One For The WAHMs

I had another poem published on RITRO.com today. It's called Not For Ladies. This was my take on the whole birth experience, so I'm sure many women will relate. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

How I Got Paid By Writing For Free

A lot of freelance writers complain about writing for free or for peanuts. Most of the time I agree with them. Writing is a skill and freelance writers should earn a fair rate. But there are times when writing for free is useful. Let me give you an example.

Last July, I was helping a friend move house. It made me realize that I knew a lot about moving and sparked a series of articles on moving house. The articles are:

1. Move-it Yourself: Five Steps to Success
2. DIY House Moves: Five Ways to Make Sure Your Stuff Stays Intact
3. Hassle-free House Moves: Five Strategies For Success

I had no particular audience for them, so I submitted them to EzineArticles and GoArticles and forgot about them for a while. To my surprise, those articles have been reprinted on several websites and are among my most popular (non-writing) articles. (They've also been scraped onto several Blogger blogs, but that's another story.) I got two benefits from writing these free articles. The first was almost immediate. Within a few days, I found links to my site on Google and other search engines.

The second was more recent. Last week I got an email from a site which specializes in house moving. They'd seen my articles and wanted me to write something specifically for their site. Of course, they wanted me to write for free as the site gets half a million visitors a month and they would give me a resource box. I held out for some money and I'll get a nominal sum for writing the article. The good news is, that I should be able to use this for further promotion - and as I'm hoping to write an ebook on moving, that can't be bad.

My point is (and I know I'm not the first or only one to say this) that writing for free isn't writing for free if you get something out of it. As a new writer, writing for free can give you clips that are published all over the web. It's a chance to hone your writing skills and build up some expertise. If you have a good selection of clips then you will make a better impression on editors and others who might want you to write for them.

As an established writer, writing for free is a chance to get some exposure and show off your expertise in particular areas. It's also a chance to have some fun writing about subjects that are not part of your core area. Whichever category you fit into, it's about promoting yourself as a writer. Do enough promotion, and that can lead to writing jobs that you WILL get paid for.

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.

Does It Matter?

I'm on a roll with the poetry publishing. Last Friday I had another poem published on RITRO.com. It's called Does It Matter? This one was inspired by a discussion with a friend on discrimination. Although we'd grown up in different places, we shared a lot of common experiences (thanks to the wonders of British colonialism). That didn't prevent some people from focusing on differences rather than similarities. So this poem was my take on it? What do you think?

Sometimes You Can Be Too Successful

Yesterday I took some time off from writing and went to the seaside with two friends and our five children. This is one of the pleasures of being a WAHM. This was something we'd planned for a couple of months, deliberately waiting till June so we could be sure of decent weather. The weather was good, the outward trip went well and a good time was had by all, apart from the occasional sandblasting in the high winds. So, why am I complaining?

An email came in the night before (11.29pm!) awarding me a job I'd applied for. The catch was, that I had to have it completed in two working days. This would normally be fine, but I was going to lose one working day while I was out having a good time with my daughter. I didn't panic, figuring we'd be home before bedtime and I'd have several hours to work on it.

Well, wouldn't you know it? The train from Skegness was late, so we missed our connection. Rather than wait 45 minutes for the next train to our nearest station, we hopped on one that went to another nearby station, driven by the impetus of tired and increasingly tearful children. So we were an hour and a half later getting home than we expected and I was two hours later to start work than I thought I would be. And I was tired, too. Night time is not my best writing time.

So I'm really pleased I got the job, but really sorry it wasn't awarded on Saturday or Sunday instead. Oh well, that's the life of a freelance writer. Sometimes you have to write even when you don't feel like it. I'm not going to make the same mistake as last time, though. I've written the stuff at night, but I'll go through it with a fine toothed comb before I send it. After all, I'd like to get repeat work from this editor, so I'd better do a professional job.

Who's On Your Writing Team?

I was inspired to write this post by gracepub's recent post, Freelance & Work At Home Success is a TEAM Venture. It got me to thinking about who were the people who had supported me in my writing. Here they are:

My mother and my sister have always encouraged me to write. They've read my stuff, made critical suggestions and said I was great when I really needed to hear it. Everyone needs someone who is in their corner but is not a yes-person. Those two are at the head of my writing team, along with my husband, who is so great that he deserves a whole other post. Love and support don't begin to cover it.

Another key person is my friend S. I've known her since we were both 17. She's got a wicked sense of humour and a good ear. She pulls no punches but is also very supportive.

My friend K has not read as much of my creative writing, but was one of the first to be supportive when I said I was going freelance. Then there are two friends I met when we were all pregnant with our first children. M and R write, too, and form the nucleus of our small writing group. M and I have collaborated on two BBC competition entries and R has produced her first CD of children's music.

Finally (is this where I say last, but not least), there are all my new friends at WritingUp - too many to name them all (you know who you are), but I get support and even more importantly, inspiration here.

Who's on your writing team?