It’s got me contemplating my own tribes. There are the obvious ones – my extended family, the parents of children my kids go to school with, friends I went to high school or college with.

Then there are the writing tribes I belong to. When I worked at a daily newspaper, the other reporters were my tribe.

When I went freelance, not only did I lose my full-time paycheck, I lost my tribe. Instead of being part of a pack of 300, suddenly I was on my own – at least that’s what it felt like at the time.

It’s partly the reason journalists – anybody really – feel discombobulated after losing a job. Suddenly the tribe you’ve identified with for as long as you held that job has vanished.

But as Godin points out, the Internet is the perfect tribe-making tool because it makes communicating so easy. First it was through email listservs, then IM and chat rooms on online services like AOL, then the Web, blogs, and now the ultimate tribal circles, social networks like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Ning, LinkedIn and so on and so on.

Today, I’m part of several writing tribes. Knit them together and they’re the buddy system I lost when I left the newsroom. They’ve become intrinsic to my professional identity.

My tribes:

Freelance Success – A subscription-based writer’s community with a weekly newsletter and pay-rate database. For me and many of the hundreds of professional writers who pay the site’s $99 annual fee, the best part is the message boards, which are active, civil and cover topics such as magazines, corporate writing, blogs, travel writing and books.

#EditorChat - A weekly online chat on FriendFeed.com hosted by Motley Fool finance writer Tim Beyers and business feature writer Lydia Dishman that takes on all manner of subjects writers and editors care about. #Editorchat happens Wednesday nights at 8:30 p.m. Eastern. The latest discussion covered the types of work or household tasks freelancers outsource to buy themselves more time to work – or would if they could afford it. Earlier discussions have covered the New York Times’ decision to have columnists teach online classes, writing for content aggregators and hyperlocal news.

Twitter – Writers use Twitter many ways – to connect with sources, promote a story, showcase a blog. Another is to synch up with fellow writers. I follow several hundred writers and editors and am followed by a like number. We use it like a mini-message board, to share tips, answer quick questions or exchange atta boys. If you’re a writer, follow me at
@MichelleRafter and I’ll follow you back.

Portland digital media scene – A collection of writers, bloggers, podcasters, software developers and other media types with one thing in common – living and working here in Portland. This is probably the most loosely defined tribe I’m in. Portland’s media tribe hangs out at the Green Dragon on Fridays for Beer and Blog, goes to WordPress user groups meetings and WordCamp Portland (the next one’s Sept. 19-20 at Webtrends), and congregates at Mediabistro.com cocktail parties (which, BTW, somebody needs to resurrect – Mediabistro, if you read this, I’m happy to volunteer). The area’s digerati coalesced in the biggest way ever when more than 150 locals got together at the Digital Journalism Camp in August to listen to panels on hyperlocal news, new revenue models, podcasting and more.

UPOD – A Yahoo group for experienced freelancers led by Los Angeles freelancer David Hochman that I tune into via email.

Online News Association – This trade group for professional journalists who specialize in digital media has benefited from the demise of traditional (print) media in the past year, witnessed by a major uptick in membership. The group holds an annual convention – this year’s is in San Francisco Oct. 2-4 and I’ll be there – regular online and in-person classes, an online journalism awards competition, member discussion forum and offers other benefits and resources.

These tribes have become the places I look for help, bounce ideas off people, blow off steam when I’m frustrated with a story or editor or visit when I just want to talk.

As more people work freelance – not just writers but all kinds of freelancers – expect to see more tribes. That’s what all the fuss is over social networks, which ones are the best tool for creating tribes. It’s why Facebook and Twitter are such big news, why investors still pour money into social network start ups and everyone from job boards to media outlets are tacking on a community component to their websites – think of it as tribal warfare.

Are you in a tribe?

The listing is broken into research and reference Websites such as Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary and Wikipedia, resources on publishers, agents and the book business, freelance job listings, online communities, marketing tools, and lots of genre-specific sites.

It’s a good list, but some areas are a little thin, at least to this freelancer’s eye. There’s not much about the mechanics of writing. Newer genres, such as writing for the Web, blogging for pay and search engine optimization (SEO) writing are left out completely. So is Freelance Success, the subscription newsletter and Website that caters mainly to experienced magazine writers and one of the best resources for freelancers out there.

I chalk up the omissions to Writer’s Digest’s mission to be all things to all writers – you can’t spread yourself that thin without doing a disservice to something or somebody.

Still, it’s worth investigating.

