Tag Archive for 'writing'

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Should You Quit Your Day Job?

Published on February 13, 2010 in Writing/Publishing. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

I regularly have writers tell me they’re about to quit their day job.

Have they built up their customer base to a point they can do that, or for fiction writers can they guarantee they’ll be contracted or sell enough books to cover the equivalent of their day job?

In every case so far, the answer has been no. My question then, is why would you quit your day job, especially in this economic atmosphere when you have no guarantee of getting another job should things turn bad?

Unfortunately, many writers see glamour when they think about writing for a living.  Let me assure you, the writing life is not glamorous.

It’s a lot of hard work and persistence.  It’s meeting deadlines, it’s having to be creative when you feel far from creative, and it’s wading through crap that you have to fix for a client.

I was forced to give up my day job about eight years ago.  It was due to a chronic medical condition that meant I could never go back to an outside job and keep well, or even keep alive. (And that’s not an exaggeration.)

It took a very long time to secure regular writing work, and it paid so little that it was simply pocket money.  Over the years I’ve built up a good paying writing business, but it took a very long time to do.

The reality is that you can’t walk out of a paying day job and expect the assignments to come flooding into your inbox.  It doesn’t happen that way.

The reality is you need to build up relationships before you’ll have regular clients, and you need to have contracts before your book is published. 

It’s unfortunate, but none of these things happen at the click of your fingers.

Just like it took years for you to learn to write well, it can also take years before your writing business pays enough that you can quit the guaranteed income of a day job.

***This article was inspired by a blog post written by Bob Mayer. You can read it here:

http://www.genreality.net/writers-dont-quit-your-day-job

6 Great Methods To Make Money With Ebook Writing

Published on October 8, 2009 in Writing/Publishing. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Do you like writing? Do you have that expert knowledge that are being sought for by internet users?

Then, you can potentially make huge amount of money by writing and selling your own ebooks online.

Here’s how you can do that:

1. Pick lucrative topics. This is the top way to ensure that your ebooks will be bought like hotcakes online.

Write about topics that are in-demand or those that are being looked for by your possible clients. Remember, you can only get these people to swipe their credit cards if you are able to offer them what they really need.

2. Keep it simple. Internet users simply hate it when they have to spend enormous time just to understand the message that you are trying to get across.

As these people have very short attention span, you need to make sure that you write your content is a very straightforward manner. Avoid using highly technical terms and big words all throughout your content. As an alternative, stick with those that can easily be understood even by a fifth grader.

3. Write from reader’s perspective. Avoid making your ebooks all about you or the things that you would like to learn about.

Put yourself in the shoes of your potential clients and determine the specific information that they need. Write your content using their preferred writing style and their choice of words so you can easily put them at ease and impress them in the long run.

4. Do your research. Strive to offer your readers with in-depth and total information about your chosen topics to promote better understanding.

Be willing to check out reputable resources where you can obtain additional important information that can make your ebooks content-rich.

5. Keep it little. Based on researches and studies, ebooks that run more than 100 pages do not sell well internet.

The reason for this is very straightforward; online users are mostly busy people and they are not willing to spend hours in front of their computers just to get the information they need. They prefer little, direct to the point, and concise ebooks.

6. Use an outline. To ensure that your content will flow smoothly, make use of an outline or a blueprint that can help you organize your thoughts even before you start writing.

This can easily be done by listing and arranging your information in a logical manner.

Jeff Schuman helps people make money online with network marketing, paid survey training, and JV With Jeff.

He is on page one of Google for over 4100 unique keyword phrases bringing him thousands of dollards in free advertising. He attributes this to backlinks from blogging and article writing. Writing ebooks is another way to get free traffic if you do it right.

Six Steps To Step Up Your Ebook Writing

Published on October 7, 2009 in Writing/Publishing. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Would you like to know the ways on how you can write and publish your own ebooks in as little as 7 days? Then, let me share with you these 6 sensible steps that can help you step up your ebook writing:

1. Do a keyword research and analysis. To simply figure out the best topics to write about, make use of a keyword suggestion tool to get an idea about accepted search terms that are being used by your potential clients when they go online.

