well-regarded monthly print newsletter covering the industry in Oregon. After some time away, Lund re-launched her efforts, only this time as a weekly e-newsletter with a matching website. Lund is a strong believer in nonprofit journalism and has structured TheLundReport accordingly. According to her website, since launching last year, she’s collected contributions from 100 supporters – with donations capped at $1,000 per person. She makes it easy for readers to donate by prominently displaying a Support the Lund Report page on the website. Though Lund writes a lot of her own stories, she uses freelancers on a regular basis.

6. Blog network – There’s power in numbers. That’s the philosophy behind blog networks, groups of blogs linked by a common theme. By aggregating content and traffic numbers, blog networks can go after companies that might not have been interested in advertising on a single property. BlogHer, which now has about 2,500 women-run blogs in its network, was started five years ago by former journalist Lisa Stone and two other partners and today competes with some of the largest women’s magazine publishers for Fortune 500 advertising dollars (Disclaimer: I’m a member of the BlogHer network. Examples of other blog networks include:

• NewWest.net – A news and blog network covering the Rocky Mountain West
• Cities on the Cheap – A network of 60 independent blogs run by freelance writers offering “insider information on your city’s best deals.”

7. Turnkey editorial services – Why let Demand and Helium have all the fun when you, too, can become a content aggregator. I’m not joking. Magazines, news websites, custom publishers have a constant need for fresh information and many would rather work with one source that can provide them with a steady, dependable stream of high-quality breaking news, feature stories or SEO-enabled web copy than deal with individual contributors. Some enterprising freelancers have figured this out and created editorial services companies to fill this need. One of them is Gina LaGuardia, proprietress of Gina LaGuardia Editorial Services, who not so jokingly calls herself a content pimp. LaGuardia started her New York City metro area-based company after a dozen years as a magazine editor and editorial director, and since then has handled content syndication management for AOL.com, MSN Encarta, the Internet Broadcasting System (IBSYS), WorldNow, Salary.com, BellSouth, and more. LaGuardia uses freelancers – a lot of them. I counted 28 on the GLES contributors page. If you’re super organized, have editing experience, contacts in the publishing industry and know a lot of freelancers, this could be for you.

8. Pop up website – In October 2008, Conde Nast laid off most of the editors who’d been working on Portfolio.com, the website for its then new-ish and since shuttered business monthly. Two of those suddenly jobless editors were Laura Rich and Sara Clemence, who were experienced enough business journalists to know a trend when they saw one. Along with a partner, they quickly built a website to track the personal and cultural fall out of the bad economy and called it RecessionWire, with the tag line “The upside of the downturn.” The founders dubbed it a pop-up site, after those retail stories that show up just in time for Christmas crowds and close once the post-holiday bargains are gone. The thinking behind RecessionWire and other pop-up sites is that the founders will keep them alive as long as the trend they cover lasts. However, in a March 2010 interview with BusinessWeek, Clemence said she thinks the site will live on, though with less frequent updates.

9. Netcasts – Leo LaPorte has been around the tech industry since the early days of the personal computer. After pitching shows to radio, TV and publishing companies with varying degrees of success, LaPorte used the advent of relatively cheap podcasting technology to start an Internet-based netcast called Twit.tv, and it’s paid off in spades. Today, Twit.tv consists of 15 separate shows covering some aspect of technology available via live streaming video and downloadable audio and video. Talking at the 2009 Online News Association conference last fall, LaPorte said he’s making approximately $1.5 million in advertising a year for shows that cost about $350,00 a year to produce, which he does with a staff of seven.

10. Creative services – To market themselves effectively in the age of digital media, writers need a website, blog, letterhead, business cards, Twitter background page, e-book design and so on. To make the best impression, all those marketing pieces should sport a common, professional caliber graphic design. Writers who are comfortable with HTML code or have a flair for design can do this work themselves. But many aren’t or would rather pay someone to do the work for them so they can focus on other things, like clients. That’s opened up an opportunity for freelancers with a degree of technical skill and design sensibility to provide creative services for other writers. Denver freelancer Ron S. Doyle started designing blogs and websites for other writers a year ago (Disclaimer: I’m a client). By the end of 2009, such work accounted for 40 percent of his income. So far this year, it’s up to 75 percent. Writers make up 80 percent of his business, but that number’s shrinking as he picks up work from other types of businesses. Doyle’s using web design as a base to branch into offering print and online marketing materials, online publicity campaigns, copywriting and video editing.Things are going so well he expects to add a business partner by March 2011, possibly sooner.

Are you a freelance writer who’s started a small business? If so, I’d love to hear from you.

At work, Millennials may be the new kids on the block, but they’ve got a thing or two to teach older colleagues.

The 18 to 29-year-old age group also known as Gen Y has a completely different take on work than older generations. They’re more prepared, productive, focused and technologically literate, and older workers would do well to emulate them.

That assessment comes from Penelope Trunk, a careers expert, blogger, author and one of the day’s leading interpreters of how Gen Y thinks and acts at work. Trunk first parlayed her expertise on the subject into a book called Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success, which became a springboard for a blog and more recently a Gen Y social network, also called Brazen Careerist.

For older workers to get ahead on the job, they have to stop acting their age and adopt a completely different mind set, Trunk says.

Read the rest of this post at SecondAct.com: To get ahead at work, think like a Millennial.