Weekend reading: Hubspot on Written Guide Styles

An interesting lecture for all those interested in writing, from Hubspot. And how can you dare to do not be interested in writing when the written word is what can make the big difference for your brand, business project and any other business related project?

How to organize your blogging life

Let's think about the following nightmare scenario:

Happy mother, with a high academic profile, with a busy happy family life, and a lot of social networking, and a lot of passion for writing, reading - as many domains as possible, and many blogs to manage on a daily basis. Please add to the list a new job and some extra business projects I need to continue at least for a couple of months. I also love to cook and to blog about my recipes. I need to attend conferences, improve two foreign languages and other 'must to' at least twice the day.

Sounds crazy, I know, but I use to sleep maximum 5 hours the day and I am perfectly healthy. However, when it comes to my small blogging empire, I suffer a lot for neglecting the regular contributions. As one day - and many years later -  I hope I will be professional enough to focus exclusively on managing my blogging portfolio, I need to prepare the official launch of my free life. But how?

The easiest way to plan is to dedicate at least one hour the day updating two of the blogs and another 30 minutes later the day to keep the track of the social media from the domains close to those blogs. It is important that I create thus a certain regularity of the posts, instead of the current pace when I use to dedicate a couple of days in a row to updating one or two of the blogs and not returning for the next 2 weeks. On the other hand, as blogging is the only activity without deadlines, it was healthier for a while to refrain from being too intensive, as I need to draw the separation line between 'freedom' and 'financial slavery'.

I will try to keep this program at least for two weeks from now and evaluate if it is feasible or not. I decided - 100% randomly - to dedicate the Mondays and Tuesdays to this blog, so hope to be back then!

Lessons of writing

I am more and more convinced that without a good writing you cannot survive on the freelance writing market. As a non-English speaker, I continue my personal struggle with unhappy editors and unexpectedly glowing reviews from very happy customers. 

This article made me laugh at a certain extent, because it reminded me of my daily struggle to get a lot of work and get paid while I am still trying to improve my English at a native level. When you do not have any choice but to use your brain for getting money, you automatically throw yourself into a sea of desperation and waves of hope. On the other hand, I feel strong enough to hope that maybe within 12 months time I will be also able to write at a coherent level in another two languages - German being one of them - that will allow me to increase my chances of profit and the hopes to settle down financially. 

I wish myself a lot of good grammarly correct luck!

Writing challenges, from print to online

Are you a dedicated print journalist and you realized that you cannot continue without a consistent online presence?

Here are some useful tips about what you can do do enhance your performances and avoid the usual mistake made by those who did not realized clearly the differences between the two. 

If you wondered, it is not difficult and if you have the gift and passion of the writer, you will succeed. 

Tips for finding sponsors?

Do you have a blog that is open to various collaborations - for instance, book and product reviews, travel packages, photography, Internet and hi-tech products - and you do not know how to find out more companies keen to help you find new and exciting projects?

Honestly, because I have a background in journalism, I avoided to find out more about this type of activity because I considered - and still think it is - not necessarily an informative approach dedicated to share something with your readers. In the majority of cases, people are happy to wear and use different products without any financial effort.

However, it is very important that before you address a certain company, you check carefully the conditions of partnerships. Many of them are honest in expressing their desire to do not interfere with the blogger's impression and thus, you will be free of any obligation to write something nice about something that it is nothing like that. 

My main interest is in books and till now, I had the chance of good collaborations, and most probably I will be tempted to expand a bit my porfolio of services. I like to write, to share to my readers the latest news and thus, I am open to collaborations and new experiences.

There are, in my opinion, a couple of conditions and steps that you should accomplish for successful collaborations:

1. Your blog should be updated regularly - at least once the week.

2. Having additional exposure - on Instagram, Facebook, Google+ - will help you to qualify for the attention of the potential sponsors. Also, do not forget to mention on your blog the e-mail address where you can be found for eventual collaborations.

3. Previous collaborations with other companies will send a message about your credibility.

4. Contact companies and businesses that are included in your editorial interests. For instance, if you have a blog about books and you contact a company for coffee machines, it is clear that you are interested in getting something for free without too much interest for the company as such.

5. On the other hand, it is important the quality of your writing. Add pictures, YouTube tutorials and correctly written posts. In the previous case, you can write a story about how your coffee maker contributed to the overwhelming success of your new book!

6. A bilingual version of the site - especially if you are not writing in English - is a guarantee that you can reach an extended audience.

7. When you address the potential sponsors, be succint but careful to explain in detail why the company should collaborate with you. Try to adequate your message to the possible target group of the company. Explain in a few words how do you see your future collaboration. Mention your social media coverage and any statistics about your audience as well as information about the profile of your readers. Do not try to cheat because nowadays you can easily find out how famous and 

8. Keep in touch with the representatives of the company: write them when you received their products, let them know when you are supposed to post your review. Do not let them write you back to ask you two months after the first contact what happened to their products. Most probably, they will not be interested to work with you in the future. After your review is live, let them know and send a short 'thank you' message. It will not take more than 10 minutes, anyway. 

9. Be honest in your review and mention that you received the products for a free review. However, for the sake of your credibility, try to avoid big and enthusiastic words that do not send any information about the products. Be simple and present as neutral as possible what are the products about and how they could serve the needs of the customers. If there are shortages in terms of qualities, do not hesitate to write about them because the truth should follow your writing activities, although you are not a journalist.

Pros and cons of freelance writing

Freelance writing is what I always wanted to do. As a non-English speaker I fought hard to find my way in the world of writing. The beginning was ridiculous from the financial point of view, with 500-word articles paid for $1 and a first 'salary' of $20 and other potential frustrations for someone used with high financial revenues. Add to this the long nights spent searching for new opportunities, struggling to balance the time dedicated to learning and reading with the enormous amount of time required for writing and editing my texts. The last months were for me an amazing journey in humility. 

Freelance writing is not a job when you should expect a decent salary within months. You should be ready to wait 4-5 months until you will have a decent income for covering your basic needs and even more until you will enjoy convenient life standards. Most probably, this situation is available for experienced writers as well, as the competition is very tight. For each ad on Elance addressing English language editors more than 6 offers are submitted instantly by people with apparently high credentials.

Thus, I completely agree with the earlier advices from experienced freelancers that were warned that unless you have some savings for at least one year, you better try to keep your old job while freelancing. 

On the other hand, I am sure that my life as a freelancer will be much easier if most people I am working with would have a minimal responsibility and business ethics. Apparently, I am not in the right freelancing place, as most people I am dealing with prefer to pay weeks after their very high emergency job was delivered flawlessly in due time and for more than a convenient price. Add to this the high chances that, if you are taking freelancing jobs through various networks, you will for sure stumble upon some very kind persons that after 1-2 weeks will disappear without paying. It happened at least once the month in the last five months of freelancing and besides the feeling of deep frustration it prevents me at a great extent to take new work unless I am not sure that the employer is 100% verified. 

However, I will continue freelancing and I am more than delighted to observe my improvements and the new opportunities that I can't wait to cope with. I don't want to be outrageously rich, but only to enjoy my life as a writer, meaning to have enough money for me and my family, my trips and, of course, the healthy provisions of books for my Kindle.

Writing happiness

As a professional writer in the process, I enjoy every piece of advice about how to improve my writing, either it is about simple blogging or sophisticated literary writing. 

Thus, I enjoyed a pleasant lecture of the eBook by Marya Jan - Writing Happiness, How to write blog content that works. You can read this booklet very fast, for free, and if you are looking for some inspiration in-between posts or when you feel that the writers' block is around, it is the right lecture to lift you up.

In the words of the author, it is a "non-grammar focus guide for writers and non-writers who are in the business of generating content". This is the reason why, for instance, you are not scholarly advices that first and forehand your posts should be grammatically correct in order to achieve success. In a way it is obvious, in a world of words facing a very serious confrontation. 

The book includes a couple of very useful advices, more or less evident even for experienced writers. It includes a couple of insightful quotes, mostly from Stephen King's On Writing, a book which I highly appreciate. Regardless of your domain of writing activity, you will find for sure 2-3 tips.

Shortly, here are my lessons learned from the lecture of the Marya Jan's book:

- If you are a writer it does not mean that you should stop reading. You should be in touch permanently with what people from your domain are writing, but also for improving your style and looking for new sources of inspiration. My experience is, when I find something interesting, I prefer to blog about it as well and, eventually, share my impression with my audience.

- You need to find a reason to write. In other words, to find a clear reason to put your words in order. The reader needs to discover something new, and thus clarity is key. The organization of your blog post matter as well: the headline and the first paragraph are very important for a successful reading. The end matters as well as an incentive to encourage the reader to return or to go further to explore other writings published on your blog. 

- Related to the previous aspect, you should find your voice in writing. This is the reason why very often I preferred to put my intensive blogging on hold for a couple of weeks or even months, as I was looking to accommodate different voices and writing personalities.

- Add to the ingredients of a successful writing the proper connection with the reader. Do you know who are your readers, what are their tastes and interests? In many cases, your domain of activity is limiting your domain of activity and thus, creates the possibility for the development of your niche. For instance, if you are a fashion blogger, you will be interested in covering all issues dealing with fashion, but if you are into do-it-yourself fashion it will be even better for reaching a certain audience.

- As you are writing for a blog, you should take into consideration the limited attention and time of your usual writer. If you are interested in complicated writing, you should avoid blogging. However, there are many examples of successful bloggers addressing highly complicated issues with the help of clear expressions and short sentences. The book does not address the issue of multimedia support - podcast, video, 
pictures, but very often the visual aspects can add more readership.

The conclusion: a simple and useful writing for any kind of writers facing with the challenges of the 2.0 world.

Freelancer vs. Elance

Another stage in my free wild freelancer life: how you can find decent, reliable and constant sources of work? As a beginner freelancer writer, at the very beginning, every single writing challenge is a good test. And, if you are paid - modestly, at least for the moment - you can enjoy the pleasure of learning and being paid. An option which is more than tempting. This was the positive paragraph sending good waves and encouraging other writers-in-the process to leave their boring non/anti-writing jobs and to start their new life.

But the life of a freelancer is not a carefree experience on a work in the pinky cloudy office. Or, in the beginning, it is not at all. One of my most difficult experiences lately is financial planning.  Please don't blame me for being so messy with my budget. Honestly speaking, since I have started my full freelancing experience a couple of months ago, my monthly revenues can hardly be considered enough for a modest survival. Long life to the careful saving! 

In the beginning of my full-time freelancing life, last December, I started by using Freelancer.com: a lot of offers, but the prices are ridiculous sometimes - I was offered $0.40 for 500 words, an opportunity that I did not consider honouring at all. After a couple of months of intense presence, and 1 person per month that did not pay - a student, a scam another scam - Freelancer.com continue to be my main source of medium and long-term profits: through them I started to work in the domain of customer support - the subject of my next help-book, I learned a lot about SEO, Wordpress and online marketing and even tried the taste of some modest translations. The main problems are:

- the low prices - for instance, I saw people offering for an academic editing and even substantial rewrite around $70.

- the high risk of scams - be sure that you communicate exclusively via the website because in case that you do not receive the money the perpetrator could be blocked; when you accept. However, I saw a couple of days ago that they intend to remove many doubtful profiles.

Curious to test new opportunities and to find long term working opportunities, I tried Elance.com. An elegant design, incredibly interesting opportunities, but if you are not a native English speaker, no chances to be accepted. Elance displays a high concentration of professionals in English writing, with competitive credentials. I hope that one day someone will accept by bid. As in the case of Freelancer.com, you need time and energy to build your credibility and for that, you need to be offered the opportunity to do so. 

Another opportunity for freelancing is oDesk where I made an account a couple of days ago, but did not have the time yet to create my profile and explore the market. Being a freelancer is not easy, but every time I am about to finish a new project, I am happy to discover my new skills and the improvement of my writing style.

