How Can You Turn the Web into Money for Your Writing?

How Can You Turn the Web into Money for Your Writing?
By Sandy Penny
I got an email from a fellow writer who is desperate for some money using his writing skills and working from home. This is part of my mission in this New Age, to help people do what they want to do, live where they want to live, and market their skills, services, or products online to a world market.

Since I’m still developing my own online writing business, I wanted to give a short and simple answer. Once I started writing though, I found that I have lots more info than I thought I did on the subject. And, now I have to follow up on all these leads for myself too. Hope this is helpful for your writers out there struggling to cross the prairie in this cyber space frontier.

First, search, search search on the Web looking for the right venue for you. Then…
I try to stay in the positive mind flow and not get caught up in the news events about the economy. That keeps the door open to the Law of Attraction factor. In this new age, the Aquarian Age, there will be few jobs as we used to know them. We will all be returning to the Age of Entrepreneurship. After all, this web stuff is the frontier now. You might enjoy my article on that subject. It's posted on my http://writeandmarket.blogspot.com There are several encouraging and instructive articles there, including one I just wrote on creating your own free website. Check mine out: http://writingmuse.com. If you don't have a sample site, you need one. It can be simple, but it needs to have lots of samples, and you can build it yourself. www.synthasite.com is my favorite free service provider and the one I use.

And, here are some other practical resources, sites that employee writers that I've just learned about because I am looking to expand my income in the writing area.

1. http://www.elance.com/ (I have a real estate friend here in Taos who makes a full-time living with them.) You can join for free, but you are limited in your bidding, so bid carefully. Once you make money, you can sign up for the $30 a month or so fee. I think it varies depending on how much you bid.

2. http://www.suite101.com/freelance_writers/ (I just met a woman online who makes some part-time money from this site. I don't know how much yet. We're going to chat about this very thing. Interesting timing, and no accidents.) Here's the link to her blog about the sites she uses: Applying to Demand Sites

3. Email everybody you know in the industry (or any industry) and tell them you need some writing projects. It makes no difference where they are, as long as they will put in a good word for you with a potential client.

4. www.odesk.com is a site that's free to sign up for. You have to download their software, learn how to use it and pass a readiness test to work for them. They take a cut on the work you do, but it is added on to what you charge. They have some really low paying projects, but sometimes anything is better than nothing. They have a range though, so check it out.

5. This site has blogging jobs posted. You can hook up where you have expertise. I haven't used them yet, but a good friend sent the link to me. http://moneyzeal.blogspot.com/2008/09/paid-content-for-your-blog-10-best.html. And more: http://moneyzeal.blogspot.com/2008/09/top-marketplaces-for-freelance-writing.html.

6. Whatever expertise you have, look up companies online in those industries and send a cover letter and resume and link to your sample site to them telling them the kinds of things you can write for them, like managing their company blog, tweeting for them on twitter (if you don't tweet yet, gotta do it).

7. Sign up on twitter; post a 140-character teaser with your sample site included, every day a new tweet. Keep it business, and hook up with other freelancers, follow them and read their blogs if they give info on how to make a living writing. Julie's info above came from following her on Twitter. Check me out on twitter http://twitter.com/sandypenny and see the kind of posts I do... It is starting to get me noticed now.

I use old articles that are easily recycled, and post a link to something different every day. I also post on Spiritual Entrepreneurs and Self Growth and Spiritual Short Stories. I use the same articles whenever possible in many places. If you Google me, Sandy Penny, you'll find lots of them showing up on the search engines. You have to get a reputation for being a good writer, dependable, thorough and creative. If you are, you can parlay that into projects. I also post on Facebook, but it's not as businessy as Linked-In.

My best projects have come from friends that I have helped with their writing projects for free. If you're a writer, I know you've helped those who can't write. Ask them to recommend you to their friends. Ask them to email their list on your behalf, and ask them to envision you getting ongoing projects or to pray for you(more energy out there in the Universe on your behalf is always good).
Hope that's helpful. Now that I've written it, I'm posting it on my writeandmarket blog, tweeting it on twitter and recycling it as I can.