This is much quicker than sending your target market with surveys and wait for their replies what might take within a couple of days or even weeks. While you are at it, determine the competitiveness of your chosen keywords. keep in mind, you don’t want a very stiff competition as this can dramatically affect your sales and revenue.

2. Do your research. To cut your research time, go with topics that you know very well.

Check relevant reputable sites and get extra information that might interest your readers. Don’t forget to confirm the information (stocked knowledge) you have in hand so you can avoid misleading your readers.

3. Break it down to controllable chunks. Breakdown your book topics into chapters to make this task a lot easier and controllable for you.

Ensure that you cautiously plan each of your chapters and make sure that they are all informative and well-written.

4. Start writing. This can be the most overwhelming part.

I suggest that you write 5-7 pages per day so you will not feel overworked. It would help if you can limit the length of your ebooks to 25-30 pages so you can conclude them in 5-7 days.

This will help you become more productive and will allow you to maximize the number of your ebooks in no time.

5. Proofread. The best time to proofread your ebooks is after you finish writing your whole content.

Why?

The answer to this is very simple: writing and proofreading at the same time can ruin your train of thoughts and can influence your writing speed.

6. Design your book cover. You have to remember that overall presentation is very important in internet marketing.

If your book covers look lousy and amateurish, you can be assured that your book sales will suffer. Ensure that your book covers are professionally-designed so you can easily attract your potential clients to make a purchase.

With any luck these 6 tips will help you get your ebook writing skills up to where they should be more quickly.

Jeff Schuman helps people make money online with network marketing, paid survey training, and JV With Jeff free internet marketing training. Please visit his site for more tips on writing, email marketing, and other ways to make money on the internet.

Five Ways Anyone Can Turn Into A Improved Content Writer Online

Published on October 3, 2009 in Writing/Publishing. Closed Tags: , , , .

As you might already know, content is king in the online arena. It is something that you must be able to offer to your potential clients so you can easily persuade them to give your site a visit and trust you in the long run.

Let’s take a look at how you can become an improved content writer.

1. Keep your readers interested. It is not enough that you use convincing and attention-grabbing titles. If you want internet users to read your articles in their entirety, you must know how to keep them interested.

Use the inverted pyramid technique when presenting the information you have in hand. Also, make sure that your articles are well-written as too much errors (factual, grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors) can easily irritate your readers.

2. Your articles must flow smoothly. Nobody will spend their precious time reading articles that sound like a presentation of random thoughts. Organize your information in a logical even before you write your content and present them using readable writing formats (how-to, tips list, and question and answer formats).

By doing so, you will not only give online users great reading experience but you will also be able to promote further reading to increase your chances of getting these people to act on your favor.

3. Build rapport with your readers. Before you tap on your key board, visualize the people to whom you are writing your articles for. Consider them as your friends or people whom you truly care about.

Write your articles in such a way that you’ll sound like you are directly talking to them. Put these people at ease by being friendly and warm all throughout.

4. Make your articles scannable. Based on researches and studies, online users do not actually read articles word-for-word. Instead, they skim through the content to easily find the most important information that they are looking for.

Adjust your writing style and make sure that your articles will look pleasing on the eyes. Aside from using subheadings and bullet lists, ensure that you keep your sentences brief and your paragraphs shorter.

5. Spill in the beans. By this, I simply mean offer your readers with trade secrets and convincing techniques that they will truly appreciate. If you are writing about SEO, tell them exactly how you were able to pull up your search engine ranking by doing some tricks that really works.

By doing this your readers will feel that you know what you are talking about and I can assure you that they will trust you in the long run.

Becoming a improved article writer is not hard if you follow the suggestions listed here. You can make money online with your articles by writing good quality content.