Archive for On Writing
Fops, Dandies, and Luvvies – How to Become a Writer
Posted by: | CommentsOn Shadesbreath’s excellent Hub,HubPages Sucks, an interesting conversation developed, a lament of times gone by; the days when everybody knew what a writer was and exactly what a writer did. Writers locked themselves in rooms whilst fearful servants passed food under the door, fearing to incur the wrath of an artist dancing with Muses, in an unbridled outburst of creative genius and passion. Everybody was perfectly happy with this except, of course, the writers themselves, who tended to starve and develop an unhealthy, corpselike pallor. Sadly, adulation does not fill a plate or fix the leaking roof, so writers used the emancipated frame and hacking cough as emblems of honour and identity.
It was a good whinge about the old days, buried long ago in prehistory, where everyone knew their place in the grand scheme and writers could adopt an expression of smug superiority. Like Waldorf and Statler, we sat on the balcony of Hubpages, two old men moaning and complaining just because we could. Beneath the puerile banter, about wasps, funerals, and dinosaurs, lay a serious tone, of two men floating adrift and questioning their very identity and purpose. What is a writer? Are we in danger of extinction?
A Writer – The Tamer of Words
Before we embark upon this tortuous journey through the inane ramblings of an old luvvie trying to explain how to become a writer, I will point out that this is one ouzo-pickled hippy’s opinion. If you think differently, then the balcony is over there; feel free to jeer the unfolding shambles on the stage and shower your abuse on the unrehearsed chaos.
A writer understands words; more exactly, a writer knows the power of words and has mastered the ancient techniques needed to use and manipulate them. Mass communication and the internet have seen an increase and proliferation of words, and an unimaginable amount of information is available to those who care to use this interweb and risk paralysis from the bite of the Google Spider.
Anybody can sit down and type ‘words’; anyone can use a word processor and lay down thoughts, easily and without ceremony. Writing words is easier than ever before, giving the opportunity to create, to communicate, and to bore. The amount of words has increased, but there is no more grist to talk about than in the halcyon days of the Bard; thus, many of these words are, quite simply, empty noise.
To me, a writer is someone who does not just see words as tools for communicating the maelstrom of thoughts swirling in their head. To a writer, words are alive, wild beasts to be captured and tamed before an adoring audience. Language is a thing to be moulded like a lump of raw clay, shaped into art and self-expression. Words can be joined together, flowing streams with subtle meanings and depths meandering through your emotions and nurturing your soul. In the hands of a master, words can entice, emote, and amuse.
The Greek Tragedy
Behind a writer lie the clichéd tears of the clown, and most of us are vain Pierrots with frail egos, like the old actor on stage wearing another personality, or an illusionist with only smoke and mirrors to create the illusion. A writer understands emotion and holds up a mirror, making you question your own psyche and unlock the dreams within.
Every time a writer lays words on the virgin page, they also bare a little more of their own soul, revealing their secret and inner self. Words are wild and dangerous beasts that can be used to tear egos apart and bare the intangible soul, but they can also turn on the lion-tamer and leave him bleeding and torn, a shambolic wreck consumed by the tendrils of dark thought.
How to Become a Writer – The Method Actor
I have seen people shape words, and their excellent grasp of technicalities and style allows clear and concise communication. However, some lack the passion and the ability to create the scene and draw the audience in. A fine actor knows how to draw people in with a whisper and then drive them away with a bellow of raw emotion, counting the audience as an integral part of the story. A writer can use voice, rhythm, and flow to make you feel both joy and pain, to take you from elation to despair in a single sentence.
On the other extreme, I have seen people pour their passions onto the page, a torrent of sheer, unbridled emotion. These are invariably wonderful to read, but a writer needs finesse and technique to restrain the flow, an ability to bring down the curtain between scenes. A humble comma, the unsung hero of the English language, can lift work from the good into the truly sublime.
The Mind of the Writer – The Cabinet Makers and the Sculptors
In the old days, we had two groups of writers; the creative writers and the non-creative writers. Locked in their towers, they used to argue ceaselessly about which of the two was the most talented, a display of pompous, academic arrogance fought amidst the spires of Oxford and the colonial mansions of Hemingway’s Havana. Now these two are united, an unholy alliance cowering behind a shield wall of similes, circled and beset by brooding uncertainty and destructive self-doubt. Besieging our broken heroes are the Keywords with Long Tails and the Search Engine Ogres, seeking to bring down their ivory towers.
The academic and non-fiction writers are cabinet-makers, the craftsmen and women who shape words and create function yet still imbue their work with individuality and style. The creative writers are sculptors, able to craft raw lumber into objects of beauty. Mostly, sculptors and craftspeople are fawning fops and preening dandies, flouncing and posing before the murmuring audience. For a writer, it is not about the money but the single red rose thrown at the feet of the actor, the applause as the crowd shouts for more. A good writer tries to leave an audience bewitched by beguiling prose and lexical panache, entertained and changed by rhythm and style.