Last, but certainly not least, my inner guidance continually tells me just to keep writing and the pieces will fall into place. That's the best advice I've had over time, and the final piece I have for you is follow the leads when they come your way.

Good luck, joyful writing and happy hunting.

Sandy Penny is a street-smart marketing writer with bootstrap credentials. [That means that I learned many of my skill on the job and at a distance, without a degree.] She specializes in spiritual writing and new age business blog content. 20 years of high-end corporate writing affords you top of the line writing, editing and writing-marketing coaching. Check out her new Web site: http://writingmuse.com/ (nobody uses the www
anymore, you don't need it). Email her at sandypenny@live.com.

FREE, FREE, FREE WEB SITES

Should you have a Free Web Site?

By Sandy Penny

I paid for a Web site through Yahoo for seven years. It was only $20/month, but over those years, I spent $1680. At the time I signed up, I was living in Houston, making plenty of money, and that was nothing. It was a bargain.

Since then, my life has changed. I have retired from the corporate world, and I have scaled back of my own accord. I did not lose my job or get forced to make the change, but I felt it would eventually come to that. I was mainly working in the financial industry at the time, and the writing was on the wall.

When I lived in Taos, their economy was shocking after living in Houston. The only jobs available to me were in the hospitality industry. I went to work at front desk of the Quality Inn for $7.50 an hour, moved up to $8.50 at the Taos Inn, and managed an Art Gallery for $10/hour. I was making that much money in 1970 at 20 years old. Fortunately, my little writing studio was cheap, and I no longer had credit card debt, having given it up after my last marriage. Fortunately, I had a few clients from Houston with projects I could do remotely to bolster my income.

The point is, I had to start examining all my purchases and be more frugal where possible.

I started looking at the monthly deduction from my bank account for my Web site, and as a writer, the site was not really performing that well for me. I figured I could just as easily use one of the free sites as continue paying.

My web designer friends talk trash about templated sites, but I find them usually easy to navigate, easy to build, fast to launch and easy to edit.

I Googled free Web sites, and came up with some good ones.

Most free sites have a lot to offer: free web hosting, free template choices, MS word style page editor, photo storage with access to photo editing tools, video features, blogs and forums, events calendar, and lots of widgets to personalize your site, PayPal and other payment options, social networking, traffic tracking, upgrades, and restricted access pages, if desired.

Domain names usually have an annual registration fee from as low as $5 to about $20/year, mostly around $12.95 for a .com these days.

You have to check out what the sites offer for free and what constitutes an upgrade. That’s sometimes difficult because they don’t give you access to the templates or identify upgrade items until you join them. Well, hey, it’s free, and you can always disable your account if you don’t like it. It does take some time to investigate, but to me, it was worth it. From investigation to launching the site, I spent 18 hours of my time. In Taos wages, that’s around $200 from start to finish.

The real test of whether you want a free site or not is whether you have the time to do the background work, the skill to use the site building tools, a visual eye for design, and the ability to define the content that will best serve your business.

I chose Synthasite, now Yola.com  for my free space. I liked their tools and their templates. There were a couple of things missing that I wished for, and over time, they have added those. After 8 years with them, I am still satisfied with the options they have, and the additions they continue to make.

I would like an automatic “sign up for updates” button, but it’s not offered. After doing the research, I signed up for a free account with MailChimp.com, where I can create sign-up forms and automatic mailouts for sites and blogs.

Yola also didn't offer tracking automatically. I had to add that from a third party. Now it does, but I still use my free account with StatCounter.com. I love the ease of use, and the depth of information it offers.

Check out my site at http://writingmuse.com. If you use a subdomain for free, you may have a small ad on the page from the free site. Check out this one of mine. It's a free site: http://simplewebclasses.yolasite.com/. With a paid account, you will get better templates, but if you are creative, you can use a plain template and make it spectacular.

