WritingThoughts

When you picture the life of a freelance writer, what do you picture? Do you imagine waking up late, taking a few calls from your editor in the comfort of your own home office, and wrapping work by 4:00 p.m.? That’s the way some movies and books depict the writing life. If you’ve never written […]

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Don’t you wish you could avoid working for bad clients? The Internet is filled with horror stories about bad freelance writing clients. If you read freelance writing blogs and forums, as I do, you may start to think that almost every client is a bad one. You’ll read about: Clients who never pay. Clients who […]

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Have you ever spent a vacation day caring for a sick family member?  Do you have an unfulfilled bucket list a mile long that never seems to get shorter? If you answered “yes” to either question, chances are that you have a traditional job instead of a freelance writing job. Even flexible traditional work positions […]

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“Anyone can write.” “The barrier to becoming a freelance writer is low.” “Writing is easy.” These are comments that I often see made online. While there’s a grain of truth in them, they are not completely true. It’s important to correct these misperceptions because they drive down income for those of us who earn a […]

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Studies show that crisp, concise writing that gets the point across quickly is the most effective. For online writing, efficient copy is even more important. Most readers scan online posts and articles before they decide to read them. Yet, many writers make careless mistakes. You can’t count on your spell checker to catch everything. Do […]

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Grammar mistakes can make you look bad. A misspelled word here, a dangling participle there. That’s all it takes for your would-be client to decide that you’re sloppy and move on. That’s why it’s so important to proofread anything you publish. Of course, it’s hard to catch your own mistakes. There’s nothing more annoying than […]

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With many writing assignments ending up online, traffic is significant factor. But is it the writer’s responsibility to drive visitors to the client’s site? As a writer, you may have faced this question yourself. If you’ve dealt with this issue, I’d love to hear how you handled it in the comments. Personally, I often share […]

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So, you want to be a freelance writer. That’s great. Freelance writing can be a rewarding career choice. I should know. I moved from a technical communication department twelve years ago to freelance writing and I’ve never looked back. Freelance writing has been good to me. Unfortunately, some people become freelance writers for all the […]

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Guest posting has been a somewhat controversial topic lately. I listed guest posting in my list of bad writing gigs a few weeks ago and sparked a discussion. One reason guest posting is currently looked down on is the huge quantity of spammy guest posts that have flooded the content arena. In this post, I’ll […]

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Freelance writing is full of surprises–some pleasant, some not so pleasant. Many freelance writers simply don’t know what to expect from freelance writing. Much of what has been written about freelance writing is incomplete. It highlights certain aspects of writing or certain problems and glosses over the rest. When I started freelancing several things took […]

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