online writing Archives - Addicted to Writing

Matthew Stibbe’s 30 Days to Better Business Writing

Posted on June 13, 2011 Written by Pinar Tarhan

I decided that additional bookmarking efforts (in the way of writing a blog post about it) will help me keep the resource in mind, say thank you to the writer and help inform you at the same time. So here’s killing a couple of birds with one stone: Review for Badlanguage.net’s 30 Days to Better Business Writing (free) e-book:

A quality free e-book simply rocks, both for the writer and the reader. It rocks for the writer because it is a great promotional tool. It helps him brand himself as a helpful authority. It helps the reader to gain knowledge without having to pay for it. Writing better is an important step to making more money as a writer/blogger and Matthew Stibbe’s e-book does help you do exactly that.

Don’t freak out or be bored by the “Business Writing” part of the title. It provides great tips that you can use in all types of non-fiction writing. Hell, you can even apply some of it to fiction.

The book consists of 116 PDF pages and 30 chapters, all offering concise tips in an engaging style. Each chapter begins with a related and interesting quote. It moves on to inform you and ends with an applicable exercise.

I printed out the book. I am reading and going through it all, although not necessarily in Matthew’s written order.

For instance, I am not interviewing anyone yet, and I am not required to prepare presentations. So I am concentrating more on the chapters about writing well and in style, picking the right words and structure and that kind of stuff. And don’t worry, he mentions blogging too.

So print it out and attack with markers and post-its. And read all the chapters, even though you’ll be needing some more than the others. It will be great to keep it handy for future reference.

He also features links to book reviews on his blogs as well as free resources.

Strongly recommended. And you can’t beat free.

You can follow Matthew on Twitter too.

The Truth about Passive Income: It’s not usually such a passive way to make money!

Posted on May 29, 2011 Written by Pinar Tarhan

I recently earned a commission through a sale (that came from my review of) of Paul Cunningham’s How to Be a Successful Freelance Blogger e-book. On the surface, I made money through a link on my website, while somebody else wrote a great e-book. You got to love passive income, right?

Not so fast, folks! I didn’t just randomly drop a link for Paul’s book. I bought it myself, because hey- the title and the content really appealed to me. I read, re-read and studied the book. His content went into 3 categories for me: 1) stuff I already knew and applied, 2) stuff I knew yet I needed to be reminded of to apply, and 3) stuff I learned from him.

So in addition to keeping this e-book near to serve as a guide at all times, I wrote a review and then posted on my blog. Then, I promoted the post. Then, I promoted the blog. Then, I kept promoting the blog, because when you have a blog, you have to keep promoting it.
So, while passive income is one of the most attractive terms of making money online, trying to make it happen is definitely not a passive activity. Passive income streams do not get formed overnight and it usually takes a lot of time and effort, until you start making money “passively”.

Some of the most popular (passive) income streams:

– Revenue from your web writing:

Content Farms: The concept almost all writers hate: When you first start out, you only make a few pennies. The more articles you publish, the better chance you stand at getting more page views and ending up making more money. But writing for the web is not a passive activity, especially if you want to make the most of your material. You write, edit, format, optimize, publish and promote. As more content is published, you will realize that your earnings are increasing.

– Writing for other blogs & websites: While many writing jobs pay by post, some offer an additional revenue share bonus (where you get a percentage of their advertising revenue), and/or a popularity bonus which grants you extra bucks if your blog reaches a certain traffic/bookmarking level, etc… So when you are supposed to get a revenue share, it helps if the blog you write gets extra traffic. Oh, and to reach a level of popularity, you need to promote it yourself.
Supposedly, you sit back and watch your revenue & popularity grow. In reality, a post hardly makes it very big without any effort from your end. And remember, it is usually also up to you to create that great content, optimize it for the search engines, and then let the world know about it.

Affiliate Marketing:

Making Money through Other People’s Products (& Services):
Sometimes, making money from affiliate marketing can be as simple as leaving your own affiliate link in an article. But not everyone who reads that article will sign up. Also keep in mind that some affiliate sign-ups or clicks don’t make you any money, unless there is a purchase involved. So not everyone who does click will make a purchase, no matter how popular you and your articles might be.

You need lots of readers, and many readers that will take the necessary action. In order to make the article popular, you need to reach your target audience. You need to make the necessary research to know where that target audience hangs out and hopefully develop a relationship with them. So after these conditions are met, maybe you will start making passive income from those affiliate links, products and services. Until then, a lot of effort awaits you. You might even need to spend money too, for marketing, hosting, autoresponders and other related activities.

Making Money through Your Own Products (& Products): Don’t even get me started on how much work goes into creating & promoting your own product. Yes, it is the favorite income stream of many probloggers. But this time you are not an affiliate. You have to have your own sales page, e-mail list, your own affiliates, money you pay to the merchant site (such as e-junkie), the relationships you manage with the other people who become your affiliates, relationship with your customers and paying your affiliates…The list of your tasks goes on.