For $12.95/year, I bought my previous domain name, http://writingmuse.com. Once you have a personalized domain name, you'll have to buy a hosting plan. I have Yola Silver. I can build up to 25 websites and point new domain names to them for the same price paid per month or per year. Choose your payment plan. You get a discount for the annual payment.

After trying out webs.com, formerly Free Webs, it was more difficult to use, has less file space, and large ads on your pages. Although it seems to offer some tools I like, email list building and web rings, Synthasite was easier, more user friendly. Honestly, Free Webs was not intuitive, and I'm pretty savvy. I'm glad now that I went with Synthasite. Webs.com own site is very well done and sophisticated, but it just didn't work for me. It will also be more crowded because it's being highly promoted, and I’m unsure of its reliability if it gets super busy. Since, as a writer, I don’t have or need millions of hits, I’m good with a smaller server for now. I also tried out 18 other free builders, and there were good and bad things about them all. I'm really happy with the choice I made, and I'm still with them after 8 years (now Yola.com).

Wordpress is big these days, but I don't find it easy to use at all, so I refuse to go that route.

So, free site or not? It’s up to you, but well worth exploring. And, there is no reason not to launch a business with a free site, because if you make money, you can always upgrade later. If you don't, you've only spent your time, not your cash.

Contact me at my email address: sandypenny@live.com for more information, price quotes, project discussion or writing, editing, or marketing/writing coaching assistance. Read my web samples at http://writingmuse.com. Check out my sample websites at http://simplewebclasses.yolasite.com/web-gallery.php. Let me know how I can help you.

To Blog or Not to Blog

As a corporate marketing writer for more than 20 years, I've seen a lot of changes in marketing strategies. One of the fastest growing concepts is blogging, the beginning of social network marketing. I posted my first blog on Geocities in 1998 and in 2005 posted on blogger when the concept was already well on its way to becoming the marketing venue of the future. The future is now. If you don't have a blog, you're just not making the most of your marketing opportunities.

COST EFFECTIVE: Blog sites are usually free, so you don't have domain name or hosting costs attached to them. You do, however, have to keep them current for them to helpful. The more you post, the more you show up on searches for the subjects you cover. Unlike the old days of the print newsletter (which I was a master of), you can't wait for three months to post to a blog or even once a month. Blogs are expected to have titillating tidbits every day or at least every week to maximize your return on the effort. That should not be daunting though. If you spend fifteen minutes writing a short client appropriate post every day or two, you'll quickly develop a following. People sign up to be notified when a new post hits their favorite blogs, and the more they know about you and your expertise, the more they will trust you as a vendor.

BE SPECIFIC: One of the best things about blogging is that the content is searchable by search engines, so the more you blog, the higher your products, services and opinions rank in searches. This is especially helpful to small businesses that don't have big budgets to buy higher positions on the engines, high-priced ads, or recommended site status. The more people search a particular subject and then choose your link, the higher you move on the list. Just be sure you choose subjects and key words carefully to get the right potential clients to your site. It does you no good to draw big audiences that don't really want what you have to offer, and readers get very annoyed by bait and switch tactics. So, choose your subjects carefully to contribute to your prestige.

SELL SOMETHING: If you are not selling something or linking to a sales site on your blog, you are missing the opportunity to take advantage of the "buy now in response to the article" syndrome. Even in the days before blogs, everybody in advertising knew that companioning an ad with an article was much more likely to generate buyers than advertising alone. Whatever you are touting in your articles should offer some kind of purchase opportunity. If you can't sell on your blog, you can at least link the article to a sales site where a purchase can be made.

That's my writing tip for today. If you'd like to blog, but don't think you're a writer or you need an editor to help define your content, I'm available. I'm available, affordable and knowledgeable. http://writingmuse.com 

Click the book cover to get your FREE copy from Amazon. 

t's a big help to those who want to self-publish.

Yola offers automatic translation for mobile devices and great easy to use sitebuilder tools: