A Freelance Writing Journey

What a difference a year makes. In February 2006 I was into my second month as a freelancing WAHM. I had given up my job the previous August, done some teaching in September to December, and finally part company with my old employer at Christmas. I had made a measly GBP50 for writing some content for one of my old students, and I had just started writing for Inspired Author. Although I was a writer, I wasn't really making any money. I was lucky, though. I had a solid 19 years of writing experience behind me, so at least I had some skills to put on the table.

With IA and my two new blogs, I learned to write for the web, to address my audience directly and to develop a rapport with people I had only met in the virtual world. I was able to use these new skills to write for a number of sites and agency and to make money from writing. It took six months to replace my part time salary from lecturing. (Don't anyone get jealous; freelance writing income fluctuates, so I have had good and bad months since then. However, it was an important psychological milestone, because I knew then that freelancing was viable.)

Just over a year on, things have changed again. I make a reasonable living from freelancing, and have enough work (most of the time anyway) to pass some on to other writers. I didn't expect that deciding to go freelance would lead to becoming an agent for other writers, but I am always open to new opportunities.

I've learned a lot in the last year and a bit. I've learned that if you are willing to invest a bit of time in your future, you will gain something. When I started writing for IA, it was on the promise of future earnings. While I was waiting, I used those articles as a platform for getting other writing work. And I now earn money from those articles every day.

I've learned that it is essential to talk to other work at home writers. They keep me sane. We can share our joys, woes and warnings, which makes the job better for all of us.

Most of all, I have learned that it IS possible to succeed as a freelance writer, even if you are doing it on top of a full time job and while children clamour for attention. All you have to do is look out for the opportunities and grab them - you might get back more than you bargained for.

The most important things I did to jump start my freelance writing career were:

• Set up a blog
• Join a writing community
• Market with articles

What were the most important things you did to start yours?

New Writing Community Blog

If the seeming demise of WritingUp has left you down, then weep no more! From out of the ashes has arisen a site that will be better, stronger and much more reliable. It's called Communati and its mission is to take the best from WritingUp and leave the worst.

Here's what founder Mark Whitbeck has to say:

The philosophy about Communati.com, the way it looks, feels, and works, is to introduce something that is familiar while morphing into something completely new.

The best includes recreating that community aspect; leaving the worst means eliminating those darned trackbacks once and for all.

I signed up for Communati and so far, so good. I have already met a couple of old WU friends there and hope to meet more. So far, I am welcoming Communati with cautious optimism.

Check out my posts there. I'm wahmwriter (couldn't stay away from writing completely, but wanted more freedom to broaden my horizons).

PS. Did I mention that you get 70 per cent of Adsense revenue?

This is cross posted from Sharon's Writing Lab

What Do You Think?

Notice the colorful icons beneath each post. They are from a service called Click Comments, designed for those who don't want to comment but want to leave feedback. I'm trying it on this blog. I'd like some feedback from you, though.

1. Would this stop you from commenting if you had been going to comment?
2. Would it make you click on an option if normally you would just leave?
3. Is it annoying?
4. Anything else you want to say.

Let me know what you think.

Bloggerwave Pays You To Blog

I'm always on the lookout for new ways that you can get paid to blog and I've now found another one. It's called Bloggerwave and it works similarly to other paid to blog sites. You sign up, you get your blogs approved (lightning quick when I did it) and then you take up one of the opportunities. I signed up yesterday and have already written two posts for them.

At the moment, there are only a few opportunities but I am sure that will change. In the meantime, the system seems to work well. The site loads quickly, too, which is a plus for those of us with temperamental internet connections. So far, I like Bloggerwave, so I'm hoping for good things.

Why I Blog

I've been tagged by danahinders to give five reasons why I blog, so here goes:

Reasons For Blogging

1. I started blogging because I heard it was a good way to bring traffic to your site. That worked well, though it took longer than I thought.
2. Then I found WritingUp and fell in love with the community aspect of blogging. At that point I no longer cared about traffic, I was just having fun.
3. I also blog because it's like an online portfolio, which I have used to show my writing ability to various people.
4. Blogging is a good way of fostering creativity - and of taking a break when I'm mentally exhausted
5. I blog because I get to write in my own voice - which is nice for a change after a day of ghostwriting.

.

Whose turn next? How about Inklings, kohuether and merryone?

Blogitive: The Party's Over For WritingUp

I was an early user of Blogitive, back in the days when it used to be fun. I made up rhymes and other bits of nonsense and included a link as well. It was good for creativity and gave a few people a laugh as well, but it looks like the Blogitive party is over.

