By Barbara Worton
What keeps you up at night? Your to do list? The bills? Worries about people you love? Your health? Your job? More than 70 million Americans have a hard time falling asleep. If you’re one of them, I have a solution. I call it sleepwriting. At bedtime, I pick up a pad and pencil and start writing. I start with the first words that pop into my head and keep going for three pages–no looking back–and after I’m done, the noise of the day is silenced, I can hear my own voice and I slip into a deep restorative sleep.
Everybody can sleepwrite. Here’s how: (more…)
By Steven Wagenheim
This is not a debate on long or short copy. Copy should be like a lady’s skirt. Short enough to be interesting and long enough to cover the essentials. This is a discussion, albeit one sided, on sales copy that rambles on and never seems to get to the point. I am all for telling stories in copy, but the story you tell should have a point. More importantly, it should get to the point…and quickly. If you don’t understand why, keep reading. This article will alert you to some things that you probably should know if you’re going to write successful copy.
The human being is a strange animal. He’ll sit through a three hour movie on Orcs and Trolls if it captures his interest, but he won’t read a sales letter that take him 10 minutes if it doesn’t. In other words, human beings have very little patience. Waste even a minute of their time and they’re already looking at their watch for an escape route. Because of this, copywriters have to get to the point, even if their sales copy is 40 pages long.
Now you’re probably wondering, how can you get to the point with a 40 page sales letter? Isn’t that a little hard to do? Actually, it is very easy to do if you understand what the point is of each part of your sales letter. That is what I mean by getting to the point. It starts with the very beginning of your sales letter, your headline and works its way all the way through to the final PS…each section getting to the point. (more…)
Hey, it’s Christmas time and it’s also time to hang up the pens and pencils, stop writing and give those fingers a rest, y’all! Have a drink, be merry, bitch about a client, dream of having a write-less night, no more deadline (just for today) and just enjoy the merry atmosphere. Those kids of yours hovering outside the door while you’re writing and typing madly into the keyboard and computer….yeah, those are yours and they’re waiting for you to bring them somewhere special on Christmas.
Those phonecalls….yeah, the phone’s been ringing….those calls are from your frantic parents who thought they’ve lost their child to a writing syndrome! Answer the phone, for crissakes! And that turkey and tuna salad….they’re for you.
For freelance writers like you and me, a holiday is never quite a holiday until we give ourselves a break. It’s Christmas and New Year’s approaching. Time to give the fading alphabets on the keyboard a break, crack some knuckles and dig into the food and drain the wine bottles!
Merry Christmas!
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You’ve probably heard by now that article marketing can help you build links back to your site. Okay, here’s the skinny - Article marketing just plain, flat-out works if you’re looking to drive traffic to your site. This is so as Article marketing is still one of the best ways to drive web traffic to your site.
Most importantly, article marketing is still one of the best ways to drive web traffic to your sites in the viral manner as more and more publishers publish your articles on their sites. Since the concept of ‘Article writing is the best way to promote your website’ became the vogue recently most people think that it is enough to dash off a couple of words and then mass submit these articles to the slew of Article Directories that has recently sprung up all over the place.
Research and construct a list of all the free article directories you can find so that you can simply submit your articles to the sites on your list when you’ve finished writing. Optimize the Text Naturally: You want your article to pop to the top of a list when someone searches for it - and in search engines. While article marketing is a function of many factors that may not lend itself to an exact computation of benefits in monetary terms, we cannot run away from the fact that when it comes to profitability of any online business, we have to think in terms of dollars and cents. (more…)
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Being a mother, a housewife and a work at home parent at the same time can be blissfully fulfilling. We’re reaping the rewards of having the best of both worlds…i.e., earning an income and contributing to the sustenance of the family while being there with our children and watching them grow up. It’s the kind of immeasurable sense of fulfillment that no other types of careers can ever emulate.
But….
….if you’re not careful, reaping the rewards of having the best of both worlds can turn around, rear its ugly head and chomp off a huge chunk of your thigh! (Oh. Hang on….that ain’t such a bad idea after all). The thing is that there’s always a good and bad about everything….now, we all agree on that one. Now, when one is working from home and caring for the kids at the same time, you’re not only facing double the advantages but you’re going to be facing double the STRESS as well! Don’t ever forget that, ok, all you moms out there who are just like me.
Therefore, I found this particular website very useful….http://2work-at-home.com. Needless to say, the website is designed for mothers AND fathers who choose to be greedy and yank the whole cake off the table and decide to work from home. From freelance jobs like freelance writing jobs, freelance web designing jobs, freelance admin jobs, or home based businesses, they list a lot of stuff there and most of the things found on this website, as proven by the number of years that I have been safely using them, are legitimate and real.
