Fab Freelance Writing Ezine: Issue 18 - When Writing For Free Isn't "Free", It's Vital - Writing For Self Promotion



Publisher: Angela Booth.

Copyright 2007 Angela Booth

All rights reserved.

Blog: http://www.fabfreelancewriting.com/blog/

Site: http://www.fabfreelancewriting.com

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* Issue # 18

* Date: February 14, 2007

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Includes:

* Editorial: Your Cunning Writers' Plan For Self-Promotion - When Writing For Free Is NOT Writing For Free

* Freelance Writing Tip Of The Week: Being You - Individuality Sells Online

* Article: When Writing For Free Isn't Free - Writing For Self Promotion


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** Discover Pro Blogging And Increase Your Freelance Income **

What's pro blogging? Pro blogging is a fantastic way to make BIG money as a freelance writer. Find out how to pro blog with the blogging best-seller "Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger -- in your PJs, if you want". It's my complete blogging ebook package, with free coaching/ consultations as well. Pro bloggers are making $1000 to $1500 a week for just a couple of hours of work each weekday.

Find out more at:

http://www.//Blog/blogging.html

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[Editorial] Your Cunning Writers' Plan For Self-Promotion And Survival - When Writing For Free Is NOT Writing For Free




Hi - I hope you're having a great writing week.

This week let's talk about the vexed topic (in some writers' circles) about writing for free.

I write for "free". My blogs are free, this ezine is free - I'm giving it away, so I must be either a lunatic, or putting a good construction on it, be extremely altruistic.

In fact, neither of those applies. :-)

My Cunning Plan - And Yours, Too

I'm not altruistic when it comes to writing. In fact, I believe that all writers should be paid well.

However, I do write for self-promotion, because it's vital to being paid well. When you're well known as a writer, your clients expect to pay you more. And because you don't stint on your writing, they also know what to expect when they hire you - they've seen your work. So they know you.

In today's crowded and noisy writing marketplace, in which 100,000 books are published in English each year, and where Web pages proliferate into the billions, writing for self-promotion is writing for survival. If you're not online, if you don't have a Web site or blog, and if you don't active self-promote by writing for "free" you're cutting your own throat as a writer.

So - that's my "cunning" plan. Write "for free" and not only survive but also thrive as a writer.

The Writers Who Don't Write For Self-Promotion Do Not Survive

When I first started pushing the idea that writers need to "write for free" to promote themselves online in around 2002, some writers got very upset. Self-promotion for writers was call "hustling", and undignified. How déclassé.

Those writers who were so against writing for self-promotion are not around these days. Whatever it is that they're doing, they're not writing.

So I strongly advise you that if you want a long term career as a highly paid freelance writer, you make yourself visible. Unless you've got hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on advertising, then write for free - for self-promotion. The benefits to your earning power are unlimited. Get cunning, and promote yourself.

Affectionately,

Angela

P.S. Because writing for self-promotion is so vital, you need to make time for it. No excuses. :-) Read "Top 70 Writing Tips To Help You To Write More" to become a faster writer -

http:////Write-More/write-more.html


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** Are you making enough money writing? **

Or is your writing just a hobby, costing you more in computers, Internet connection fees and writing supplies than you're earning?

The Secret, Unlimited Market For Your Writing Which Generates A Fantastic Writing Income

I'll let you in to a secret. The top earners in writing are copywriters. That is, commercial writers - they write for businesses. (Writing for business is known as copywriting.)

Discover how you can become a top-earning copywriter, with "Seven Days To Easy Money: Copywriting Success"

http:////Copywriting/copywriting.html



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* Freelance Writing Tip Of The Week - Being You: Why Individuality Sells Online



 ** This short excerpt is from my ebook "Writing For Online Cash", which is not currently available. I'm revising and updating this ebook for the 2007 writing environment, so watch for its release within the next month or two.**

=> When You're Marketing Yourself And Your Services, BE YOURSELF



The Internet is personal. Although you may be communicating with thousands of people who read your work online, you're communicating with them one at a time. Each person sitting in front of his or her computer screen is an individual with whom you're sharing a private interaction.

If you're coming to online writing from the world of news print, this perspective can be hard to achieve. You may have spend years chopping yourself and your opinions out of your work.

So now you're supposed to put yourself in there? Yes you are, especially in longer communications like ezines and blogs. If you're creating a blog to promote your writing and writing services, your personality and experience should be evident.
The readers want to know about you, your abilities and your ideas. How else are they going to trust you?


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** Struggling To Find Writing Gigs? **

Freelance writers just don't realize how much money there is to be made by writing for the Web: many writers use the Web as a research tool, they don't see the Web as a mass of millions of markets. They don't realize that Web sites are STARVED for good writers.