It seems that blogs on WritingUp, BloggerParty and a few others are no longer going to be accepted from today. If you have a blog on one of those sites and have already had your post accepted, you will be paid, but they're not planning to issue any more offers. Here's the post that lays it all out.

I have mixed feelings about this because it started as an easy source of income, but it's not so easy now. I haven't been posting as many Blogitive posts here because of two of their rules (the 'only write about the press release' rule and the 'two posts in between rule'.) Apart from that, I haven't had much time, so writing three posts to make $5 is less cost effective than writing one. I know some people can do it, but it's been difficult to fit it in with my other writing work. Other paid posting sites don't impose those rules (at least not yet, and I can write a fun post in five minutes and get paid).

Maybe Blogitive has done me a favour. I won't waste time looking for WritingUp offers that I have to reject. It may also be the kiss of death for my BloggerParty blog. Who knows? On the plus side, I've still got a couple of other blogs they will accept, if I can be bothered to write anything for them. I hope you do too.

(Thanks for the heads up, abi.)

ReviewMe: A New Paid To Blog Opportunity

This is a sponsored post about a new way to make money online. I first read about this site on Believin's blog and rushed over to sign up. When I visited ReviewMe I saw an attractive site with an laughably easy sign up process. In fact, I was able to sign up while chatting online with a couple of friends. I put in my name, address and Paypal address and was good to go. You can also opt to be paid by cheque.

The way it works is that you submit your blog to be considered for reviews. I haven't yet figured out what criteria they use, but I suppose they want a blog that is indexed and gets a decent readership. I submitted three blogs for consideration and had two accepted, this one and my Writng Lab blog. The other blog was not accepted, but that's no surprise, because although it's been going for months, even Technorati won't accept that it exists. Something's strange there.

Anyway, back to ReviewMe. The blog submission form is simple. You need a name, URL, feed URL, category, six tags and a description. Your site is checked and accepted or rejected straight away - no hanging on waiting for confirmation emails. You can submit six blogs and do unlimited reviews on each one. Once you're set up, your blog is assigned a value per review based on its popularity and other factors. You earn half of that price for writing a review. My blog was assigned an initial value of $40, which means I should get $20 for this review. I'll keep you posted. They pay once a month at the start of the month.

So far, I like what I see. ReviewMe insists that bloggers disclose that posts are sponsored. I like that too. Watch this space. I'll keep you up to date with my ReviewMe Adventure.

Blogitive: More Posts, Less Time

I've always been a big fan of getting paid to blog. I've written posts on how I get paid to blog and getting more out of Blogitive. But now this is getting to be hard work. $5 for 10 minutes work was fine, but $5 for an ad and two posts in between is less cost effective.

And, wouldn't you know it, this has coincided with a flurry of offers. I'm hoping that other paid blogging sites are not going to go the same way.

I wrote to Blogitive to complain (I won't put a gloss on it) about their new policy and to say bloggers needed more time to do all those posts. This is what they said:

We had to do this to increase the quality of the Blogs in our network. Clients don't like to see Blogs that just have posts written for our clients. Blogs should be about many random things and this forces everyone to write about different things that might interest them beyond our offers. The time to write posts isn't an issue for most Bloggers and we have even considered shortening it so more Bloggers can get offers easier.

Looks like my Blogitive days might soon be at an end.

Blogging For Smarties

Blogging For Smarties is not the opposite of Blogging For Dummies, a book which tells us how to do what we already do here at WritingUp.If you want advice on smart blogging, try Performancing.com, Problogger.com or read Seven Essential Blogging Habits. This is about a conversation with my three year old which made me think about the life of a WAHM.

Like many people, I used to go out to work. For my daughter, work was something that you did when you were out and when you were home you were off duty. But last year, when I went freelance, that started to change.

Of course, the change didn't happen overnight. Freelance writing success rarely comes quickly. But with all the writing I've been doing in the last couple of months, something major has changed. I'm never off-duty, though I force myself to spend family time (that IS why I'm a WAHM, after all). All you writers will know, though, that when a deadline looms, everything gets shoved aside so you can deliver on time. And that somtimes means children, too.

