As I meander through who knows how many posting about writing and editing jobs, I sometime spot a trend.
Recently I’ve seen a number of ads saying, roughly:

We need content for our website.
We want to pay you, but… not until we’ve published several of your articles.
After we’ve published several of your articles, we’ll promote you and pay you for subsequent articles.

I suppose, if I asked and I haven’t, the advertiser would say something like “it’s only reasonable that we test to see if a writer can do a good job.” They might even refer to the practice of print magazine …read more

Leon Ho and Craig Childs, bloggers at lifehack.org (don’t you just love that name?) have posted links to Poynter.com’s 50 Writing Tools. I’d call them tips, but tools works.
It’s a surprising list in many ways. I mean, what should I make of “Branch to the Right.” No, it’s not a political statement, but a rather complex recommendation about sentence construction.
Fortunately, not all these tools are complex, although each has a decent sized article. Bookmark this one and work your way through them, maybe one day at a time.
Write well and often,

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Well, maybe it is about writing. After all, I have done an article called 6 Ways to Toot Your Own Writing Horn…
Anyway, I was surprised, delighted and even touched to discover the ACLU linked to one of the blogs I wrote yesterday called Shooting Fallout – Is This What We Want? The ACLU Insider blog entry is Is there Free Speech in School?
You just never know!
Write well and often,

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When you’re grinding away in a cube, collecting full time pay but hating it… when you’ve managed to have some success freelance writing in the cracks, it’s really tempting to quit and attempt full-time freelancing. So how do you make the decision? Here are some things to consider:

Do you know your real monthly nut? Your rent or mortgage, your car payment… everything from coffee through food. If you don’t, spend a couple of months tracking all your expenses. You need a solid number to work with.
What will health insurance for you and your family cost if you’re on your own? …read more

Someone on our forum who both writes and designs pointed to no!spec.com. The post included a mild and reasonable rant about people who want designers to do a lot of designing on the theory they will get paid if the client likes it. I hadn’t even realized designers were asked to work that way, and I too am opposed to it.
I certainly wouldn’t do much writing for a client who said he’d pay me if he liked it.
But there is a place for writing on spec, and that’s the new writer breaking into the magazine business, or the not-yet-famous …read more

Freelance writers have many advantages, and a few challenges as well. One of the major challenges I face is the up and down nature of my income. Here’s my current approach to solving this problem:

Put aside at least 10% of every penny into an account I call Prudent Reserve. This is separate from the two savings accounts I have, one for taxes and the other to buy my own home. The goal for Prudent Reserve is six months income, but the truth is, I’m in and out of that account way more than I like.

Track all my expenses …read more

Book length and other long manuscripts get unwieldy for a variety of reasons, including style. There are all sorts of small, but important style decisions that need to be made, like:

Do you want your em dashes to have a space around them or not?

How do you want quotes at the head of each chapter to look?

If you have callouts, are they shaded? If so, how much? Do they have a box or a line or some sort?

If you’re using Drop Caps, how many points?

While Word will pretty much handle the size and typeface of headings and body …read more

Just posted 46 new freelance writing and editing jobs. Which brings our total this week to 137 freelance writing and editing jobs.
Again as I page through the listings I’m struck by the number of full-time jobs for writers and editors. There are even a fair number of so-called freelance writing jobs that require you to go to an office.
In other words, there is work out there for writers – go get ‘em!
And subscribe to Abundant Writing News to get notice of all freelance writing jobs posted.
Write well and often,

Time management is always an issue for freelance writers. On one hand, it’s tempting to sleep in, go to movies, hang out with friends and get little or nothing done – after all, there’s no boss telling us what to do.
On the other hand, it’s so very easy to overwork, putting in 10 or 12 hours a day or more until we can’t do it any more.
Finding the right balance isn’t easy. Taking time to map out your perfect working day can be a help. Here’s what I mean. Down the left side a page, write down times in …read more

I started to title this something like “How easily I’m distracted from writing,” and then I realized that today at least there’s an actual pause in the writing I need to do. I am, after all, waiting on one client for two more chapters, which are promised today, but who knows. And I can’t do the next batch of interviews on another project until next week.
So the time I’ve spent on the phone with friends, and doing the research needed about the possibility of buying a home isn’t a distraction, exactly. I can take credit for self-supportive action even though …read more