The freelancing experience goes on and I'm getting ready for new opportunities. 

The unhappy true about web content authors

As part of my various professional experiences, writing web-content articles, as a professional and at a professional level was part of the menu. I've found a couple of companies, many of them located in India, happy to hire me for covering their high demands for articles. Generally speaking, in the last three weeks I've covered an impressive amount of topics and issues: technical reviews, real estate, history, entertainment, TV sets and so like.

My acceptance rate increased significantly, the companies are happy. But what about me? After a moderate enthusiasm at the beginning, for a couple of days I am struggling with a deep feeling of sadness. Not because I am wasting my time and words writing about things that usually I never read. But because the prices are lower than the average. For example, what do you think of being paid, for one hour of writing and documentation with the perfect offer of $0.60? The highest level of gain is $2 for 1,000 words that I should write in maximum four hours. Usually, this kind of article is very sophisticated and require an impressive amount of time for reading, organizing the materials and writing as I should deliver THE BEST, as I am told on a very capitalist tone for the success fee I am offered.

Despite the need to be involved somehow in profit-oriented projects, I decided today that it is better to stop this collaboration. For the sake of the words I am asked to polish every day.

Freelancing is interesting, but not always rewarding.

About blogging, travel and good marketing

I enjoyed a lot this interview, with a successful blogger passionate about what he is writing about.

From my point of view, doing what you enjoy is the first step to success. Of course, you need lots of effort, passionate dedication and as much time as possible.

Just plant the seeds, take care of the tree and wait.

Writers on Twitter

This is not only a trendy attitude, but a must-be: writers on Twitter are increasing their branding, introducing directly themselves and talking with their potential and actual readers. Of course, the main condition is to have what to talk about - I mean good and interesting books!

Travel recipes

Looking for new writing opportunities - as many as possible - I set-up a profile on www.travbuddy.com, a community of people with a big passion of travel. You can review locations - hotels, restaurants, places - you can share tips and also you can have your own blog, to post travel impressions and pictures. A big challenge for the industry of tourism as it used to be.

Related articles

• 7 Best Social Media Travel Sites (airlinetickets.org)
• Facebook, Twitter: the new roadmap for high-end travel (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
• Top 35 Travel Blogs (airlinetickets.org)
• Travel Photography Subjects: Views (digital-photography-school.com)

Share and the readers are yours

For a long time, I always found difficult to organize my posts and content for my blogs. Because always in a harsh competition against time, my desire to have an interesting and update blog being countered by my problems to deal with difficult professional and personal tasks. Hence, the focus on sharing link, instead of offering fresh and insightful ideas and content.

My chance started when I realize how important is not only to offer original content, but also to share direct experience. It is not always a need for a different style, but a concentration of your professional lessons learned and the importance of sharing. We are more likely to follow and be interested in what others did before us, about life testimonies. It brings a slice of life and authenticity to our words. From the point of view of the author, it brings ideas easily and offer many opportunities to expand your horizon. If you are a writer, a speaker, a consultant, use as often as possible the argument of the previous experience. Looking back, it is how you can inspire and create a direct connection with your readers or listeners.

Focus on who you are and only when you know exactly what do you stand for you will be able to influence the others and create role models and try to improve the world by your modest but necessary contribution. A life worth living.

Use the right link

I will not have enough of sharing my passion of writing. About everything and, if possible, all over the day, and most part of the night.

The difference when I am writing for the web is that I need and I can to offer more than a couple of words about something. I have the huge opportunities, without bothering the reader too much with extensive and long long, very long, posts, to share an impressive amount of information.

How? Through the links I am connecting and documented my words. And this aspect it is available for any kind of writing. Take, for example, a post about foreign affairs: I don't need to write memoirs about war in Iraq - a random example - as long as I can provide, delicately and discretely, a link to a study about the current situation, or the evolution in the last five years and of the history of the country. Or, if I am posting a link about playground, I can offer to the reader not only my review about the playground, but also the link to the place I am talking about. It is a matter of reliability but also of concision and of interest to offer to your readers information at high standards.

