Words on the Page

Seeing Patterns

Posted on by lwidmer

Still away from the computer, but I did want to talk a little about the monthly assessments. By now you who have shared your progress each month have done something besides just giving yourself a snapshot of what you’ve done that month. In every monthly post right here, you’ve created a picture of your entire…

Worthiness: Your Musts

Posted on by lwidmer

Happy New Year! I’m still on hiatus, but I wasn’t going to leave without scheduling a few posts. Hopefully, this one and others will serve as a good start to 2012. We’re about five and a half months out from Writers Worth Week, but it’s never too soon to build value and worth into our…

Monthly Assessment: December 2011

Posted on by lwidmer

I’m still out of the office, but I wanted to leave behind the monthly assessment. Just because the rest of the country is on vacation doesn’t mean we can avoid accountability. Here’s how it went for me in December: Queries:Knowing time was limited, I didn’t send any queries out this month. Well, almost. I put…

My Favorite Things

Posted on by lwidmer

Leaving a few more vapor trails for you: Plenty of blogs exist with information that’s either done to death or done poorly. However, there are a few blogs that stand out as favorites. From each I’ve culled one favorite, each a reason why I love visiting these people. Moving Beyond Content Mills: Steve Sloane –…

‘Tis the Season….

Posted on by lwidmer

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz! Happy holidays, everyone.

Your Favorite Things

Posted on by lwidmer

I’m not here, but I’m leaving a trail…. Over the past year, there have been some posts that made you talk. Here are some of those posts, in random order: Seven Deadly Freelance Sins – How many are you committing? If Freelancers Worked Like This – My review of UPS versus USPS. It wasn’t pretty….

Early Holidays and Androids

Posted on by lwidmer

Wildly busy weekend! Since we’re going different directions this year, we celebrated Christmas together on Saturday, complete with gifts. I was still shopping at 2 on Saturday, so it was a bit stressful. But we had a few flakes of snow, which put me right in the mood. I spent yesterday putting together the Christmas…

Link Love Friday

Posted on by lwidmer

Nice day yesterday. I was able to slow down and get a few things done I’ve been meaning to do, like mail Christmas presents and print the Christmas cards. Mailing the cards is another matter, but I’m one step closer… Thanks to a fox that insisted on barking outside the window last night, I’m running…

What Doesn’t Wash

Posted on by lwidmer

Had a slower-paced day yesterday, which was a welcome break. I was able to design a cover for my marketing e-book and get in two client calls. My first resulted in a retainer and a possible second retainer. I’m going to love working with these folks because they’re just so strongly team focused. The second…

Your Online Business Planning Session: Part Five

Posted on by lwidmer

A good deal of work to do yesterday, part of which included preparing invoices. Love that part of the job! Today is a bit of invoicing as well, along with lining up more work for January. I suspect I’ll be really busy anyway, but just in case. Never stop marketing. Where have you heard that…

Cathy Miller

Like many writers, I'm one who loves to learn new things. In the beginning, I had an Achilles heel when it came to buying books.

Some were great investments and paid for themselves many times over. Others were pretty disappointing. I know video is all the rage (and I AM a visual person), but when I am learning some online techie or software thing, I need a written step-by-step as well.

I tend to go for the freebie webinars because of the time investment. I have no qualms about jumping off early if it stinks. Of course, with many of those, what you are getting is a sales pitch for something much more costly. I don't mind that if it's not obnoxious selling.

I also paid the bigger $ for a white paper boot camp. It was definitely worth it and white papers became an anchor of my business writing.

I tend to steer away from the big $ webinars like the Summit coming up for small businesses. I know it has tons of top names and I am sure there will be good things to learn, but between the $ and the time, for me, the negatives outweigh the positives.

Sharon Hurley Hall

I tend to go for downloadable resources that I can read at leisure. I don't always want to spend an hour or more at a webinar that's a thinly disguised sales session. That said, I have had some good conversations via Skype calls and dial-in group meetings.

Devon Ellington

As a teacher, I feel it's important for the students to know what they're getting into. If you take my courses, the butt goes into the seat and you write. Period. No excuses, no "I ran out of time". It's very clear, both in the blurb, in the chat before the course, and in the Welcome message. You have time to use the escape hatch before we commence. Write or leave, those are the choices.

If you want poor work habits enabled, if you want to be told it's okay not to meet deadlines — go somewhere else.

I'm a tough teacher, but my students leave with something tangible, and, in the last year, a solid number landed contracts and/or sold pieces started/worked on in class.

I don't use my classes as a sales pitch. I have a section with links to other workshops and other materials, but, I know from my experience as a student, nothing makes me feel more cheated than going to a workshop/webinar and being given 1% of the information promised, and expected to pay additional monies for the rest of what the workshop supposedly covers.

To me, that's a scam. And I see it frequently in workshops. You're offered a tease, and actually only get the information if you pay extra.

