Writing, Speaking - or both?

I recently signed up to take a public speaking class. I was down to the wire and my original class had been cancelled. To keep my scholarship I am required to take at least 12 credit hours this semester. In a panic, I had to search through the few classes left and the only one I found that would work with my current work/school schedule was a public speaking course - gulp.

I love to write. Writing is my passion and there was never an English class that I didn't feel confident about. A 30 page research paper fully cited over summer semester you say? No problem - bring it on! Been there did that, but public speaking... oh my. I am not an outgoing person at all. In fact, many writers that I know are not either and for many of us writing is our "voice".

Although I am somewhat nervous, I do feel this is going to be a great experience for me. As writers, we have to be able to communicate verbally as well. Think about it. How else will you promote your writing? If you can build confidence in your ability to speak with as much passion as you write you suddenly have an edge in a very competitive field. I know that this class is going to benefit me in more ways than a letter grade at the end of the term. My hope is that it is going to build me up and help me speak with poise and confidence about my writing.

I had never really stopped to consider before this how beneficial a public speaking course might be. I know though that the universe has a way of leading us to the right place at the right time and so I am going to roll up my sleeves, swallow that lump in my throat and go for it! Hopefully it will help me in the future when it comes to promotion - and well, just feeling more confident in general.

Where NOT to look for writing jobs - unless you like slave wages.

It boggles the mind how many people are hiring content writers these days - and what is even more puzzling is the amount of pay they list for these various jobs. I have seen people advertise for a "job" that pays $1 per 500 word article. They also stipulate that it must be well-written by a native English speaker. I have seen listings like this all over and it bothers me immensely.

No one can make a living on that kind of money. If you are a seasoned writer it takes at least 20 minutes to come up with a decent article let alone proof read it. You may end up making $2 per hour. It angers me that people post jobs for these rates, but what really irks me are the writers who devalue not only themselves, but all of us - by accepting these ridiculous rates.

I know many newer writers feel pressured to "take what they can get". What these writers need to realize is that they are doing themselves a great disservice (and they are to the rest of us as well) These kind of clips for your portfolio are NOT going to get you anywhere when it comes to finding real work.

Here is what I suggest for content writers who want to make themselves some money - rather than help others profit by taking advantage of them.

Write great content and place it on HubPages, Squidoo, etc. At least on sites like that you build back links to your website(s) and also earn revenue. You can earn through Adsense and Amazon affiliate programs on these websites.

Use a website like http://www.constant-content.com and name your own price for your work! People who are wanting to purchase quality material do go there and they do purchase articles.

The websites I have found that offer the most ridiculous rates for articles/content are freelancing sites like 0desk and Elance. Once in a great while you might see something that pays "fair" - but mostly it's the same slave wages postings and not worth your time for the writing jobs.

I have also seen absolutely ridiculous advertisements for "writing gigs" and "writing jobs" on Craigslist. I can't count how many times I've seen the following variation for both web design and writing.

I have the next greatest thing since sliced bread idea. I want you to write/build it for me and I will give you a percentage of the profits when it takes off..... Give me a BREAK. The thing is they wouldn't keep advertising crap like this if it wasn't for naive people being duped into thinking they'll get rich down the line.

Folks, if the people with the great idea don't have capital, don't have talent to develop ideas themselves, or write that book - do you think they have marketing skills and the ability to "stick to it" required to push a new product/idea into a huge profit maker? No - they don't they are clueless and that is why they are looking for someone to do all the work for them for a "percentage". A percentage of 0 is 0. No writer or designer should spend those kind of hours working on a project that may never (and probably wont) pay off in time.

Do all the rest of us freelancers a favor and stop writing for pennies an hour and developing projects for free. It devalues our entire profession(s) and makes finding real work harder for ALL of us.

Soapbox finished....

Remember - If you are willing to work for pennies - at least get an Adsense account and a blog and let those pennies be for you - not the other guy who is essentially taking your hard work for slave labor prices and making a huge residual lifetime profit on it.

You CAN build up your own residual income. I started off never reaching the 100 dollar Adsense threshold each month, but over time and with continued efforts my Adsense residual income is always over 200 per month - for things I wrote that were evergreen and just sit there. Much of my content makes search engine rankings which gives it the ability to generate income. That means that essentially I do very little for that money once I put in the initial effort. The more content and information (that is valuable by the way not a 5 minute throw together) that I develop that is useful - the higher the search rankings over time and the more residual income I generate.

Now think of these marketers who just bought your article for a measly $1.00 - do you think they are not making nice residual income off of that or reselling it themselves for a huge profit?

Think about it - and then think long and hard before taking a writing job that pays a pittance. You aren't only harming yourself!

The Importance of Building Backlinks to Get Your Writing Noticed

I touched on this in my post yesterday about how every writer needs a personal website to get noticed. Backlinks (quality ones) are a very important element of SEO(Search Engine Optimization).

As you work to build your portfolio or hubs, blogs, etc. you want to be sure that you are getting links to your work to help it rank higher in search engines. You will also want to use sites like PingoMatic to "ping" out the feeds to your most recent posts.