Well, if you’re trying to find work as a freelance writer, you might want to hop on over for a quick lookie!
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Note: A pretty darn good article on copywriting, we sayy! YYYAAAYYY!!!
by John L. Alexander
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In a minute I want to come back to give you some examples, but let’s talk about that word “dialog.”
We know that the term dialog is really more correctly thought of as the dictionary describes:
“A conversation spoken between two or more people.” If you look up synonyms for the word “dialog” as a noun, you’ll find a lot of terms that focus on “vocal expression” or “utterance” or “verbalization” in some aspect.
So why do I use the term “dialog” in terms of writing Web copy?
It’s the best term I can think of to describe what I like to think of as the “flow of conversation” or nearly like writing your copy as though it was meant to be read “out loud” by voice. When I say “write for voice” I’m referring to how something is written for the radio or TV or other live media. (more…)
Those of who who are looking for writing jobs, here’s one for you! Send the email together with your resume and negotiate your pricing from there, based on the requirements.
***
Applicants required to live in a specified location? No
Job category: Writing
Job type: Contract
Date Posted: 2007-12-10
Job description:
Ready to make a difference? We are a new bright green eco-conscious company seeking freelance writers and editors for a new high-profile, environmentally-focused website. Successful candidate will write editorial features in the “green” business and sustainable living space, for both consumer and business markets. Opportunity for both feature assignments and ongoing paid blogging.
Requirements:
Looking for candidate with exceptional writing skills, with deep knowledge and published clips in one or more of the following areas:
* Green Business and Sustainability Practices
* Clean Technology & Innovation
* Environmentally-Friendly Goods and Services
* Campus Environmentalism
* Environmental Activism and Nonprofit Orgs
* Eco-Living
* Green Media and Entertainment
PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR RESUME AND LIST OF CREDITS AS IN-LINE TEXT. PREFER LINKS TO WRITING SAMPLES. NO ATTACHMENTS.
kyotoplanetcom @ gmail.com (delete the spaces to send email)
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When a business mentor suggested to me that I write and submit some articles to Ezines and another competitor for content purposes only, I thought he was nuts. Struggling to make money as a writer, the thought of giving away my valuable services for nothing was incredible. To be honest, at this point, I was thinking of getting a new mentor. What I did not understand was that this so called FREE content was really an advertisement of my ability to produce content and a marketing tool to use for clients.
Over the past few months since I have been seriously marketing articles to content buyers whether it is online or in print, I have found that many of the clients come from referrals of the so called FREE articles I have produced. I am not necessarily an expert in article marketing, but it has been proven to me that this form of marketing my services has worked tri-fold. (more…)
SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, industry is something that is ever changing…that’s why we’re still here, doing this, after so many years. We usually like to find similarities between search engine marketing, SEO and content writing with those people who buys and sells shares. Yeah, those blue-tie Wall Street. Can’t you see the similarities?
The stock market and the search engine is consistent changing. And the change is brought about by how people react to, exploit or manipulate the changes. And then the experts watch and see how the search engines are going to react to how people are reacting. When the search engines make their move, you’ll see SEO experts jumping out of their chair trying to find out what the change was and how it affecting their websites or their clients’ websites. If there is a drop, they frantically try to find out what went wrong. If they jumped from Page 11 to Page 1, they start popping the champagne bottles and wonder what they did right.
It’s an exciting world, actually.
Many people say that search engine marketing is a very technical affair. I beg to differ. It’s not at all technical. The folks behind the search engines are technical folks….the search engine experts involved in marketing huge websites are not at all technical….they’re analytical. We analyze the changes and how the search engines have changed and discuss and brainstorm on what we should do next to bring our websites up to a higher ranking. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
Although we get an earful when something goes wrong (nothing is a guarantee in the world of search engine marketing), we still love the adrenaline rush. Who would’ve known, huh? That it’s possible to feel adrenaline rush just from staring into the computer monitor…..
“You sit there and just type and type and type. What job hazard have you got?” came the taunt. Jumping out my seat, out rolled the following job hazards of a writer who sits there typing and writing stuff for other people.
1. Writer’s Finger aches – You don’t think it hurts to type all day long? You don’t….try it. I mean, I know software programmers get the same problem, so do secretaries and legal clerks. Freelance writers get this problem too, you know. And yes, it IS a job hazard because it bloody hurts!
2. Writer’s Wrist-ache – Tennis players get tennis elbows. Writers get writers’ wrist? Well, I am not kidding here, ok? Because at one point in time, I developed a serious case of a condition very common among writers like me, the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome which affects the wrists of the writer. Don’t believe me? I don’t blame you. Wanna know more? Check out Wikipedia.org’s elaboration of Writer’s Wrist….otherwise medically known as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.