Things That Bug Me, Part One: I saw one of those ads again today–the ads that beg good writers to check out their website, join, and bid on projects. Being the curious journalist, I looked. The jobs were certainly legitimate, so I looked a little further. Alas, the catch. The site is one of those…
Plagiarism and Fair Use
Once again, plagiarism is rearing its ugly head. This time, it’s the Harvard student who wrote a book and apparently referenced several different books–without attribution. It makes me wonder about the people in my chosen profession. Who would knowingly swipe something from another person? And how could an author knowingly screw over another author? Is…
Seven Ways to Gain Clients
In real estate training, we called it the Rule of Seven. It’s a concept that transitions very well into your marketing efforts for any writing business, or for any business for that matter. It’s an easy one–contact seven buyers and seven sellers every day. For our purposes, we’re going to consider our buyers are potential…
Starting a new project today–what excitement! There’s nothing like beginning something new, with the new hopes, the new ideas and the new anxieties that are attached to it. What a great way to start Spring! At the beginning of every project, I go through the same emotions that probably plague other writers, as well. First…
The announcement today by Katie Couric that she’s leaving NBC was shocking, but apparently more shocking was the announcement that she would be anchoring the CBS Evening News. Already, critics are saying Katie hasn’t the experience to handle the job. Frankly, I think they’re crazy. The woman has moxie. She took a job with the…
Sometimes as writers, we bend over backward to make our clients happy. Often we will cut our fees, sometimes too low, in order to keep a good client happy. While it’s okay to give a cost break when you can, you have to know when, and how, to say no. There are times when the…
Ever wonder how to market yourself? It’s essential to your business that you understand how to get your name out there. My good friend Kristen has just posted a fantastic article on just this subject–check it out at Inkthinker. Once you read it, come back here and we’ll talk about setting aside time to market….
If the bad food, endless lines at security, and crowded seats aren’t reason enough to avoid traveling by air, here’s the best one – cell phones on airplanes. Yes, the powers that be (and that would be Senators McCain and Kennedy) have decided that we haven’t suffered through enough. We are now to be subjected…
Tax time! I dread this time of year–not because I pay through the nose, but because I keep lousy records. Oh, I mean well. I start out with the Excel spreadsheet each year, with my nice little columns for Project name, Client, Amount due, Amount paid, Billing date, etc. But somewhere between lean January work…
My New Year’s resolution this year was a simple one–I decided that I would try to gain one new client every month. I reasoned that finding new clients would be a bit easier to focus on than say bringing in a certain dollar amount. I figured that if the clients were there, the money would…