What Writers Want for Christmas

Written on December 9, 2009 at 3:05 am

Christmas is coming and amidst all the chaos of decorated and busy shops, millions of people around the world are scratching their heads and wondering, ‘What on earth do I get for xxxx?” If you are a writer, now could be the perfect time to drop hints about you REALLY want for Christmas (or just give yourself a present anyway)! There are a number of wonderful presents for freelance writers.

If you are just starting out and want to improve, why not buy that ebook or writing course you have been dreaming about? (Don’t forget our ebook on Constant Content is just $10, and you could earn that back BEFORE New Year’s if you get it for Christmas!).

If you like to take notes, a beautiful pen or leather bound notebook could just bring a smile to your dial for the whole of next year.

If you live in a cold climate and feel every goosebump and shiver as your freezing hands sit out on top of the keyboard, try some fingerless gloves.

If you are looking for inspiration, buy a book of inspirational quotes from other writers.

You can decide the perfect present for the writer in your life, as there are plenty of options to choose from. Why not post a comment with other ideas here for people to share?

December Referral Competition

Written on December 5, 2009 at 11:36 am

As Expanding Creations is a new website for freelance writers, we need your help! Refer your friends to the website’s newsletter, and you could find yourself $50 richer at the start of 2010. The person who refers the most people to sign up to the newsletter will receive $50 in their Paypal account on January 1, 2010.

We need people who will follow us on facebook and twitter too. Send out Tweets to all your writing friends with the link to the website. This website needs freelance writers who can write articles or share their experiences in the Author Interview section. If you are interested in helping out on the Expanding Creations website, or want to participate in the referral competition, send an email via the Contact Us button on this site. Can you help Expanding Creations to EXPAND?
Don’t forget, the person who makes the most referrals in the month of December will receive $50 tax free US dollars in their Paypal account! Will you win?

Making Money as a Freelance Writer

Written on December 3, 2009 at 11:33 am

I am often asked how much money is it possible to make as a freelance writer? The answer is similar to that of the question, “How long is a piece of string?” In other words, you can have a piece of string as long or as short as you want it to be, and you can make as much money as a freelance writer as you want to. Although freelance writers do experience some freedom to work whenever it suits them, freelance writing is still a job. You can make it fun, you can freelance as a hobby or part-time until you become established enough to give up your day job, or you can jump straight into the deep end and start writing.

Personally, I make freelancing a part-time hobby and only write when I feel like it, for additional income that I spend on the “fun” stuff. That said, I still make an average of $1000 US a month, by working an average of 6 hours a week on my writing. It is certainly possible to make more money as a freelance writer, but right now, I am having too much fun doing other things as well. Would an extra $1000 a month be something you could enjoy? Have you got just 6 to 10 hours a week to make it happen? It can!

There are many different ways you can freelance write and most people use a variety of ways to find work. Submitting bids or proposals to freelance advertisers on job sites, such as Freelance.com or Elance.com can be a good way to win some work, although you do have to watch out for unscrupulous people who will want you to write 50 articles for $50!

Some freelance writers will advertise services in local websites, classifieds, or newspapers and will work for local clients on a regular basis. This often leads to more work as your client will tell other local business people of your work. You do have to be careful to ensure you set up fail safe payment systems, so you do not get ripped off, but finding private clients can be quite profitable for freelance writers.

The other method is to write for websites. Some blogs will pay authors and there are several article directories that will pay for articles. Constant Content is the best option I’ve found, but there are others. You can even make money by responding to forum posts and writing reviews of products you have used. There are many ways you can make a profitable living as a freelance writer.

I’d love to hear about your experiences as a freelance writer. Send an email via the Contact Us button on this site and your experience could be published in this blog to help other freelance writers too!

Ebook Launch

Written on December 1, 2009 at 11:26 am

I am so excited to launch “Sales Success on Constant Content”. This 30 page ebook is easy to read in a short time and contains all the information anyone will need to become a successful writer on the website Constant Content. This is one of my favourite places to write and sell articles, because it is the only place I know of where you can consistently sell articles for $50 to $100! That’s not as a package, but for EACH article!

“Sales Success on Constant Content” will give freelance writers the edge on Constant Content. Many people who have been successfully writing freelance articles for years fail on this site, while other relative newcomers to the industry will succeed. This puzzles many people, especially those who have been freelancing for a while or writing for other sites, such as Ezine Articles, Associated Content, Helium, or Suite 101. All of these websites accept articles for sale, but will generally pay very little per article. Constant Content has a completely different concept to these sites, and it pays to understand what CC is looking for before submitting articles. This is where even experienced freelance writers will find “Sales Success on Constant Content” useful.

As well as discussing the CC concept and the submission guidelines in depth, “Sales Success on Constant Content” provides information on how to use the forum to your advantage, pricing strategies that will help you increase your income on Constant Content and how to write for public requests and win private requests. The author has been writing for Constant Content for over a year, just on a part-time basis, and has made over $6000.

I am so confident you will find “Sales Success on Constant Content” useful that Expanding Creations is offering a three times your money back guarantee. Buy the ebook and follow the advice in the ebook for just three months. If you have not made any sales in 12 weeks, you will receive three times your money back in the form of usage sales (so you can still sell those articles again!). You just cannot lose! Increase your sales of articles and make between $50 and $100 per article all the time, simply by following the tried and tested advice in “Sales Success on Constant Content”.

Do’s and Don’ts of Writing Articles For Publication

Written on November 3, 2009 at 11:35 pm

So, you want to write articles for publication? Good for you! Writing for publication isn’t as easy as it may seem to an outsider looking in, but it’s definitely not impossible if you’re willing to put in the time and work. Here are four tips to get you started on the road to publication:
Do: Study your market
Writing the articles is a good start, but there is more to writing than the actual writing. You also need to find the best publications for the articles you’ve written. This does take some time and energy. There are many publications to study. And to get to know them, you have to do more than look at the cover. You want to study the content to get a feel for the magazine. Who writes for them, the style of articles they publish. You also want to read back copies to discover topics that the publication has done recently as you don’t want to send in an article on a topic recently done. You may think that your parenting article would suit any of the many parenting papers out there, but that’s a big misconception.
Don’t: Forget grammar and spelling
If you rely on your word processor’s grammar and spell check you might not be catching some of the little typos you’re making. Sometimes our fingers work faster than our brain, so though we spelled a word correctly, it might have been the very wrong word. For example, you’re typing away and you mean to type “may,” but your quick little fingers are so used to hitting some keys you end up typing “many.” Well, that’s not something spell check will catch, so always, always reread your articles a few times before submitting.
Do: Research
Even if you’re writing an article on a topic that you are expert at, you want to double check your facts. Even if you don’t want to use a quote or reference in your article itself (though as long as you‘re doing research why not add in a little expert quote), you want to make sure that the tips or advice you’re giving is the best it can be.
Don’t: Give up quickly
No one sells everything they write the first time they submit it to a publication. It can take many tries, but that’s all part of the writing job. Sending out submissions until a publication snatches it up. Don’t give up. Usually it’s not a reflection of your work. It could possibly be the magazine has done the topic recently or has already bought something on a similar topic for an upcoming issue. Don’t take rejections personally. Dust yourself off and get the article out to another publication. And always be writing new articles. The more articles you have making the rounds, the better.

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