Like most three year olds, my daughter is the centre of her universe, and she doesn't like my work stealing the limelight. She knows I'm a writer (thanks to five unpublished children's stories which I've tested on her and her friends with great success) but she doesn't always understand that it means I have to sit at the computer. But she IS beginning to understand about money, so I came up with a way to explain my blogging and writing habit to her. The conversation went like this:

Me: You know that Mummy's a writer, don't you?
T: Yes (smiling)
M: Writing has to be done at the computer, because that's where people write. Do you understand?
T: Yes
M: Do you remember Daddy explained to you about earning money to buy treats?
T: Yes (warily)
M: Well, that's why Mummy has to write. So she can earn money to buy food and treats like Smarties (Smarties are small chocolate sweets wtih a bright coating, like M&Ms but smaller). They are her favourite treat at the moment.

So that's where the notion of writing for Smarties came in. And since I also earn money from blogging, I must be blogging for Smarties too.

Funnily enough, I think my daughter understood what I was getting at. And it gives me a handy way to explain why I'm sitting at the computer sometimes when I would rather be playing with her.

What about all you other WAHMs? How do you explain your work to young children - or older children? I might need to come up with something new in a couple of years.

PS. If you haven't already read it, check out Mitch's post on backing up - it's great advice for any writer. I wish I'd read this before my laptop died.

Website Promotion: Here's Proof That It Works

I recently did a post on website promotion strategies for writers and bloggers. Today I had more proof that it works. While I was browsing around my site stats, I noticed a few inbound links I didn't recognise. One of them turned out to be from Worldwide Freelance Writer. They publish a newsletter (every couple of weeks, I think) and the next issue is on their site. One of my free to reprint articles from EzineArticles is the lead article. This is good news for me, as it has links to both my site and blog.

To make the most of this opportunity, I've written to the editor pointing him to my other free to reprint writing articles on EzineArticles. I've also said that I'm available to write unique content for their standard fee (which was about $20 the last time they were accepting submissions).

I figure I haven't got anything to lose. The only thing to do now is to update my bio on all the articles, so it shows the latest links I am promoting.

Look What You Can Do On WritingUp

This morning I was wasting time when I should have been writing. I decided to go back over all my old posts and tag them and group them. Then I started playing around with the topic specific pages. This is what I found out.

When I clicked on a topic, it brought up all the blogs on that topic. Nothing new there. Then, there was a login link on the right - that's not new either. What was new (and I may be late in discovering this) was that when I logged in and clicked on the my blog link, I found only the posts I had written in that category. So in theory I could now promote the following subcategories:

• SHH's blogging WritingUp blog
• SHH's writing WritingUp blog
• SHH's freelance writing WritingUp blog

I'd like to be able to do one on promotion, which is the other tag I use, but there's no specific topic for that yet. What is does tell me is that I need to be much more careful about tagging blog posts so that my niches are well defined.

This has great possibilities for focused promotion. Now that I've found these I'll be adding them to social bookmarking services, blog directories and submitting the links to search engines. It can't hurt, can it?

Want To Be A Professional Blogger?

Professional bloggers make money for a living. That's all they do - blog and promote, blog and promote, blog and promote. I have to say the idea has begun to appeal to me, as long as I can write other things as well. Using social bookmarking, Blogitive and other promotional tools are a good start, but there's much more to problogging than that.

If you want to know how to become a professional blogger, you should visit Darren Rowse's problogging site every day. This week he's published his A-Z of Professional Blogging. This is a list of tools and sites to help bloggers. Even if you don't want to turn pro, you can learn something helpful here. I get a new tip every time I go to the site. The A-Z of Professional Blogging has so many links that just following those will give a mini-course in blogging. Check it out.

Getting The Best From Blogitive

In How I Get Paid To Blog, I told you about a (then) new way of earning money from your blog. That was back in April, and although I've updated the original post, people have been asking me questions about how it works. So here are the answers in one tidy(ish) package, as well as a few tips I've picked up along the way. Old hands may wish to scroll down to question 9.

1. How does Blogitive work?

Just in case you're new to this, Blogitive works by giving bloggers key phrases to use in their blogs, with a link to a particular website. Blogitive gives you a web release as well, which you must refer to. For each successful post you get $5. I have made way more with Blogitive than with Adsense, so it does work, and if you look around WritingUp, you'll see plenty of other bloggers using it too. To get started, you just need to register your blog with them.

2. Will they accept all my blogs?

They may not. I tried to get this blog accepted three times before I succeeded - and my WriteNiche blog still gets rejected. The best way to make more money with Blogitive is to register all the blogs they will accept. Then your only problem is how to write all the ads.

3. How often do blogging offers come along?

This varies considerably. When Blogitive started, there were only a few offers and the more people signed up, the fewer offers there were to go around. That seems to have improved. I usually get offers twice a week, near the start and end of the week, sometimes as many as 10 at a time, because I have three blogs registered with them. Occasionally, I go a whole week without offers. This no longer panics me.