How to Become a Writer – From the Shield-Wall to the Bear Pit
So where is this going? Has the hippy finished talking out of his backside? Not quite, if I can impose upon your patience and continue this flow of solipsistic excess verbiage. This is the crux of the matter and the point in the play where tragedy turns to joy, the scene where we employ a Spielbergesque happy ending. For, amidst the proliferation of words on the internet is a glimmer of hope for the beleaguered shield-wall. Maybe, relief for our fops and dandies is nigh, and hidden amonst the empty noise lies a sign of things to come. People are starting to seek out writers; they crave to be entertained, to smell the greasepaint and laugh at the preening pantomime dames.
Instead of Hollywood and plastic fame, audiences crave a return to the old days, when actors trod the boards and faced the audience, like some tired Roman gladiator before a baying crowd. Instead of fleeing from the internet and closing ranks, writers are learning to unleash the power, dancing with the Ogres instead of seeing them as fearsome, snarling beasts trained to rend delicate prose.
Rather than view marketers as implacable foes, we understand that they are allies and friends, a new target for our egotistical arguments and attention-seeking flounces.the crux of the matter and the point in the play where tragedy turns to joy, the scene where we employ a Spielbergesque happy ending. For, amidst the proliferation of words on the internet is a glimmer of hope for the beleaguered shield-wall. Maybe, relief for our fops and dandies is nigh, and hidden amonst the empty noise lies a sign of things to come. People are starting to seek out writers; they crave to be entertained, to smell the greasepaint and laugh at the preening pantomime dames.
How to Become a Writer – The Cast and Crew Milk the Encore
Actors need the crew, working tirelessly behind the scenes, to create the scene and set the tone, their special effects elevating any play into the realms of true fantasy with the audience hushed and beguiled by passionate speech. Likewise, the crew need the actors to bring the dreams to fruition, adding a human emotion to the play and garnishing it with the ancient magic and glamour.
Writers are spiritual vampires, needing the sustenance of adulation and, with the help of technology, can find new audiences to feed their souls. We must embrace this technology and emerge from behind the shield-wall, blinking in the sunlight of modernity and donning the greasepaint of progress. Suddenly, we can again show our undead faces as people seek the secret of how to become a writer.
Pierrot Photo courtesy of MatthiasKabelunder a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 licence
Photo courtesy of vbariteau under aCreative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License
How To Find A Freelance Writer: What To Expect
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For many businesses, setting out to find a freelance writer can be a tough task, especially as the internet is saturated with writers for hire. A search on Google or one of the many freelance hire sites throws long lists after list of writers, all claiming that they are the best fit for the job. How do you go about hiring the best professional freelance writer?
Hire a Writer: A Few Tips
Here are a few useful tips for making sure that you find a skilled writer with the ability to produce great content.
Price: Business is all about finding the best possible product at the lowest possible price, but that does not necessarily mean going for the cheapest option. If you find somebody writing articles for $5 a time, ask yourself why they are offering their services so cheap. Perhaps their language skills are not up to scratch or they intend to plagiarise the work of others.
An experienced, skilled freelance writer, with a good reputation and a proven track record, knows their worth and will price their work accordingly. They are professionals and it is rare to find one working for slave wages.
Samples: A pro writer will be delighted to provide you with a few samples of their work, letting you see if their skill, talent and style suit your particular needs, from web content to academic writing.
Website: Like any online business owner, a professional freelance writer should have a well-designed, informative website, allowing you to see exactly what they have to offer. Writers without websites are not necessarily bad writers, but a good website shows a higher level of professionalism and dedication.
References: A talented writer will be able to provide you with references from previous clients, allowing you to check the quality of their work. Many include testimonials on their website, which is fine, but you should check that any links genuinely lead to clients and are not fabrications. Most pro writers have a list of previous clients who will be delighted to write a reference.
Hire a Professional Writer: Things to Avoid
When you hire a professional writer, there are a few things that you should try to avoid, lest you risk losing a fine writer for avoidable reasons. Some of these bad habits stem from the freelance writing boards, where legions of inexperienced or untalented writers fight for every single position, promoting a culture of expendability.
Writing Samples: Try to avoid asking a writer to draft a sample from scratch, unless it is very short. If you ask a pro writer to write you an example on spec, they will simply smile and move on to the next client. Writers are not in the habit of giving their work away for nothing; there are too many unscrupulous sharks out there who will ask a number of writers for samples and gleefully receive a bundle of work for free.
Writers are not Employees: Try to remember that writer is not your employee but a professional in their own right. Too many people hire a writer and then assume that they are an employee, placing unreasonable demands upon their time, or speaking down to them.