If you create a great product for the right target market, and make a good job marketing it, it is true that you will make a good deal of money. You will also work very hard. And then you will work some more.

– Advertising:
Placing advertising on your website or blogs is a great way for making some passive income. However in order to make money from advertising (direct advertising, PPC, CPM, banner advertising….) from your own sites, or from the sites you share the revenues of, you need to have an audience. You need to have a large enough audience to be able to make money from ads, and hopefully that audience will be targeted enough to click on some of them.

And building an audience is a lot of hard work. It takes social networking, link-building, guest-blogging and/or many other actions before you can even reach the payout level of your advertising networks or your sponsors.
While watching that advertising income to grow might be passive, it takes a lot of activity to get to that point.

Yes, it puts a smile on your face to watch your advertising revenue grow, and to see your affiliate income increase. It is also nice to make money from articles you posted on the web months ago. But it doesn’t happen overnight. However, what makes passive income really attractive is that you can see that you made money from something you promoted (and then forgot about) some time ago. The truth is, the pros of passive income overweigh the cons. Just keep in my mind that you are not going to be very passive in the process.

7 Benefits Writers Can Get from Applying to Freelance Writing Jobs

Posted on April 10, 2011 Written by Pinar Tarhan

writing cartoon — Cartoon on Writing via justkiddingcartoons.com

Applying to individual freelance job ads can sometimes be a tedious process. You might also feel like you would rather self-publish (it can be a book, or simply blogging) than going through all the formality of writing cover letters, customizing resumes and selecting or creating appropriate samples. Still, while it is not the most fun activity for writers, applying to different freelance gigs has many benefits:

Benefit 1: Market Research

You get to see which jobs are in demand, what’s expected of the blogger/writer (resumes, samples, blogs, years of experience, etc…). You also see what kind of jobs are available and how much which jobs pay.

Benefit 2: Publishing Industry Research

Sometimes there will be ads from publishers that they are expecting manuscripts. Now, you can and should search about them and see if they are trustworthy. But if they are in the clear, the good thing about these types of ads is that even though you don’t happen to have the manuscripts or collections of poetry they want. You will be able to add names to your list of publishers. Because you will be able to know what kind of stuff they are usually in need of, you can submit your work accordingly later on.

Benefit 3: Different Kinds of Jobs

There are jobs for editors, copywriters, article writers, article rewriters, website content with seo focus, novelists, bloggers, fiction writers, photographers, researches, business plan or grant writers and more.

You can analyze your strengths and weaknesses, along with your interests and expertise and be able to work as a writer in more areas than one.

Benefit 4: Enhanced Address Books

Some of these jobs come from craigslist. It is free to post ads on that site so many people choose their service. After all, who doesn’t like a respected website that doesn’t charge? The only problem with it, however, is the contact address of the poster of the job ad. More often than not, people choose to give a craigslist address. The address expires after the job is gone so you don’t have to option add the contacts and keep them for future use.

However some ads include the actual e-mail address of the editors. So even though one job isn’t right for you or you are not here, you can always use it later if you have a relevant sample. There is also the fact that craigslist addresses allow a very small attachment size in total. So a colorful CV with a nice picture, along with writing samples may be out of the question. However when private addresses are given, you are only limited by the storage capacity of your email account.

Benefit 5: Traffic to Your Blog and Articles

When you apply for jobs, you will often be asked to show samples. But most employers are happy with links to your published work online, especially if the job in question requires writing for the web. So you give links to your relevant articles. If the article is on a website where you earn money per page view, you will have at least guaranteed one view. If the link is to your blog, you will have gained one unique visitor. If the employer doesn’t hire you but likes your writing all the same, you might just have gained a reader.

Benefit 6: Entering the Database

Many employers would rather choose to work with writers they have already worked with. And instead of going through all the hassle of posting another ad, they would rather look at resumes and samples they have already acquired. There is a big chance that a writer who wasn’t perfect for the previous job might just be the right person for the current gig. It is always beneficial to be in the database. Because the next job might just find you.

Benefit 7: Customizing Your CV

I had previously discussed that looking for a job in writing wasn’t all that different than job-hunting in other areas – Customizing your CV is necessary in all professions if you are applying for different positions.

You don’t want to send movie reviews to a fashion editor. And you don’t want to send an academic article when you are applying as a gossip columnist.It takes time, but after a while, it becomes easier to prepare quality resumes, customized appropriately for the targeted job and it won’t take much of your time after you have gotten used to the process.

Plus, keep in mind that there are many individuals out there looking to hire writers to write their resumes for them. If you become good at this area, you can use your acquired skills to help others and make money through the process as well.

So do you agree with these benefits? Do you have any more benefits to add? Let me know.