And if you’re a writer with a Website or blog about writing, you’ll be interested in a contest Writer’s Digest is running. The magazine is soliciting entries for a contest to name the top 10 personal Websites or blogs from writers about writers. According to the magazine, sites will be judged on presentation, ease of use and marketing effectiveness. WD’s editors will judge the sites and a list of the winners will appear in the magazine’s October 2008 issue, e-newsletter and online. The prize is modest: a year’s subscription to WD and Writersmarket.com. Submissions are due by June 10. Nominate yourself by sending an email with a link to your Website or blog to writersdig@fwpubs.com with “Best Writer’s Site” in the subject line.

If you haven’t discovered it before, you can read my list of best blogs for writers here.

One of my regular clients is a technology Web site that pays 50 cents a word for 500-word stories. That’s $250 per story – like I said, not a lot of money. However, I’ve been able to make this market work for me by:

• Sticking to my going hourly rate for the amount of time I put into the stories.
• Doing multiple stories around a single topic so I can interview one source for two stories.
• Getting the editor to assign a story and graphics – which pay an additional fee – on the same topic so I can stretch the research even further.
• Focusing on topics that fall within my already established beat, so instead of starting from scratch on every story I have a pool of sources to draw from or know where to go to find them. I’ve always been a beat reporter, so this is standard operating procedure for me.
• Spinning ideas and sources I find for these stories into pitches at other tech outlets I write for.
• Using stories as basis for posts to this blog, which I guess is a different way of stretching my research.

And since I have an ongoing relationship with the client, I get work from them every month, some of which is assigned, some of which is based on my queries, so for very little marketing on my part I have a steady income stream. Multiply this times a few clients and voila, you’ve got a business.

My style of marketing works for me, but it might not suit everyone. Another Freelance Success member who blogs about the business of writing is Eric Sherman. Check out his blog, Erik Sherman’s WriterBiz. I’d love to hear other freelancers’ marketing secrets.

Here’s how writers can use LinkedIn:

To reconnect with former colleagues from various places you’ve worked on staff or as a freelancer. If you’ve kept email addresses of old buddies in Outlook or another contact manager, you can import those into LinkedIn and see if they’re also members. If they aren’t, their email addresses are right at your finger tips to invite them. If you’ve created a detailed LinkedIn profile that lists places you’ve worked, you can go to the LinkedIn Home page to see how many other people at those companies are members and invite them to join your network. In my case, one of the ex-colleagues I asked to connect with is now an assigning editor at a couple news Web sites. She immediately offered me assignments and I’m writing a couple stories a month for her.

As a contact manager for all of the editors and editorial staff you work with. Most of the editors at publications I’m writing for are on it, as are their bosses, art directors, etc., so it’s kind of like a company directory.

As a contact manager for sources and potential sources. As I work on stories, I ask sources or the PR rep who set up the interview if they’re on LinkedIn. If they do, I ask them to join my network. If they don’t, I evangelize a little about the benefits and ask if I can introduce them to the service by inviting them to join my network. In most cases they accept. By doing this, I’m building up a virtual Rolodex of sources for future stories.

To find sources. Now that my contact list is in LinkedIn, I send group emails to subsets of the list when I’m looking for company examples in a certain industry or on a specific trend or issue. LinkedIn lets you slice and dice connections list by geography or industry, which makes it easy to put group emails together. You can also hand pick a group of names to send a message to.

To find potential sources. In LinkedIn’s Answers section, use the Keyword search function to find potential sources for stories by name, company name, etc. When I find someone that looks like they could be a subject matter expert and they have an email address listed on their LinkedIn profile, I send them a message directly. If I find someone I’m connected to indirectly, I’ll ask my 1st degree connection for an introduction. I always show my 1st degree connection the contents of the email I’m sending to their friends so they know the reason for my inquiry. I’ve found a few story sources this way, and in most instances, I’ve also added these people to my connections list. If I have no connection to that person, I might visit the company’s Web site and look up the PR contact in the “Media” or “About Us” section for a phone number.

To improve my work processes. I’m refining how I operate my freelance business, and information I’ve gleaned from fellow LinkedIn users has helped. In the long run I think this will effect my bottom line by increasing my productivity. For example, I’ve just finished reading a book on organization and time management, Take Back Your Life! Using Outlook to Get Organized and Stay Organized, by Sally McGhee (Microsoft Press), that I heard about on a LinkedIn Answer board. Another example: when I started working again, I wanted to go green by eliminating printing out interview and research notes before writing a story. I posted a question in the Question and Answer section asking how to do this and got a bunch of great suggestions, including one that I use all the time now – a Word feature that tiles two files horizontally on the screen at the same time, one for notes and one for writing.