Blogging As Portfolio

Remember when I gave you reasons to get on the net? One of these was to have a quick way to show editors and publishers your work. If you're a freelance writer, a blog can be just as useful as your own website. Think about it. Do any of the following apply to you?

• You blog almost every day
• You're constantly thinking of new ideas for posts
• You try to make your posts useful to your readers
• You don't mind taking a bit of criticism

If all these things are true, your blog will make a great online portfolio. A blog is a wonderful place to rehearse your ideas for articles, stories, novel chapters, poetry or any kind of writing. If the community is active, the feedback you receive will tell you whether your writing is interesting and whether it's readable (not necessarily the same thing). You'll also be able to see where improvements can be made.

When editors are asking to see examples of your work, you can point them to your blog - I do. With two blogs and a website, I've got lots of examples of the variety of writing I can do - and I'll bet most of the writers here have the same.

A word of warning, though. Most editors want ORIGINAL content for their publication or website, so if you've written it on your blog, you'll have to make it slightly different if you want to publish the material elsewhere. But if you're a writer, that shouldn't be a problem. Happy blogging!