Want to get paid REAL money to write? How does upwards of $120 an hour sound to you? Discover "Writing For The Web" at:

http://www.//Web_Write/Web_write.html


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* Article: When Writing For Free Isn't "Free", It's Vital - Writing For Self Promotion



(c) Copyright 2007 Angela Booth. All Rights Reserved.



Should you write for free?

I can hear the howls of outrage from here. The answer is yes. Here's why. You're a writer. However, in 2007 the Internet looms large. The Internet enables your editors, publishers and clients to assess your abilities, simply by entering your name into Google or one of the other search engines, and decide whether or not you're a competent writer, and whether they should hire you.

If none of your writing is returned in the search engine results when someone types in your name - that is, if you're not VISIBLE - then unless you're already part of a magazine's writer's stable or have done work for a particular client before, you're an unknown quantity, and you won't be hired.

Getting writing gigs is highly competitive. To get the gigs you want, at the high rates you want to be paid, you must write for promotion... in order to advertise your skills and abilities.

When A Freebie Is Worth Thousands Of Dollars You Don't Have To Spend



So, the articles, blogs and ezines and other freebies you write and post online are not freebies. You're writing for marketing purposes, to promote yourself and your work. You're giving, in order to get, and you're getting a lot - thousands of dollars of free promotion, just on the basis of your words alone.

Writing for promotion gets your name out there so it can be Googled, and the easiest way to get onto the Google radar is by writing promotional articles.

Promotional Articles Get You Work, Make You Money... They're Gold



As you write articles for others to publish online, lo and behold, a couple of short months from now, your name and your Web site URL (yes, you need a site) will come up on the Web search engines.

The visibility gives you credibility. Oddly enough, having your name coming up in the search engines is more of a career booster than 50 articles in low-ranking magazines like The Chicken Plucker's Monthly. (I made this name up. I fervently hope it's fictional.)

Your name and Web site URL in the search engines mean that your editors, publishers, clients AND readers will find you. In the Internet age, gaining readers is the challenge, not gaining publication credits per se.

If you've done other kinds of writing: magazine articles, or articles for online venues, you may have an archive of already-published material. Sending the articles off for others to use for free on their Web sites and in their ezines is a way to get your name in front of lots of people quickly.

And of course, you can write articles specifically to submit to article banks and groups. Remember to include your Resource Box, which is a brief bio/ ad at the end of the article, and your copyright notice.

As an example, I'll show you one of my Resource Boxes:

***SAMPLE RESOURCE BOX****
When your words sound good, you sound good.
Author and copywriter Angela Booth
crafts words for your business - words to sell, educate or
persuade. Get in touch today for a free quote: ________ (URL goes here)

***************************

So there you have it - get visible online, by writing for "free". It's a few more zeros on your income every year.


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** Discouraged Because Your Writing's Not Selling? **

In today's world, there are vast opportunities for writers. In the midst of all this dazzling plenty, some writers are stuck. Frankly, they don't know how to sell themselves as writers - that is, how to promote their skills. Nor do they know how to sell the words they've written.

My new ebook "You CAN Sell Your Writing Now: Marketing Skills For Writers" shows you exactly how to compete and win all the contracts you want in today's writing marketplace -

http://www.//Market-writing/sell-writing.html

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Get the latest freelance blogging news on Blogging For Dollars at:

http://www.dollars2blog.com/blog/

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** Your Blog: Your Vital Sales And Promotions Tool For 2007 **

Gotta blog? My ebook, Writing Success with Blogs by Angela Booth, helps you to take the first steps into the new world for writers: instant publishing on blogs.

Your writers' blog is your must-have branding tool. It also has a very practical use - it's a writing portfolio. From the ebook: "Before editors will pay you to write, they want to know that you can write. They want clips - copies of material you've published. This seems like a Catch-22: you can only get published if you've been published. Your writing on your blog can be in lieu of clips. Your blog lets editors gauge your abilities and style, before they put down the cash."

The book helps you to create your own writer's bog:
http:////page11/Blog%20book/page16.html


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** Freelance Blogging: Fun, Easy and VERY Profitable **

Want a new freelance writing career? Become a freelance blogger.

I've been blogging since 2001, and for the past 12 months I've been swamped with offers of blogging gigs, and so have other freelancers who are highly visible on the Web. Blogging has huge returns on investment for businesses, so they're hiring bloggers to update their blogs each day - often several times a day.

My new ebook, "Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger -- in your PJs, if you want", teaches you how to blog for money:

http:////Blog/blogging.html



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Contact Angela at: angela.booth@gmail.com

Or, use the form.

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