The most common example is clients continually changing the job specifications and extracting more and more work for the agreed price. Another common issue is the tone you take with your writer; all writers have had a nightmare client who treats them with condescension and veiled insults. Your writer is a trained, experienced professional and should be treated as such.
Payment: If you have a batch of work, a writer isn’t going to hand it over and wait for payment; all writers have been stung by clients taking work and disappearing once payment is due. Some writers ask for all of the money upfront, others are happy to take a deposit of 50% and share the risk. For larger assignments, it is common for instalments to be paid once certain milestones are reached.
Communication: Creating a Partnership
The key to working with a freelance writer is communication, because by working together, you can really start to produce some excellent content that will really appeal to your audience. Writers are good at filling in the gaps and producing content based around any information you provide, but they still need some idea of what you actually want.
Some website owners, especially for article marketing and blogs, are happy to give the writer a list of general topics and let them loose. This is a good strategy, but it is unfair to then send the article back demanding umpteen changes because it didn’t fit with exactly what you wanted. Others like to give a structure to the writer and ask them to join it all together, which allows them to concentrate on generating voice and emotion.
Whichever method you use, using a freelance writer for hire is all about creating a working partnership, because a talented writer who knows your specifications is a great asset to your business.
Ultimately, you are paying for the unique voice and style of the writer, because only a few have the skill to imbue copywriting with life and emotion. Whether you want a light, flowing style or an informative tone, a good writer can use language to lure in the audience and convey your message.
Hopefully, this has helped you in your quest to find a writer. Feel free to contact me for a free discussion.
Keyboard Picture: Felipe Micaroni Lalli under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license
Professional Writers For Hire: Adapting To The Panda Algorithm
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The recent Google Panda algorithm changes threw the internet world into turmoil, as webmasters, marketers and content writers frantically tried to make sense of the new rankings. For many professional writers for hire, copywriting work dried up, because website owners were reluctant to spend money until they understood more about the update.
Now that things are settling down, most webmasters are refreshing their websites as they look to modify content and consolidate. Content writers are once again finding work, so it is useful to look at how copywriting has changed in the post-Panda world.
Freelance Copywriters and Google Panda
Creating backlinks and traditional marketing are still important, but that is for the marketers and internet experts to discuss. From the viewpoint of a writer, I have noticed that a few things have changed, observations based upon my own experimentation and feedback/specifications from clients.
Death of the Content Farms:
Content farms such as Hubpages, Wisegeek and Ezine have taken a huge hit. It appears that Google is increasingly looking for sites built around specific niches rather than sprawling, spam-filled submission sites. Content farms still have a place, as a useful place for article marketing strategies, but they are not worth spending much time on for generating income.
Of course, if you already have a well-developed site built around a specific topic, you should benefit from clearer SERPs without the usual suspects occupying the top spots. However, Google has admitted that there are problems with scraped and duplicated sites outranking the original, an issue that they have promised to address.
For this reason, there is no harm in checking your work, making sure that it hasn’t been stolen, and slapping DMCA orders on any offenders. Your legal department or your copywriter should be able to help you with this.
Good Quality Writing:
This isn’t really a change, as good quality writing is always crucial to running a website and converting potential leads into sales. Google is trying to punish duplicate content, so the days of building an affiliate site and populating it with generic product descriptions from the manufacturer are over; you need to write unique descriptions. This also applies to quotes in general: Rupert Murdoch is able to get away with syndicated content spread across different sites, but you will be sent to the sandbox. It is better to paraphrase than use large block quotes.
Whilst I doubt that Google can directly assess the quality of writing without human intervention, it does use some indirect methods. In addition, with a greater emphasis on social sites and marketing, you want compelling copy that people will share and like, rather than keyword stuffed searchbot magnets.
Longer Articles:
For a while, most writers and marketers have started regarding 400 words as a minimum, rather than the traditional 250 word blog posts and sales pitches. There is no harm in adopting the new standard, possibly working back and seeing if you can lengthen any existing articles.
Bad Content:
As the content farms are finding out, bad content drags down your good content, because pages no longer standalone. If you have a lot of bad content on your site, it will need to be removed or reworked. However, try not to make things worse; if areas of your site have good backlinks pointing towards them, deleting them could be harmful, so it is better to rewrite and improve. If you source content from a lot of contributors or guest bloggers, you may want to make sure that they genuinely produce high quality, unique content.
Keywords:
Keywords and on-page SEO are still important, so you should make sure that you provide your content writer with a few good long-tailed terms. The search results also show that keyword-rich domain names have increased in importance, so that is another factor to throw into the mix if you run a portfolio of sites.
Hiring a Writer to Keep Up With the Changing Internet Landscape
So, these are a few of the observations from the viewpoint of a writer rather than an internet marketer or SEO consultant. It isn’t only the marketing folks that have had to adapt: we professional writers for hire have to keep up with the latest developments.