I took several classes this past year that were a disappointment. The teacher wasn't around much, we were talked AT instead of given the opportunity to practice putting theories into practice in the safe environment of the classroom with guidance, and additional materials for additional dollars were dangled in front of us. If I can't trust you to cough up what I believe I've paid for now (according to the way the workshop was marketed), why would I pay additional money for other material that's also bound to fall short? My trust has been broken.

I also can't stand it when a teacher/workshop leader renames the same class and uses the same material while pretending it's something totally different. Even when I'm asked to give another section of a workshop, I tweak it depending on the energy of the room. No two workshops are ever identical. I think it's really important — be in tune to the moment, don't use the same material over and over because you want to prep once, get paid 27 times. Be attuned to the students and what's happening in the moment, and adjust accordingly.

You'll have a sore butt and sore fingers and be exhausted after one of my classes — but you'll have a solid piece of work.

As far as skills, I have to figure out what I want to learn next, where I want to spread my wings a little. I want to shake things up a bit.

Irreverent Freelancer

Popping in from my blogging hiatus to offer a tip. For those of us who like the structure of a real classroom, auditing courses is something to look into. Many colleges charge half price if you're not looking to earn credits, and you get the exact same instruction a broke college student gets. That's the route I opted for late last year when I took a screenwriting course at a local university. And since mine was a weekender class, my classmates were more in my age range, so the peer feedback was beneficial as well. I'd likely not have gotten that with an online course.

Lori

Cathy, I don't enjoy video seminars much. That said, the International Freelancers Day was all video, and it was fantastic. It was free, too, so that helped. 🙂 I have to have something I can read over later, as well.

Sharon, I'm much more into the self-paced stuff, too. I like that I can continue working on projects – because they ALWAYS come in by the bucketloads the minute that nonrefundable fee is paid – and get to the course as I have time.

Devon, the difference between your course and the one I took – you let everyone know in several ways that it was an intensive course. This other woman billed this as more of a fun time. Sorry, it was not fun, nor did she have anything useful to say in those reams of daily lessons. Not only was she verbose, she was boring. I've attended any number of webinars and online courses and hers was the worst. Ever. Her one lesson on editing and brevity was ridiculously long and poorly written. I nearly offered to edit her course lectures for a fee.

Paula

One of the last screenwriting workshops I went to was free, but the guy offered only a tiny bit of practical information before launching into an hour-long infomercial on the software he was hawking that would make the process so much easier. When he finally opened it up to questions, people were hungry for the practical information he never got to, but his answers were pretty much, "This product does all of the formatting for you, and offers tips on plotting and blah, blah, blah." I wanted to shake the guy and say, "Real writers don't want to let a computer program generate story ideas!"

I've also seen self-proclaimed writing experts I know through LinkedIn pitching me their not-so-cheap webinars, online classes and coaching services. Fine, but try marketing to people with less experience than you, not more. Why would I want someone with fewer (and lesser) credits than I have teaching me how to break into "lucrative" markets that I surpassed a decade ago? (I guess this gripe fits better with the Know Your Audience topic.)

Lori

Kathy, it's great seeing you here. I hope the blog will be back in 2012? Super advice, per usual. Your point about peer critique is especially good. It helps to have more than one set of eyes going over your work.

Paula, I've seen some of the same marketing mistakes. Writers at mid-level can certainly sell their webinars, but to beginning writers, not people who have been in the business for years.

Paula

The most irksome thing about one particular mid-level "writing expert" who kept pitching me about his or her webinars, coaching services and e-books, etc… was that we were LinkedIn contacts so all he or she had to do was glance at my profile to realize I was not in his or her target audience. Smart marketing or no marketing at all.

Off topic: How can four separate clients ALL have bookkeeping glitches stalling my payments in the same month? One is the chronic late payer, one is a long-time client with bugs in a new direct deposit system, a third is a new client, and the fourth is a long-time reliable client who apparently misplaced the invoice during the post-Thanksgiving pre-Christmas rush; luckily I thought to contact the lone editor on duty this week and he's pushing payment through ASAP. Seriously, what are the odds?

Lori

End-of-the-year budget crunch, Paula. Bet on it. If it were me, I'd ask point blank if you can expect the check before the holidays. Why not? It's your money they're hanging on to.

Paula

I did that. Favorite Editor is out for the holidays, and her boss is the one rushing it through. Late-Payer replied claiming he mailed my check "late Wednesday" (meaning he was about to write it as soon as he hit "send"). The folks with the direct deposit glitch think they figured it out – my next payment from them should come by the end of the year.

Most of these places are already well into their 2012 budgets; Fave Ed and the glitchy client have hefty freelance budgets, so it's not a budget crunch for either of them – they're honest and won't make assignments they can't pay for. (Late Payer, not so much.)