You don't write what you want to write, because you are the master of the words, but you are trying to answer as much as possible to the interests and gaps of information of your readers. And, at the end of your 2-3 paragraphs posts, they are opened many doors and showed many possible paths to improve their knowledge. Or, of course, to react to the information you are posting.

Welcome in the world of dialogue!

Where's your pic?

When I am looking to the overall aspect of my blog, I might say that from the design point of view, I don't like always what I see. Too grey, nothing to catch your view except some articles and links. I guarantee everything - or almost everything - is extremely interesting and brain rewarding. But, on the other side, something is missing. And, how it is happening - hope not only to me, very often, I co-partenered with the idea for hundreds of days but I was unable to apply it accordingly. And the idea is: I need a more visual presentation of my blog(s). I can trust my words and like them. But, without an image, my writing might be a simple narcissist exercise. Do something to catch somehow your audience! Blogs and, in general, social media, is for busy people, or for people in a big big hurry. Use as many cards as possible to bring them in, and offer them a promise of something different. Starting with the design of your blog, or Twitter page or the feed of your Facebook page.

Here was my starter-of-the day conclusion! Have a good one and lots of readers and comments.

The cost of social networking

an agent maybe pessimistic, but not less realistic view. I still keep a positive note about social media, as an amazing tool for improving yourself and your perspectives. As in life, you got to know when to stop and where to go next and why.

Publishing questions

discussed at another webinar attended the last week, organised with several editors and publishers, by Writers Digest University.

A short outlined of the most interesting:

- How efficient is the self-editing? You always need another clean pair of eyes to read and have some critical inputs about your manuscript. It could be a friend or somebody you pay for. Up to your resources, you could ask for a full lecture or just for some fragments you feel insecure and unhappy about.

- Is self-publishing affordable? From the financial point of view, yes. From the point of view of your efforts, you need to dedicate a lot of time as you are the one and only doing the design, editing, promotion and PR plans, marketing strategy, even selling. I

- How do you write a memoir? A memoir is different than an autobiography and should be organised following the usual novel writing rules, with tensions, characters with voices and profiles and so on.

- How useful is social media for a writer? You need an online presence, but having in mind a limited efficiency and a use according to your well defined aims. For example, Twitter could be good for marketing, Facebook for events and blogging for creating content about your work. In my opinion, I would use all of them, at various paces. You could post some fragments of your manuscripts online and then tweet it to a list of followers among which you have publishing agents. Or, even to find some other authors as well to whom to start a conversation and, why not, to give you some suggestions.

Freelancing success

Again about ideas gathered at a webinar, the last week, with Eric Butterman, about "Freelancing for more money".

So, there are:

- first of all you have to be very organised - the first advice in any kind of success-driving activities: schedule carrefully the working days and the time for making your documentation and the interviews. Whatever great writer you are, without a proper organisation you will fail (mostly in our current world, when speed is one of the successful key-words).

- technically speaking, be prepared to be contacted and to be in touch with your editors: available internet connection and phone

- be able to communicate efficienty with your editor: concisely and with enough content for rising the interest

- identify what kind of subjects you gonna cover. According to Butterman the most popular topics are: health, entertainment, business, technologies, travel

- be able to slice your subject and to find possible further developments, up to the various target audiences of the media you want to write for. Diversify your sources and angles and be able to get easier a lot of articles - and money, of course.

- exercise your pitch-writing capacities

- start promoting yourself - create your own clips, make a website, even be ready to contribute for free for various platforms

- if you do not have too many - or at all - assignements, you could choose a transition period to your freelance life, during which you will test your capacities and your chances.

And, good luck!

Mind mapping exercises

for those in need for speed blogging (including myself).

Writing tips

The article is offering useful orientation to any kind of writing style.

From my own experience as well, I must confess that I took the risk to skip many of the "etiquette" details regarding, for example, the format, a certain logic of arranging the paragraphs. And lost.

As I must recognize, writing is not enough!