If you agree or disagree, please feel free to comment, as new information and viewpoints are always welcome in the aftermath of Panda.
Need A Professional Writer For Hire? Contact Martyn Shuttleworth for a Free Consultation.
Google Panda Picture: Search Ranking Optimisation under a Creative Commons Licence.
What is a Freelance Writer?
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Normally, I try to avoid writing the ‘Do you have what it takes to be a freelance writer’ posts, as they tend to ramble without saying anything specific. This is an exception, because the recent changes in the way that search engines rank articles have affected online income, especially for folks making money on content farms.
The Google Panda algorithm devastated internet marketing, and this has had an indirect effect on freelance writers. The problem is that the freelance writing market is tied to this: not only is there less copywriting work available, as webmasters try to work out what direction to take, but turbulent times invariably see a rise in the number of people claiming to be freelancers.
As people see their income plummet, many flock to the freelance writing job boards, desperate for extra cash. This tends to drive down prices and pushes the market into a state of flux, with every single job posting attracting countless applicants.
Are You Really A Freelance Writer?
I see many people on content farms proudly proclaiming that, because they write articles for content sites, they are freelance writers. This is a misrepresentation, because posting a few articles to Hubpages and Squidoo, or churning out content to Demand Media does not make you a freelance writer, by definition.
A freelance writer is a mercenary; a hired gun who completes work to order, and this requires a different skillset and mentality than article writing. There are some fine, talented writers who write on article sites, but freelance writing demands a different style and approach. You need to be able to write about practically any topic, to a deadline, and with passion, voice and flow.
Why is this important? Firstly, I am a miserable old sod and this misuse of the term is one of my particular pet hates. I spent a lot of time and expended a lot of effort in earning the right to call myself a freelance writer. Labeling yourself a freelance writer when you are not devalues the achievements of every freelancer on the planet.
In addition, I have seen the work of some of the people on the content sites advertising themselves as freelance writer, and it is atrocious. This is one of the reasons why many businesses think that freelance writers are only worth a couple of dollars per article.
The other reason is that it creates a false illusion. As anybody who has made the leap from writing on content farms to freelancing will tell you, it is a huge, huge leap in quality, unless you are happy earning a couple of dollars per hour. Writing for clients is a different level and requires you to be at the top of your game: if your Hubpages article is a little scrappy, nobody really cares. If the work for your client is riddled with mistakes, you won’t be paid. How’s that for pressure?
Pressure Is A Great Teacher
Most people need to learn very quickly. To be a professional freelance writer, you need to have excellent grammar, spelling, punctuation, and language: that much is obvious. However, you also have to learn to master the hidden arts of writing, such as how to use emotion and voice. A hired writer needs to know how to write for different audiences, for you could be creating articles for teenagers one week and business reports for middle-aged executives the next.
If you want to be a pro writer, you must be able to master different styles and personalities. For example, it is easy to write a rant, as anger is the easiest emotion, but can you adopt sadness, impulsiveness, or joy? Can you write the long, flowing sentences required for travel writing, showing the joys of far off places and helping the reader imagine that they are feasting on new cultures and experiences? Can you chop your sentences for effect, creating buy it now urgency?
Become A Pro Writer
It seems like I have spent an entire article putting you off becoming a freelancer, but it is not all doom and gloom. Learning to freelance is a very, very steep learning curve, and most people do not make it. However, for those who stay the course, the advantage is that you become very good, very quickly: your writing will improve, as the threat of not being paid is an excellent incentive for self-improvement.
This is one of the reasons why I never bothered with the endless stream of ‘How to Be a Freelancer’ books, as you will learn far more quickly by making your own mistakes, with the added bonus that your style and soul will be your own, rather than crushed to fit some generic, tired template.
Ultimately, your personality is what will make you a freelance writer, so cherish it and never lose it.
Barter Online Services – Writing for Marketing
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Know How To Barter Online
In this part of Greece, a relaxed, rural area in the rugged heart of the Peloponnese, money isn’t everything. Following the old Greek traditions laying down elaborate rules for the giving and receiving of gifts (there really is no need to beware of Greeks bearing gifts, despite what Homer said), bartering is part of the unique, Spartan way of life.
I am not so much talking about going to the market and trying to buy fish with chickens, but the bartering of services. For example, I designed and ordered some business cards for my friend, Aris. A few weeks later, I took my family to his taverna and enjoyed a lovely, traditional Greek meal, and he tore up the bill.
This is a great system, which keeps the taxman out of the loop and helps to strengthen economic ties and friendships within the local community. I am a great believer that maintaining a thriving local economy is the best way to fight back against the current corporatism masquerading as a free market.
Online Barter System – Fish and Chickens
Anyway, I digress. The point of this post is that I believe that bartering online will grow as we look to sidestep the growing dominance of the big players, with multimillion dollar budgets. If you want proof that this can work, feel free to take a tour around my website. I often receive comments and emails about my web-designing skills, from people who like the layout of the site. Sadly, I cannot take any credit whatsoever, and the praise must go to a professional web designer.