4. Can I reject offers?

Yes.

5. How else can you make money with Blogitive?

By referring other people - $5 a time. Just tell them sharon [at] doublehdesign [dot] com sent you. :) There's also talk of making money by writing posts for others eventually, but so far that hasn't happened. The referral system is a bit hit or miss. I've been credited for some referrals but not others.

6. How often do your posts get rejected?

I had two rejections in the first week and none since. The first rejection was because I corrected the grammar in the link they gave me (it was missing an apostrophe). Once I'd gritted my teeth and put the phrase back the way it was, I got paid on that one. The second was because I had too many other links in the post (no more than three other links are allowed). The third key thing to remember is to put the link in its own paragraph with no other links. And finally, remember to refer to the web release.

7. Do I need a Paypal account to get paid by Blogitive?

Yes.

8. How often do Blogitive pay?

They pay weekly. You'll get a notice of a pending payment, which clears in a few days. If you get a lot of offers, you may find it difficult to remember which ones you are being paid on.

9. What's the best way to include the links on your blog?

When I started, I used to create a whole post around the phrase. This was good creative writing practice. Now that I've got more offers, I take a more workmanlike approach. I simply put a paragraph at the end with the link and the reference to the web release.

10. Do you write a different ad for each blog?

Not usually. I usually try a paragraph on one of my blogs and if it works I use it on all of them.

11. Can you include more than one Blogitive offer in your blog?

Yes, I usually include two. I haven't dared to go for three yet, but one day I might. As long as I put each in its own paragraph and use the correct phrase, my posts are accepted.

12. Can I use Blogitive on old posts?

Yes. I have put Blogitive offers on posts that are more than four weeks old. Again, these have been accepted. (Thanks, gracepub, for this tip).

13. Is putting ads on your blog wrong?

As far as I'm concerned, I'm a freelance writer and writing is how I make money. There's little difference between writing an article or an ad for money. On my blog I try to signal by a horizontal rule (ugly, but effective) or a change of font that the content that follows is not the main subject of my blog. Most people who came to WritingUp were attracted, at least in part, by the prospect of Adsense money. Even if that's not the primary motivation any more (being the get-rich-slow scheme that it is), there's nothing wrong with it, in my book.

These are the answers to the questions I've been asked most about Blogitive . If you have any more, be sure to let me know so I can add them to this post. And if you have any more Blogitive busters (strategies that have worked for you), I'd love to hear about them.

Welcome To The Carnival

Think of a carnival and you think of lights, noise and a good show. You may also think of cotton candy and humongous hot dogs, but that's not where I'm going with this. There's a new kind of carnival that all bloggers should know about. It's called a blog carnival.

What is a blog carnival?

A blog carnival is where you get to show off the stuff you've been writing about in your blog. I only found out about these a few weeks ago when I was looking for new ways to promote my blog. A carnival is a collection of blog posts around a theme. In most cases you submit your own posts to the carnival or carnivals. There are carnivals for everything, it seems - dogs, cats, the kitchen sink, family life.

How do I get my post listed?

Submit it to the blog carnival of your choice, but make sure the content is appropriate. Almost all the carnivals have rules about what they will and will not accept, how old or new the post has to be and so on. There are two good places to start. First, conservativecat.com has a carnival submit form which makes the process easy. The page has a list of several blog carnivals, the deadline for submission and space to put in the blog post title and author, your email address and any comments. There is also lots of other carnival related information on the page. A second option is a similar list on blogcarnival.com. This makes it even easier to see the carnival name, category and due date for the next edition.

What happens next?

Once you've submitted your post, whoever is hosting the carnival does a roundup of the posts. An email is then sent out to all participants to let them know the carnival has been posted. This week I've submitted posts to the Carnival of Family Life and the Best of Me Symphony. In doing so, I've gained a few more visitors to some of my old posts. The carnival is hosted by different bloggers each period (whether it be weekly, monthly or quarterly), so hosting a carnival is also a good way to get traffic. I haven't volunteered for this duty yet, mainly because of the time needed to read and summarise all the blog posts, but there are a few bloggers who already do that here on WritingUp, so this might be a good move for them.

Final word

Now, I'm not saying I know everything there is to know about blog carnivals. As I said, I'm quite new to this. So far it seems to be working. Another benefit is that it can tell you who else is posting similar material and give you new blogs to visit. The more blogs you visit and comment on, the more comments and visits your own blog will attract. Seems like a good deal to me.