I have also started using a site called SocialMonkee to help me build free quality backlinks. You can use it for free and submit one url for 25 backlinks per day. a Handy little tool that is very easy to use. I would suggests using it to help boost the ranks of your blog posts one at a time.

You don't want to "overpromote" websites as that can be considered "spammy" and that's not cool and will get you slapped by search engines if they catch on to you. However some promotion is necessary and required if you are going to make it in the sea of writers and marketers out there.

Other ways to get backlinks include answering questions (in a meaningful way to establish your credibility) on sites like Yahoo Answers as well. You get to talk to others, help them, and ultimately gain some name recognition in the process as well as the all important backlinks to your webpages.

You can also comment on blog posts - in a meaningful way that shows you are participating - and get backlinks to your work that way. Be sure that you are actually contributing to forums and blogs and not just spamming! Do unto others applies on the net as well - though many people seem to forget that!

Every Writer Should Have a Personal Website - It's a Vital Tool!

In my latest hub I share my perspective as both a web designer and writer why a personal website is not only a good idea - but vital to building your reputation as a writer.

If any investment in yourself ever pays off this will be the one. Why? I can almost hear you say. There are several reasons

1)Establishes your credibility and gives you a professional, businesslike presence
2)Gives people a convenient place to read your work
3)Gives you a convenient place to organize and store your work
4)Helps you build traffic and increase your ad revenue and reader interest. Backlinks are vital for your business.
5)You can link your primary portfolio to other sites and cross promote, establishing a larger presence and more name recognition.

Learn all of the reasons in detail by visiting my latest hub and see how you can establish your brand for a lot less than you think. It's a time investment, but ultimately it will lead to more success for you.

Why Every Writer Needs A Personal Website

Restoring Photos - Another Way to Earn Income In Addition to Writing

Even if you don't decide to do it as a sideline, it still makes a great gift idea for others - digital photo restoration!

Old photographs can be digitally archived and reworked/touched up. People will pay for this service and although there is a lot of competition - it's a great business to develop using "word of mouth". Do a few free restores for family and friends and ask them to show them off to others and give out your business card.

I do this as a small sideline business and people absolutely love to see their photographs restored - especially ones they thought were beyond repair. I have trained extensively in Photoshop and because of this I can take on some major projects that others may not be comfortable with.

Typically though you'll find plenty of old photos that really only need minimal work. I wrote a step-by-step tutorial on how to do a very basic restoration
http://christins.hubpages.com/hub/revive_photos . Check it out and see if this might help you generate some more income yourself among your friends/family.

Summer will end soon and before you know it the holiday season will be upon us. If you want a thrilling gift restore some old photos and place them on a digital frame (or have them printed) I did this for my folks last year and the looks on their faces were as the commercial says "priceless"... :)

Help me out and vote for my hub as a hub nugget award :)

My hub "9 fatal query letter mistakes and how to remedy them" has been nominated for an award. Please visit the link below and scroll down to the section on the books, literature and writing nominees and give my hub a vote if you find it to be a worthy contender :)

http://koffeeklatchgals.hubpages.com/hub/A-Step-Back-in-Time-A-HubNuggets-Tea-Party

Thank you very much I really appreciate your support
Christin

How to Outline and Write a Book Quickly

I am one of those many writers who wants to get a manuscript published. I know what I want my book to say, I am filled with ideas, but I struggle in figuring out exactly how I want to organize and present them. This makes it difficult for me to sit down and write a book, because I am stuck in a mindset that says I need to do it in "linear fashion" in much the same way I write articles or blog posts.

So what happens? I start to feel overwhelmed, and because I feel like I am standing at the bottom of a mountain looking up, I do something else because it just seems like too much to do right now... and alas the book sits in my brain and not on paper.

The hard truth is a whole book is not going to come out in perfect order without some organization in place. It will have to come in chunks and be arranged later (against my writing grain)

So this is what I have come up with and it is working very well. It breaks the whole process down into "doable" tasks that are actually fun. You get the benefit of free writing where you can explore fully multitudes of ideas because you are not worried about structure.

You can use a free software like "free mind" or use index cards or whatever you feel comfortable with.

The idea is to sit down each morning and write ten ideas - express them well and place them on a card or in your mind map software - even on notebook paper. If you're like me you'll find you don't stop right away and may come up with 20 or 30 "thought capsules" a day. Do this every day and keep the ideas all separated and don't run them together. At the end, you'll be cutting them out into little slips of paper or if you used cards and hand wrote them (something I don't have the patience for) you can simply arrange the cards in a recipe box in order.

Write whatever you like without worries about structure, grammar, spelling etc. and keep it until you are finished (usually a few weeks) and at the end print off your sheets and cut out the ideas and spend a couple of days sorting them. What goes with what? make piles and then those will essentially be your full outline... you'll have them in order and can develop your table of contents from them and all you have to do as you write your chapters is "flesh out" any ideas you didn't fully express in your notes or cards.

You can then retype them and as you do you will likely note any grammatical/spelling awkward wording and can fix that as you write the second time.

This makes a seemingly ginormous task of writing a book - more like some short daily exercises. After all 30 minutes on a treadmill is easier and much less daunting than running a marathon right out of the gate ;).

Good luck with your writing!