This was a great business barter arrangement: she designed my site and In return, I wrote her some content, a barter website agreement that we are continuing, as I seek to build another website about my beautiful local area. I could have made a website myself, but learning how to do it would take a lot of time and effort, and it isn’t something that I particularly enjoy. It is a far better use of time to concentrate on what I am good at, and let a talented professional concentrate on producing what they are good at.
Stone Age Barter System by bannedhumor
Hunting for Pandas – Maximizing Meagre Resources
Taking this a little further, in the wake of the recent Google algorithm changes that have everybody panicking, content sites such as Hubpages and Squidoo have the same issue. On the content sites, you have a lot of marketers who can write a little, and a lot of writers who can market a little. Only a supremely talented few have the skill, time, or inclination to do both, and I am certainly not one of those.
The dust is settling after the recent changes and it looks like backlinks are still the unshakeable foundation of internet marketing. Now, I could spend a few days dutifully building backlinks, but I have no idea of the best way to go about this and it would be a waste of my resources, as I could use that time to work for clients and earn money. It makes sense to trade services with an experienced internet marketer, letting them build the backlinks as I concentrate upon writing them some content.
As an example, I am looking at guest blogging as a good way to build an online presence. Normally, I am reluctant to give anybody content for free, but this is a slightly different case, a barter system of skills and expertise. Ultimately, I resent backlinking and really don’t want to spend valuable time on it – I would rather stick with what I know, which is writing. Writing a post for a good marketer and letting them take care of the backlinks is much more productive for both of us.
Online Bartering – Starving the Banks
Barter Services Online - Avoid The Online Shylocks
Everybody is trying to make money from you making money. PayPal and bank charges are extortionate, so starting to barter services online is a way to starve these modern-day Sheriffs of Nottingham of their ill-gotten gains. In an age when many of us moan that the taxman takes an unfair cut, there is another advantage: you have earned no money, so there is no paper trail and no bank statements for them to take Shylock’s pound of flesh.
I believe that in some areas they do try to count barter exchange as earning (the Land of the Free, no less), but I am sure that a little creative accounting can take care of that. Instead of spamming my website with comments about Obama stealing your money, you can be proactive in your resistance towards taxation without representation.
At the end of the day, most marketers want high quality content, because that is the way that the net is moving (as long as Google doesn’t completely sell out to corporate interests). Conversely, freelance writers often need a little help with marketing, so why not trade by barter and help each other out?
How to Write Sales Letters – Passion, Voice, Simplicity
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Knowing How To Write Sales Letters Is A Useful Skill
For a writer, knowing how to write sales letters is a very useful skill, one that can open up a good source of income. As a result, I am often asked, by budding freelance writers,
“Which book should I buy to learn how to write sales letters?”
“Which sales letter template is the best?”
My answer is none of them.
A quick browse through Amazon brings up countless search results, books claiming that they have the secret that will help you to create compelling sales letters and make thousands of dollars everyday. However, I have found that very few of these writing guides have any substance or contain real pointers. Instead, most encourage laziness and concentrate upon helping the talentless become even more talentless.
Killing Your Writer’s Voice
The problem with sales writing books, or the equivalent online resources, is that they usually adopt one of two approaches.
- Cut and Paste ‘Em: These books give you a ‘tried and trusted’ template, based upon a sales letter structure that they claim is guaranteed to work, every time. This is despite the fact that unoriginal sales copy does not work.
- Paint by Numbers: These authors explain the process in intricate detail, telling you where you put every last full stop, persuading you to use ‘power words’ drawn from 1980s middle-management meetings. “Lets think outside the box, use blue sky thinking, and incorporate paradigm shifts…” Useless unless you intend to buy a suit with shoulder pads and travel back to the Age of Yuppiedom.
These two approaches carry the same inherent weakness; namely that they make it very difficult for you to develop your writer’s voice. This unique voice is the gift that makes any type of writing stand out, and it is certainly no different for sales letters.
The best sales letters, as with any other style of writing, are most effective when they are infused with emotion. The key to writing an effective sales letter is not about which words you use; it is about you, as a writer, and your personality and individuality.
Companies don’t want to pay a few hundred dollars for a copycat template or bland sales letter – they pay for your unique style and, if you can allow your personality to shine through in your writing, you will be successful.
A Sales Letter Skeleton
Now, despite my claims that you should avoid using templates, there is a basic layout to sales letters that can help you to succeed. It operates upon the principle of ‘Identify a problem, provide a solution,’ but gives you plenty of room to add a personal touch.
Title
First Paragraph – Identify or manufacture a problem.
