Fab Freelance Writing Ezine Archives

Empowering your writing - Issue 50 of Fab Freelance Writing Ezine

September 25th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed

This week we discuss how you can empower your writing and make more money as a freelance writer.

Discover the importance of hooking and writing credits.

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Includes:

* Editorial: Empowering Your Writing With Hooks For Added Income

* Article: Freelance Writing - Credits And Clips Make Sales

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** Are you making enough money writing? **
Or is your writing just a hobby, costing you more in computers, Internet connection fees and writing supplies than you’re earning?

The Secret, Unlimited Market For Your Writing Which Generates A Fantastic Writing Income

I’ll let you in to a secret. The top earners in writing are copywriters. That is, commercial writers - they write for businesses. (Writing for business is known as copywriting.)

Discover how you can become a top-earning copywriter, making a six-figure income, with “Seven Days To Easy Money: Copywriting Success” at - abmagic.com/Copywriting/copywriting.html

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[Editorial] Empowering Your Writing With Hooks For Added Income

Let’s look at a great way to empower your writing: use hooks.

I was chatting with a friend and she reminded me of hooking; it’s a great writing technique which I used extensively when I was writing primarily for magazines. Essentially, a hook is something on which you hang an article or other piece of writing and which hooks a reader’s interest.

A hook can be a current news story that you allude to in an article, or base an article on, or it can be a unique fact. Hooks are used in fiction, as well as nonfiction. Hooks hook editors and readers.

Hooking will be very valuable to you if you’re writing for the Web, which has an insatiable appetite for text content, and where searches play an enormous role in getting your writing found and read. You’ll often see blatant hooks used on Web sites, where the latest hot celebrity’s name is tossed into a heading, or used in the first paragraph of an article, solely for the search engine benefits.

When you’re writing for print, you need to take into account that it will be six months or more before your writing’s read, so base your hooks on the calendar, rather than on current events.

How to use hooks for articles, reviews, essays and editorials
You can find hooks reading the newspaper or news portals like Google News if you’re writing for the Web; if you’re writing for print, base your hooks on the calendar. (Most cities have calendars of local events, and these can be a great source to plan stories around.)

For example, I write for tech magazines, and browsing Google News this evening I saw a couple of news stories which would make great hooks for articles. One was about Microsoft Vista failing to win over businesses, the other was a story about iTunes and Starbucks. I can think of a half dozen articles I could write using the Vista item as a hook right off the top of my head.

Pick your own speciality, look for news stories in that area, and I’m sure you can do the same.

Don’t forget we’ve got a great hook coming up in three months - Christmas.

I’ve been receiving lots of questions about writing credits. If you’re unsure of how they work, this week’s article “Freelance Writing: Credits And Clips Make Sales” gives you the details.

When you understand how credits work, it gives you clear information on how to develop your freelance writing career.

Affectionately,

Angela

P.S. A hot tip for bloggers. I blogged about the WordPress AdSense System on my blogging blog. Check it out, especially if you’ve been avoiding WordPress, or if you find WordPress difficult. Download the free WordPress theme, and try it: you’ll love it.

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** You Can Become A Web Publisher Too: Become A Web Mogul **

For the past year, I’ve been receiving messages from writers who want to create their own Web sites. They’ve heard how much money there is in Web publishing, and want a piece of the action.

So, I’ve written a new ebook, “Super-Fast Money-Making Web Sites For Writers: Join The Web-Publishing Bonanza” -
www.abwebconsulting.com/web_sites/

The ebook (and its fabulous bonus ebook) outlines step by step, with images, how to create Web MONEY-MAKING sites fast. What could YOU do with an extra $300 a day?

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** Imagine… $1,000 A Week For Just Ten Hours **

You can get paid to blog. The current rate for experienced bloggers is around $1,000 to $1500 a week for from two to five posts a day - VERY nice writing income.

Find out how to blog with the blogging best-seller “Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger — in your PJs, if you want”. It’s my complete new ebook package, with free coaching/ consultations as well.

Find out more at: www.abmagic.com/Blog/blogging.html

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* Article: Freelance writing: credits and clips make sales

Over the past week, several of my writing students have asked about publishing credits: what a credit is, how important credits are, and how you get good credits.

If you’re new to the freelance writing life, you may get depressed by markets (whether magazines, Web sites, or businesses) which ask for your writing credits: that is, for clips, and for where you’ve been published.

Top tier markets ask for clips and writing credits because 99 per cent of queries come from writers without credits. Asking for clips/ credits cuts down on the thousand of queries these markets receive each year.