Seven Effective Blogging Habits

I'm not sure I know the answer to what makes some blogs more successful than others. However, I do know what I get out of blogging personally. One part of it is about creativity; the other is about having somewhere to showcase my writing and to practice things that I'm working on. Anyway, I was inspired to write this post by Darren Rowse's Problogger project on the habits of highly effective bloggers. So here are the blogging habits that work for me.

Find Your Niche

I kind of fell into this one by accident. When I started blogging on WritingUp, I had no idea what I was going to blog about. Since I had some articles on freelance writing already written, I decided to see whether those could be turned into blog posts. Some people liked the posts, commented and I'd found my niche. It shouldn't have been a surprise that it's something that's so much a part of my life. That means I can almost always find something to say about writing or related subjects such as blogging and website development (for writers, of course).

Stay On-Topic

Once you've found your niche, it seems best to stick to it, most of the time at least. I know when I've written something that is seen as off-topic because there's a dip in the number of reads the post gets. Of course, writing a good title will help too. Choosing a title that relates to the theme of your blog or post will help readers realize what your topic is and how this post relates to it. I don't always get it right, but it's nice when I do.

Is Your Blog Read Or Dead?

If you want people to read your blog, you've got to give them something to read - and you've got to make it regular. For some people, this means posting at least once or several times a day. For me, it means posting a couple of times a week. We WAHMs don't have a lot of time to sit down and think of posts, let alone write them. But as long as there's activity on the blog, there'll be people reading it. Stay away too long and people are likely to abandon your blog for one that's got fresh content. Since people have lives that are offline (as well as online) getting a guest blogger is a good way to make sure your blog is updated if you have to be away. And with some blogging platforms like Wordpress, you can submit blog posts by email.

Extra! Extra!

Sitting around waiting for people to find your content can take a long time. Instead, take the content to them with headline animators from Feedburner, email alerts from Feedblitz, RSS feeds from whoever you choose. Submit your blog to directories and try to think of a description that will make people want to visit. This is my new one (Take two tbsp of freelance writing advice, add one tsp of SEO, one tsp of WAHM and a sprinkle of creative writing. Mix together to create Sharon Hurley Hall's WritingUp blog.) and I'll be uploading that to blog directories on my next round of submissions. Use pinging services like Pingoat to let people know you've updated your content. Also use the social bookmarking services to take your blog posts to a wider audience.

Read All About It

Read other people's blogs, not just here, but everywhere. This will let you know what people are thinking and talking about and may give you inspiration for blog posts of your own. This post is a perfect example, as are the multiple writing challenges that make us all want to read and write better.

Keep On Talking

When you read other blogs, be sure to comment if you've found the post interesting or useful. If you have something to add to the discussion, that's even more useful. The best blogging has a community feel and you have to keep talking to maintain that community. That also means that you should respond to all comments on your blog. If you get a lot of visitors, you don't have to respond individually, but it's nice for people to know their voices have been heard.

Link Like Crazy

Here on WritingUp bloggers can use their blogrolls and bookmarks to keep track of the bloggers they read. They can also link to interesting posts in their own posts and use the trackbacks feature to let those people know about the link. If you're lucky, those people will also link back to you and you'll get new readers for your blog. But that's only one part of the story. The best way to keep getting readers for your posts is to link to them in other posts. After all, you're the person who's most likely to know if one of your blog posts is related to another.

These are the strategies that are working well for me at the moment. What blogging habits work well for you?

My Writing Week: May 15-21, 2006

The last week or so has been reasonably successful. I've written some more articles for InspiredAuthor. Also, I managed to take advantage of the Blogitive bonanza this weekend. Finally, someone's hired me to write up something on parenting. Wish me luck with that one, as the brief is not as detailed as I would like.

I've written a new children's story, which I made up to entertain my daughter one day. It needs some revision, but I hope to be able to submit it to a publisher next week. Not everything is rosy, though. My recent ghostwriting clientseems to have vanished, perhaps because he's short of money. I'll chase him one last time and then give up.

Here's what I've been writing and reading recently:

InspiredAuthor.com

Writing For Free - Is It Worth It?
Break It Up: How To Write A Good Ending
Learn How To Proofread Your Writing

Sharon's Writing Lab

Would You Let Your Partner Choose?
Collecting My Memories
Soulmate Saga - Part 8: Wedding Plans

WriteNiche

Another Way To Get Paid To Blog

Three good reads from WritingUp

Everything Fours Monster Index
Curses, Foursome Phenomena, and Perpetual Procrastination
The Writer's Life

Enjoy!