Body – Explain how Product X can help
Final Para – Tell them how they can buy Product X
That is it – use this basic template to build your own sales letters, incorporating a style based upon your own unique voice and flow.
I have seen sales letters where the writer managed to fit everything into a hundred words and achieve great conversions. On the other hand, I have seen some writers flaunt convention and draft 1000 word monsters; their style is so engaging that clients still read the entire letter, bucking the trend towards instant gratification often found online. Clients make up their mind to buy long before they reach the bottom of the page.
Whatever approach works for you, try it – through trial and error, you will develop a style that works.
Now, I have given you a few pointers – now go out and do it!
Oh – you want an example – well, this post is a sales letter of sorts, but my Sales Letter Page is built around the basic skeleton.
My Russian friend offers a great translit product on his website, so I have created a sample sales letter for him:
Sales Letter Sample
Mikhail Alexandrov - Inventor of Translit
Across the English-speaking world, most of us take typing for granted. We boot up the computer, open the word processor, and start to lay down our thoughts. For Russian speakers, the process is much more difficult; they can buy a Cyrillic keyboard in their home country, but this option is not always available to expatriates.
To get around the restrictions, enterprising Russians have learned to use transliteration, the process of typing Russian words with Latin letters. For this, a good transliteration program, which shows you the right keys to press, is essential.
Online services, such as translit.ru, are a good way to get around the difficulties, but they suffer from one infuriating problem. These services are only available online, tying you to your internet connection and forcing you to copy/paste the work into your word-processor. A program that runs from your computer would be much easier, but a quick search online reveals that there are few commercially-available software options.
At transliterator.org, an expatriate Russian software engineer, keen to speak to his family and friends in his own language, developed a program to help computer users needing a phonetic Cyrillic translit program. This application gives you the freedom to work and write, without having to connect to the internet or vainly search for a Wi-Fi hotspot.
The transliteration program is simple to use: you simply download the program, run the installer, and start typing. With this Cyrillic translit software, the intuitive interface makes communicating in your own language straightforward and instinctive.
With full customer support and guidance, this product will not let you down. Escape frustration and make life easier – download the Translit Russian Keyboard.
What Do The Latest Google Algorithm Changes Mean to Freelance Writers?
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Currently, the world of internet marketing is in a state of mass panic as the latest Google algorithm changes, designed to punish content farms, affect the search engine rankings. Stories of huge drops in page views dominate marketing and SEO forums across the world, as webmasters complain that Google has it wrong and is incorrectly punishing quality content. Naturally, everything is speculative and things may well change as the process settles down, but with livelihoods at stake, the paranoia levels are high.
Even on well-respected sites such as Hubpages, writers and marketers are reporting significant drops in page views, often as much as 50%, and this threatens to wipe out income for many affiliate marketers and writers. It seems that Google has decided to attack the love-in with some of the article sites, downgrading those it perceives as having too much spammy or scraped content.
For myself, income from advertising and affiliate links to Amazon, are secondary; I like the extra payment every month, but my main business is as a hired gun, producing quality content for others.
However, the picture is not that simple and Google algorithm changes can indirectly affect freelance writers. Our fortunes are largely tied to the fortunes of marketers, the lifeblood of the internet, because much of our business stems from that source.
Freelance Writing and the Double Edged Blade of Google
For freelance writers, the changes could be a double-edged sword. The good news is that, if Google is finally delivering on its promise to promote quality content, then good writing will come at a premium and online businesses will happily pay decent money to hire a professional writer. They know that they will receive an excellent return on their investment if their high quality content rises up the rankings.
The downside is that we could see an influx of disenchanted marketers online. Many will see their earnings collapse and decide that the only way to survive is to work as freelance writers, flooding the freelance writing sites and tendering ridiculously low bids.
A similar influx happened a couple of years ago, when oDesk advertised on Good Morning America, with the net result that hundreds of recently unemployed people flooded the site. Freelance writing rates plummeted as desperate people were prepared to work for food.
Will Quality Freelance Writing Rise to the Top?
This trend eventually righted as clients slowly began to realize that, if you pay a couple of bucks for an article, the chances are that you will receive badly written, rehashed crap spun from other sources.
There will always be bottom-feeders who will take advantage and offer 50 cents per article (I have seen that many times), but most clients do want good content, and a skilled professional writer is not going to offer that for free.
Freelance writing demands a different set of skills from writing a few articles online. Apart from the obvious traits, such as the ability to work to deadlines, you cannot pick and choose your topics and you sometimes have to be able to read the client’s mind. Having a computer fitted with Microsoft Office does not make you a freelance writer – it takes a lot more than that.
Google Algorithm Changes – We Await the Outcome
For now, we will have to wait and see what happens – this latest algorithm change from Google could well be a double edged-sword. I retain some optimism, as huge Google changes often take a while to settle down as the software engineers tweak their algorithm. I also believe that quality writing does rise to the top so, unless Google completely messes up, those of us who aim to produce quality will be successful in the long term.