Let’s answer the questions one by one:

What is a writing credit?

A credit is writing for which you’ve been paid. If you’ve written an article for O, The Oprah Magazine, that’s a credit. The published article in the magazine is a clip. (Always send photocopies of clips, never the original by mail; send a PDF of the clip via email.)

Obviously, a credit from O is extremely valuable. A credit from the Poultry Pluckers Monthly is less valuable, but it’s still a credit.

An article that’s been published on a Web site and for which you’ve been paid is a credit… Bottom line, if they paid you, it’s a credit.

How important are credits?

Publishing credits give you credibility, so you need them. Depending on what your goals are as a freelance writer, realize that certain markets have more cachet than others and that those credits (like O) are extremely valuable, and hard to get. Other credits are easy to get, but are less valuable.

Regarding the importance of credits, my term of reference is “Who’s asking?” If a market which pays $3 a word wants credits - GET THEM. On the other hand, if a market which pays five cents a word wants credits, it depends. Do you want to write for this market? If you do, send them something you have on your hard drive. A market which offers five cents a word can’t be demanding. No experienced writer would bother writing for them, so they’ll take what they can get.

How do you get good credits?

You get good credits by working your way up what I call the ladder of credits. You get published in minor markets, and work your way up to the majors.

There’s no secret to getting credits, you simply keep writing, and you’ll get credits.

You can develop your freelance writing career with my writing ebooks, manuals and courses. Here’s a list of my current ebooks - some include coaching. The coaching will help you to write your way up the ladder of credits, and make a very nice income from your writing career.

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** New Writing Opportunity “Beat Your Paycheck! Web Writing SECRETS” **

“How Make More Money With Web Writing Than You Ever Will With A Paycheck… In A Month Or Less”

Even if you’re a new writer, you can make enough money from Web writing to leave your day job - fast.

As a writing teacher, I work with new writers every day. Many would love to leave their day job, but they don’t yet have the skills to write copy for corporate clients, or for national magazines. Writing in your home office seems like a dream. Many promising writers give up writing because their lives are too busy - with a full-time job and family, they’re too tired to write.

If this describes YOU, I’ve found a solution. I asked a new writer who’s making great money writing for the Web to share his secrets. He’s happy to do so. Read my new ebook:

abmagic.com/Beat-Paycheck/index.html

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** The Secret To Getting All The Writing Gigs You Want, Free **

I’ve been sharing my writing gig-getting secrets with my writing students for years, but this nifty way of getting writing gigs and selling products deserves to be more widely known. Here it is - Craigslist. Craiglist is completely free to use to get writing and editing gigs.

I recently stumbled across the The Craigslist Profits Guide and knew I had to share it with you. It enables you to use Craigslist to its fullest potential. I’ve been using Craigslist for years, and many of the ideas were completely new to me.

It’s 41 pages packed with info, and here’s the best news: you can profit from this ebook when you sell it to others.

So go ahead - this ebook has to be one of the big bargains of 2007. Without hyping it too much, if you use the tactics described, you can double and triple what you make from your writing this year -

www.abwebconsulting.com/products/craigslistprofits.php

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** The Unlimited Writing Market, The Web **

When you write for the Web, you’re never out of writing work. All Web sites need writers, and as the competition online grows, site owners hire writers to improve their sites.

The writing world in general hasn’t caught up with the Web. Now, YOU can — and you can cash in. Freelance writers just don’t realize how much money there is to be made by writing for the Web: many writers use the Web as a research tool, they don’t see the Web as a mass of millions of markets. They don’t realize that Web sites are STARVED for good writers.

Want to get paid REAL money to write? How does $150 an hour sound to you? Discover how to write for the Web today:

www.abmagic.com/Web_Write/Web_write.html

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** Discouraged Because Your Writing’s Not Selling? **

In today’s world, there are vast opportunities for writers. In the midst of all this dazzling plenty, some writers are stuck. Frankly, they don’t know how to sell themselves as writers - that is, how to promote their skills. Nor do they know how to sell the words they’ve written.

My new ebook “You CAN Sell Your Writing Now: Marketing Skills For Writers” shows you exactly how to compete and win all the contracts you want in today’s writing marketplace -

www.abmagic.com/Market-writing/sell-writing.html

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** ANGELA’S BLOGS **

Blog: fabfreelancewriting.com/blog/

Fab Web Writer: www.fabwebwriter.com/

Top Ebook Writer: www.topebookwriter.com/

Angela Booth’s Writing Blog: copywriter.typepad.com/

Seven Days Copywriting: sevendayscopywriting.com/