Bloggers can be an important part of your marketing plan. If you use a blog on your company site, hiring a blogger makes sense. Your blog stays regularly updated in a professional manner. And yes, you should absolutely give fair compensation to a writer in this capacity (as you would in any other business writing situation).

But what about when you try to get a blogger to write about you on their own blog? Or when you ask them to do a giveaway of your product? Do you compensate them at that point?

Think about this — do you compensate any PR or marketing people in your company or in a consulting firm? Is asking a blogger to write about your company any different?

That’s the question GeekMommy addresses in her recent post, Why Mom Bloggers Aren’t Flipping for Just a Sample of Your Product. It’s a big discussion that has been going on amongst the mom bloggers, and if they are in your target market, you should be reading this post.

It’s a constant battle to figure out what the right thing to do is at that moment since it does seem to change frequently. The best thing you can do is read a blog, get to know the person behind it, and then customize your pitch to fit them. And if they do ask to be compensated for their time — talk to them about what they want or expect. Your employees don’t work for free and many bloggers — who are professionals with educations and interests and opinions beyond what you see on their blog — don’t want to work for free either.

The market is constantly changing. Don’t be afraid to ask around and find out what bloggers want. Just don’t expect them to write about you for free. Those days are gone. And if you don’t believe it, just ask the bloggers themselves.

image: morgueFile

Darn! It’s cloudy and chilly here in San Diego – and it’s been like this for several days. Okay, I’m a total weather wuss… but the gloom makes me want to go to bed with a novel, not write. At least I think I can blame the weather.

Well, there’s another truth here too. The chapter I need to be working on is, frankly, boring to me at the moment. On the whole, the project is interesting, but I’m feeling sort of stuck and definitely uninspired.

What I will do is write… for at least an hour. What do you do when you don’t want to write?

Write well and often,

Two newsletters:
Abundant Freelance Writing - a resource for freelance writers including 3x a week job postings.
Writing With Vision - for those who want to get a book written.

I chuckled when I saw the headline over at Common Sense PR - Tip: You Can’t Push a Rope. Although the post is more or less aimed at working in/with corporate environments, it’s certainly also true in the freelance writing business.

Eric points out that it may be the wrong time - I can’t count the number of potential clients who have contacted me and then disappeared. Some of them have probably found other writers, but for many, it simply wasn’t the right time to hire a writer. That’s fine with me, and sometimes those clients surface later, sometimes a lot later, and hire me.

Eric also says, and rightly so that people will not be led if they don’t want to be. I’d go further and say also that they won’t be led where they don’t want to go. In my case as a ghostwriter, if a client is determined to find a trade publisher, that’s where they will head, even if it’s obvious that they should self-publish and market their own book through their own lectures, etc. Or they buy into expensive promo packages that simply have no chance of really working. Or they refuse to recognize when the book is complete.

Every writer who works with clients has this type of experience.

The best thing to realize is you really can’t push a rope… at least not in a straight line. You can only push a rope as a lump of line, and that probably isn’t what you or the client need or want.

All I’m responsible is to do the best job I can and give the best advice I know how to give. What the client does with it is, well, up to the client.

Have you got an example of this? Tell us about it.

Write well and often,

Two newsletters:
Abundant Freelance Writing - a resource for freelance writers including 3x a week job postings.
Writing With Vision - for those who want to get a book written.

Eric Eggertson who blogs at CommonSensePR.com has a review of Inside Spin: The dark underbelly of the PR industry. Written by Australian Bob Burton, the book takes a hard look at research that is presented as un-biased but, in fact, is funded and influenced by politics and corporate interests.

Since we freelance writers are often called on to write PR pieces, we are actually in a position to be of influence. The real question is what kind of influence do we want to be?

Write well and often,

Two newsletters:
Abundant Freelance Writing - a resource for freelance writers including 3x a week job postings.
Writing With Vision - for those who want to get a book written.