Keep up with the latest developments on Sunforged’s Blog: Search and Marketing News
Freelance Writing, Diversity, and Overcoming the Writing Doldrums
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A Becalmed Freelance Writer Will Lose Focus
Many people have asked me why I prefer being a freelance writing ‘Jack of All Trades’ rather than picking a speciality and sticking with it. Conventional wisdom dictates that a writer working exclusively in a specific field can start to charge three figure sums for an hour’s work, yet many freelance writers choose not to follow this path and prefer to remain general writers.
I think that the reason is that it is very easy, as a freelance writer, to fall into a rut and start to lose motivation and focus. As with any profession, doing the same thing, day after day, can make life mundane and start to suck the enjoyment out of writing for a living.
The Romance of Freelance Writing
There is a certain romance attached to freelance writing, and many people give up lucrative careers because they want a fresh challenge. For some, they want to work from home and avoid tortuous daily commutes, or they fall in love with the idea of moulding words and shaping language.
As is often the case when converting a hobby into a profession, the dream rarely matches the reality and freelance writing has its doldrums, drawn out periods where writing the same type of articles, over and over again, can be mentally draining. In the more extreme cases, many would-be writers soon return to the 9-5 (as opposed to the 9-midnight that most writers work), sick and tired of writing endless articles about industrial fastenings or the latest health fad.
In other cases, writers start to mentally switch off, like many workers on production lines, and start to produce stale, tired copy. This is fine if you are throwing together copy for an article directory or one of the content mills, but it is unacceptable if you are writing for a client – they hire you because of your unique voice, style, and flow.
The Cost of Developing Freelance Writing Expertise
Sticking with one field magnifies this problem and it is easy to lose your edge when you are writing about the same subject, ad infinitum. Of course, some people are fascinated by a topic and will happily write tens of thousands of words about it, whilst other expert writers have such intense focus that they can write emotive sales letters or make the most mundane topics interesting; this is why they charge big money and they deserve every penny.
Personally, this is not a route I chose because I like the challenge of facing something different every day. One day, I may be editing an academic paper about aquaculture, the next I could be starting a ghost-written book about Islamic science. This variety that keeps me fresh and also helps me to develop and grow as a writer, as I constantly experiment with new styles, designed to appeal to a different audience. I love the challenge of learning something new and expanding my knowledge into unexplored areas.
A Change Brings Focus
If you are struggling to stick to the plan as a freelance writer, maybe this is the sort of change that will help you last the course. Challenging yourself and trying new things is a great way to rediscover your muse and inject the energy back into your writing, bringing life and rhythm to your copy. Naturally, some fields require training or experience, with technical and academic writing the two obvious candidates, but you can still look to extend your reach and look for the assignments that force you to do something a little different.
Instead of working to a formula, use words in new ways or experiment with different emotions and voice. This will also help you to avoid the worst enemy of the freelance writing, the Ogre of Procrastination, a beast that will kill you through apathy. A good writer knows when their work is not up to scratch and will find ways to combat that, taking the laptop outside and working in the sun, or exploring a new niche and looking for assignments within that field.
Freelance Writing as a Vocation
Ultimately, freelance writing is not the carefree, joyous existence that many people believe; it involves hard work, long hours, an expanding waistline, and severe caffeine abuse. Despite this, it is a way of life, a vocation rather than a job. However, like most vocations, you need passion over everything else, because without this you will fall out of love with writing for a living.
If you find that your passion is draining and you are going stale, try something new – it certainly won’t hurt to try!
Political Spam and a Freelance Writer’s Site
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I am almost entirely indifferent to your 'Tea Parties'
As you can imagine, my website attracts a lot of spammy contents, more often than not from the usual suspects, such as penile enhancement, Viagra, and my apparent lack of a hot chick (My other half reads my posts, so I have to careful what I say here). Throw in a few SEO companies seeking cheap backlinks, and my anti-spam program (Akismet) works overtime.
I spend a lot of time stripping away links to the more questionable sites and, unfortunately, it means that I no longer bother replying to comments, simply because I am not sure if the comment is genuine or from one of the many spambots and comment factories that infiltrate the internet.
This Is A Freelance Writer’s Site
Recently, I have noticed an increase in comments from political and religious sites, warning me of the ‘Progressive Agenda’ infiltrating US politics and how ‘Barack Obama is the Antichrist.’ I have no idea if these comments are the result of automated programmes or if some poor sap is actually sitting down and typing out poorly written, grammatically incorrect posts and deciding that a freelance writer’s personal site is the place to hold a political conversation.
Maybe they see the long hair and assume that I am a liberal hippy, living off welfare and threatening to destroy the American Dream. Perhaps they are trying to save me from myself lest I end up in the depths of hell, spending all eternity listening to Celine Dion and eating nothing but Brussels sprouts, marmite, and celery.