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Do I Blog Too Much?

When I started blogging, it all seemed very simple. I had one blog on my main website. I posted diligently every day and didn't get much readership at first. Then I came to WritingUp and everything changed. Whereas before I'd been blogging because I thought it was something I ought to do, once I joined this site I fell in love and despite the occasional glitches, I haven't fallen out of love yet. Not only was I able to write and hone my material, but I was also able to talk to people, get feedback and feel that I was useful. Is it any wonder I became addicted?

The result of my addiction was blogs on Blogcharm (which I've now abandoned), Bloggerparty (where I post sporadically) and WriteNiche (where I try to post a couple of times a week). So that's four blogs plus the site I'm developing at sharonhurleyhall.com. I think I may have stretched myself a bit too thin. I can now only post a couple of times a week on each blog; slightly more here on WritingUp. After all, I've still got other freelance writing to do and two topics to manage for InspiredAuthor. Is it just me - or is anyone else suffering from over-blogitis?

Ka-ching! (almost)

Last week I talked about whether Guru and Elance were really worth it for freelance writers. I concluded that they were not and decided to concentrate my efforts on Craigslist and other job opportunities. So far, it seems to be working.

This week, I've had emails from another paid to blog site (I'll tell you about that in another post - or you could search this one for a clue), a site that wants me to blog about freelance writing, and someone who wants me to write a parenting article and is prepared to pay decently for it. This week I feel as though my decision to go freelance was the right one. Whether I get paid or not (because I still could get scammed), there are at least a few people who think I can do a decent job and will pay me fairly. So, keep your fingers crossed; next week I might get paid.

Thinking About My Blog

Sometimes it's difficult to keep the writing momentum going. With all the writing I'm doing for InspiredAuthor and other sites, I don't have as much thinking time as I used to. Plus, there's the not so small matter of my very active toddler. Thinking time is essential for writers. Good ideas often need time to percolate before being put on paper or sent out for public consumption. This is not true of everything, of course. Sometimes writers just have to write to meet a deadline. But for many of us, having the time to think and polish is essential. The posts I do here are a mixture. Some of them I've thought about, drafted and let sit for a couple of days. Others have come straight out of my head onto my blog. But in most cases, it's the ones I've spent more time on that you've liked the most. Have a look:

Most read blog posts

10. Alphabet Soup 335
9. Keeping Track Of Your Writing 353
8. Do You Give Good Headline? 385
7. The Color Question 423
6. Three Months Of Blogging 445
5. Freelance writers - four reasons to get on the net 497
4. Read Em And Weep 552
3. How I Get Paid To Blog - UPDATE 560
2. WritingUp Alphabet 648
1. How I Put My Site On Steroids 875

Most commented blog posts

10. Do You Give Good Headline? 26
9. SHH Blogwatch 28
8. Read Em And Weep 29
7. Without Word: Free Online Tools For Writers 30
6. Alphabet Soup 31
5. How I Put My Site On Steroids 32
4. Do You Know Your ABCs? 32
3. The Color Question 36
2. How I Get Paid To Blog - UPDATE 42
1. WritingUp Alphabet 72

Compiling these lists was an interesting process, because I realised that people don't always comment on the posts they like. (That shouldn't really surprise me, as I don't comment on every post I read.) And some of the ones that I personally like best don't feature at all. Looking at what people are reading and talking about is instructive for bloggers and writers so they have some idea of what the audience wants. This is a key element of good, targeted writing. Thanks for reading.

My Writing Week: May 1-6, 2006

I've had a busy week - and for once, I'm all out of inspiration for today's post. So here's a round up of what I've been doing this week on my other blogs and the sites for which I write. I've also included a brief list of the posts that have recently caught my eye on WritingUp.

InspiredAuthor.com

Great Gadgets For Freelance Writers
How To Negotiate The Best Rate For Freelance Writing
Tips For Successful Proofreading

Sharon's Writing Lab

Want To Read Something Beautiful?
My Daughter Is Growing Up
Seeing My Name In Print
I Found Out What A Truck Rack Is

WriteNiche

Mother's Day Dilemma
Shakespeare Never Had To Work Like This

Three good reads from WritingUp

How to Promote Your Book/Website/Blog Free and Increase Hits
What Moms Know
"Good heavens!" he ejaculated. "How many ways are there to say 'said'?"

Enjoy!

Shameless self-promotion
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