So, to all you amateur political activists out there: I am British and live in Greece. I have no interest in the Tea Party or the Pinko-Commie, Atheist, Dolphin-Hating, Red Tide sweeping across America. I couldn’t care less about Obama’s move towards creating an Islamic States of America. We have enough problems of our own over here and I really don’t give a tinker’s cuss what happens in your country.
Sorry, but that’s the way it goes. This is may be a futile plea, but please stop wasting my time with idiocy and irrelevance.
Photo: _MG_8947 under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Hire a Freelance Sales Writer – Sales Success vs Spamming
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This is an example of a cut and paste sales letter
Trying to hire a freelance sales writer for your sales campaigns can be a little more difficult than you would think, because writing good sales copy needs a high level of expertise. Too many sales writers dutifully buy e-books from the latest sales writing guru, thinking that this will be the key to success, but the majority of these books recycle the same tired information, encouraging writers to fill templates rather than write individualized, high-impact sales copy.
If you want to make sure that your sales campaign thrives and justifies your investment, you need to think laterally and find a sales writer with creativity and passion. Otherwise, your carefully coordinated campaign will sink without trace, as potential clients associate your business with spamming.
What is a Freelance Writer?
The problem with freelance writing is that too many people think that owning a word processor and being able to type make you a writer. This is simply not true – I own a set of spanners but this does not make me a car mechanic. Taking shortcuts and buying books that encourage writers to stick to templates sucks out creativity and encourages dull, lifeless copy.
Words are very complex things, difficult beasts to tame and use properly. Stringing a few words together is easy, but infusing them with emotion is a difficult craft, something that only a professional writer has the ability to do. Online communication is faceless and your website or email campaigns are your interface with customers, providing your only chance to impress.
This is reason why you need to pay a decent rate for a writer, because they are skilled professionals who will become an asset to your business. Importantly, if you are starting an email campaign, a good writer will make sure that your sales letters won’t be marked as spam.
Freelance Writing and the Lessons of Telesales
Let us compare your sales email or sales page to a telesales call. I am sure that you have all had many calls from salespeople, the vast majority of whom are obviously reading from a prepared script, dutifully reciting words in a vain attempt at making a sale.
These people very rarely make sales, and are the writing equivalent of an ‘enthusiastic amateur.’ They can string words together but there is no impact or emotion behind it and, not only do you lose the sale, but you risk insulting the potential client, who will put you on their mental blacklist of companies to avoid.
Very occasionally, you receive a telesales call from a pro, somebody who uses sales talk to pin you down, using emotion and showing you how their product can help you. Even if you don’t buy their product, you can’t help but be grudgingly impressed, and a professional, talented salesperson, in full flow, can be an irresistible force.
A talented sales writer is of the same mentality – they can use emotive language, infusing prose with hidden meanings and depths that slowly but surely persuade the customer to buy. They don’t force you to make a choice, but they let you think that you arrived at the decision yourself, and that is the subtle, but crucial difference, the difference between organizing a successful email campaign and spamming.
Too many writers buy books about ‘How to Write Sizzling Sales Copy’ and, ultimately, use the same ‘cookie-cutter’ templates to create sales copy that looks same as every other sales letter landing in your inbox.
As a modified example of what I am talking about:
Dear Friend
You might be wondering by now how much this TERRIFIC sales letter package is going to cost you.
I HAVE GOOD NEWS FOR YOU!!!
For a limited time, you can reap the benefits of a personalized sales page for only $300. That’s right…a sales page for the INCREDIBLE PRICE of only $300 for a limited time only.
You had better act NOW, because we will be raising the price of this STUPENDOUS package to $500 in a few short days. You can SAVE $200 BY making your decision NOW!!!
Remember, as part of our QUALITY ASSURANCE GUARANTEE, you have 60 days to request a refund if you are not happy with your purchase, for any reason.
Click our Buy it Now button to purchase, NOW, ANYTIME, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Throw in a few fake testimonials about how it changed your life and you have a sales email or sales page.
So, here is a little tip if you are swayed by sales writers offering to produce these squeeze pages:
They DON’T WORK…Potential clients don’t see a FANTASTIC OFFER; they see a SPAMMER.
Personalized Sales Copy
These tired squeeze pages no longer work and have a negative effect on your success rate. Internet users are blind to this sensationalist language and associate you with spamming.
By contrast, a good writer can scratch write you a sales page based around your product and target audience rather than copy-pasting somebody else’s work and changing a few words here and there. I have known clients pay a few hundred dollars for one of these pages – nice work if you can get it! As a freelance writer, I must admit that the chance to make money from copying ands pasting is tempting, but I like to keep a little professional pride.
So, you many ask, where is the counter example, an example of good, emotive writing. You have reached the bottom of the page, haven’t you…?
